NancyJohnson

I don't currently own any basses that I hate, but I've certainly had some munters 

Used a '79 Precision for yonks; awful.  Yeah, I could have traded it against something different, but I didn't.

5 hours ago, MothMan said:

Trio Mandili - Bella ciao

 

 

It's all very sweet, but you can just imagine this lot becoming the darlings of a future edition of Later... and the audience of hipsters just whooping it up.

First day back at work for a week and I'm running the the Missing Persons back catalogue.

While I favour Gator bags, if you want a well made and sturdy bag for the stuff you're stating, check out Troop London.  Cavernous, loads of pockets, different sizes/colours etc. great for just chucking stuff in.

We've got three in different sizes; used them for gigs and holidays.  Currently in Madeira and there's two up in the hotel room as I type.

10/10

https://www.trooplondon.com/collections/all-bags

My mum had a longstanding embargo on buying Irish after my brother got shot in Northern Ireland.

It was actually said brother who talked her round: 'It was the IRA who tried to kill me,' he said. 'Not the people working for Kerrygold.'

Good grief.  Everyone knows that once it's got a ding it's time to chop it in for something better.

I owned one of these a while back; while I can't speak for the mods here, from a playability perspective it was dreamy.  Mine had quite a flat fingerboard profile (very reminiscent of my Lull); it balanced wonderfully.  £900 for one of these with the add-ons is an absolute bargain. 

On a bit of a Pavement twist at the moment.

12 minutes ago, Linus27 said:

As with the band that was signed...

Sorry, just looking to fast track an answer.  Who were you playing with?

Never been pro, nearly signed to Polydor in the mid-80s but that fell through ('sorry lads, we're really only interested in your young, hot singer').  I do think of what might have been, but to be honest there's the niggle in the back of my head that only a tiny, tiny percentage of pro-players (or jobbing musicians) go on to make decent money and most wouldn't have anywhere near the level of lifestyle I have now.  Weigh in that I would never have met my wife etc.

Could I be a pro?  That's another question entirely.  About a year ago I joined a band that had what is colloquially referred to as having 'a known front man'.  I genuinely liked the guy, but a musician he was not; I honestly thought that association would somehow be a step up to better gigs, better circles of musicians, better riders and getting paid (being married, I had little interest in the prospect of being surrounded by loose women).  Even in his early 60s, he was still carrying the insane dream of making-it. 

If my experience is tantamount to being a working musician, then shove it really; the weekly Zoom calls analysing performance at the previous weekend's gigs were just awful, the little tantrums, the persistent tellings-off, lack of fun and endless repetition of the same fecking 13 songs were just nails in the coffin.  God knows what it would be like working with someone really famous.  George McFly punches would fly.

I don't know about anyone else, but those Jazz pickups in soapbar routs really isn't doing anything for my OCD.

Just now, woodster said:

That’s my point, the “doesn’t really deteriorate” definitely didn’t work for me! 
 

Maybe it’s another example

of snake oil? Those who seem most perturbed about my dislike of Elixirs are the ones spending their hard earned gig money on them. 

Gig money?  People get paid for gigging?  😂

1 hour ago, woodster said:

Elixirs are like marmite, you love ‘em or you hate ‘me. 
For me the longevity just doesn’t work so they’re not “worth the money.”

Reckon most people would sooner pay a slightly more premium price for something that doesn't really deteriorate.  

I love these quotes about Keith Richards' guitar tech and killing a set of Elixirs in four gigs.  Go you!  

Here's the original LongEvo thread.  

This answers where I got mine from (promotion through a business called MSL Pro, who haven't visited Basschat in a propriety basis since June 2021); reading through the thread, it's odd how time/hindsight changes/refreshes/blurs opinion.  When they were fresh on, I seemed perfectly happy/positive about pretty much everything but fast forward to January 2023 and while yes, they'd been on the Hamer for a while (by comparison the Elixirs will have been on everything else for way longer) my observations were:

...had a couple of four hour rehearsal sessions - took the Lull to the first one (Elixir Nanowebs) and the Hamer on the second (LongEvo) - by way of observation the LongEvos were a little like running through treacle.  They felt a bit sticky (for want of a better description) if that makes sense...I tend to do a lot of work at the nut end and slide up to dusty end for embellishments, but they were quite hard going.  The Elixirs are almost self-lubricating by comparison.

3 hours ago, nekomatic said:

I see that Bass Direct list Mark Bass 'LongEvo' coated strings in stainless steel or nickel, and Ernie Ball also have coated strings although I can only see those in nickel - all at a little bit cheaper than Elixirs. Can anyone comment on any of those?

