Jean-Luc Pickguard

[quote name='Stingray5' post='958381' date='Sep 16 2010, 02:51 PM']I had a feeling (oo-er missus!) and dug around a bit and can tell you it's Gordon Edwards on bass. You might be interested to know it's also Cornell Dupree on second guitar and Richard Tee on keys. The three of them, of course, all being members of Stuff. [/quote] Wow! Cheers. I've never heard of Gordon Edwards or Stuff before, but I think I need to have a listen to some of their tracks.

I am occasionally asked for a ballpark price for creating a professional website for a band with the features they need and the a facility to manage it themselves. Ballpark figures are usually difficult without a defined project scope, but as band websites often have similar requirements I can usually get a good idea of what is needed and give an answer based on a few options. Unfortunately my reply is often followed by a stunned silence as the cost of doing it properly and keeping my business in profit tends to frighten people off, especially when they realise that on top of the design & build cost they also have to pay an annual fee for hosting either to me as a hosting reseller or to another hosting company. As band sites often have similar aims and requirements, I'm thinking it could be worth providing a platform where band's can have professional looking website with the functionality they need and customisable design, but without the cost of a fully bespoke project. I first had the seed of an idea to do something like this following a discussion with Si O-G. Sadly I never had the chance to ask him whether he would like to be involved in it, but I hope that in some small way this would be able to stand as a tribute to the selfless help he has given people over the years as when I think of band websites I often think "what would Si do?". My idea is to create a platform based on a content management system loaded with a custom theme and selectable child themes which change the colour scheme and look & feel. Every band has its own personality & style which it should be able to get across in the design of its website, so I would put together varied styles to be sure of having something for everyone, and also provide features to enable people to further customise their design without needing to know all the techie stuff. As standard each band's site will use a subdomain URL (such as [url="http://bandname.blahblahwhatever.co.uk)"]http://bandname.blahblahwhatever.co.uk)[/url], but it would be possible to provide an upgrade to allow people to use their own domain and/or order a domain to use (such as [url="http://www.bandname.co.uk)"]http://www.bandname.co.uk)[/url]. Features I'm thinking about including to make this as useful &amp; flexible as possible would be [list] [*]When first set up, several pages will exist with default placeholder text, which can be replaced with the real text and then new pages created in the CMS [*]A gig listing system [*]Band News / Blog / Journal with tags & categories [*]Selectable Display fonts for Headings and Band Name in Masthead [*]upload custom site background to replace default in theme [*]upload custom logo to replace band name in masthead [*]Homepage image slider with animated transitions</li> [*]Photo Gallery with lightbox display (when you click on a thumbnail a large version of the pic appears) [*]Dropdown menu which is automatically updated whenever a page is added [*]embedded MP3 players [*]Site search [*]Contact page [*]Various widgets which can be added to the sidebar - eg latest tweets, pic gallery, upcoming gigs etc [*]Youtube/Vimeo video embedding [*]Social Media share links on each page for driving traffic from facebook, myspace, twitter etc [*]"For Dummies" type printable pdf manual, plus online version covering all admin &amp; editing functions plus content tips [/list] Other features which may or may not be included, or could be offered as part of the premium package or as addons [list] [*]Own Domain Name [*]eCommerce to sell Merchandise / CDs / MP3 [*]Forum to build a community of fans [*]A service to create additional custom theme, background graphic and/or logo if a band wants one [*]A service to populate the site with the bands initial content as if I'm creating a bespoke site [/list] Issues I will have to address would be things like: [list] [*]Getting a good balance between too few & too many options [*]Keeping the admin as simple and jargon-free as possible without sacrificing flexibility [*]Even though the plan will probably be for online documentation and a printable manual to be available, I won't kid myself that people will always think of actually looking at it, so I could set up a support forum to provide support to users and hopefully users would help each other out with common issues they may encounter. I could maybe provide a user-to-user marketplace for hooking people up with their custom logo graphics & backgrounds in the forum [/list] I'm currently looking at this as a skunkworks project alongside my full time freelance business at the moment. I'm in the early stages, but I should have a something ready for testing within a few weeks and once I've done some initial testing with some dummy sites in varied styles (I'm jotting down some fake band names for this), I'll probably be looking for beta testers to have a play with it &amp; provide feedback and ideas. In the meantime any comments or ideas would be welcome. I would be interested in hearing peoples' views on this idea: Does this sound like a daft idea or do you think people would find it useful? With a target market of pub bands in mind, what price ranges would make this seem like [list] [*]Too cheap so the perception is that it can't be any good [*]a bargain [*]Too high for people to consider? [/list] What additional features (non essential to the standard package) might add value in a premium version? This project is at a very early stage, so nothing is set in stone, I have a name for this & registered the domain name for branding it and will disclose that when I have something worth looking at. I want to provide a service people will enjoy using and get a lot of value from, so any input from people here which would help with those goals will be most welcome. Thanks for reading this rather lengthy post and, to anyone who replies to the thread, thanks for your input.

