NancyJohnson

Seriously now, it honestly makes zero difference what a shim is made of. I've shimmed basses a few times (before I knew how to set up a bass properly) and have used a playing card, breakfast cereal box, perspex, old credit card etc. There's this perceived thing about sustain. Let's address this first. How long do you let your notes ring out for? Ten seconds? 20? For the love of god, forget about sustain. I have no idea what music you play, but if you're doing anything where your tempo is less than say two beats a minute, you're not going to notice anything, if at all. Tone. Ack. Are you a solo bass player, treading the boards alone? Probably not. Any (perceived) change of tone from your choice of shim material will be net zero; you'll want to hear something and will convince yourself things are different, but they won't be. If you're in a band, any (perceived) nuances in tone will be lost completely. If you're playing live, seriously, nobody in the audience cares about your hardwood shim or whether you're apparently getting more whump/ponk/whatever.

Tone? From your hands, bonny lad.

Not that anyone is remotely interested, but I have tomorrow off, we've cracked open a rather nice bottle of red and are listening to Max Richter's reinterpretation of The Four Seasons. Both versions. It's freaking superb.

Meh, meh and meh.

Feasible that you just got lucky and the wood is doing the job of keeping the neck straightish without the truss rod being cranked.

Buy which one you want. Industry standard? Bwahaha. No. Nothing matters any more.

Not in the slightest. Pretty much every band I followed in my youth are (sadly) still out there doing it in some capacity or another and I honestly wish they weren't. It simply dilutes any legacy. I want to remember Vince Neil trying to sing in tune as a skinny drug-riddked brat, not trying to sing in tune as a soberish bloated guy in his middle-60s. Little interest in revisting any of these bands (or singers fronting new line-ups) live, either. Read my post on page 7 of this thread:

It's odd, when I was a kid, it was all 18-30 holidays, the original supermodels, yuppies and so on. All these people are now pushing 60 (at least) and they're all desperately looking to hold onto something from their youth. Look at Kiss, Simmons is 75 or something, Madonna is 65, Nikki Sixx is 64, same goes Joe Elliot. Vince Neil 62 and despite his stomach surgery, he lumps around like a beached pilot whale and still can't sing. I love early Motley and was a huge fan of Kiss until about 1980, but there's no merit whatsoever in what they're doing now and it just p*sses over whatever remains of their legacy. I'm not being ageist, but if that was mum up there doing what Madonna is doing, I'd be horrendously embarrassed. There is nothing remotely sexy or alluring about what she's doing, despite what she probably thinks. Thing is, nobody has got the strength to tell these people that it's time to stop, give it up and go live off your millions. But hey, there's always one more payday.

I have a bit of a nickel allergy, I'll experience tingly/sensitive fingertips and a bit of dry/flaky skin. Strings. Elixir Nanowebs. Coating doesn't flake off and they last yonks. I've had the same ones on my Lulls since pre-pandemic and they're still pretty zingy.

There's certainly a ton of bands out there that are still gigging when they're well past theur sell-by date, but if tickets sell then they'll keep doing shows. Look at recent/ongoing/upcoming tours by Kiss, Motley Crue/Def Leppard, Elton John, Madonna, Stevie Nicks (and so on); IMO these should all have hung up their boots many years ago, but until people stop paying £250 for a seat in the gods to watch a lipsynching granny in basque cavort about with dancers half her age, then they'll keep doing it.

Diminishing returns. It might actually be cheaper to source a new neck rather than to cover the cost of a refret. No idea of the model you're considering selling, the market value or what you reckon you could sell it for, but assume a refret will cost you £250-300. That's a sizeable unrecoverable percentage of the current instrument value.

Good grief. F a n n y.

I have (to give it its full title), Here Come The Double Deckers on DVD. It's a wonderful thing. Pretty frightening to think that Peter Firth, who played Scooper, was 70 yesterday.

I think there's a ton of songs that are so ingrained on me it wouldn't matter if I never heard them again. Doubt very much that when I'm drawing my final breath that I'll have any regrets about not listening to Detroit Rock City one more time.