There's a thread elsewhere here about LongEvo strings, I can't wholly remember how I got a set of them, but they were on a reduced introduction price.  Might have been a direct purchase from Mark Bass.

Anyhow, moving along.  Interesting enough experiment, can't remember which bass they went on.  They were OK, but given there's several manufacturers making coated strings, there just didn't seem to be anything in the product that made me think it was worth repurchasing.  Just reverted to form and went back to Elixirs!  You get what you pay for.

25 minutes ago, bubinga5 said:

£4000 on a bass, no way.. Amazing and I mean amazing basses out there for £1500 to £2000 second hand, even 4th hand. For me a Lakland 5502 deluxe and Aguilar. But if I had to..  USA Lakland, Suhr, Sadowsky, MTD, F Bass, .  

I have a couple of basses that cost me more than £4,000.00 each.  They're lovely and all, but realistically are they worth 40 (or 55) times the money my old Aria bass owes me?  Nooooo.

I have little preference for scale length.  They're all as simple as each other to be honest. I've switched between 30/34/35 without issue.

Sure if I was five feet tall, a 35" scale bass would be problematic, but at 6'4" it's not a problem.

$4k in the US (unless this is a typo), will buy you significantly more than £3.2k here on a direct exchange value; I think we'd all concur a $4k US ticket price would be £4k here (so nearer $5k).

The answer to what are you buying is much the same as that expressed elsewhere, nothing mainstream.  I'd be looking at used Hamer, Mike Lull, Kubicki; if the budget extended to geetars I'd try and find a first run Ibanez Destroyer.

6 minutes ago, ern500evo said:

Once you notice the gurning and mouth noises, you can’t watch his videos without focusing on it 😂 As you say, im sure he’s a very nice guy, I’d just prefer to see someone else demo it, he works for Tech21 so he’s not exactly unbiased 

I honestly don't get the posting to You Tube thing.  Obviously it's worked for TS, but what do people expect from this?  Recognition?  Praise/approval?  A roasting?  There's thousands of them up there, noodling.  There's probably a few guys who aren't with us any more as well, whose family can take cold comfort in them being forever immortalised on You Tube playing along with YYZ.

Perhaps there's also a small minority that are actually thinking, 'Oh, maybe one day the phone will ring and it'll be Alex.  He'll sound desperate and go, 'Hey, this is Alex from Rush.  Ged has hurt his hand, we saw your cover of Red Barchetta and we so blown away that we wanted to see if you're free Thursday for the show in Nashville.  Have you got a kimono?''

Dunno.

1 hour ago, ern500evo said:

I’ll be quite interested to see an in depth demo/review of the XB, preferably not done by Tim. Would like to see Amos Heller demo it 

I'd concur about Tim Starace, at least.  I'm sure he's a nice enough chap, but his whole 'career' seems to be pretty much off standing on the shoulders of a giant.  I find his gurning while playing somewhat off-putting as well.

'Yeah mate, we know you can play those lines, but you didn't actually write those lines, now did ya now, eh?'

Just now, wateroftyne said:

IMO no. The fewer silos the better.

I like looking at photos of basses as much as the next person; I did a quick count a few days ago and the ratio of basses was something like 7:1 in favour of Fender shapes.

You're a Precision-lad; you can get a fix of all those one trick ponies in their own area!  😘

Given the amount of Precisions, Jazzes and Fenderesque basses in the sale area, is it time to consider splitting the bass area into two areas; all 'Fender style' and everything else?

Likewise amplifiers.  Split into heads, enclosures, everything else (combos, rigs).

I'm honestly amazed that this is still here.  These are wonderful, wonderful instruments.  

Wake up kids!

Phoenix.  French indie.

On 03/02/2024 at 14:12, Billy Woodfield said:

Hi All, looking at putting some new pickups in my squeir PJ. 
 

ideally looking for a vintage 60s/70s sound. 
 

Anyone have any recommendations? 
 

Cheers

Please quantify 'vintage 60s/70s sound'.  What tone are you actually chasing?  Ponk?  Clank?  Mwaaaaah?

You have to realise that Fender were never so hot or consistent with how they wound pickups and remember this is a company that signed off on putting Stratocaster pickups in Musicmaster/Mustang basses as they had a huge surplus of them.

As I've posted elsewhere, it's really not worth 'upgrading' unless the pickups are dead or have failed.  It's just one facet in the signal chain.

Save your money.