dougal

Thanks for all the feedback so far. Most thought provoking, as I suspected it might be. Quick straw poll shows the votes as: Sadowsky IIIIIIIIII Buy a P-bass III (I just sold the P-bass, didn't work for me) Buy a custom bass, or a ukelele: II ACG I.5 ricky I.5 t-bird I Buy a 5-string ACG I Buy a stingray I (I just sold the ray, like the P, just didn't work for me) The standout winner is the sadowsky. Which is as I suspected it would be, and if my head was screwed on right, would be what I would choose to go monobasstastically with. But it just seems a little... obvious. A little too far away from the fire & brimstone of the old testament, which is I think, what I'm looking for. The nutter in me says go for the gibbo, but put the east u-retro I have lying around in it (would involve routing to fit it) The masochist says the ricky, and then spend years and thousands sorting a dual rig... one for each pick-up. The conspicuous consumer wants me to buy this, http://www.bassdirect.co.uk/bass_guitar_specialists/Xotic_XP4_3TSB.html , because damnit I'm worth it, and it will do everything I want. Probably. Until next week when I lust after this: http://www.bassdirect.co.uk/bass_guitar_specialists/Lull_P_Gold.html , because it's the [i]only[/i] thing that will make me sound like I want.... yorks5stringer: Yes, it's a stereo ricky. LukeFRC: ACG. absolutely lovely to play. but my fingerstyle leaves a little to be desired in the upper mid-range so tends to sound a little bass heavy / boomy (not that the keyboard player would notice). But it has been the bass that's pushed out the Fender P, a sadowsky J and a stingray as it's just better than all of them. The neck is superb, the balance is just so, it's as light as a feather and I don't have to think when I'm playing it. mcgraham: Fair point; but the other part of this is that I want to settle on a bass for a year: it may be the wrong bass, it may be the right bass, but the revoloving door over the last 5 years has had me have: an NYC sadowsky, 2 Japanese sadowskys (P & J), a US p bass, a Jap sting p-bass, one gibbo t-bird, a peavy grind 6-string, a 4003, an f-bass 5, a stingray, a jap jazz, an ashbory mini bass, an acg jazz, a sadowsky 5, a custom gw 5, a modulus flea bass, a bongo 5, a dingwall jazz, a warwick streamer fretless, a warwick thumb 5 fretless, a wishbass p-nut fretless, a carvin lb75-P, and a stingray 5: which, quite frankly, is not why I'm playing bass. That sounds more like a laundry list than a bass collection. Although I'd be lying if I said it hadn't been fun. lojo: We did. But I was very drunk. And as I'm [i]slightly[/i] less belligerent now, and willing to give them one more chance...

So, I recently finished a book called "My Year Of Living Biblically" by A J Jacobs. I am, devote, nay, militant, agnostic, but that's beside the point: it got me thinking. There was a post on here recently, that said, something along the lines of "people like Jaco / Sheenan / Lemmy / Harris / Claypole are at the stage where they're so used to their instruments, that they are so much a part of them, they play everything they need on a single bass, that I can't imagine them playing anything else: and this is a good thing". I'm paraphrasing massively, and possibly misreading into the previous thread, but again, beside the point: and it got me thinking. I don't think I've been mono-bass-allic since I was... 18? And that's 20 years ago. So I think I've decided to try and take the plunge, and put the others away, and live monobassallicy for a year. One bass. Anyone who has glanced through my feedback knows that would be unusual... I've always been a "set the amp flat and let it rip" sort of person. So I don't see me suddenly changing my rig of... six years now. So we're all set there. So, I hear you wonder, loudly, what has this to do with me?!?! Well, I've still got four basses, despite a recent selling frenzy, and I can't [i]quite [/i]decide which I should go for. I play in a covers band, mostly wedding / party stuff. I was told by the keyboard player recently that he couldn't hear the difference between any of them. So, in honour of the religious right in America who would ask 'WWJD'... 'WWBCD'.... (What would basschat do?) votes on a postcard, please. The nominees: Sadaowsky M-series RV5: Ricky 4003 ACG J-Type Gibbo Thunderbird (not the P... that went to FunkShui...) The 4th option behind the triangular window, is to buy something [i]complete[/i] new. But I don't know if I'm ready for that yet...

