thisnameistaken

I've been picking up bits of P bass and I'm starting to assemble them, but I'm a bit stuck when it comes to choosing a pickup. I've decided the sound I want is that English post-punk sound. The sort of thing that Graham Maby, Bruce Thomas, Bruce Foxton, Andy Rourke etc. were doing. What pickup do I want for that? Or will most P pickups do that? If so which ones do I avoid? Note that I am already avoiding actives.

No I'm still not happy with my playing. When I listen back to recordings I take pride in hearing stuff I played, and I have nights where I am chuffed with what I'm doing and I feel like I'm on good form, but I'm not content with how I play by any means, I'm always keen to improve. I'll be 40 next year and I've long since given up trying to be a musical athlete, but I work hard on understanding what I'm doing and trying to play interesting stuff that adds an extra dimension to a song without being too busy. I still can't take a compliment though, I'm not happy enough with my playing to take any comfort in someone else congratulating me for it.

My last band had a female trumpet/keyboard player (and they now have a female bassist) but she never got any of this. I guess it depends what sort of circuit you're working. We were on punk bills so we didn't meet too many backward old men.

In two of the originals band I've done, we've messed around with covers in rehearsals for fun but never gigged them.

They'll fit in a Fiesta, or anything with rear seats, really.

I just set up the bass for the strings - for guts or gut-a-likes you need a higher action, but I don't think it makes a difference whether you're slapping or not, a suitable setup is a suitable setup.

To be honest with the way you've set up your double bass I imagine it won't sound much different. So long as you can hold it comfortably you'll be fine.

Bought Anth's Mex P neck, he had it in my hands the next day, great stuff.

You mentioned you're taking fish oil supplements. I don't know much about this stuff but I keep hearing that green-lipped mussel oil is supposed to be the best of these kinds of supplements, might be worth trying.

I'd agree that's not good enough. I had an issue with a neck on a Warwick once - it was one of their first 6-string bolt-ons and the truss rod broke. They told me that the neck wasn't a strong enough design, they took my bass off to Germany for three weeks, sent it back with a replacement neck made from different laminates and a bunch of other freebies to say sorry. I hadn't even bought the bass new, or even in Europe. That's what you'd expect from a 'premium' manufacturer. Edit: I was typing my reply before the previous two responses arrived. Glad to hear Sandberg are doing the right thing because I really want a Sandberg…

No, it will do ADSR envelopes on the VCO amplitude or the filter frequency but you can't set one up at the mixer output.

Yes, like that, in a pedal. Hmph. I bet there isn't one.

I'm after a pedal that will let me set an amplitude decay time and retrigger each time I play a note. I've seen the Pigtronix Philosopher King can do this but it's a big pedal with a lot of features I don't need, so I wondered if anyone knows of anything else that can do just the decay end of things - I guess a compressor of some sort?

I've never got on with Stingrays and I think they're overpriced. They are the most factory-made-feeling factory-made basses I've played. I've only tried one Sandberg and it was a 5-string Jazz, so I can't comment on what the Basic is like, but the one I played was a really nice bass.

Did they work out what happened to it?

Oddly enough Clarky of the Animas I bought from you earlier this year, the same thing happened to the G. I loosened it off and found that the winding had snapped at the peg, and I think it was because it got snagged between its own windings and the inside of the pegbox. I wound it back up keeping it away from the wood so it couldn't get trapped as I tensioned it and it's been fine since, but I did take a spare G with me to gigs for a couple of months at first...

I don't often sit down to learn other peoples' songs any more but tonight I got a guitar out and learned The Smiths - Some Girls Are Bigger Than Others, because I had it stuck in my head. It's fairly hard, for a non-guitarist.

Such a lot of enviable intonation here! Must get the bow out regularly...

I'm currently using Velvet Animas and - similarly - the G is very easy to damage. But if they are the sound you want you accept the trade-off I guess. High quality guts will always be very expensive and a bit fragile. Unfortunately nothing sounds quite like them.

That does sound like a good set. Guts are amazing if you never play music that requires any sustain. Old rock n' roll or swing stuff they are just brilliant, they make anybody swing, but the moment you want a note to ring out for half a bar you will think they suck. I had a set of Gamuts on my bass earlier this year and I declared that if there was a Disney film featuring an anthropomorphic hippo bassist, those are the strings he would've used. But unfortunately they weren't modern-sounding enough for my main gig so they had to go. I did love them though, in a very primal way.

I don't lay my bass down by dragging it across tarmac by the peghead - seems to be a reasonable approach. SRSLY though I get my bass horizontal in my hands and put it down flat, there's no potential for damage. I never leave it unattended lying on the floor, I always prop it up in a corner if I'm going to be away from it, so at least passing numpties can see it.

I've never done a rock band so I suppose this doesn't apply to me. Also my main bass is a Thumb Bass. Actually to be fair my main bass these days is a 3/4 upright. The first one doesn't get stepped on by electric guitars at all which is part of the beauty of it, and the other pretty much never has to gig with electric guitars and very rarely with rock-miked drums. Must suck to be a rock bassist though. I wouldn't want to do it.