chriswareham

I have a Brandoni constructed Eko semi-acoustic bass guitar. Fantastic instrument, and I got the opportunity to tell Roberto how much l love it shortly before he passed away. In the early 1990s his instruments would occasionally appear in Macaris music shop in the London's West End, which is how I came by my one.

Amphetamines maybe. A fair bit of research has gone into using them for military applications, ever since they were first produced in laboratory conditions just over a hundred years ago. They were used extensively in World War II, particularly for air force personnel by the Axis and Allied forces, as they increased endurance and attentiveness. Studies show they can improve reflex responses and awareness of stimuli, although at the cost of increasing levels of paranoia and eventual fatigue when usage increases beyond certain thresholds. An interesting case is the Finnish soldier Aimo Koivunen who accidentally took a massive dose of German supplied Pervitin while on a mission behind Soviet lines - it resulted in a week long period where he evaded capture while frankly off his tits. Didn't seem to do any serious damage as he went on to live into his seventies, but he did father nine children so I guess it may have impacted his libido 🙂

Many thanks for the responses! I've been pondering my options and based on some of the comments decided to buy a Ray 24 which seems to have a recreation of the 2 band pre-amp from a Stingray from the early 1980s. After changing the strings on my regular bass this evening for a set of stainless steel Rotosounds I think that also plays a big part in capturing the sound I'm after along with a modulation effect. I experimented with a bunch of effects, and came closest with my ancient Frontline rack mounted thing. The modulation offers either chorus or flanger and seems to be a clone of Boss circuitry. With careful tweaking of the manual and feedback controls on the flanger setting I got really close to what I'm looking for even on my passive bass.

Oh, that's tempting. I think I bought a Yamaha BB1200 from you, which I used with a Joy Division tribute until I got tired of too many people saying I should be playing a Rickenbacker (I'd point out Hooky's clearly playing a Yammy in the Love Will Tear Us Apart video and before that he actually played a Hondo rather than a Rickenbacker, but to no avail).

I played a Stingray for almost twenty years, having bought one when I first started working full time after college. It was my dream bass since several of my favourite bassists used one - Barry Jepson of Southern Death Cult, Jamie Stewart of Death Cult and The Cult, Simon Gallup of The Cure and even Peter Hook during his Revenge / Monaco phase. I then switched to a Greco copy of the Rickenbacker 4003 about five years ago, and sold the Stingray. Fast forward to now, and the while the band I'm in suits the middly honk of a Rick style bass I think the tone I was originally inspired by would fit even better. So I had a look at what's out there in Stingray land, and I'm confused. It used to be that the choices were straightforward - four or five strings, two or three band active tone controls. Now there seems to be a bewildering array of Stingray models and no amount of Googling seems to provide an explanation. So in short, I'm looking to recreate the kind of tone from the Cult's early performance of Horse Nation. I know that solid state amps (Trace Elliot) and chorus were also a factor, but I'm wondering what models from the current Stingray range get me close without spending more than I have to. So do the Ray 4 models have the same kind of pre-amp as the more expensive Sterling or full fat Stingray models? Do the two or three band active tone controls have a difference in terms of what sounds you can get? I would prefer to go for something like a Ray 4, Ray 24 or Ray 34 rather then the frankly eye watering cost of a US made Stingray but don't want to end up with something that disappoints if I can't get the right tone. Advice very much appreciated!

I had a few lessons with a guy that did that. A session guitarist called Peter Maxim, an incredibly softly spoken man who taught me things I'd not normally play like the bass parts to Bill Withers and Ian Dury songs.

Peavey 3620. Two 18" Black Widows and two 10" Scorpions in a single mahoossive cabinet. I'd trust that thing ... trust it to give me a hernia that is.

I saw a comment on a computer forum saying "never trust a computer you can lift". My version of that is "never trust a bass cabinet you can lift".

NAMM, but not directly bass related, unless you count the amount of FM synth bass sounds out there on recordings. Behringer demo their working prototype of a Yamaha DX-1 clone with additional filter, LFO and envelope cloned from the Yamaha CS-80. I used to hate all things to do with Yamaha DX synths, since they're a sod to program and the presets were abysmal. However, there are thousands of free patch banks floating around on the web that prove FM synthesis really is amazing if you can work out what the algorithms do and how modulators operate on carriers. Fortunately they don't predict it to ship until next year, so I don't have to find room for one just yet.

I'm another one who learned Peaches by The Stranglers as my first song on bass guitar. And like someone else who has already posted it was on a Marlin Slammer that a friend had let me borrow. Dead strings, action a mile high and it weighed a ton!

Mesa Boogie refuse to provide schematics, service manuals or spares so techs tend to hate them. They're also not very easy to work on because they're very complex and the cabling inside makes access to most of the boards a nightmare. It seems they want all repairs to go through the mothership in California, which is somewhat ... inconvenient ... to anyone outside the US.

Which it would. Microsoft can be criticised for a lot of shoddy software development, but one thing they have been very good about is backwards compatibility. I've seen software written in the 90s that still runs on Windows 11 without modification. It's also why you may see multiple versions of C++ and .NET libraries installed on a typical Windows system.