That depends [i]entirely[/i] on how well I know the person behind offer A. If it's a friend, offer A every time. If I don't know them from Jack, offer B every time.

Sold Grahame a hipshot d-tuner. Fast payment, excellent communication. Good, honest, straightforward basschat transaction. Just the way it should be.

Kert purchased a P-Bass from me. Excellent comms, fast payment, good, honest, bass chat transaction.

Mikko bought a stringray from me too! (Apparently he has a fetish for them.) Straightforward deal, excellent communication, excellent bass-chatter. Deal with confidence, indeed.

I went from four to five when I was 18, and back to 4 when I was mid-30s. I've still got a 5-string, just in case, but I do find 4s a bit more comfy, particularly for long gigs. On the 5 I only ever really used the B string below the 8th fret: I don't tend to do super-fast across the neck scales that would necessitate a 5 string. I tried a six. Couldn't get on with it. Maybe I'm just too old.

Will bought a pickup. Good comms, a nice solid transaction, as it should be!

[quote name='garythebass' timestamp='1360164742' post='1965959'] I set up a gmail calendar to do this for my band. It's a great idea but falls down when no-one else either reads or updates it [/quote] +4 (one for each of the other band members) If you use google calendar (as I do) it's not bad, but the singer has to cross reference this with his wife's paper kitchen calendar which isn't something he can be bothered to do on a regular basis.

[quote name='bartelby' timestamp='1362572268' post='2001432'] I won't use cloud based stuff as data plans are far too restrictive/costly. [/quote] I pay £12 a month for unlimited data, texts and more minutes than I would ever use. (giff-gaff) - I don't see cost as prohibitive. I was rather hoping someone would say, oh you want to use XXXX service that lets you buy mp3s whilst still allowing a spotify like instant access to streaming.

I've been a premium member of Spotify for a number of months, ever since I bought a smart phone and replaced my ageing ipod. I have to say I do like it for listening to new music, especially as pretty much everything I need is there at my fingertips and if a mate says "Have you heard 'As my shower drains the water' by 'Humptyfrank and the Squiggleheads'?" the answer is 'I'll just give it a quick listen'... However, I've found that the radio stations (based on starred or 'liked from radio' or genre) leave me in a tremendously narrow listening pattern (to the point where I'm thinking either the algos are shot or it's actually sponsored playlists). Recently I uploaded my music collection to Google Play, and I've been happily listening to my entire collection on shuffle, but the recent albums I haven't bought because they're on spotify, aren't there to listen to. Question: What do services do other people use to listen to music from the cloud (I prefer this as I have an unlimited data plan and limited storage on my phone)? Or do you not bother? Anyone in the same situation as me with spotify / last.fm where the radio stations aren't broad enough?

I played classical guitar to the heady heights of ABRSM grade six. I've been told on more than one occasion I'm "too good as a guitarist" to be playing bass. Which frankly makes no sense. I tried playing guitar in a band once. It was all wrong ([i]and[/i] I played far too loud and soloed incessantly)

All this talk of frets all the way to the bridge makes me think we're designing a peanut: For what it's worth (not much) I'd vote for 4.5 strings like Earbrass. And some people may say we're not taking this seriously!

[quote] woah...90% being skimmed off? if true that sounds nasty.... [/quote] I read that as "90% of the income is being written off as expenses" which in my mind translates to "90% of the income is tax free because of clever accounting I don't really understand". Anthrax were always my favourite [i]because [/i]they retained their humour and brought it on stage: I could never take the others seriously because they were so... serious. ST were amazing. Off to listen to "How Will I Laugh..." now