Dan Dare

Not up to me. Funerals are for the living. Whatever they want to hear.

Sensible.

Broken Row, OK? No doubt one of those towns where a virgin is a girl who can run faster than her brothers and cousins.

The only time I've noticed this was in a rehearsal room in West London, which was adjacent to the District and Piccadilly lines. The back wall of the studios was right next to the tracks and pretty much at the same level (you could hear the trains rumble past). As power to the underground is at track level, the live rails were probably only a few feet from where we were. There was a definite buzz through the equipment. Never noticed it at the rooms under the arches on the Holloway Road, but the line there is overhead powered. The line above the old Allan Gordon rooms in Leyton wasn't electrified at the time I used it. It's now overhead power, too.

When I have to learn new stuff, I make charts - chords and structure, plus notation for any essential lines/parts. Then I have it playing in the house and car on repeat until I'm sick of it. Works for me.

You could say that about many boutique products. Some such are no longer really boutique and have become mainstream to an extent. Given that the industry standard for class D heads seems to be an ICEpower module with a preamp in front of it in a fetching looking metal box, the cost of manufacture probably isn't great, so markup is likely to be enormous.

Yep. I replaced the brake lines on one of my cars with Kunifer 10. Good stuff. Easy to work and bend neatly. Just googled it and it's still available.

With the price difference between real Speakons and knockoffs being so small, it isn't worth saving a few pennies on knockoffs.

Agreed. Unless a desk has extensive eq or you are using an active bass with plenty, it's probably best to use some form of preamp/eq. I find bass straight into the desk can be a bit vanilla otherwise. Fine for recording where you can eq the bass at mixing/mastering stage, but maybe not for live work.

Oh and yes, bass - lead - amp for me, too.

A PA can be handy for originals bands. Established OBs with reputations may indeed "play venues with in-house PAs and engineers", but the key question is how often? Many OBs struggle to get more than a handful of gigs a year. Having a PA can be handy if it means you can play in places other than established gig venues. In the past, I've put on gigs in local pubs with OBs I've played in. To do that, we needed our own PA. It wasn't worth hiring in a rig, engineer, etc. We often made little to no money, but the idea was to build a bit of a following, get ourselves noticed and get match fit (which playing in rehearsal rooms doesn't do). Maybe it's different these days. Being an old git who no longer has aspirations to conquer the world, I haven't played in an OB for ages. I would if something musically interesting came along and they didn't mind the fact that I'm ancient, but I guess that's unlikely.

This. A mic' into your backline, combined with a naturally resonant instrument like an acoustic bass guitar or double bass, is almost inevitably going to suffer feedback and require some sort of notch filtering at anything other than low volume. Pickup into backline and mic to FOH is usually the best compromise. It means you won't hear exactly the sound you like from your backline, but it's workable practically. Driver size is not relevant. I use several C4s and/or 4Bs for electric bass and they have plenty of bottom end and are not "dry" unless I eq the amp to be so.

Yep. Everyone is review crazy these days. The minute you buy anything online, you are bombarded with requests to "rate us on Trustpilot", etc.

Do you find the rollers "creep" over time? I found I needed to use Threadlock on the one I had. Nicely made bridge, though.

I assume you've tried the serial lookup facility on the Fender website. The original pro Junior was introduced around 1994, so it's not going to be from 1991. The 3 was introduced around 2010. Although it's stated that it was produced until 2016, it's perfectly possible that end of production may have crept into 2017 (if Fender had parts and there was still demand, why wouldn't they?). Have you been able to confirm that it only needs re-valving? As that's such a simple job, I'd imagine the seller would do that, rather than let it go for nowt. Caveat emptor and all that.

When none of them played in the original?

A fool and their money and all that. Anyone who forks over 150 bucks for the "privilege" of hearing her tripe deserves to be robbed. I'd expect to pay less, not more, if I had to watch her too 😁

Every cloud has a silver lining

This is a fascinating subject. Google something like "psychological effect of keys in music" and you'll find plenty of really interesting stuff around on the topic of how keys and musical structures affect mood and emotion. Even Bach was aware of it.

You really need to lighten up. I appreciate that Scandinavian winters are long and dark, which tends to engender a gloomy disposition among those who live there, but it's summer at the moment, so why the long face? Yes, insults can be light hearted, although rarely, sadly, to those whose default position is taking offence. Still, I guess it shows how up to date you are. Accomplished players are just as capable of indulgence as bad ones. You like something. I don't care for it. Why not accept the fact and stop digging a deeper hole for yourself?

I really don't think that a group of (admittedly highly accomplished) bass players taking turns to show off their astonishing techniques (yes, I did watch the video you linked above) could be described as "exploring new territory", "pushing progress forward" or "out of the norm". Yes, the playing by each individual is remarkable, but pushing progress forward? Musically, they are working over pretty conventional forms, which are intended more as vehicles for them to showcase their abilities than to explore new musical territory. I'm happy to see great musicians making a good living and people enjoying it. Nowt wrong with that. If you enjoy it, great. But why not just state that you like it, rather than justifying your preference by claiming that your liking it demonstrates your superior taste and/or how original you are? My initial comment that you highlight above was intended to be light hearted. Life is generally more enjoyable when you don't take it, or yourself, too seriously.

You know, I don't think they actually play in a band together. A one-show get together, featuring a few prominent players isn't really what one would call a band. More a bassists' wankfest. Any further examples for us?

I suppose multiple bass players in one band keeps some of the terrible bassists out of other bands. Silver linings and all that.

I feel your pain, although tbf, you wouldn't have been hearing what the person mixing was. All you would have got from your position behind the main FOH speakers would have been low bass. I know that many "engineers" do emphasise the "wump" because, as Bill points out, they think that's what bass should sound like (probably because the heavily compressed and artificial bass on the records they listen to does), but it may not have been as bad out front with the higher frequencies (which are more directional and wouldn't have made it back to you) included. Then again, I may be being too charitable to the person mixing...

That's my point. There is no "best" or "most accomplished" musician. To make that claim with any credibility, one would have to have listened to everyone. That's an impossibility. By all means say "X is my favourite musician of our times", but "most accomplished"? Nah. If we stick with western music, there are plenty of jazz and classical musicians who could be claimed to be at least as accomplished as Prince. I doubt even he, with his reputedly enormous ego, would have made the claim for himself. If it isn't about "he's better than", why ask me to nominate someone better? Music (ort any art) is not an Olympic sport. Sadly, many try to make it so (best, fastest, most accomplished, etc) and demean it in so doing.