TrevorR

I went over to flats at the end of last year (La Bella) and I love them on both my Wals. Here are some more considered thoughts on them... http://basschat.co.uk/topic/273185-adventures-in-flatland-formerly-another-so-im-thinking-about-flats-but-thread/page__p__3004718__hl__flatland__fromsearch__1#entry3004718

A few years ago I gave my wife a lovely necklace made from Gordon Giltrap's strings. He's a long term supporter of arthritis and MS research and his local ARC and MS group organiser also happened to be a jewelry hobbyist. So he gave her his strings and she wove them into beads, plaited them into braids and used those to make them. And 100% of the proceeds went to charity. My wife still loves them.

Aaaaaah Mark, you clearly [i]still [/i]need a Pro IIE...![u] [/u]

Hey there Graeme, Long time! Didn't realise that you were hanging around here! We chatted SB700s many moons ago... On a slight tangent, have you ever thought of transferring the content of the site over to one of the free blogging platforms like Blogger or Wordpress. That's what I did with my Wal history blog when we changed ISP a few years ago and I lost the free 20MB of webspace. They are dead easy to learn and very intuitive and, best of all, free! If you just copied all the website pages back onto your hard drive via your FTP programme you could load them up bit by bit. That's how I rebuilt the Wal site. Anyway, just a thought...

Glad that you sort of sorted it. You'd be amazed at the random things that can cause interference. Two personal examples. I have a Seiko Kinetic watch that I just love (one of the self charging ones). Was setting up one day and when I'd finished I stood waiting for the sound guy to finish off his set up. He was taking ages so I asked what the problem was. He said that there was a sort of intermittent regular clicking coming through the PA. Turned out it was the mechanism of my watch being picked up by the bass. Fine, so no I take my watch off for gigs and put it in my back pocket. About 18 months ago it was back but I wasn't wearing my watch. The reason? I have Type 1 Diabetes and I'd just moved over from injections to an insulin pump. And sure enough the little stepper motor in my pump was making a little tik-tik-tik noise that the bass was picking up. PS In the room below your noisy corner you don't happen to have a light fitting with low voltage lights like G10s or similar? Those run off a transformer to convert the 240v to 12v. They can be very noisy..

There is no ratio. There is only what you want to play, what you can afford to play, what you decide to play and what gives you pleasure to play. No one else has any locus to comment on any of those. And if they do you have no need to take any notice!

I found that an interesting process. I suspect the scales competence question is much more relevant to sight reading than general playing. Anyone using scale/mode patterns/Nashville method as movable shapes should find little difficulty shifting keys. Reading in 4sharps etc is a bit more tricky. That may throw up a bias. For notation complexity a better metric might be speed of reading and error rates when reading a particular set of notes on a stave. Both playing and transcribing note names... More complex to measure and collect data, though.

Aaaaaah a video of a man playing exactly the number of notes specified on his invoice! Such a phoned in performance in so many parts, as befits Mr Berry's reputation. A while back I got a DVD of Bo Diddley and Chuck Berry backed by an All star backing band to review. Bo's set turns into a party jam at the end. So after the end of Berry's brief set Ronnie tries to coax Chuck over his contracted note limit in a similar way. Chuck puts the guitar down on stage and walks off. Not to be deterred Ronnie pulls him back on and physically places the guitar strap over Chuck's head. After a minor contretemps Chuck finally relents in poor grace and Ronnie thinks he's won. However, what Chuck does is starts playing THIS not one of his rock and roll classics while if I recall correctly Daisley, Chen, Sarzo, Hammond Jr., Philanganes and Wood try to work out what is happening... http://youtu.be/un59ZLOti9Y Once you know that, the best bit of this clip is the cutaways to Ronnie Wood being a mixture of totally bemused and trying not to be absolutely furious!

[quote name='Blink' timestamp='1462883713' post='3046584'] 11 in the current band. But the punters love them all and i'd rather play to a packed dance floor…... [/quote] My old band would include up to 10 of those across a changing set depending on venue, function etc. And you know what, I loved playing pretty much every one of them, every single time. And a whole load of other cheesily clichéd cover band songs too. Doubly so when the room was dancing or singing along and thoroughly enjoying themselves. Personally, I've always enjoyed the process of tangibly entertaining people with music. And playing music I basically like with people I like and like playing with. For me there is a lot of pleasure and joy to be had in those three things alone.

