NickA

No spoilers.... But Lars Ulrich and several others turned down the opportunity.

What a great idea.

It's good, it's fun, it's worth a punt. The McCartney cameo is odd, but doesn't spoil it. More constant smiles than big quotable jokes, but came out happier than when I went in. Count the number of Derek Small's ( identical ) basses. And the new drummer is great.

Excellent advice. thanks. From which it would appear that the sound post position on neither my bass nor my cello are completely optimal...however, bridge movements are simple on a cello and viable on a bass, but sound post adjustments are something I dare not attempt ( despite owning the " special tool" ). Meanwhile enjoying the new improved sound of my bass. Update: first jazz session with moved bridge and a pickup... not sure, it's gone rather dark; nice round sound but lacks attack and definition. Probably need to move the pickup around to find a new sweet spot ( it's a realist sound clip = very tweakable)

Took my bridge off to fix its adjusters....and forgot to mark where it had been. Experimentation time! The usual rule is, I think, to align the middle of the bridge with the f-hole notches... But that sounded rather soft and dull, warm but unexciting. Recalled that on my cello, it's harder to play but has a better tone with the bridge shifted down towards the tail piece ...but that made my bass sound softer and duller. Moving the bridge nearer the fingerboard brightened the tone and improved the attack... Also a bit harsh and "boxy". So back a bit and now it sounds better than ever. Are there any useful rules about where the bridge should go and what effect different placements have on the sound ?... or is every bass different and it's just a matter of experimentation?

Plus... I think it makes the bass sound better. If I dont play my dB for a few weeks it seems to stiffen up... A few hours of bow playing and it starts to sing again. Maybe I'm imagining it because it doesn't seem very logical..but it works for me 😁

It's usually not the bass playing itself; it's the bass playing showing up the effect of something else. Eg bad posture when typing at a computer. I've had: a frozen shoulder so I couldn't bow...that was triggered by falling off my bike. Left hand pins and needles making finguring hard... Sleeping with a hand behind my head. Right hand cramps ...that was resting my hand on the desk when using a mouse. Tennis elbow .. tennis initially, then....don't know but bass playing doesn't make it worse. Those clamp things help. Left hand rsi...that may have been over-practice on a fat necked 5 string electric bass. I think eBasses are far more injuries due to the angle they put in your left wrist. Sometimes a physio will sort this stuff out...but it's hit and miss. Think " what hurts,and how might I have hurt it?" Then stop doing that thing. Rest and stretches too.

Looks like they've tweaked the standard cobalt flats to compete with Thomastik jazz flats. If you get cobalt flats performance at thomastik prices then it's a poor deal 😂. I'm surprised to learn that pino uses flats but found that indeed..he's been using EB cobalt flats and thomastik jazz flats .. so, lively sounding flats. Well, on my two fretless basses, I currently have some eb cobalt flats and they're ok but have quite a distinctive tone that may take over the sound of your bass... and some thomastik jazz rounds ( not the flats) which are nice but very thin and rather floppy...and I'm not sure I like them, subtle and supple but flap against the fingerboard. I sure wouldn't blow 80 usd on strings for an 80 usd bass!

Is this a thing to do? My viola da gamba has natural gut strings but I never oiled them, so I checked it out and found it's not normal but some folk swear by it: https://www.joshlee415.com/blog/2019/7/28/oiling-gut-strings Almond oil recommended in another post.

https://maestronet.com/forum/index.php?/topic/338769-bow-wood-identification/ You could ask this guy!

A couple of "fine pernambuco" bows. The top one is at least 80 years old, probably a lot older but it was made so thin that the wood cracked near the top. The bottom one is lovely wood, but it feels like lead in the hand! The thing to note is that thin even grain.

