lemmywinks

I have also had dodgy DR strings, sounds like it's quite a common thing unfortunately. Sweet strings though, when they aren't faulty of course. I think you'll like Elixirs, had them on a bass for months and loved the sound from the day i put them on until the day i took them off. I only replaced them because they had got a bit hairy! Lovely for fretless too, like a smoothed out roundwound. I was fortunate to buy 3 barely used sets on the cheap but would happily pay full whack for them.

[quote name='Ou7shined' post='1310979' date='Jul 20 2011, 11:09 PM']That one should be reported though. You can't have Fender Road Worn in the heading - that's seriously misleading.[/quote] Dunno, he might have dragged it behind his car for a few miles? However it does say "mojo by the bucket", so maybe he used a bucket? Also "matte black" quite obviously means "i've painted it badly myself using half a tin of left over Dulux"

Also ask at local businesses for decent boxes. I reckon almost every business has an excess of cardboard boxes they throw away and would be only too happy to give you. As said previously, double box with lots of bubble wrap in the inner box and thick layers of offcut card in the outer box. Make sure there are arrows drawn on the box pointing upwards (so it dowsn't get dropped with the speaker facing down) and it should be ok. However if a courier really wants to throw a box around and damage it then there's not much that can be done, it's always a risk. Just make sure you take out insurance for the full amount (new price) as it's not worth skimping on that, trust me!

[quote name='Jesso' post='1309814' date='Jul 19 2011, 11:26 PM']Make your cover band a bit more fun.... Learn songs that push you and the band, even if they don't always work on the dancefloor. If you keep doing it, you'll find songs you like to play but that actually do keep the dancefloor full. Punters will appreciate it, and you'll get lots of well paid work in a good niche cos your not just robotically playing Brown eyed girl and Neil Diamond night after night.... the gigs you get will get hipper and more fun. Blasting out "I am the resurrection" to a hopping dancefloor at a wedding is nothing boring at all! That's how we handle it anyways.[/quote] This. Make it fun. Are the other members feeling the same way? If you aren't playing at least 3 Stevie Wonder songs then learn some, now!

[quote name='Dave Vader' post='1309277' date='Jul 19 2011, 03:39 PM']Oh, and surprisingly, roll back the tone control a bit too, that often gives you a thump to get through the band, along with the dropping one of the pickup volume advice.[/quote] This is true. I usually roll either the neck or bridge pickup off a tad and then adjust the tone to taste. Mainly getting to that stage where there's loads of fundamental but the treble has a little bit of bite.

Still got mine and use it on the rare occaision i get out of the practice room nowadays. Wouldn't turn up to a gig without it tbh, i used to play some truly horrible wooden dancefloor-type stages which were a nightmare but all were sorted with the Gramma. Pretty goog going for a bit of wood, foam and carpet. I have used a stand in the past which sapped floor coupling, the Gramma doesn't do this to my ears, just eliminates non-musical noises (apart from the ones i play!)

[quote name='ThomBassmonkey' post='1299401' date='Jul 10 2011, 10:57 PM']Take food with you and you have more control over it, it's cheaper and more relaxing. If you don't, you can end up spending a fortune on takeaways or service station food and it's unlikely you'll be eating at all healthily.[/quote] I remember sitting in some unknown service station at 4am in a grubby LDV van eating a vile cold pasty. I think that was the moment i realised i hadn't made it!

The Superfly had a similar problem regarding cab vibration, the allen bolts all over the unit (both on the case and the outer casing) work loose and make a buzzing sound. Really frustrating and not a sign of good design or build quality. I found attaching 4 bigger rubber feet with additional rubber spacers helped a lot, if the LG case is similar there should be suitably situated screws you can remove to attach them. IIRC the Little Giants only came with tiny stuck on rubber feet like the type you see on effects pedals

I just used a standard 9v source linked from my Sabine tuner pedal which in turn was fed by a standard Boss-type supply, never really thought about it at the time! It worked fine for ages until the Sabine got nicked and the Hartke pedal developed a loose jack. EDIT: Make sure you get a dedicated regulated one as the universal jobbies are prone to interference and noise.

Wow, over £400 for a home made bass which is in no way linked to JPJ. I bet the seller is p1ssing himself!

[quote name='stingrayPete1977' post='1288399' date='Jun 30 2011, 11:43 PM']The Sue Ryder charity shops did a range of guitars and basses, P Basses were £59 Inc p&p ![/quote] That's actually not strictly true: For £59.99 you got a bass, gigbag, strap, lead, truss rod tool and a bridge allen key.

Well it went for the start bid, hope the buyer checked it out before handing over the readies. With the actual owners of the brand pushing out faked up vintage amps and a zero feedback seller i'd be very suspicious, sounds like a recipe for disaster.

