Cato

I've got an Am pro ii strat which is lovely but I find myself playing the Mexican Baja tele more.

My MiM Precision Deluxe Special is my main bass, at the time I bought it I could have got a US Standard Precision  (or whatever the US model at the time was called) for a couple of hundred quid more, but preferred the Deluxe, very possibly because of the J neck as well as the active PJ thing.

As for the custom shop stuff, the heavy focus on reliced finishes is a real turn off for me, regardless of how the instruments feel and sound so I'm very unlikely to ever want to pick one up

8 minutes ago, bassbiscuits said:

Some of the more right-wing press also seem to have been digging deep to selectively pick out something to dislike.

It's just the usual culture wars/outrage monetisation nonsense that's apparently replaced real news in the social media age.

Sections of the media have been trying get Glastonbury taken off the BBC for years. 

Events his year have given them a golden opportunity to demand the coverage is permanently cancelled. 

5 minutes ago, SteveXFR said:

Back on subject. I'm just watching Biffy Clyro, havent listened to them in years. Really excellent performance. Definitely a few odd time signatures in there, almost prog rock at times.

They did a gig for Radio 1 a couple of months ago which I watched on iplayer.

Top rate live band with some huge songs I'm a bit puzzled as why they're not much bigger.

Back when I used to go every year in the 90s it was mainly indie/alternative bands and some dance acts with a smattering of of world music and the odd curve ball like Johnny Cash.

The music scene seemed a lot more tribal back then and generally peiple who were into one 'scene' wouldn't relly listen to orher genres, or admit to liking them anyway.

The whole tribal snobbery thing was epitomised by the NME of the era which delighted in sneering at anything that wasn't obscure indie, including bands that started out like that but dared to become popular which is why they infamously gave the Stone Roses debut 4/10.

I think attitudes are a lot healthier today with most people happy not to pigeon hole their musical tastes into one narrow genre and I think Glastonbury has become better for widening it's line up to pretty much a bit of everything, from tiny amateur bands right up to global superstars, across multiple genres 

If  you're at Glastonbury and you can't find something you like, you probably haven't looked hard enough.

There's been a few threads from Basschatters who have taken a punt on this sort of thing from Chinese online marketplaces over the years.

My impression is it's a bit of gamble, while some have been pretty pleased with what turned up, I think most of the instruments have required at least some additional work to get them up to standard.

And , as pointed out above, if you're unhappy enough to want to send it back or nothing turns up at all then the usual consumer protections may well not apply with a Chinese based exporter 

I am tempted, my musical tastes have gone in a very diferent direction over the years,  but a lot of that line up is the soundtrack of my teenage years.

Doubt I'll find the time to watch the whole thing in one sitting though so it would work better for me if they gave us at least a couple of weeks to work our way though it.

Just had a bit of a play on Fender Studio.

Used my Katana Go as the interface with the phone, works pretty well but I'll probably try the focusrite as well when I've got the right cable, just to compare. 

The app itself is pretty intuitive to get started rough recording a few tracks, but I tnink I'm going to need to read the instructions/ watch some tutorials to start unlocking it's full potential.

Pretty impressed so far tbough.

4 hours ago, neepheid said:

Don't worry, I'm not getting my hopes up, but I am quietly watching developments.

I guess with the Fazely stuff there's a chance that Bax's earlier financial problems might have disrupted the manufacturing process if they weren't able to pay the factory at any point.

1 hour ago, Rosie C said:

 

I mentioned the U-bass to the band leader in our church band and didn't sense any enthusiasm at all, yet it sounds awesome!   

 

Did he actually hear it?

I was gobsmacked the first time I heard the double bass noises coming out of a tiny uke bass.

Not sure what I thought I thought it was going to sound like, but certainly not that!

Why do they need 7 double bassists?

"THE CALL is a durational performance exploring resilience, identity, and the politics of the body. The work poses the central question ‘Is the body an enabler or an entrapment?’ Rooted in ritual and endurance, Mahsa Salali stands motionless, bearing 20 kilograms of chain, connected to seven double bassists."

Obvious really.

18 minutes ago, Paul S said:

 

Would this team up with a Behringer U-Phoria UM-2 interface, do you think?  I haven't a single clue how to use this stuff, nor do I understand the terminology.

It should do. 

This should work for most focusrite style interfaces.

Fender sell a much neater gizmo, specially designed for the job, which I suspect is where they hope to make money on the free app, at least until they start charging a subscription fee a few months down the line...

https://uk.fender.com/products/fender-link-i-o

On 04/06/2025 at 11:50, MichaelDean said:

Fender Studio is new and free. I've had a little play and it seems pretty decent. Lots of drum loops to play with. You get some guitar amp sims too, so you can just plug straight into an audio interface, then audio interface into the tablet without needing other hardware.

