Happy Jack

@Bill Fitzmaurice, doesn't this apply only to all-valve amps? When I had an Orange Terror it never even crossed my mind to worry about stand-by because it's a Class D power module. Or am I getting that completely wrong, as usual?

I do not understand your question. Can you please ask again using different words?

Make mine a hectare ...

https://www.stanleytools.co.uk/products/detail/Products/STORAGE/Tool+bags/STANLEY®+FATMAX®+Quick+Access+Open+Bag

Beat me to it .

I won't buy any bass strings unless I know what colour the silks are ...

As I said earlier, I don't have THE ANSWER. What I do have is recognition that nobody dares have a sensible, grown-up discussion about this so long as any suggestion that current policy is not the right answer leads to being pilloried in the media, and on social media. Such as Basschat. "Poor analysis of incomplete data"? At present, there is no mention in the mainstream media that the data are incomplete, because that would undermine public confidence that Boris Johnson is a heroic leader and world-reknowned expert in the field of epidemiology. Any serious challenge to the nonsense that we are fed daily is stifled. In truth, it is all very reminiscent of the official suppression of any genuine research into whether or not recreational drugs are dangerous and, if so, which ones. So long as we all focus on the WAR ON DRUGS and write hysterical articles about crack cocaine, nobody will mention that the most widespread and dangerous recreational drug in Western Civilisation is in fact alcohol, and that nicotine is (and always has been) massively more dangerous than THC. Irrelevant to the Covid-19 argument, do you think? I disagree. That particular piece of very deliberate distraction and misguidance has been a constant feature of government policy for decades now. It has been really very effective, and I have genuine concerns that the Covid-19 issue will take the same path.

After a career spent dealing with solely financial statistics, nothing scientific or medical, I find one of the most appalling aspects of all this is that government policy is based almost entirely on stats that are known to be (at best) massively incomplete and (at worst) totally misleading. I play in two 3-piece bands, so that's five musicians in total. I know for a fact that all five of us contracted Covid-19 in the back-end of March following packed pub gigs just before the Lockdown. So that's 100%. I also know for a fact that not one of us is captured in the official stats for those who have had Covid-19. So that's 0%. That is a tiny, tiny sample size and does NOT automatically apply to 68 million people, but it rather raises a doubt in my mind when I read that 5% or 10% of the population have had Covid-19 so the measures we are taking are designed to protect the 90% or 95% who haven't yet had it. In purely scientific terms, I reckon that's complete and utter bollocks. What if the split is 50/50? Would the current measures still make sense? What if the split is 90/10 in favour of people having had (or been exposed to) Covid-19? Would the current measures still make sense then? Without this single, fundamental piece of information, everything we are being told is frankly a lie.

This makes me uncomfortable, because the social comment in this thread is being driven by people whose posts generally I almost invariably agree with ... but here I'm parting company. So long as the discussion is being framed in terms of "do the right thing and nobody dies, do the wrong thing and all those deaths are your fault" then we'll get nowhere. That's trying to isolate and then exaggerate one aspect and one aspect only of this crisis. People die. They die all the time, and in enormous numbers, of a very wide range of causes. We now have a new cause, Covid-19, and quite rightly we're taking it very seriously. But far more people still die of non-Covid causes, and the Covid-19 deaths are running (even with the new peak) at roughly 1.2 people a day per million of population. Is that good? No, of course it''s not. Is that a catastrophe? No, of course it's not. The dreadful situation six months ago largely comprised the accelerated death of people who were anyway close to death, through old age or pre-existing illness. What does 'largely' mean? The most widely quoted official stat that I've seen (do please correct me if I've got this wrong @Beedster, seriously) is that 91.1% of the Covid deaths in the Spring fell under this heading. Is that good? No, of course it''s not. Is that a catastrophe? It may well have been for the many individuals affected, but only in the sense that every death is someone's personal tragedy. I'm nowhere near enough of a hypocrite to be shedding tears over the death from (basically) old age of complete strangers in Dorset or Dumfries. Now take a look at the personal cost other than death to the 68 million people in the UK who haven't died of Covid-19, almost all of whom will end up (in due course) dying of cancer, heart disease, stroke, dementia, etc. That's 68m lives disrupted and/or put on hold and/or stricken by debt and poverty and/or so many other things. [Straw man argument] Ah, but you can't put a price on life, and all the money in the world doesn't justify one death. [/Straw man argument] Does anyone actually believe that? Does anyone actually think this situation can go on for ever? Is anyone happy that we continue to borrow endlessly from our grandchildren to try to keep some people alive who would otherwise have died from natural causes? I am NOT claiming that there's a simple answer to any of this, still less that somehow I am the only person on the planet - or even here on Basschat - who knows the answer. What I AM saying is that sooner or later we will have to recognise that Covid-19 is out there in the general population, it's there for ever, it's highly unlikely that a completely effective vaccine will ever be found, and life must eventually return to some sort of normality. I feel no guilt about the thosands who have died, any more than I feel guilt about those who die in road traffic accidents, even though I drive a car and am therefore part of the problem. I wear a mask where the law says I must, I limit my social interactions (though in truth that has had little effect on my life, what with being retired an' all), I am not a Covid-denier or a conspiracy theorist, in fact I am the very model of a modern socially-responsible bass player, but I am also sick of Project Fear, of the deceit and incompetence of those who govern the country, of the one-sided hysterical nonsense that passes for debate in this country.

