mickster

Clear nail polish here. Put it on a couple of P pickups years ago. Works well & no adverse affects.

For me it's to stop the slight 'pop' sound if my finger touches the pole piece; my strings aren't anywhere near enough to touch the poles.

Pro tip: take the plastic covers off the pickup before glooping the nail polish on. that stuff will melt some plastics...

Do you use ethernet plug extenders in your house? The things that use the mains wiring to transmit network computer traffic?

I had a static noise on my LB30 - did the usual effects & jack cleans, changed tubes etc and it turned out it was picking up noise from the network extender thingies...

Think the ones you need are to fit 1/4" shaft. These are the ones:

https://www.stringsdirect.co.uk/parts-c4/knobs-switch-tips-c102/knobs-c794/fender-telecaster-precision-bass-chrome-control-knobs-2-pack-099-1366-000-p3522

Have a look on eBay too - usually lots of them on there.

4 hours ago, project_c said:

I said it was a generalization, but it's not inaccurate if you look at the data. But it certainly doesn't apply to everyone, especially in London where the whole thing is entirely different to the rest of the country. You're in the minority though, sadly. According to records, if it wasn't for the hordes of (Mail reading angry homophobic racist etc) boomers, we wouldn't be where we are. There most definitely is a generational divide there, even if it's not a comfortable thing to accept.

Yeah, that generalisation thing you keep doing...the old / the over 25s / the brexiters / the boomers / the Mail readers etc...maybe best not to do that, especially when the point of your OP seemed to be to decry what you claim is a lack of tolerance towards other lifestyles / viewpoints in evidence nowadays...you just end up substituting one set of lazy crap stereotypes for another... 

Fake. Wrong tuners, crappy transfer logo, pick guard wrong shape & too many screws, trussed hole wrong shape, no truss rod plug in headstock, body shape looks wrong (tho hard to tell from these crappy photos - could be lens distortion). And thats just for starters. Best avoid 

And another vote here for Ti Jazz Rounds. They seem really floppy at first but I found I adjusted quickly and now love 'em! They do promote a softer style of playing, but strangely still manage to sound big...not tinny / thin at all.

2 minutes ago, prowla said:

You are picking which laws (and rules) you wish to apply. Links to counterfeit/trademark law have already been provided, along with links to site rules covering copyright/trademark.

Yeah, but that bad stuff's not gonna happen to us on BC anymore, is it Prowla? We've got you - thank christ - to look after our best interests and point out where the rules were being inadvertently overlooked.

I can just tell already how everything's gonna get more thorough, more shipshape, more in ordnung now you're here to oversee stuff. Nothing falling outside the lines, no messiness, no surprises, like before you came.

Thanks, Prowla. You’re a mensch and I just know yr gonna fit right in here eventually...

45 minutes ago, prowla said:

And that is my position too:

• Fender gave away the rights to their instrument designs by not establishing them as IP.
• Gibson only protected the "moustache" top of their headstock and the headstock diamond inlay.
• Rickenbacker protect all of their designs (which means they have to be very litigious, or just letting one through will establish the precedent).

(And each owns their company logo, of course.)

So anybody can make a Strat, but only Fender can make a Fender Stratocaster.

Again, who are you trying to protect here with this proposed ban? Fender and their trademarks? An unwitting buyer?

If the latter, as long as the bass being sold isn't being misrepresented this isn't a problem. If it is being misrepresented (e.g. a Limelight being advertised as a genuine Fender) this breaches the forums terms and will be pulled when its inevitably spotted.

If the former,  who made you the forum prefect? This is not your issue to police, nor is it the forum's; it's an issue between Fender and (e.g.) Limelight.

This whole thread just seems like a pretext for you to alter what can be bought or sold on the BC marketplace just to suit the fact that you don't understand why / disapprove of someone putting the wrong logo on a bass. Your proposal is a drastic solution to an issue that - as far as I'm aware - simply hasn't been a problem on this forum and you're invoking some ill-defined 'protecting of innocent buyers' notion as a pretext for it.

