nilebodgers

That’s a good idea. We are using the tune of O Come all Ye Faithful with specially written lyrics for the Jubilee event, so I intend to pilfer all the best bits of the bass keyboard part to create a version to work with guitar backing. I like it when the traditional tunes have bass counter-melodies and non-root notes over the chords, much more fun than a lot of modern tunes that can be rather obvious and plodding.

I still got good cakeage, but not until the end of the service. Fortunately there was home-made banana cake and muffins left which went very nicely with a mug of tea. The music turned up late (2 songs Friday night, 2 Saturday night), but still enough time to grab a listen to versions on YouTube. Fortunately the best guitarist/leader is a wizard with a capo and substituting odd chords so we could play off the sheet music with no issues. It’s all about the congregational singing anyway, so a few flubs in the music is irrelevant as long as we are confident and keep going! Went well, all considered and everyone was happy with the fuller sound of the music. I loved it. I also got volunteered to play at an open-air public service we are doing for the Jubilee as part of the local celebrations. That will be rehearsed though.

It always sounds thin and clacky when I try playing with a pick. I’d like to be able to do it, but it just doesn’t work for me.

Oh dear, I've volunteered myself to join the random group that plays at the monthly informal "Cafe Church" service at my little rural church. Just a couple of acoustic guitars and now with me too on bass next Sunday. Nearest thing to a gig I've done in a very long time. Hope it doesn't cut into the amount of cakes and tea I usually consume at that service...

Lol. Reminds me of the John Meyer PRS Silver Sky - i.e. a strat with a PRS headstock. This is a Jazz with a MM headstock. oops, duplicate.

Lol. Reminds me of the John Meyer PRS Silver Sky - i.e. a strat with a PRS headstock. This is a Jazz with a MM headstock.

Careful though, they can use generic cone replacement kits if the original part is hard to get or unavailable. The recone might not be close enough to be an exact replacement, but they should advise if that is the case.

It’s in the slide out menu triggered by the “3 lines” menu icon.

Just a late addition to my experience with flats so far (Roto rs77). It has been going well, but I noticed that the octave G on the E string had an odd effect where the fundamental note decayed very quickly. It was only this note on the E string, no-where else. I wondered if the string was a bit iffy. I fiddled about with tension/untwisting etc to see if I could get any clues and finally when I pressed the E string down hard at the bridge to reinforce the witness point the fundamental note started to decay normally. So, user error, not the string and easily fixed. Odd as I’d already set the witness points in the same way as I have always done with rounds and they all seemed fine. The flats simply appear to need a bit more care on installation than rounds to get them right.

Yes, gaffa leaves too much gunk behind. White electrical insulating tape (LX) is what was universally used when I was behind a desk.

I dunno, I'd always want to see the serial number as part of checking that the bass was genuine. Especially on something as easy to pass off as a Fender bitsa.

Yes, a bigger resistor is very cheap. Back when I did some serious design on PA speakers I used the 20w axial ceramics (paralleling when I needed more safety margin) and they survived years of thrashing without a single failure.

Agreed that it’s always better cabled, but I found if the mains circuits are off the same consumer unit there is no problem and I never saw any mains noise pollution issues with the Tp-link units I used either.

This. You might find the Ethernet over mains adaptors work well too, they did for me in my old house where I had a workshop at the end of the garden.

What is Peter Kay doing on bass? Is the comedy game a bit slack at the mo?

There must be some bass amp that has a button labelled “thump” that does nothing but make a thump noise when pressed?

That is the Vbe bias transistor that sets the quiescent current in the output trannies. If it is dead and gone open circuit then the output trannies are almost certainly blown too as they are likely to have been turned on hard and pulled as much current as they can until the fuses blew.

On a more philosophical level it depends if you personally feel comfortable owning beautiful and expensive things over functional, but less high-end items. I think it may be a function of my upbringing, but I can't bring myself to own high-end basses or an expensive car even though I could afford them. It just feels wasteful and unnecessary. I top out on a s/h USA Fender and a s/h Skoda, that suits me. I've got no problem with other people buying whatever they can afford though, we all have to make our own choices based on our values. No shade thrown on the Fodera players from me.

Yes. They upgraded the pickups though from ceramic to alnico. I think everything else is the same.

Interesting topic this. Until I retired, I worked for a company that did total event production for large corporates, conferences and parties. For several years we did a large Xmas party marquee in one of the central London green spaces which presented lots of challenges. The noise limits were very difficult to meet and the function bands (top of the tree London corporate party bands) had to have as near a silent stage as possible so electronic kit, all iem, no brass etc. The stage and dance floor were located entirely within an large acoustically isolated box (back, sides, roof with an open front - using very heavy sound insulating sheets on a self-climbing ground support truss structure) and the sound reinforcement was designed to focus entirely on the dance floor (with a low level feed into the distributed background system throughout the marquee). The shows were independently monitored by acoustic consultants so there was no wagging it, the limits had to be observed. The bands that worked in this environment were totally pro about it and the sound limits just weren’t an issue. I don’t know whether they enjoyed playing, our crew never fed back to me that kind of detail, but I bet they enjoyed the money which was £lots. That wasn’t the worst noise limit, there was a marquee down on the Embankment (not done by my company) that had to line the entire marquee with lead-lined noise damping sheets and face it with bws walls and a starcloth roof. That was a massive and very expensive job, but the special kit was amortised over several years as I know they did it for at least 10 years.

I really like the sound of my J, but there is a thick grindy rock tone that a P does as standard that I can’t really get with the J. (assuming normal single coil pickups and wiring) On the other hand, when I try and play Jazz walking bass on my P it sounds just wrong.

I don’t know about the drinking, but I read something similar about his playing. It also said he never made mistakes, so the rhythm section was rock solid while Angus did his running around. The same article also said that Malcolm was the boss and if you didn’t play exactly what he wanted in the way he told you to, then you were out, no argument and no second chances.

Many moons ago when I lived in London I had some bass lessons from a guy that could play up a storm on the most complex jazzy fusion stuff. He was light years ahead of me in every respect. He invited me along to see a band he was playing with (at Ronnie Scott’s I think) and I was very surprised by how simple and elegant his playing was in that context. I was expecting a chops-fest, but he didn’t play anything that would have even stretched my ability. It was quite heartening really.

Normally 17th fret on P & J basses. (according to Fender factory outline spec)

You have a contract with the bride - she needs to sort it out with the other parties that are trying to vary it.