JoeEvans

Photos would probably help... A quick google suggests that we're talking about an upright semi-acoustic with strong bass guitar DNA, is that the kind of thing?

It looks like a bit of a messy break to me, although it's hard to see exactly what's going on. If it had snapped right off cleanly that would be ok, but there appear to be longer cracks running down the back of the neck which you'd have to open up somehow. You don't want to glue it back up but leave internal splits unglued; and if it's still kind of hanging together, you might do more damage in getting it right off to reglue it. I'm normally quite happy to have a go at this kind of thing but I don't think I'd go for this.

In terms of purely genetic differences, there are no real races. There are all kinds of different genetic things going on, but no clear cut pattern of racial differences. From a scientific perspective, there's only one race: the human race. Which is to say, genes don't mean much and culture and lived experience is everything. Babies in the Balkans respond better to 7/8 rhythms but there's no gene for that.

Rock solid and muscular? Lithe and propulsive? Relaxed and infectious? Dark and powerful? Deep and throbbing? Spacious and gnomic? Driving and relentless? Quick and quizzical? Warm and expressive? Depends which bass player you're talking about...

Might not be the kind of music that you play (or indeed listen to) but the bass on this has got the funk, in an alien kind of way... [media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n-kPv30Csvg[/media]

The best-looking bass I ever saw was one someone had done with a technique involving applying silver leaf then staining it with some kind of acid. I wouldn't mind picking up a bare ash body and having a go at that one of these days.

The guitar looks good too! I'm in Bristol but happy to buy stuff by post. Just bear me in mind if you want to shift the body - it's all about the orange for me...

Actually, if you've still got the fretted neck, I'd happily buy that too...

Envious! For some reason I really want an orange P-bass, preferably a really battered one. Yours is looking great. If you ever want to sell the body, just PM me and I'll take it off your hands...

Berlingo / Kangoo / Partner for me. Cheap, reliable (in my experience of the diesel ones) and you can fit extraordinary amounts of stuff in there. My current Skoda Oktavia Estate fits less in with the seats down than the Berlingo managed with the seats still up... Also nice and short for parking in crowded cities (e.g. outside gig venues...) Of course, you have to abandon all hope of any boy-racer driving pleasure, and they are not the most comfy cars for long motorway journeys. But otherwise, fine.

I think I've listened to Maiden Voyage more than any other album by anyone, ever. It just never loses it for me.

If you can afford the initial outlay (and you don't break it) you can generally sell a secondhand double bass on again for what you paid for it. So I'd be inclined to spend a bit more and get something slightly better - older instruments from maybe £750 up would be a great deal more enjoyable to play.

If you hunt around, there's a web page somewhere that shows the different colour codes used on most of the popular brands of db string. They normally have coloured thread wound round the top and bottom of the strings.

For what it's worth, for my first bass - after talking to quite a few other double bassists - I bought an older Eastern European hybrid (plywood with solid top) which was a bit battered but had evidently been owned by someone who actually played it a fair bit (decent set up, decent strings). Boosey and Hawkes 400, Golden Strad and many more obscure varieties. Resale value is generally exactly what you bought it for, if the time comes to buy a solid wood instrument.

Bit of a Liberace vibe going on?

If you've got good stamina for scales and arpeggios but not for gigs, maybe you're playing harder at the gigs - bad left hand shape and lots of finger tension, and digging in harder with the right hand? I know I'm prone to doing that.

It's a full restoration job but that's not in that bad a state - it would come up just fine if you had it shot blasted and powder coated.

I'm obsessed with the idea of a fairly bashed-about Capri Orange P-Bass, almost to the point of creating one from bits or from an older Japanese copy. Does anyone else get that kind of random but really specific obsession going on?

Dub reggae is the haiku of bass playing.

You don't want the grooves to be too deep or the strings can have too much friction going through them. I think they are supposed to be 1/3 of string diameter?

[quote] [b] The Blues... and what to do about it[/b] [/quote] Pack your leaving trunk, would be my advice. Or possibly dust your broom, if it takes you that way.

£300m has to cover about 6m school places, which I make to be £50 per child spread over four years, or £12.50 per child per year. So let's not get too excited about whether this is a good or a bad thing; in terms of education budgets, it's barely a thing at all.

I'm very happy with my Carbondix bow - I think it was about £160. I previously had another carbon bow that had cost about £95, and the Carbondix is absolutely streets ahead in terms of quality - it made huge difference in playing even for a beginner like me. I shopped around a fair bit and read some very strong recommendations re the Carbondix from various teachers. I also used to buy beautiful tools from the same company, who do a very good range of woodworking stuff including gorgeous Japanese tools of various sorts. They are a German company, called Dictum now, but they used to be called Dick Tools. Not sure why they changed their name...

I want to do this to - I've developed a long-running fantasy about having a fairly battered orange p-bass, and I think the only way to fulfil it is to build the damn thing myself...