As far as BC is concerned, I think its sole ethical duty boils down to whether there's an intention to deceive a prospective buyer. The OP first raised this earlier today on an ad placed by a BCer for his Limelight Jazz bass. That bass is clearly being sold as a Limelight - not an original Fender - and as such imo there's clearly no intention to deceive a buyer. They know they're buying a Limelight, not a vintage Fender.

And imo there ends BC's (and the buyer's) responsibilities. To claim that they must also be responsible for any future selling of that bass, possibly long after they sold it here, is nonsense. You wouldn't expect someone to be held responsible for the correct & legal resale down the line of, say, a car they sell tomorrow on autotrader, so why would you a bass?

As for the ethics of putting Fender stickers on non fender basses; personally, I'm not remotely arsed about whether some huge corporations trademark is being infringed, and i'm surprised that anyone who isn't a corporate lawyer acting for one of those corporations could give a hoot either. Are we all gonna start acting as unofficial trademark policemen for private corporations we have no connection with? Seems a bit weird and cult-of-Apple like to me...:)

[quote name='BassTractor' timestamp='1485640882' post='3225582']
That's interesting. So that might indicate they've set up a department for the UK that doesn't function.
[/quote]
Just to add my 1st experience with Bax; recently placed a smallish order and paid for 2 day delivery. To cut to the chase, order didn't arrive (they use Hermes who IME are sh1te), and I got ignored and generally fobbed off by Bax when trying to get them to chase things. I eventually had to resort to a PayPal claim to get my money back, which I won.
Basically when things went south due to their crappy courier, Bax just weren't interested in resolving the issue, and I for one will be avoiding them in the future. The person I spoke to was on the end of a UK phone number fwiw.

[quote name='rmorris' timestamp='1486375427' post='3231135']
Not sure how a Dremel type tool is going to really help. It can 'clean up' rounded edges but it's still taking metal away rather than restoring the original shape and dimensions...
[/quote]

...oh yeah , and just to say that I didn't like feel of the foot switch on mine so I soldered in a non-clicky type of switch instead - works great: http://www.mattgallagher.uk/2011/07/replacing-the-footswitch-in-an-ehx-freeze-pedal/

I've got one - love it & use it all the time for adding drones whilst i'm noodling. Its sensitive to exactly when in the envelope of a note you trigger it - if u trigger it during the initial attack phase you can get some strange effects out of it rather than the solid 'note' you were expecting...but this itself can be used to good effect.

I use mine with guitar as well as bass - check out Bill Frisell who uses one to great effect on 6 string eg [url="https://vimeo.com/channels/235451/35664219"]https://vimeo.com/ch...235451/35664219[/url]

Were you using a proper speaker lead to connect cab & head, rather than an instrument lead? The latter can get hot & melty if used in place of a real speaker lead...

Wow...skinny frets & a zero-fret; looks amazing & bet it's easy to play. What's the scale length?

Yeah, like wot ET said, if its the hexagonal nut on the face of the headstock, then use a regular open ended spanner. If it's the toothed cog on the rear that's come loose, then just snug this up with a flat blade screwdriver.

hth

Sims custom have a good reputation, tho' suspect they're not the cheapest: http://www.simscustom.com/html/home.htm

Should give you an idea of cost though.

All good advice above IMO. I used to work for a large independent label & distributor in the 90's, obviously before the advent of digital sales via Bandcamp etc. I think the independent distributor route works when you're producing and selling quantities above a certain threshold...a distro can get stock into shops & outlets that you can't reach yourself, and they will chase payments on your behalf and deal with postage & packaging. We used to charge anything from 8-25% of the wholesale price for doing this (wholesale price in those days was around £7.00 for a CD that would retail at £11-12). Obviously, teh bigger the label / act, the lower the distro fee you can negotiate.