Huge fan of Dunlop Straploks and used them on all my basses for years. When I was looking into it I knew a bunch of chums who used Schallers. With about half of them the lock had slipped round on the strap so that the round bit of the U shaped slot was at the top and the open bit was at the bottom. That's not so clever in engineering and safety terms, I thought, so Dunlops it was. Been totally chuffed with them and never had a problem with them...

[quote name='ivansc' timestamp='1462816472' post='3045958'] Also: How the hell does anyone mistake Dave the Rave for Ken Livingstone? [/quote] I know, I know... But she swears blind. I suspect a glass or two of champers may have been involved...

Two anecdotes... some friends and I went to the London Guitar show many moons ago. We arrived quite early and the place was pretty quiet so we did some mooching around looking at stands. First up was the huge Marshall stand which dominated the whole room. A tubby old bloke wearing a Marshall sweatshirt who was rolling up posters, putting an elastic band around them and filling up goody bags noticed us and ambled over. We spent a nice ten minutes chatting about stuff before we said bye and headed off clutching the goodie bags he had given us. As we walked to the next stand I said "That's nice that the big boss guy is still down to earth and mucks in with the rest of the staff.” The other guys looked at me and said, “What are you on about?” “That was Jim Marshall, the guy who set up the company and who made amps for Clapton and Hendrix and everyone.” There was a general round of “Ah, p*ss off”, “What do you take us for?” comments, especially from my mate Rich. So, after five minutes of this (it clearly wasn’t going to get old any time soon “Oh look! Arnold Schwarzenegger!” – pointing at a greasy haired teenage boy etc) I grabbed his arm and marched him back to the other side of the stand where a young lady was similarly making up goody bags. “Excuse me miss, but could you settle something for us please?” “Why of course, how can I help you?” “That nice old man over there that we were chatting to. Could you tell us his name, please?” Puzzled look. “What… Jim? You mean… Jim… Marshall” At which point Jim, having spotted our reappearance ambled over to us and said “What’s this… Back so soon? There must be something else to look at!” At which point Rich just stood there trembling having completely lost all power of speech! And the second one… A songwriter chum of mine got invited by her publishers to the Brits a few years back. As she was enjoying a few drinks at her table she started to become increasingly annoyed by Ken-flippin’-Livingstone who was at the next table holding court like some sort of rock star, chatting to people who came up especially to shake his hand. What a poser! And so it went on until she mentioned this to the person sitting next to her. He looked a bit puzzled and said. “Well, he had made quite a few good albums. You know, even AFTER Roger left the band.” “Roger?” “Yeah, Roger Waters… of… Pink Floyd?” Yes… much to her eternal shame and ribbing “Red Ken” turned out to be Dave Gilmour… of Pink Floyd!

[quote name='VTypeV4' timestamp='1462580422' post='3044220'] I think the series 6 models came in '89 and I'm sure I've seen an old advert in a copy of guitarist from about '86 saying 'next generation' with a number of MK5 series amps so I'd have thought your GP11 would be between those dates.. As a foot note, series 6 and all following (SMX etc) went to 12 band EQ from 11 band with addition of the 30Hz slider. [/quote] I bought my Series 6 in 1988 or 89 when they first came out so pre that by a few years.

[quote name='Norris' timestamp='1462649592' post='3044715'] *cough* Fender Rumble 500 combo [/quote] I'm astonished it too five whole replies to get here...

Well, I for one enjoyed it as a bit of BBC4 Friday night entertaining fluff. Very much up to the entertaining standards of the regular BBC4 one hour music docs, all of which adopt much the same format and tone. And a couple of albums mentioned that I will definitely be checking out later... Of course I'd love to have seen the full triple album, gatefold sleeve version too but it was still very diverting! Nice one Mr Researcher Stu Sir! And speaking or triple, good to catch a glimpse of the Wal triple neck in action at the start!

As a huge James Taylor fan I've always loved Lee Sklar's playing. If there was any Sklar line that is my "now I get..." Line it's probably Your Smiling Face from the JT. Sklar's bass line is pretty much perfect to my ears and turns what would otherwise be a cheerful, throwaway ditty into one of my all time favourite, play on repeat songs. I don't really like slap bass but when he throws in the subtle slap bridge I just want to stand up with a big grin on my face and applaud. Every single time... http://youtu.be/xIWSXGaJQ-A

Really looking forward to it. Perfect iPlayer commute watching...

