-
Posts
3,039 -
Joined
-
Last visited
-
Days Won
5
Cato last won the day on July 31 2024
Cato had the most liked content!
Recent Profile Visitors
11,558 profile views
Cato's Achievements
-
Ibanez RG 1989 Made in Japan - Almost perfect but one glaring flaw...
Cato replied to razor5cl's topic in Bass Guitars
That Ibanez is a welcome reminder of a less tasteful age. I remember going into Musical Exchanges in Brum in the late 80s and lusting after the crackle finished BC Riches, I think Washburn & Kramer did something similar as well. Hot neon guitars and basses in almost painfully bright pinks and yellows were definitely a thing at around the same time as well. I don't remember seeing any animal print guitars, but they wouldn't have been out of place. Then, as mentioned above, grunge pretty much killed all the flamboyant finishes and it feels a bit like fashion wise guitars have been doing the same sensible retro/vintage finish thing for the last 30 years or so. -
I suspect we're about to be hit by a tidal wave of AI generated music. The idea you can potentially get an AI to write a hit song for you in minutes despite having zero musical ability has all the makings of a classic 'get rich quick' scheme. Of course most of the resulting music won't get any commercial traction at all, but that won't stop large numbers of people churning the stuff out in the hope of getting that one track that hits the jackpot.
-
Danny Sapko discovers… (now including follow up vid that is worse!)
Cato replied to fretmeister's topic in General Discussion
If AI video generation keeps advancing at the current rate in a year or so the scandal won't be that influencers are decieving their followers, it'll be that they never existed in the first place. -
Danny Sapko discovers… (now including follow up vid that is worse!)
Cato replied to fretmeister's topic in General Discussion
Once you get beyond promoting your next gig or your mates mates posting their holiday snaps most social media is fakery to some extent. Whether it's lifestyle influencers faking an idyllic, carefree existence or the fitness fanatics who enthuse about a healthy lifestyle while neglecting to mention their own heroic steroid intake, or the straight up thieves trying to steal your money with crypto scams. Even most of the funny animal clips are clearly staged. Add in that posting content can also be highly lucrative and it's not that suprising that a lot of content creators don't seem to know or much care where the moral boundary is between presenting the best version of yourself and outright deception. I'm not sure a lot of the audience it's aimed at is that bothered either, right up to the moment the outrage bandwagon starts rolling. -
Danny Sapko discovers… (now including follow up vid that is worse!)
Cato replied to fretmeister's topic in General Discussion
Even someone who's never played must be able to see that when she's hitting the strings has no correlation with the timing of the notes in the background music. Seems daft to get annoyed at someone who doesn't seem to be trying very hard to deceive anyone. Unless there's a previously unknown massive audience for 1980s Spanish package holiday hotel bar background music I imagine most of her followers probably aren't that interested in her musical skills anyway. -
NBD - a *good* experience with Bax - Fazley Hot Rod Bass FMH182SG
Cato replied to neepheid's topic in Bass Guitars
I saw the other day Bax were advertising Fazely guitars again on Instagram. Glad they finally came through for you, that's a lovely colour, in fact a nice looking instrument all round. -
The Fender Custom shop stuff at Andertons is a bit like the DFS sale in that I'm not sure I've ever seen it advertised without at least a grand knocked off the 'official' price. It's certainly discounted (allegedly) often enough that you'd likely be in for an unpleasant suprise a few months down the line if you paid the official price for one.
-
Nice! I didn't know they'd done the Kelly shape as a bass, I've only ever seen the Kellybird Thunderbird inspired models. Balance always seems to be a bit of an issue with these explorer type basses, but they certainly look the part.
-
Getting a Squier Classic Vibe bass VI to play well
Cato replied to Jean-Luc Pickguard's topic in Bass Guitars
I got one of the purple ones from Andertons a couple years ago. I bought a set of Bass VI Newtone rounds at the same time because I'd heard bad things about the stock strings and I was prepared to buy a new bridge to sort out the widely reported intonation issues. However when it arrived I quickly decided that it was fine as stock, it even took me over a year of playing it pretty much every day to put the new strings on it. The E string on the old set required a fairly gently touch, hit it too hard and it would choke out because of the low tension, but nothing that really required a big change in my picking style. The new strings, when I finally got round to fitting them sorted that, although they did make the trem a fair bit stiffer it's still completely usable, although I use it in a fairly subtle way to add a bit of vibrato. I'm not trying to do dive bombs with it. Played through my HX stomp with a ton of reverb and a touch of compression it gives me exactly the baritone 'surf' tones I bought it for. All in all one of my better purchases, I guess maybe I just got a bit lucky or the specs on that particular FSR run were slightly different to the earlier models that most of the online negativity is directed towards. -
I like those a lot, nice mix of features from other basses with the original design, looks like the neck and string spacing would be a fair bit more comfortable players more familiar with post Leo bass design
-
With the revolution in digital modelling over the last decade there's just no need for guitarists to play through maxed out valve rigs anymore. It may be 'authentic' but it's always been problematic in smaller venues and these days there are better solutions. A lot of stadium filling rock/metal bands have made the switch so there's no excuse for blowing out the windows in the Dog & Duck trying to hit the saturation sweet spot on a valve amp.
-
Musical Exchanges in Birmingham was the first guitar shop I ever went into as a teenager in the 80s Might be rose tinted memories, but no guitar shop I've been in to since has come close to the sheer eclectisism and variety of new and used stock that Musical Exchanges had in those days. For a while me and my mates would go there just to hang out & try stuff we couldn't afford just about every weekend & the staff seemed more than happy for us to do so. It was a genuine Aladdins cave.
-
The Fender Standrds sit in a odd niche if you look at them as part of the overall guitar market rather than as part of the Squire/Fender range. Put bluntly there are better specced guitars from the likes of Sire, Ibanez and others in that £500 bracket and the Standards themselves are, with the most generous interpretation, at best a step sideways from the Squire CVs, rather than a step up.
-
The guy who engineered the track reckons quite a bit of work was needed to 'fix' Flea's original track in the final mix. https://www.guitarworld.com/features/why-fleas-bass-track-had-to-be-fixed-in-the-mix-on-alanis-morissettes-hit-record Recollections tend to vary on these things, but he sounds plausible.
-
Getting a first bass you like and get on with and actually want to pick up and play can be a key factor in whether you end up sticking the course when you first start learning. It sounds like for the OP that's the Ibanez. Any bass at any price point can develop fret buzz, generally if it happens it'll be down to envrionmental factors and it can almost always be fixed pretty quickly and inexpensively either by a tech or by the player with the help of a couple of youtube vids.