mikel

Well, if you only ever play your basses acoustically you must have great ears, but how does anyone else hear them?

Why is discussing the merits of basses in general off topic?

I envy your magic ears. The reason all those famous P bass players sound different could easily be down to the strings and action they prefer, pickups, the amp and speakers they use, how they boost or cut the tone and the processing involved. I can get the sounds I like to hear out of almost any half decent bass, so I like to think I am lucky not to have magic ears.Saves me a fortune.

Possibly, but they shouldn't sound that different. In my experience an instrument is either right or wrong, ie no dead spots,no fret buzz, no high action, no crackles or flat pups, but that is down to quality control, or lack of it.

So you could argue if they all play the same instrument, but they all sound different, then its not about the instrument. Its more likely about the amplification, the acoustics and the processing, not "the one". Just a thought.

I have to say, after years of playing bass, that most basses simply sound like, well....a bass to me. Amplified and in a band setting they pretty much sound the same to my ears. Apart from a Rick I can rarely tell any difference. As long as its playable and not too heavy anything would be my one.

Yes it does. I laid the foundation for this very early by telling my wife that her money was her own and she didn't need to justify to me what she spent it on. Sauce for the Goose etc. Sneaky eh?

Never have that problem. Her money is hers to do with what she wishes. We each pay about the same for monthly bills and food, so as long as they are paid our money is our own to do what we each want. On your final point, a mate of mine has 14 bicycles. All are road/race bikes and all are black. He finds it easy to introduce a new one with no arguments.

Great to hear two masters of their craft at work.

You are still saying Amazon would pull out of Britain if they had to pay tax on their profits in this country. They would not, they wouldn't give up all that revenue. If the government allow big multinationals to do as they wish, at the expense of the local competition, it is tantamount to fraud.

So you can base you company offshore and avoid tax can you? If the government are afraid to "fosters off" Amazon by making them pay due taxes for profits made in Britain then they are helping to create a monopoly, and robbing the public of tax revenue. Amazon are allowed to get away with unfair competition, they have become omnipotent through dodgy employmen and taxation practices. I am certain they would not stop selling in Britain if made to cough up their fare share of taxes, all businesses need is a level playing field. I have to, rightly, pay my taxes, why should ridiculously wealthy companies, who are the most able, be allowed to escape our tax system and put British companies under more unfair pressure.

But it tends to be small to medium size traders who pay their taxes, the really big ones manage to pay minimal tax, if at all. So where will the tax revenue come from?

Back in 1970 myself and two mates had give up motorbikes and bought instruments. Two of us playing guitars and the other of flute. We were big Tull fans. We were learning as we went along, as was the way back then, if we found a new chord we tried to write a song around it, none of your cover version tosh for us. One night in my parents living room the other guitarist began playing a chord sequence he had come up with so I joined in. After a few measures of this the flautist started playing over our sequence, then the other guitarist played something different over my chords. I followed them and began to listen for patterns to enhance or to subdue, and soon they followed my lead and we ebbed and flowed for about 15 minutes. When we finished we just looked at each other in shock and excitement. We knew bugger all about our instruments but we could improvise on the hoof, we could play off one another, we were musicians and the World was ours to conquer.

Probably stems from the music industry when session players were the norm on almost every record. They would be required to play within a tight structure and the bassist would have to play what the producer deemed correct, ie nothing above the fifth fret. Petty much the same as the drummer sticking to absolute basics, they were the musicians who got all the work.

Aye. Crivens, Jings and Help ma boab, it's Burns night. Sadly no prospect of hiring a piper to pipe in the haggis.

Exactly. We live on a small island, closing our borders would have been the easiest thing to do. But what about the economy was the first thought of our administration. If our borders had been closed and we bit the bullet we could have been out of this by now, but no, do it half hearted and its still costing lives and money.

The Zoom BR and GR pedals have surprisingly good drum sounds and lots of rhythms to play with. I use them to practice too but they can be recorded.

Well possibly, but I dont recall front line hospital staff being killed when treating Flu cases. There are also covid victims in their 20s, with no underlying health issues, on long term ventilators. Its not simply another Flu like illness.

Everyone is aware of the difference, it seems its only you who cant grasp the point being made about claiming "World class" status, for anything. Who cares, just do what is needed to get us out of this and stop making stupid nationalistic claims.

My point, which you obviously missed, was that making spurious claims regarding the "World beating" quality of anything is very much propaganda until proven to be so. As recent Covid history in Britain has shown.

You mean they are as good as our "World beating" test and trace system? You are Mat Handcock and I claim my £10.

Well, I was force fed Christianity at school for 10 years, and went to Sunday school till I was 9, and I still don't buy religion. How listening to a song that mentions Satan could turn you into a Satanist is a question worth considering. Americans eh?

I use a mid range Carlsbro kit. The mesh heads are tuneable for tension so you can match the feel and bounce of your acoustic kit. The cymbals are a problem feel wise, too heavy and ridged, but most e kits suffer from this. The bass drum is also crucial to an e kit as it is this that causes a lot of the extraneous noise, and keeping noise down is one of the big reasons for going electronic.

I thought at that time Taxman was the Beatles best lyrically. Sums up the tax system of the time perfectly. How would millionairs today like to pay 95% tax?

Every Little Thing by Yes. The awakening of prog rock.