Happy Jack

A couple of months ago I was in very nearly the same place Paddy. I'd been using Silver Slaps for years, thought I'd try some genuine guts for the first time, found I loved the D & G but hated the E & A. Paul suggested replacing the E & A with Evah Pirazzis, which I did, and they're a near-perfect match. I'm really very happy with them. I'd go with Paul if I were you.

My first thought when I saw those strings was, someone has already 'touched up' that knot and used a sharpie (or similar) which contains a fair bit of red. When you were playing all those riffs on the G-string your sweat or the sanitiser (alcohol-based, I'm guessing) has dissolved some of that ink and your fingers have then transferred it to the strings. I hope I'm wrong, really I do, but if that's what's happened then my feeling is that the bass needs to go back for a full refund. At the very least, I'd share that photo with the vendor and ask them to explain. And to answer your question explicitly, that discoloration is not even slightly 'normal' ... it's deeply weird.

There is a new version of Reaper (6.15) as of today. Rather wonderfully, it informs me that: REAPER has experimental native support for Linux, and the Windows version works well with WINE. Not being a great wine drinker these days, I'm experimenting with IPA instead.

One from the archives: I first saw this (or a version of it) perhaps 20 years ago ...

Brittany Spears is a basketball player. Was this who you had in mind?

That would be a negatory, Houston (beep]. Switching off/on, clearing my cache, deleting cookies, nowt makes a difference. Ah well, the only reason (since they moved their shop from the North Circular to Luton) I continued to make them my first-choice supplier was a certain misplaced brand loyalty. No matter ... there's hundreds of the buggers out there.

So a Dell Optiplex 3020 is a notorious bot-driven device?

I guess that makes me Papa ...

Shhhhh ... I don't like to talk about her when @Silvia Bluejay is around.

I wouldn't mind so much if they had actually asked me to do a Captcha thing and I'd managed to fail it. In fact, no Captchas were injured in the making of this topic, and I've had an account with these clowns for years. Given how many hundreds of competitors are out there on't Net trying to take away their customers, I am genuinely staggered at this degree of incompetence.

An email I sent five minutes ago to Studiospares: I've bought loads of stuff from you over the years, both online and from your old shop on the North Circular Road. If you want me to ever buy anything else from you, I suggest you get rid of the attached insulting nonsense. And do it bloody quickly. There's a lot of competition out there.

Pah! Next thing you'll be telling me that a Squier P-bass can sound as good as a pre-CBS Precision worth £6000!

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Porter-and-Davies-BC2-KT-Bass-Guitar-Monitoring-system-Platform/324341614323?hash=item4b844446f3:g:eDkAAOSwXTVfjth5

Much as I'd love to be able to reproduce, note for note, the basslines to all my favourite songs, there are a few issues that would intervene. 1. Many of them have no 'agreed' absolute original line. I was actually listening to John Pattitucci's line for How Sweet It Is earlier today, which he says is the line that Jamerson actually played, and frankly I don't agree. [Spoiler: He's probably right and I'm probably wrong.] 2. I am fairly promiscuous in a band/music sense. Right now I'm 'in' three bands and I occasionally dep for at least two more. Each of those five bands has at least three hours' worth of repertoire, so I need to be gig ready with at least 15 and in reality perhaps 25 hours of music covering Hank Williams to Bruno Mars. Playing every note of every song exactly like the original is a pointless exercise. 3. @MacDaddy is quite right. When I play Elvis in a 3-piece someone has to provide the missing piano fills, when I play Sam & Dave in a 3-piece someone has to be the brass section occasionally. If I get all up myself and refuse to play something because "well Duck Dunn never played that", chances are the band isn't going to last long. 4. There are some depths I will not plumb. Just because the original bassline contained slap, there's no need for me to sully my pristine fingers with such pathetic, desperate behaviour.

I did wonder if anyone would recognise it ...

Well I'm out on the road and my car's brand new Least it was when I bought it in '72 From a guy who'd had it since '54 And he thought it was new but he couldn't be sure But it looks new From a distance

Well ... (1) it's an auction, so being at £300 doesn't excite me, and (2) 'Reserve Not Met' means that we have no clue whether or not this will ever be bargain.

That would be very helpful, Richard, even if that turns out not to be the exact system I go for. IT prices and capability change so fast that your spec can only be 'a moment in time' but it would serve as a sensible benchmark for me (and everyone else).

Just in case you're a semi-obsolete dinosaur with no real understanding of video technology, who has been tempted to experiment with video editing software (such as Reaper) by this thread, do make sure before you start that you are running a 64-bit version of Windows AND you have downloaded the latest 64-bit version of VLC (go to www.videolan.org ). Shouting & swearing at a blank screen that isn't doing any of the stuff they show it doing in the tutorial videos is not good for the soul. Don't ask me how I know.

Just to finish this off, the refurbed amp arrived within 24 hours and now works perfectly.

That'll be Howard, the drummer with Red Herring. He's had that bass for sale (at a very optimistic price) since I depped with them in August 2017. GLWTS

Contact Kris Kedzior on [email protected] His number used to be +44(0)7793 741 759 but that's a few years old and may have changed. In those days he was based in Staines.