NancyJohnson

There used to be a website called 'phat fingers' (or something) where you could punch in (for instance) 'Squier' and it would search eBay for near misses, like Squire, Squeer etc. Right, I'm off to search for a Febner Jizz Base.

Reckon it's more a case that all the elder statesmen on this site have probably reached a point where they've amassed what they really like and feel there's simply nothing of any merit for sale through Gumtree/Marketplace etc. Personally I've little interest in Sire/Squire/Ibanez/G4M kit, which seems to be the mainstay of these sites; this isn't to say I got lucky a few years back with my Aria Primary bass. I did see a gorgeous Mike Lull T4 on Marketplace one time, but couldn't scrape together the £££ at such short notice.

Public Service Broadcasting at The Barbican, this Saturday.

Ordered the UGreen one. I had no idea the USB socket would/might output audio. Cheers

Yup. By easy, I don't mean Amazon Prime delivery, but if you search you'll find.

Schaller used to make an eight string bridge; these seem to be easy enough to find - this would allow for intonating the two octaves: The Konig Bassworx bridge is quite elegant:

Thomann have a b-stock 7-string bass for £399. https://www.thomann.co.uk/harley_benton_bz_7000_ii_nt_b_stock.htm Over the years I've seen a few 12-string conversions (the first was off an OLP 5-string). I see stuff like this Harley Benton and do wonder whether it would be ripe for a project. The missus immediately vetoed the idea ("It's £400 and it'll cost you that again once you've tinkered with it, so no!"). How hard would this actually be? Plug the headstock holes, new machines. New (intonating) bridge and nut. Yes, people here would be going, 'String tension!', without really having the science to back up whether the neck would survive

There's no manufacturing defect; the geometry on Squier headstocks is always different to the full-fat Fender models. Always been the case.

It just happened quite naturally. We'd be in a room and would just tweak things as our ears went numb as things got louder. There was an inevitability that we'd all be fighting for our frequency.

Need to get some audio from a Samsung phone into a Scarlet interface (it's off a theremin app). Old school, I'd just have taken a feed out of the headphone socket (stereo minijack/ twin mono 1/4" jacks lead), but of course the new phone hasn't got a headphone hack socket. Looking for recommendations for some kind of Bluetooth receiver (or whatnot) that I can plug into the interface. Practical experience appreciated. Help!

Don't be silly now, eh? 😁

I had a lovely Bongo 5HH and likewise, could never dial it in. I enquired here about whether there was any way to just run it passive as it was uncontrollable; you'd start a rehearsal/gig with a nice tone, then you'd slowly notch up and up and up and a hour later it would just sound like mush. At the time, could never really determine whether the bass had passive pickups/active circuit or whether the pickups were active themselves and there was an additional active circuit. I gather from previous enquiries it's the latter, so in hindsight it would have meant pulling all the guts. There still doesn't seem to be any direct drop in replacement pickups for these, either. Looking at the board, there's nothing on there to turn down the output on the board itself.

We'll be issuing everyone with a sticker like this. Just put your Basschat username/real name on it. This will allow you exit/access.

As mentioned earlier, just bring a few (interesting) bits. Edging on the side of reason, people would be far more engaged in something different, rather than another Precision or Jazz. Also, it's a village hall, not the O2. 😏

Well, it's started. This inevitable urge to simply go back to passive basses. I suppose getting handy with the soldering iron over the last few months on other basses, I've decided to start putting the basses that have had retro-fitted active electrons installed, back to passive. I'm just sick of batteries, and the disparity from bass to bass. Obviously the Spector is the only one that came with the preamp installed as stock, so that will be unaltered. Bliss.

We have two rooms here, one with a little stage. We're putting on the timed stuff on the staged area (see post #1); it's feasible that you could do something in the second room, but obviously there's no guarantee of an audience, given the crossover in the main room.

This post is hurting my eyes. Just keep typing...the text will wrap automatically, no need to keep hitting enter after every few words!

A few years back (2009), I went to see NIN/Jane's Addiction/Street Sweeper at the Docklands O2 on the NINJA tour - it took three hours to get there (and the same back), horrific car park fee and maybe a 25-30 minute walk from the car to the venue. We missed the first band and saw about 15 minutes of Jane's Addiction. In the venue, the staff were literally barking at the punters to keep inside the yellow lines at ground level. It was the most soulless gig I've ever been to and it really tainted my feelings about schlepping up to the smoke for gigs. From memory, that was £35.00 a ticket. I just don't know why people want to go to see live music any more, especially in big places - I recall Steve Jones from the Sex Pistols commenting about why would anyone want to go [to Earl's Court] and see four dots on the stage - now at the big venues, I'd wager people spend more time watching a screen than the blokes on stage. The old Hammersmith gigs, you could swing the car into a parking place under the flyover for nowt, walk in and be home an hour after the gig. As @neepheid says, someone is having a huge laugh at the punter's expense; also take into account all that money sitting in a bank account for the next nine months earning 5%.

Don't go to a lot of gigs now; ticket prices aside, I honestly abhor the inconvenience and associated costs of the journey in and back (generally Reading to Landaan), the cost of getting a pint etc. Anyhoo...on to ticket prices. Guess I'm a little behind the curve here, but interest spiked when I read the happy news that Sugar had reformed and are doing two dates in London next May. Got the mailing list presale, no prices, navigated through that, no prices, tickets in basket, no prices, get to the end £62.10 a pop, plus a ticket agency fee. (God knows how the 10p element was calculated out.). At which point, I just shut down Firefox and went and made a coffee. My head was reeling... You're probably looking at £200+ to see a band play for 75 minutes. Old enough to remember going to see Rush at Hammersmith and the ticket was under £4.00. Five bands at the Lyceum for under £5.00. These prices seemed reasonable at the time, even adjusted for inflation.

Van Halen - Live In Pittsburgh 98. Blimus!

Honestly, Jellyfish should have been enormous. Off the scale enormous. Luckily there's enough projects involving everyone involved (well, except Sturmer) to satiate the desire for music. If you've gotten past theose, check out Sugarbomb.

There's this allusion that you need to buy these angled shims for £££, because anything else will have an adverse effect on tone (chortle) and sustain (chortle, again). Just make sure the neck is straight, then pop in a bit of playing card, business card, sandpaper, cornflake box into the back of the neck pocket, screw the neck back on and continue the set up. There's probably hundreds/thousands of vintage Fenders that have never had the neck off that are harbouring all manner of horrors in the pocket, and nobody is complaining about those not housing $30 StewMac shims.

Or not that kind of stuff. 😄

This is worth a watch, too. I'm sure it's been posted here previously.

Once you get past the XTC and Dukes regular release stuff, I would strongly suggest delving into Transistor Blast (4CD) and the Coat of Many Cupboards (4CD) collections. Andy Partridge's 'Fuzzy Warbles' collection (just the nine CDs) is great, as is his Failed Songwriting Career EPs. Andy has also done the Powers and Monstrance albums, which for the sake of completion are worth a listen, although probably not more than the once. Colin's reboot with Terry Chambers as TC&I (EP and Live album) is good. There's also some decent live recordings on the Internet Archive website (from 1978-81). Finally, there's also superb tribute album called 'The Garden of Earthly Delights' on Futureman Records.