But as others have said, dealing with a distro does itself add a degree of complexity - contracts, payment terms, keeping an eye on stock levels & arranging for new stock to be pressed / delivered etc. For small quanities (ie <500 units), you're probably better off doing it yourself. You may well struggle to get stock into even independent stores like Rough Trade, Sister Ray, Piccadilly etc, and yes, getting paid by these shops can be a headache; I'd just focus on direct physical sales via yr label website & Bandcamp. You have to deal with postage & packaging yourself, but you will get more per unit and all payment is upfront. Put the effort into publicising the acts on yr label & stimulating direct sales rather than on getting a few vanity units into 'cool' shops like Rough Trade.

+1 for Lalo Schiffrin & Morricone, although Enio also couldn't help descending into some overly sentimental pap in amongst the good stuff.

My vote goes to John Zorn's The Big Gundown:



http://www.allmusic.com/album/the-big-gundown-john-zorn-plays-the-music-of-ennio-morricone-15th-anniversary-edition-mw0000192585

Zorn's reinterpretation of the soundtrack to the Spaghetti Western. Bill Frisell, Vernon Reid, Toots Thielmans all given the Zorn treatment; what's not to like?

[quote name='pfretrock' timestamp='1419335071' post='2638813']
There is a thread here somewhere where a TI string dealer says that Thomastik often get their gauges mixed up in a set and they have to check before sending out to customers. Don't understand why, since they don't make many sets. Any way you can check the gauge is actually what it is supposed to be? Sorry can't find thread - try a search (on way to office party )
[/quote]

This. Have had this happen twice to me - both times it was TI Jazz rounds, and both times the pack contained a 'D' in place of the 'A'. Sorted by retailer (Strings Direct) but worth checking that the 'A' in your set really is an 'A'...

We seem to have gone from a hard-to-intonate G string, to some nut remodeling and/or bridge saddle re-angling (by a 'competant repair luthier', presumably...) all in the space of a few posts.

It may well be a dodgy string. The OPs bass may even need a new nut or some work doing on its bridge saddles. Hell, it may need a complete refret and levelling. But my joey fix(?) has one undeniable thing in its favour; it takes no more than 10s to try, it costs nowt and it doesn't involve taking the bass to a 'repair luthier', however 'competant'. And, you never know, it might just work...

Yep. Tune the string to pitch, then give it a firm push downwards just after the saddle on the nut side. Use yr thumb, and apply a firm and steady pressure for a few seconds. The string can take it. Do the same either side of the nut too. There's a good chance your intonation issue will be sorted by this.

After changing strings, be sure to push down firmly on the string as it goes over the saddle to set the witness point. If you don't do this, sometimes the intonation can be hard to get right. Details here (point 5) http://www.bassesbyleo.com/intonation_notes.html

I suspect that Dave Gilmore has taken so many drugs in his time and is so unfathomably rich that he can afford to let himself be talked into all sorts of old codswallop...

Don't be too distracted by all the apparent different brands out there. All modern production valves come from one of 3 factories - New Sensor in Russia, Shuguang in China and JJ in Czech. Various companies rebrand these but the truth is the rebranded tubes wil be one of these.

The other issue is that the quality of all these modern brands is pretty dire. I'm talking particularly about teh longevity of the tubes. With such poor QC, it's a bit of a craphoot as to whether you'll get a decent valve or not. Some brands (eg Ruby, Groove Tubes, TAD) claim that they retest tubes from their respective supplier to eliminate the out of spec ones.

The other option is to buy NoS valves from someone like Watford. These are unused old stock of valves from the 90's & earlier when production in the US, UK & Europe was still happening. People claim various tonal differences with these vs current valves (personally, I have cloth ears & have trouble hearing much difference tbh); what I can vouch for is that they tend to be more long-lived and reliable, esp the power tubes.

So if you want longevity, I can recommend NoS, esp for power tubes. If you're interested in tonal differences between valves, you really need to try them for yourself and decide.