 

https://uk.fender.com/pages/fender-studio

This one has caught my eye, seems iike a pretty simple plug in & record type set up, especially compared to some of the PC DAWs I've used with various degrees of success.

I'm planning on giving it a proper test drive when I get back from holiday in a couple of weeks.

9 minutes ago, Stub Mandrel said:

Rehearsing with Taffman and Daffodil tonight... so we'll have a go at the theme song...
 

 

 That was unexpectedly disturbing.

Interesting litytle article from the current Private Eye about Meta & scams.

The last paragraph says it all really.

1 hour ago, BlueMoon said:

Has anybody with Facebook access contacted Thomann themselves? I’m sure if they are made aware of it they would move to protect their legitimate commercial business interests.
 

You guessed it……………I don’t have an FB account.

My experience of reporting a similar scam page to Meta on Instagram was that the post in question did not breach any rules.

I also contacted Andertons directly and got the response that they also struggled to get the scammers impersonating them shut down.

The bottom line is that Meta's complaints procedure seems to be entirely automated and unable to detect this kind of scam so it refuses to remove the ads.

Meta must be fully aware of the issue, it's been going on for years, you have to conclude they value the revenue from scam ads more than they value protecting their users from scammers 

I've had a few goes on the configurator, but the options were just too limited to spec out anything special enough for me to actually seriously consider a purchase.

Last time I looked, which, to be fair, was over a year ago, they weren't even offering matching headstocks.

14 hours ago, Woodinblack said:

Sure enough, 2 days later got a thing from facebook saying that the complaint wasn't upheld.

Now I assume everything on facebook is fake, as long as meta get their money they don't care who they are ripping off.

I doubt your complaint was ever even seen by a human being, just instantly scanned and rejected by an automated program, with the the response witheld for 2 days just to give the illusion that some kind of considered process had taken place.

The big social media companies have always taken the position that they bear zero responsibility for how people use the platform that they provide, to the point where they are extremely reluctant to acknowledge that they are even aware that any criminal activity takes place on their services in case that implies they have any kind of moral duty to police and prevent such activity.

1 hour ago, BassApprentice said:

I reckon this is the end of Hiscox UK, but not the last you'll see of Hiscox cases.

 

Brand name will be sold and made elsewhere.

That was my thought, reading between the lines of the letter.

The Hiscox brand has too much value to just throw on the scrap heap, I'm certain it will continue, probably manufactured in the Far East although they may wait a while to see how all the Trump tariff nonsense plays out before they make the decision on exactly where, which would explain why they're not taking any more orders at the moment.

I prefer it in the 'new' colour, adds to the retro chic, as do the lipstick pickup covers, it looks amazing now, like a forgotten entry in an old Danelectro catalogue 

Considering how bad a lot of modern statues are, this one is an exceptional likeness.

I've nicked this pic of the statue in the workshop, because it's the only image I've found so far that clearly shows the face.

Nice detail on the hands too

"Cast in bronze, the statue portrays Lemmy with his Rickenbacker 4001 bass, his head tilted up towards the microphone, playing the opening chord to their 1979 hit Overkill"

Excellent job,both the artist and Stoke on Trent should be delighted.

One of the many quirks of the human brain is that the emotion of moral outrage stimulates dopamine production, which , in very basic terms, rewards the person experiencing that emotion by making them feel nice, even at the same time that they are angry.

The tabloids cottoned on to this many years ago and social media is equally  aware. Stoking outrage is a proven way to generate interest from people who at some level know it's going to give them that dopamine hit.

Of course it's also absolutely natural to feel those emotions when somebody clearly trangresses the normal moral and ethical boundaries, but whenever you get a huge mass public outpouring of outrage it's always worth considering whether the original transgression really warrants that extensive reaction (of course, sometimes as in the case of say, terrorist attrocities it clearly does)  or whether , essentially, people are just enjoying the dopmine high at this point.

And whether those continuing to stoke said outrage, in this case more than a month after the transgressions came to light, really care, or are they just cynically jumping on the bandwagon for guaranteed clicks and likes and, in some cases, financial rewards.

29 minutes ago, Supernaut said:

Not sure why there are people upset that this guy was caught stealing music and profiting from it. Guilty of the same thing? 

I don't think any has said that he didn't do anything wrong.

I'm just not sure the situation requires every music adjacent youtuber and tik tokker in the world to make their own video on how absolutely awful what he did is.

It all seems rather performative, like being seen to be outraged has become more important than the original crime.

I remember reading about these, probably in Bassist magazine in the 90s.

Good score.

I just find the while 'outrage loop' phenomenon fascinating.