Cato

I don't know about The Voice, but Britain's Got Talent has been inviting professional cabaret acts from Britain ,Europe and beyond to apply for years. I think the better ones are approached with a near guarantee of a televised 'audition'. They don't advertise it to their audience when they introduce such acts, but I don't think it's a secret either.

What's the fretboard on the bass made from? I looked into having a maple board defretted a while ago and after speaking to a few people on here and a local luthier, the advice, which I took, was that the poly finish on the board would make it a very difficult and expensive job. I think with it's much more straightforward with rosewood or ebony.

For many years when I heard people talking about Donald Fagan I genuinely thought they were referring to this guy. I just assumed that he had a vast back catalogue of stuff that I'd never heard. it's only quite recently that I realised my error.

Weight wise there's not much in it, the Thinline is a shade over 7lbs and the solid is around 8lbs. It's only the top part of the body above the centre block that's hollow so it's less than a third of the whole body. They do sound very different though,with the humbuckers, the six saddle bridge and the hollow bit the Thinline doesn't really sound like a traditional tele at all.

My other instruments.

Gas is a dangerous, insidious thing. At the moment I really want a Yamaha Revstar 502T skinny stringer in green. I keep thinking 'well I haven't got anything with P90s and i probably should have at least one guitar with P90s. What if a situation arises and I need something with p90s and I haven't got a Revstar?' But I'm deceiving myself. I don't need it at all. I just really, really like the way it looks.

Looking forward to hearing your thoughts.

I don't know what the situation was when Flea and Sterling Ball had their conversation but if you look at their range today they don't do signature guitars like most other guitar companies. Music Man signature guitars are not based on other prexisting guitars in the range with a few tweaks here and there and a signature on the headstock, like, for example, most Fender sigs. Each MM signature guitar is a unique model in it's own right.

Nah, it's too close to the bridge.

Nice looking bass and I'm a big fan of Aguilar pups and preamps. What's the thinking behind the unusual scale length?

I don't think we're 100% sure that Fender are going to put them into production yet, let alone which price range it would fall in to.

I'm not normally too comfortable with sig models, but I do love Jazz basses and this looks like it could really provide something different tonewise to Fender's current models. Ideally I'd like to see an MiM or even a Squier version so it would be more economically viable to upgrade the pickup and preamp to something as close to a genuine ray as possible.

Picked up mine from the Post Office this morning. It looks like they have been used for something as they've been labelled 1# and 2#. Nice T shirt too.

I had a missed delivery card when I got home from work and I'm not expecting anything at the moment, so fingers crossed.

I reckon BC branded picks and/or fingers might be a winner.

That's a beauty. The FSR 70s Precision and it's Jazz twin are just about the best looking models in Fender's current line up IMO. Yours looks like a particularly fine example.

There's a shedload of mwah in that video. Interesting clip though.

I took the plunge at the start of the year with a Sire V7 fretless. The bass is great. It sounds lovely on the rare occasions I manage to to get the fingers on my left hand in exactly the right positions on the fretboard. My only tip, as a novice myself, is to record yourself playing along to songs you can play easily on a fretted bass and then listen back. Only then will you hear just how good or (in my case) bad your intonation is.

I don't understand why Fender are replacing rosewood boards with pau ferro. There are much nicer dark wood alternatives. I saw a Squier Mustang Bullet with an Indian Laurel board the other day and it looked so nicer than the orangey, streaky pau ferro Fender are using on their midrange guitars.

Hang on, does this mean there's going to be a general end of line sale like there was when the American Deluxes and USA standards were discontinued a few years ago? Sh!t, someone hide my wallet.

Thats about £100 up on the old standard model. Don't get me wrong, personally I think MiM instruments offer the best value in the Fender range in terms of quality vs price, but I can't really see what extra bang people are supposed to be getting for their buck over the old model here.

The amount of new (to me) music you've introduced me to over the last few years, I should either buy you a pint or send you a bill.

Have you seen this? It's worth watching for the performance alone. I bought her last album on the strength of it. That one was a bit of a mixed bag IMO, the good tracks were very good though. I'll definitely give the new stuff a go.

That felt like it went on for a lot longer than 44 seconds.

I'm not sure I can name a bass player I don't like, not on playing grounds anyway. Normally I appreciate the skill even if I'm not that keen on the music. Guitarists on the other hand...I can't listen to super distorted overly shreddy stuff no matter how much skill it takes. So that's most online guitar reviews out.