[quote name='stingrayPete1977' post='1283067' date='Jun 26 2011, 03:46 PM']I disagree, They must be non pro's that can read well and cover lots of styles in an improvisional manner? I dont see that as a pro Vs amateur thing at all.[/quote] Of course there are, but those skill aren't necessary for the majority of amateur gigs. They are however a pre-requisite of being a pro musician. It's the sort of dedication you don't commonly see with part time players as their jobs don't depend on it, different story for the session guys where the ability to be flexible and dependable might be the difference between working and not working.

[quote name='Doddy' post='1283042' date='Jun 26 2011, 03:29 PM']This,for me,is where it becomes a grey area. While a player like Adam Clayton is a professional,he's not in the same league as player like Trevor Barry,Steve Pearce and Paul Westwood. If U2 hadn't been successful he probably wouldn't have been able to sustain a career as a musician. As far as I'm concerned,there is a huge difference between the professional 'band' musicians and professional 'working' musicians.[/quote] This is true. I tend to think of professional musicians as session guys, people who get the call time and time again rather that just being in the right place at the right time a la Adam Clayton. It's actually really easy to flail away playing a fast solo piece for Youtube and sound reasonably impressive, you never have to leave your comfort zone and are likely to have practiced those licks tons of times. For me the mark of a pro player is someone who can get thrown in at the deep end at any gig and pull it off because of their depth of musical knowledge and their ability to apply it on the fly. I can play in covers bands and original rock/funk/acoustic bands any day of the week but give me a reading gig with a Jazz band or for a show and i'd be completely lost. That's the difference between pro and amateur, to me anyways.

[quote name='wateroftyne' post='1282829' date='Jun 26 2011, 10:18 AM']Wot 'e sed.[/quote] I like one trip from the van to venue, the bag i bought holds a Gramma and my similar sized pedalboard meaning i have a two free hands to carry a flightcase and my cab. Although my dad now uses that bag to actually transport his fishing chair so i'll have to buy another when i start gigging again!

[quote name='tonyclaret' post='1282495' date='Jun 25 2011, 09:24 PM']Any thoughts on the gramma bag? Has anyone found a cheaper alternative? Although I haven't seem one in the flesh it looks like a bog standard nylon bag for £38![/quote] I used to use a bedchair bag for carp fishing i picked up second hand for a fiver - not paying nearly £40 for a bag to carry a plank of wood with some foam stuck to it! I imagine the large fishing carryalls designed for keep nets would be big enough as well. It might pay to have a nosy around fishing and camping shops for something that will fit.

Althou i'd agree that problems occur with all couriers, Porcelfarce are particularly bad with regards to late deliveries. The company i work for used to use PF exclusively for larger packages and they were consistently awful. It was pretty normal for their 24 hour service to be a day late and their time guaranteed services were almost always late, again sometimes by a day. Their customer service is equally awful - basically it takes so long to actually speak to a person that our office staff often gave up as it was a huge waste of time and resources, almost like they deliberately try to make it hard to get a refund. The PF guy who used to collect and deliver from us was great though, no complaints there.

Brand new SR5 for about £500-£600 (uni days, hazy memory!) in a little music shop in Sheffield. They had a few days to get rid of stock as they were going under and the Ray had been there a while, had the money too but ended up buying my course books instead. Played really nice and i went back later in the week - it was gone. Ended up buying some bits, my mate bought an acoustic bass and guitar, however the owner accused me of stealing a capo (i didn't) so i had mixed feelings about the place. Silly old fruit needed glasses!

[quote name='Pete Academy' post='1277612' date='Jun 21 2011, 08:00 PM']Internet pricing from UK stores has been silly. Great news for the public, bad news for music stores. Last month four music shops went under, including Dolphin. It's scary. It's illegal to stop shops from advertising discounted prices online, but basically the wholesalers such as Fender, Yamaha, Roland, Peavey etc, have been saying to dealers, 'Look, do you want to survive?' I would say go into your local shop and talk deals. [/quote] This is true, i had a chat with a retailer about this a few months ago and he's only allowed to list certain prices on the internet. He specifically told me to ring or pop in if i saw something i liked and he'd give me his best price, shame i'm skint as they had loads of great stock! I tend to haggle in most shops though after an eye-opening shopping trip with a friend of mine (from a country where haggling is the norm), he saved himself an absolute fortune on camping equipment! A few weeks later i haggled £30 off a mountain bike and also got a free set of lights thrown in, walked out of the shop feeling like i'd just been woken from the Matrix! Having said that, if you sign up to online retailers' mailing lists you do get load of great offers.

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I also like the EMG Select i have, very good sounding pickup. Having said that i also like Wilkinson pups and they're silly cheap.

[quote name='warwickhunt' post='1274399' date='Jun 19 2011, 08:14 AM'][/quote] You're showing some superb taste in basses there!