I've always been more of a natural finger style player, having learned that way. However, I've always used a pick for songs that just don't sound or feel right with fingers for some reason... The ones that spring to mind would be, say, Matty Groves, Going Underground, a few worship songs but they were few and far between. However, since going over to flats at the start of this year I'm increasingly liking the way a pick sounds with them since you lose a lot of the noisy, splangy sound from the pick scraping over the windings. Started to throw it in on a few different songs, including slow ones which (finger cramp excepted) I would never have considered using it on before... Just for the particular tonal variation.

[quote name='grumpyguts' timestamp='1461921096' post='3038704'] My last time out in front of an audience was 1986 at Esher College, that was till last night. Approx ten mins and three songs at a blues jam night in Ascot. [/quote] Well done for finding the bottle! Nowt like playing with others in the real world. Was that at Jagz? Played there a number of times - always a good vibe and I think some of the members of my former band frequent their blues and acoustic nights.

And just for clarity as well, I wasn't being tetchy or sarky so hope it didn't read like that... And vintage or not I reckon there's a Wal shaped space in most places. But I am biased... Very biased.

Yeah, my Boss chorus got glued from day one. Been having the problem with bare metal, powder coated etc. Maybe the stuff bundled with the pedalboard was just a bit sub standard quality? Anyhoo, sorted now...

[quote name='Jebo1' timestamp='1461970759' post='3039324'] Good story. Problem was, I had changed the battery, done the sound check and all the rest of it. Wasn't the first time I'd done a big gig. And if I looked down at a Wal I'd mostly be thinking: "crikey this is an over-engineered and massively heavy plank of wood that's beautifully made and stunningly finished." [/quote] Oh dear, properly bad luck then... Funny, when I look down at my Wal I think, "Crikey, this is beautifully made, ergonomically designed bass that hangs just nicely, feels perfect in my hands and serves up every tone I've ever wanted it to make... " but then again Your Milage May Vary, horses for courses, one man's meat, each to their own, takes all sorts and all that malarkey...

OK, so is it just me or is the velcro you get to stick on the bottom of pedals just not sticky enough? I've got completely fed up of opening the bag for my pedalboard and finding pedals which have slipped all over the shop while their velcro remains stuck resolutely stuck in the place it was left. I know... first world problems... Well, after a fun evening spent with a couple of tubes of Bostick Contact Adhesive, hopefully the velcro is now solidly welded onto the bottom of the pedals and they will be staying exactly where I put them...

When I got my LMII I went for two 8 ohm Traveler cabs. For big clubs, outdoors and back line only both came along, for smaller gigs, acoustic nights, rehearsals the 2x10 came and the 1x15 stayed at home. I like the versatility and it was plenty loud in either config. Also, I got one of the rucksack cases for the amp. Dead handy!

[quote name='Jebo1' timestamp='1461437693' post='3034682'] Imagine the scene: Me at the Royal Albert Hall, venue all sold out. I'm proudly stroking my 1988 Warwick Streamer, we do a line check ready to start and there's some piercing feedback on stage. Look at the Warwick. Look around the stage and realise it must be me. Warwick dispatched to its case, Fender plugged in and gig is played. [/quote] [quote name='Jebo1' timestamp='1461439407' post='3034697'] I couldn't really stop the gig and go and get a battery, so I plugged in a passive Fender. Problem solved, Warwick sold. Extreme example and certainly nothing to do with the quality of Warwicks, I just won't use them after that. Superstitious nonsense I'm sure. [/quote] Imagine the scene: Me at the Royal Albert Hall, venue all sold out. The night before I'm proudly looking at my active Wal basses and think, "Huge gig tomorrow, I don't reckon it needs it but I'll change those batteries just in case." I've been playing an active bass since 1988 and never had a battery go down in a gig. Mind you, I've always maintained my basses well and changed batteries on a regular (although not that frequent) basis. Goes with the active territory. A cheap multimeter from Dyas or Screwfix is a dead handy bit of kit... [quote name='Grangur' timestamp='1461501479' post='3035155'] "PPPPPP", as they say: (Edit:Prior) Preparation Prevents Piss Poor Performance. You should sack your Guitar Tech! [/quote] With the Wals I got into the habit of changing the battery every time I do a string change so they were swapped every six months or so. Their power draw is stupidly low given how the power and versatility of the active circuit. A case of "once a year whether it needs it or not!" Of course, now I've gone over to flats that approach goes out the window... Even with that low draw the battery isn't going to last four or five years! ;-)