It's a very straight-forward line, played mainly at the 12th fret. The I chord (A) is played at the 12th fret on the A string, the IV chord (D) is played at the 12th fret on the D string, and the V chord (E) is played at the 7th fret on the A string.

Unless you're really good at this, chances are your bass will be worth a LOT less afterwards. If you're messing around with a cheap Jap import from the 80s and you don't really care then fair enough. If the bass has any real value, you might want to start by looking at installing an aftermarket fretless neck and keeping the original, fretted neck available to be put back later.

They don't call it heavy metal for nothing ...

I'm surprised to hear that they had enough material to fill three hours!

June 26th 1974 was the date that Bad Company released their first album, and by God was it eponymous. September 18th 1974 they gave the album its London debut at The Rainbow in Finsbury Park. I was there, it was my first big London gig (indoors, anyway, I'd been at the Garden Party at Crystal Palace Bowl in July). The album runs to a staggering 35 whole minutes of playtime. And it was all the material they had. They opened with Can't Get Enough Of Your Love. Then they played the rest of the album. Then they played Can't Get Enough Of Your Love, again. Then they left the stage. The crowd, predictably, went wild. After 10 minutes they came back on again. And played an encore. It was Can't Get Enough Of Your Love.

Are you going to hang it on the wall, too?

Cable? I see no cable ...

I've looked at the Line 6 stuff but I'm a bit put off by the body-pack approach. Because I also sing in my bands, when using DB I always use a headset condenser mic which of course needs a body-pack too. That body-pack I can cope with, I clip it to the outside of the back pocket on my jeans and so long as I don't try to sit down I'm good to go. The cable that runs from the headset mic to the body-pack doesn't bother me since it's there permanently, and I can run it under my shirt and forget about it. Using a body-pack for DB wireless gives me (1) a second body-pack to clip onto a pocket and get confused about which one I'm tweaking mid-song, and (2) a short cable to tether me to the DB which is pretty much exactly what I'm trying to avoid. I've seen you play enough times to know that you're in no way hampered by the body-pack, so am I missing something?

Paul McCartney, died 9th November 1966, replaced by a lookalike early in 1967. Opinions vary as to whether or not this constitutes a reinstatement, but John Lennon apparently thought it was, so that's settled. Next question, please?

Seriously? When I met him, I'm pretty sure his name was Justin ...

The roundwound strings on my fretted Magnum III are D'Addario XLs. The flatwound strings on my fretless Magnum II are absolutely lovely, but I really can't remember which make they are. Even more strangely, neither can @Silvia Bluejay! See if you can recognise them from these:

We need a new website ... Hardcases Reunited. Excellent stuff all round, guys, enjoying this.

Hah! Just got back from a long session in the studio, not about to go back down to check what I have on there, but happy to come back tomorrow. What I can tell you is that I have flats on the fretless II and rounds on the fretted III. I found the Magnum III to be particularly sensitive to string choice. Get it right and it just sounds immense, get it wrong and you'll wonder what the fuss was all about. When I bought the III it was in fairly ropey nick and the strings were very old, tired and corroded. And it still sounded unbelievable. I stuck some decent rounds on it (really can't remember which brand) and it was just 'meh'. Changed the strings for another brand - still 'meh'. Changed one last time and zing! There it was again. Luckily I have enough basses that I can always swop strings between basses, or find a home for a new set, if necessary. If I was bunging £50 at a new set each time, I'd have been getting a mite ticked off by the end.

Feedback of -/ve 255 is actually quite impressive ...

And don't forget his amazing work with ABBA ...