Dan Dare

Chromes work for me. Definitely more bite (not as much as a round, of course) than Thomastiks. Only a little more tension than TIs. Last well, too, if you keep them clean.

The sound of the bridge pickup on a J bass has much to do with its positioning. I once played a bass with 2 P pickups and the one nearest the bridge sounded very different from the one nearest the neck. I think you may struggle to find what you are after, especially as you are looking for a single coil with only two connectors.

Speak for yourself. NHS and other public service staff don't seem to be afflicted in that manner. But then, they aren't doing nicely, thanks.

Really? Words almost fail me.

Sad, isn't it? Whilst I may not live in France, I am also retired and comfortably off. I try not to forget that not everyone is as fortunate as me.

Yep. Royal Mail has been asset stripped. Many main post offices have been closed and replaced with mini post offices in supermarkets, etc. Those post office buildings, which are often in prime high street locations, can now be sold off. Staffing levels are being slashed and pay and working conditions for staff are under the hammer. Hardly surprising those staff are not happy.

Interestingly, monitors are often designed to be RFI (as in Radio Frequency Interference) shielded to prevent issues in studios that are stuffed full of equipment sitting cheek by jowl.

Usually when they return from the pub, I suspect.

Sorry. It's a bad habit of mine.

Isn't using ones heart as opposed to ones head down to psychology? It isn't either/or or one or the other in reality. Case in point. I bought a used (abused, actually - it was a bit of a mess, but I fixed it up) 1972 Jazz bass back in the late 1970s for £250. Cheap by today's standards, but the going rate back then. At the time, my motivation for buying it was primarily because I had always wanted a nice J bass. However, it has gone on to earn me quite a lot of money and is now worth many times what I paid for it. Win win. As far as tools are concerned, one usually doesn't recoup the cost of purchase of quality equipment in the space of a year. Ask any tradesman. The sensible ones buy quality tools, which last and enable them to work efficiently and earn more in the long run. The taxman allows them to write off the cost of purchase over a number of years, helping to make it economic. Scale that up and it's exactly what most businesses do. A company that invests £millions in CNC machinery won't expect it to pay for itself in the space of a year. However, during its lifetime, it will pay for itself and then some.

I don't have to fund my musical purchases out of gig earnings. Nor do many others. I can afford to indulge myself in toys - instruments, fishing tackle, hobby stuff, etc - if I wish. I don't do so very often. I have a few (less than a dozen) nice instruments (of all kinds, not just basses) and decent backline, PA, etc. They don't need to pay for themselves, although most probably will have, if I add it all up. £60 a week, every week, is pretty small beer. I was making several times that a week, every week, from playing back in the 1980s and it was only a side-line from the day job.

If you can stretch to around £280, Adam T5Vs are excellent. Check the reviews.

Not sure I follow that. Are you arguing that the car is responsible for earning your entire yearly income? Might be true if you are mini-cabbing, but apart from that, I don't see how. I've earned more, often much more, than £3k a year - which is less than £60 a week - from playing the bass for most of the last 30 years. I haven't been doing anything involving fame/high profile. Just playing in function bands and similar. It hasn't even been my main source of income, either. I had a full time day job.

Unless I'm misunderstanding this, they appear to be offering to charge you for ready worn/grooved frets. Am I missing something?

He and Roy Buchanan were something else.

£795 on their website.

I've been looking on JMB recently, having moved to a new area earlier in the year. Now I'm settled in the new place, I'm looking to get out and do a bit of playing, so I put an ad' on JMB and have replied to a few. Nothing worth following up on as yet, but am meeting up with some guys who sound quite promising tomorrow evening.. Fingers crossed. I appreciate that you have to kiss a lot of frogs before you meet a handsome prince, but JMB can be handy when you don't know anyone locally.

This is by no means universally applicable, but I have come across several collectors who are not great players (to put it politely). The ones I have encountered are successful in their careers, so have plenty of cash to splash. They appear to imagine that owning fine vintage instruments will somehow enable them to play as well as their musical heroes. I played in a band briefly with a couple of guys - one an architect and one a lawyer - who were afflicted in this manner. They had plenty of fabulous instruments and were both nice guys and good company. They were also seriously hopeless. Socially, it was very enjoyable - we played at some very nice parties thrown by similarly wealthy pals of theirs - but musically, it was painful. I tried in vain to tell myself to just enjoy the company and the craic, but I had to walk in the end.

Being ancient, I remember when Fender released the Bullet instruments. They were a basic/budget line. The current versions still are. The seller is either delusional or hoping for a buyer who is.

I like that a lot. Always fancied a SC. The best BF cab imho if you like an old school sound.

Bit of a c0ck up on the photography front, Reggie.

+1 for Armstrongs. Many years ago, the pickups on my old J bass were sounding well past their best. I sent them to Kent (who was then running the firm) and told him to do whatever was needed - including rewinding - to get them back up to par. He returned them with a note saying he'd checked the readings, which were fine and that they just needed hot waxxing to get the air out of them, for which he charged me a very small sum. They could have rewound them and I would have been perfectly happy to pay, so kudos to them for only doing what was needed and saving me money.

The similarity is remarkable. Seller even has a large amount of positive feedback, as does MDP, although most of it appears to be for selling second-hand shoes.

Don't chuck the old pickups. If you ever sell the instrument, it will be worth more if you have the originals to go with it. If you're getting drop in replacements, I wouldn't even get them re-wound. Just keep them as is

Might come in handy with my kayak.