Grant Green's 'The final comedown' on Blue Note Blue Break Beats vol1 has just played on my iTunes. What a groove! I'm sure the bass has to be Willie Weeks - the tone and phrasing reminds me of his playing on the Donny Hathaway Live album - one of my favourite albums. Anyone know whether it is actually Willie Weeks? or maybe someone else with a similar style? Here's the track is on YT: Any other bass playing cropped up unexpectedly on a track that make you jump up & say to yourself "that sounds like whoever?"

If I saw one for that price and there was nothing seriously wrong with it and I liked how it played I'd have bought it - sounds like a bargain to me.

I've always thought that Boss is more [b]boss[/b] than Roland.

[quote name='Telebass' post='892920' date='Jul 12 2010, 04:20 PM']In order to fit vintage bushings to current Fenders and Squiers, I cut up a plastic shampoo bottle into strips, wound the strips around the bush, then pushed that all in. Worked a treat. However, that's a bigger difference than you are having to overcome. Otherwise, plumber's tape.[/quote] but what do you do with the shampoo?

squirt a bit of araldite in there & hold it together for ten minutes & it'll be good as new. Nah - take to someone who knows what they're doing - I bet Si (Old Git) will know the best place near Cardiff to take it. If it was mine (S London) I'd on the way to the Gallery or Charlie Chandlers or Feline depending on how far I could be bothered to travel.

I probably needed a setup - most shops take 'em out of the box and hang 'em on the wall.

vuvuzela & didjeridu

That would be awesome if it was a musical instrument rather than a game controller. Its a bit sad really.

There will be one excuse or another why this isn't available to view or buy in person - he wants payment by paypal then he'll disappear with the dosh. I expect

[quote name='Pete Academy' post='889833' date='Jul 8 2010, 08:30 PM']Does anyone agree with me regarding the last CD?[/quote] No idea - I wouldn't be seen dead with a copy of the DailyMail or the Mirror for that matter

[quote name='Rich' post='887606' date='Jul 6 2010, 06:12 PM']Tesco, of all people, are doing some very nice classic Wayfarer-copy shades for a fiver.[/quote] Bah! - got to be the real thing. Cheapies don't compare as they have the same old plastic lenses instead of B&L glass in them. My current pair is still as good as new & have lasted ten years so far. I know how old they are as I bought them from the sunglass hut in the World Trade Centre when I was sent on an all-expenses paid fools-errand to New York in 2000.

Precisions or Precision shaped Laklands?

A single coil telecaster bass formerly owned by Jeff Beck & Ron Wood was up for sale in the Gallery a while ago iirc. I wonder if that was the one used?

Nice - congrats!

Of course the elephant in the room with the peavey system ([url="http://www.peavey.com/ampkitlink/"]http://www.peavey.com/ampkitlink/[/url]) is "can you play along with your existing music?" as that is not mentioned in Peavey video , I'd guess the Peavey system is in the same boat as the amplitude one as they don't mention it. Shame As it seems to be limitations of the iPhone platform, maybe I'll email Steve Jobs to make him aware of how including something to allow guitar amp apps to play along with songs with low latency will open up a whole new market for the iPhone / iPod touch / iPad platform. - Perhaps after I report those squirrels to Nick Clegg, that I mentioned in off topic.

The twin of the one I sold a year or so ago [attachment=53311:musicmaster.jpg]

Love the Fender stamped lollypop tuners.

I saw through your ploy pretending the post was about a bass. You should tell your mum first. You don't want her finding out from anywhere else.

Apart from cutting out and ruining the gig, does anyone have any experiences (or secondhand anecdotes even) where this kind of scenario has killed the equipment - or is it likely to be safe? It sounds like it could have got expensive it had blown up Linus27's rig.

[quote name='janmaat' post='878100' date='Jun 26 2010, 12:56 PM']...and now have a bass nobody else has - the whale.[/quote] or referring to the original cost: Free Willy

[quote name='Toddy54' post='877918' date='Jun 26 2010, 07:23 AM']My son started music college last year ( he is a guitarist ) in his year there were 4 drummers, 7 guitarist, 3 singers, 3 dj's no bassist and no keyboardist. He got himself a bass and amp, I gave him some lessons, and through the whole year he was very much in demand, playing in 3 bands. When he goes back next year as there are 2 bassist starting he is going to go back and play guitar and also bass as he really enjoys it. He practices in his room, one night guitar, next night bass. So as has been stated in this thread by others, if you enjoy both, play both.[/quote] Couldn't put it better than this. Guitarists are ten a penny. Carry on playing both, but if you specialise as a bass player, you're going to probably find you're more in demand, so you'll probably get more experience. You'll also probably be better at playing tastefully & leaving space for others .

unless there's a specific issue with your fenders, the only real step up would be to get something custom made taking all your preferences into consideration, or maybe tweaking what you have by customising it.