I think "Brazil wood" is a catch all for lots of woods, sometimes including Pernambuco, but mostly Abeille Some bows are called Pernambuco but the wood is not from the heart wood so less dense.. "Brasil wood" probably better. Some bows are made of snake wood... Yours is not heart wood Pernambuco as the grain is not dense enough, it looks too light to be snake wood. It's been stained, so it's hard to tell the original colour. I guess it is some kind of generic Brazil wood. Light weight is not necessarily a sign of high quality wood .. cheaper woods are usually lighter weight. The thing with Pernambuco is that it's very dense and evenly grained so you can remove a lot of wood and make it light (if you want), better balanced and springy are the real aims, rather than low weight. I inherited a gold mounted fine Pernambuco cello bow which is the same weight as my ( generic Brazil wood ) student bow...but in the hand it feels like a sledge hammer. Waste of nice wood according to a local dealer 😞

Not for me for sure. Too much string noise. Kinda thuddy. Sticking to spiros ..or Eva's if there's bowing to do that week ( usually)

👌. Thrilled to see a "skippable" bass brought back to life. Chickens and all.

About £300 new. Maybe £200 used. It will likely beat a £200 wooden bow with ease but as you can buy new for £300......

3 of my 5 bass guitars are fretted ( counting the acoustic one) but it's one of the two fretless basses ( and my double bass ) that get 90%+ of the playing time. Took my fretted 5 to a jam session last week and found I'd forgotten how to play it.

Never seen the point. Ebony works fine for me.

Non serious rattle = barrel of jack plug in pickup is loose. Medium rattle = tuners, end pin. Slightly serious rattle = seam needs glueing and clamping Serious rattle = something loose inside and the front needs to come off. Value ... maybe £800 at a dealer, with no rattles and decent strings; significantly less as a private sale ...but £275 is not a bad price....if you like it.

As proven at the last em bass bash, I can fit: A 4/4 double bass, two electric basses and 450W of amplification In a (manual) Skoda Citigo 😁. no drummer tho....

Basic laminate bass. Very shallow body. Likely to be short on tone, sustain and projection. Still, some of those 1960s east European factory basses are quite decent. Especially if youre going to use a pickup. I'd say make sure to play it first, but for £275....just buy it and see. Bear in mind that new strings will be £200+, a new bridge similar (tho it looks to have a good and well fitted one), and the cost of repairing any internal rattles will be way more than the value of the bass. But being plywood, it's likely just fine in that respect.

Ouch indeed!! 😬 Kind of glad to know it IS worth buying expensive bridges! Strange height adjusters.... what stops the bottom bit spinning round? I hope they didn't tap the thread into the top of the bridge and expect the bridge to go up and down on the threads. Surely that would be impossible to adjust under load.

What's a good laminate bass worth? I played a nice old one that was £1500 and have a friend with a rather nasty new one that cost her £1300. This one needs a new neck really and unless you're The Guitar Weasel, that's going to be expensive. So given the ongoing costs bloopdad seems about right with the pricing! At least the seller is being honest about the condition.

Not heard of "chestnut" ..tho I guess it's quite a common horse colour. I've black on my best ( arcus Carbon ) bow and white on my spare (wooden dorfler) Not a deal of difference, but new hair and good rosin are useful...and when bowing spiros you need all the grip you can get. Amusing fact... Stallion hair is apparently grippier than mare hair as the mares piss on their tales which polishes out the grip.

The issue with long leads and wet ground is that your body is at one voltage (that of the ground you are standing on) and the earth of your kit is at another voltage (either an earth spike in the place the power comes from or more likely via the neutral wire to a local substation many meters of cable away). The resistance between those two earth points is likely quite high so the current that flows through you is too small to trip an RCD .... BUT you will still feel it. My house is very poorly grounded and you can easily get a tingle if using power tools in the garden in bare feet (!!) or off the stainless toaster or microwavestanding on the damp kitchen floor. TBH there isn't a lot you can do. Using one of these portable battery generators (eg a Jackery Power Station) is one way to get around it. Another way is to use an isolation transformer and an earth spike near where you are standing (getting a bit techie at this point). In any case if an extension lead is the only option, do use an RCD - you may still get a tingle but it would trip before you got electrocuted. Try not to play in bare feet on wet grass 🙂 (PS: I'm an electrical engineer, I'm not making it up)