In the quiet words of the Virgin Mary, come again?

Regardless of whether it's a manufacturer issue, the consumer protection laws state it's the vendor who is responsible for dealing with a customer's problem. It's then for the vendor to deal with the manufacturer.

Security or stability fixes can cause issues, although Android does a very good job of isolating the low level stuff that usually gets updated for these kinds of changes from the higher level libraries an app developer works with. But my experience of dealing with code written by less competent or just downright lazy programmers is that if you design something to be idiot proof, the universe will design a better idiot.

If the app support is advertised by the manufacturer as a feature, then it would make an interesting case for testing the applicability of the Sales of Goods Act and Consumer Rights Act. The laws in these kinds of areas are usually interpreted from the perspective of what an "ordinary" member of the public would mean them to be. So it would come down to whether a court decides that support on the current version of the most popular mobile operating system of a major feature is reasonable from the perspective of the purchaser of such a device. Edited just to add, based on my own experience developing software that includes Android apps, Mooer would have access to the beta and pre-release versions of any new version of the operating system. They don't have to scramble to catch up to changes only after a new version is released.

If the app is broken on current versions of Android, then the guitar is definitely not working as advertised. I'd take this as a warning to not buy any "smart" devices, since you're relying on the manufacturer to provide updates as the app platforms evolve. Most don't produce an update after the initial, often buggy, release. Others go out of business, and the device loses some or all of its functionality as the remote services it requires disappear. Same goes for software bought on a subscription model - it's the dream for software companies, as it generates a lot of repeat revenue rather than a one off purchase. Something like the subscription option for Roland's Cloud offering, where you'll lose all access to your virtual instruments or effects if you can no longer pay. Even if they offer an outright purchase, that's usually just for a license key not the software itself, so cannot be sold on even if it's an add on for a hardware device that you wish to sell it with.

Son of Giggles (hereafter SoG for brevity) had its first rehearsal tonight. Finished the first song and our drummer commented that it was the best bass sound he'd ever heard. He's right - the Bass Baby sounds awesome, even better than the V-S Bassamp, and is also incredibly loud. The amp is going to get the full works: - Plastic corners sanded and buffed to remove the scuffs. - All electrolytic capacitors replaced with top quality new ones. - All tarnished screws, handle fittings and so forth cleaned with wire wool and then nickel plated. - All knobs and sliders thoroughly cleaned with Deoxit. The tolex has barely any marks on it, so with the above work and a couple of new knobs I should be able to get it into lovely condition.

As Baldrick told Blackadder, there's good money to be made down the docks. Doing favours for sailors.

Email just sent to MAJ Electronic - looks like they have knobs available to replace the two mismatched ones! Also seeing if they have the service manual, as I'm going to strip it down for a service and give it a spring clean.

Kicking myself that I passed up the chance to get a black Alembic Spoiler that was for sale on evilBay for an affordable price a bunch of years ago. I think the black finish must have made it less desirable, since it hid the no doubt lovely wood the bass was made from. Always wanted one, as Peter Steele of Type O Negative used a Spoiler - it was his main recording bass even after it was retired from live use thanks to its fragile state from years of abuse.

So a number of years ago, a HH 2x15 bass cabinet nicknamed "Giggles" was sold on this here site by @itsat34. There ensued a fun tale of Giggles getting from Essex to France where it now resides with @Dad3353. Fast forward to the present, and I'm on the lookout for a HH cabinet to match my HH Bassamp VS. One popped up on Gumtree near(ish) to me, complete with a HH Bass Baby head. I travel over to collect it in a ZipCar that the previous renter and chums had clearly smoked copious amounts of weed in. The car stank, had lots of detritus in the back from the bout of munchies the weed smokers must have suffered, and to top it all the heating didn't work. It turns out I'm buying the HH stack from @itsat34, and after his lovely wife made me a cup of tea I learn the story of the original Giggles. So now I've christened the HH stack "Son of Giggles", although it's journey to a new home was far simpler - albeit in a freezing cold car that reeked of super strength skunk. Lots of great sounds in the EQ section of the Bass Baby as it distorts in a very pleasing way at higher settings of each slider, while the compressor on the top channel goes from subtle to super squished. So now I have two, quite different sounding HH amps that I'm rather enamoured with. The temptation is to get another HH cabinet, and run them in a dual amp setup via my home made Ric-O-Sound splitter box.

He states in his book "Substance" that he used 105, 085, 065, 065 during the New Order era. I had to switch to 060 for the G as the 065 was just too much tension, and that's the same gauges used in his signature set of Elites from the Bass Centre. I use Newtone strings though, as from what I recall they were Hooky's choice before switching to the signatures set because Newtone could also supply the equally odd mix of gauges he uses on his Shergold six stringers.

I use a Yamaha BB1200 for a Joy Division tribute act, and it's strung like Hooky has his with a fairly heavy D string for both D and G. That took some getting used to, but makes the melodic bits he does on the G with a droning open D really stand out.