Chortle. My mum knew a guy who was at DHL when it was a smallish operation here, just expanding into Europe, so mid-late 1970s. He was always on the lookout for 'smart, intelligent kids' to courier documents to New York/Boston and back; flight there, cab (or picked up from the airport) into Manhattan, wait for documents to be signed, overnight somewhere if necessary, cab back to airport, fly home. It was cheaper to fly and pay a 14/15 year old rather than an adult and cheaper as you weren't on the payroll. Foolishly I never took his offer up, but a friend of mine did it quite a few times; he'd just throw a Monday or Friday sickie from school (he'd fly out early Friday morning and be in Manhattan around lunchtime), 'grumbling appendix' was the main reason given, all with his parent's approval! He'd take orders for records, so he'd come back with a rucksack of vinyl and always had loads of ready £££. He claims to have popped his cherry on one trip. What a life. I envy him to this day and he still has his appendix!

When I was reading this part, first thing I thought was - assuming it is/was a production line instrument - surely the same bass would be available somewhere in the colonies already. And cheaper.

Music documentary, we watched the craddock film on BBC iPlayer earlier. 5/5.

I suppose I look on these units like a comfy pair of slippers; Ithe trials and tribulations I've gone through with the AO900 just prompted me to (re)investigate the POD again. Oddly, and in consideration of the journey so far, I was always happy tonally with what the Bass POD did, it was largely the design that was it's downfall. Suppose it's in our nature to strive for betterment of sorts. Ultimately when I unearthed my desired tones (and saved them) on the POD, I rarely strayed from these. When the POD went, I just went straight to a Sansamp BDDI. I've seen these units for about £100 online. It might be worth a punt at some point. I wouldn't mind another rack.

Anyone running one of these? The rack version: It's odd, I've gone through so much kit in the last 20-odd years, ran one of the kidney-shaped Bass PODs for a while but the rack XT passed me by. I've seen a few on eBay/Reverb in the last few days and am wondering how they've stood the test of time in the last 10-15 years and I just have a little hankering for one. You don't see them come up that often. There must be hundreds of them just sitting under beds.

To this day, I still really enjoy early Rush (aside from Caress of Steel), but fell out of love from Signals on. The one overriding thing with them though - Neil Peart included - is that it's obvious there's huge chemistry between them, there's humour and they really don't seem to have any issue in poking fun as themselves. Just look at the dinner film they did. It's hilarious. Like many of us here, we've seen the Beyond The Lighted Stage documentary and from this and the many interviews with Geddy and Alex, like Taylor Swift, they seem incredibly likeable - the Dan Rather thing with Geddy Lee was great too. I'm of the belief that the joy we can get from Geddy transcends music itself. Looking forward to this.

Just saw an advertisement on my Instagram feed. Paramount+ 5/12/23. Geddy Lee; 'Are Bass Players Human Too?' This looks good fun.

Your comments pretty much mirror my experiences. Around 20 years ago I started using a bass POD (into the effects return of an Ashdown MAG combo); this was back when Line6 were actively sharing settings that allowed you to emulate (well known) player's tone(s). Looking back, this was one of my happiest times. A revelation. As time went on, the outboard kit got smaller (BDDI,GT2, VTBASSDI) and amplification got bigger. I started using a rack/Poweramp set up (RBI, then the GED unit). I bought a dUg and GED2112DI for recording and then the AO900 arrived; as mentioned earlier, I honestly figured it would be a one-box solution to my needs. It's a head that needs curating; to achieve parity from bass to bass it's easier to simply do the work with the basses so the tonal characteristics of each one are more or less the same. Once you have the amp set up to your requirements, it's a fantastic thing. It's the journey there that's a bit lumpy. Writing this is a little cathartic. I'd almost forgotten about the POD entirely, but it was a huge part of the journey tonally. It was just so damn simple to just jack it into an amp and it sounded fantastic. ...just off to eBay for a peruse.

I owned a Landmark 300 head for a while - decent but not loud enough/enough headroom. Could never find a 600w one. I suppose my point was more about if @Tech21NYC could produce a compact/loud Class-D head with an RBI front end, I'd be set for life. Giving this a little more thought (a dangerous thing, that), wouldn't it be a thing if there was a one box modular head (like the MarkBass MoMark thing) whereby you bought a 900w class-D amp/box and you could simply slot in a GED/dUg/Harris module.

Oooh. I honestly thought he'd used a baritone guitar on that. So there's two channels of bass, then. The ponk on the intro/left channel is Campbell playing Danelectro Longhorn (apparently). Carol Kaye played a regular Precision on it. This is quite beautiful: