Lfalex v1.1

The Living Daylights is arguably the one I listen to most. Like few others, it doesn't entirely depend upon the cinematic content for lyrics, even if it does reference the title.

Too tough to call. It's a toss-up between Louis Armstrong's mellow tones, Carly Simon's candour, Chris Cornell's amazing voice and Tom Jones' commitment - especially that last note.

Thanks, Ricky4000. Strangely, my first, only and short-of-tenure bass "teacher" used to extol the virtues of "Forget-me-nots" whilst steadfastly refusing to teach me even the rudiments of slap whilst showing off. And as for feel.. I'm told by everyone that I missed my path when I didn't go into demolition as a career. My playing certainly isn't nuanced! Maybe that's the problem. Tuition induced PTSD coupled with a complete lack of "feel"!

My utter inability to slap saddens me. And I just don't know where to begin. Is it the bass, my preferred action, neck relief, EQ, the state of my strings, my choice of strings, the gauge of my strings, the fact that my sweaty mitts will dull a set of Rotos in 3 seconds... Is it the gain architecture I chose, do I need compression, is it the amp EQ... I can tolerate quite narrow string spacing for fingerstyle. I even had a 5 restrung E, A, D on the first, third and fifth saddles and nut slots and couldn't hit one clean note even on that. I find the whole thing physically awkward. Am I playing too hard or not hard enough? Am I trying to hard or not hard enough? What's my fretting hand supposed to be doing? I accept that it is virtually impossible to "teach" me anything. I have to have my own Eureka moments for the pieces to fit together into anything meaningful. I've had more satisfaction from my fumblings on the Stick after 5 minutes than my sporadic (but lengthy) attempts at learning slap..

I can't write for toffee! I just can't see enough of the whole picture in isolation. If someone else can do the outside edges of the jigsaw, I can fill in the middle... All my best stuff derives from other people's work. On the very rare occasion that I do produce anything, guitarists, drummers etc. all look at me blankly, as if to say "What do I do with that, then?"

English Settlement - Xtc Spilt milk - The Jellyfish Time- ELO Boys for Pele - Tori Amos Steeltown - Big Country Crime of the Century - Supertramp I'm the man - Joe Jackson Reign in blood - Slayer Dragline - PAW Nilsson Schmillson - Harry Nilsson Lonely at the top - Randy Newman Probably missed some, but that lot seen to pop up a lot!

I do, but it's the 5 string. Since I've moved house, I've been playing it and the Stick for the most part, so I'm afraid it's not for sale!

Just a left-field piece of rationalisation; Piezo bridges and saddles work ok with everything from unwound (G,B, high E) guitar strings up to EUBs. I reckon you're probably safe with contact core designs.

Have a look at what strings Warwick do/did for their Low-tuned models (Taranis? IIRC) I'm sure the heaviest string was around a 0.175 That'd go plenty low enough, but I guess you might have to file out your nut/bridge saddles to get a sensible action. Failing that, play using "A" an octave up and see if you can find an octave pedal that tracks really well. Some units do two octaves down.

Looks promising. Let us know what you decide to do and how you fare with the modifications.. Edit- wow! At those prices I might break mine for spares! 😂

Not an easy one.. I've a B2a 5string, and I'm assuming the bridge hardware is similar... The bridge saddles are big, square blocks. The factor governing the height of the lowest action is the thickness of those saddles. I reckon you could either file the slots deeper, but they're a particular shape with an edge for the strings to break over, so that's difficult to preserve. I'd be inclined to file down the bottom of the saddle blocks so they sit lower. If you were to do that, you'd have to clean out the grub screw threads AND try to refinish the underside of the saddle back to its original black. Hope this helps a bit..

I've finally overcome a major obstacle. And acquired a stand for the stick. Keeping it in the hardcase was a major bind. Just got a cheap Stagg item from Argos. It's not perfect, but the Stick stays put on it.Somewhat cheaper than the $130 that Stick Enterprises want for theirs (and that's before shipping & taxes)

I have an old Korg Pandora. Small, drives a proper pair of headphones. I run it from 4xAAA rechargeable batteries and they last a while. It has an ok integrated tuner, FX, and has a tap reverb, which is a lovely thing. Otherwise, I use a cheap 12 track mixing desk. Has phantom power and XLRs for some pedals, and it's better with a Chapman stick than the Pandora.

I heard John Hall has left the business to start a band. With a guy called Daryl Oates. I'll get me' coat...

Loving the Rollins Band & Skunk Anansie vids. 2 excellent bassists (Melvin Gibbs and Cass Lewis respectively) and good examples of the use of Dynamics; Loud-quiet-loud(er!)