cytania

It's good to be able to setup your bass yourself. The time to get a professional in is when you find yourself lost and retreading the same tweaks that didn't really do it last time. Sometimes you need someone else's dispassionate expertise.

Not sure about that label. Do you have to get the case to a venue the day before the gig so it can have 24hrs at room temperature? 😄

There's a pack of Ernie Ball Slinkys on Amazon where the pack pictured isn't the actual gauge you recieve. You'll probably see an annoyed review by me under it 😁

Thing I hate about gold hardware is it so quickly wears away and somehow silver metal glinting through worn gold is not a desirable relic finish. Also hate basses that are simply converted guitars. Danelectro's 'coke bottle' Headstock is a case in point. They've simply not drilled the middle two tuner holes and the tuners themselves are puny guitar tuners. Same applies to semis with trapeze tailpieces and bridges in the middle of the body. No real thinking going on, just adaptation

F-holes and scimitar slashes. They look great but get in the way of playing. Like having a trapdoor waiting to grab your fingers.

Nah, it's NonSuch and Apple Venus, amazingly good songs. 'Rook', 'Books Are Burning', 'River Of Orchids' - superb writing.

Must put a word in for Alfie Glass, the 13 year old rock prodigy. Watching the rest of the rock guitarists was like seeing a bunsen burner flame gently raised up and down. For all his erratic false starts Alfie romped and stomped like a flame-thrower. It was like Kiss or Slade vs Snowy White clones.

The BBC presenters claimed local trees were putting out nasty pollen/fluff that caused 'Glastonbury Throat'.

This 'qualified to criticise' argument depends on the activity. We could all watch scientists at Cern operate the Large Hadron Collider and I doubt any of us could tell if it was being used properly. For abstract technical activities you do need to be qualified to make valid criticisms. However for activities like music and cheese-tasting we all have a deep experience and knowledge. Even the biggest music philistine can tell if one player is out of tune. Naive listeners can still hear difference between major and minor (there's a load of YouTube videos that take popular songs and flip their modality). Non-musicians can all hit the pitch of a hit song's opening line. So the OP's guitarist is wrong and needs to take his medicine.

Someone really wanted a double bass feel with the big radius and the extended high frets. Well executed spare parts project, I'd say but overpriced.

Sure it isn't just a badly photographed shoreline gold paint job? Check out the eBay-Weird and Wonderful section for some truly bad paint jobs.

[b]Status Graphite[/b] (haven't got one, can't afford one but we're in dream mode here aren't we?).

All those who simply take spare strings along lack 'disaster imagination'. Luthiers are kept in business by smashed headstocks (most likely to happen at gigs when klutzes are blundering around your gear) and flakey electrics (one moment you're playing the next fizzle-pop-nothing). I had a machinehead snap off at rehearsal once, could have gone home for a spare but we were almost done so just transposed onto the remaining strings. Spare also gives you the option if #1 bass sounds thin/boomy/wrong to try another bass. Often works for me.

Yes there's a 'use Amazon details' option that worked fine for me. Just watch out for your bank adding charges because it's a Euro transaction. Lloyds added £15 charges to a £467 mixer desk I got our band.

Highlight has to be Mavis Staples, although Vintage Trouble came a close second 😄

It's a reworking of Alley Oop by the Holywood Argyles but I rather like it 😈

Intrigued by the way their 4 string 'Fodera' appears to have a 5 string size pickup. Not right.

"Gentlemen welcome to the Rickenbacker anti-marketing committee. For too long we have simply neglected quality control and raised prices... but this is the internet age. We can now focus on customers who are dedicated bass players that already feel positive about our product... and piss them off. These are people with both the time to track down our guitars and the money to buy them. Now go to your web browsers, find their forums, their chatrooms, their listing boards and make sure they feel that Rickenbacker is threatening them personally."

Surely all the bad feeling Mr.Hall has generated on this site has got to have affected UK sales?

Heard 'Let's Dance' on the radio this afternoon. Almost convinced myself it was a keyboard there's such a heavy synth effect on it.

Prior to the 60s record companies saw music in terms of classical, light/swing music, songs from the shows and spoken word. Genres like blues, folk and country got little attention. In the 60s all these 'underground' musics burst forth and record companies ran round desperately trying to monetise them. But the artists didn't stay put. They began the 60s in a skiffle band, went rock'n'roll, went psychedelic and ended the decade as hard rockers. Or various other routes and combinations. People in motion.

There is a vague similarity in the chorus melody line between the two songs, on a gross rise and fall level. Is some crude algorithim doing the matching?

Oddest thing I've seen for a while; Nanyo type headstock, P/J pickups, Rickenbackeresque bridge and why paint 'World' on it? http://rguitars.co.uk/collections/used-guitars/products/alvarez-world-bass Anyone know anything about this? ALLAN

Long list of vintage stuff for sale here, plenty of unusual basses 😛 http://www.harris-hire.co.uk/ Where will studios send out for hire instruments now?

Remember this is an academic analysis, so 1964 the change is not the Beatles but a shift to Major chord structures and the disappearance of 'bright' singing. 1983 is the arrival of synths and gated effect drums and 1991 is rap/rave dance music. The most samey year comes out as 1986.