Happy Jack

Luckily enough, feedback turns out to be a renewable resource so all this wanton 'feedback destruction' does not represent a problem for humanity's long-term future.

The "foam" they use for this isn't like packing foam, or even the 'pluck & shape' hard foam that you get in flight cases and similar. This is a far more rubbery extruded stuff, higher density, much greater tensile strength. It's designed to be easily removed and replaced at will, but the little curlicues at each end of the 'f' are inevitably a weak spot. Once installed, my feeling is to just leave them in there.

Pretty grim in small venues, much less so on festival stages. If it gets started it can be very difficult to control (remember I'm self-mixing the signal that goes to the board) so I have foam f-hole blockers permanently in place. They work really well and I can't recall the last time I suffered from aluminium feedback. @Silvia Bluejay, can you remember?

Yup, saw all this on Facebook. @RonC How much does it weigh?

Shirley, you mean WD40? 😂

Mine's shinier than yours! 👽 I could have 'snagged it', as you say, but I already have three DBs here ... Obvs I have no idea how your new baby will sound, but be aware that I ended up using a twin-pickup system on mine to tame the Mad Oildrum Syndrome. I have one under the bridge foot to pick up the sound of the body, i.e. the oildrum, and one using the rockabilly approach (bridge wing + under the end of the fingerboard) to pick up the sound of the strings & slap ... then I feed both signals through that rather nice EA Doubler I bought from you last year, self-mix, and feed a single signal to the board. And no, you can't have it back. 😂

I feel duty-bound to point out that, had I known there were two Basschatters with a genuine interest in buying that bass, I would of course NOT have bid at all. 🙄 As Beattie once pointed out (ask your Mum), "It's good to talk". 😉

Not since they brought in Chip and PIN ...

Very lucky indeed - at that price it's a steal. Or is that steel? Anyway. I put in a single bid at £2000 just in case I got lucky, but I already have an ally DB and I really don't need another one so I didn't bother to counter-bid when it went past me.

Hugh Bradley's style is something I try to emulate when play in my rock'n'roll / rockabilly band but a couple of points. 1. I bet he has calluses that you could roller-skate on, playing with that 'sliding off the string' technique. 2. In my experience, 'proper' slap DB simply disappears the moment you introduce a drummer. Most of the DB players I've seen on the circuit are either slapping or trying to, because that's what the genre demands, but if you actually listen with your ears rather than your eyes, there ain't nuthin' there. That's why faking it (my own choice of technique) works just fine.

With a bit of bodgework, this should fit ...

So anyway, I hesitate to ask, but ...

If you can bring that anywhere near London, I'll be there. 😎 Mama tol' me, yes she tol' me ...

In principle, he's not wrong. Once you have a 'full' set of songs then inevitably any incoming song will result in an outgoing song. That said, if you need three sets of material then the best place to be is to have FIVE sets of material fully-rehearsed and gig-ready, so that you can shuffle the deck and keep things interesting. On the 'playing all the parts' thing, it's easy (as a keyboard player) to think that you need to supply the horns AND the strings AND the piano AND the Hammond, and no, you can't do it all, all at the same time. But you don't need to. The audience will be hearing the song in their head anyway. Just so long as you don't leave out any vital hook, lick or riff to snap them back into the real world, you'll be fine. I have plenty of songs where the intro is on organ, the verse is on piano, the bridge is on strings, but all the audience remember later is the horn stabs in the chorus. 🙄

That's the metric system for you ...

So are we ready yet to move on to Swindon?

No mention of Evel Knievel?

Unincorporated, mate. Doesn't count. 😂

It's one of the few UK town names that they haven't recycled in the USA? 😉

You can stick the battery compartment on the back of the upper horn ... makes no difference to the operation.

So far so good. The CR2032 lasts for ages, the LED strip is still absolutely fine, the glue has yet to fail, I'm really very happy with it.

Damn! You are slightly too far West for me to apply. Should the band choose to relocate 120 miles East-bound, to maybe Slough or High Wycombe, just give me a bell. 👍 GLWTS

Need a bassist?

The Stage Bug works perfectly with passive instruments, unless they have a particularly low output. Even then, we all have such extreme levels of overkill built into our rigs these days that you're never going to run out of headroom.

Fake news ...