TeresaFR

Thanks, I might do, I can never tell whether the necks on any of my basses have been straight or not - they always look fine, but having never adjusted a truss rod even once in 15 years makes me wonder whether I'm missing problems. That being said, the string tension on the Ernie Ball nickels my Evil Twin came with was lower than the current set of flats, and the new set of flats in the new tuning should fall between the original tension and the current tension.

Urban Guerilla - Hawkwind

My pedalboard is tuner- comp.- chorus- flanger- delay- preamp and I rarely have all five of those effects on at once, usually only three (compression, a modulation and the preamp). I run an ampless set-up due to walking or taking public transport to gigs. I hope no one's affronted by the use of a tuner pedal, I wouldn't fancy tuning by ear, and I like it more than the other technological alternatives. I'm somewhat bewildered that a lot of the more traditional effects seem to be being considered new-fangled, like a Boss Flanger or EHX Big Muff being compared to an EHX Blurst or Earthquaker Rainbow Machine, the first two are more traditional effects whilst the latter two are weird, but possibly really fun. I wonder if keyboard forums have people complaining about "modern synths" and meaning anything newer than a Melotron. It's absolutely fine to run without a pedalboard, to run with a pedalboard of any size you want to have or to use multi-effect units. I don't know what I'd do with 20 pedals, though I'm not really one for creating lush textured soundscapes so beautiful you would hardly need another instrument and could basically just record the bass and boom, there's a whole piece of music (but Cici seems to be).

I play in a distinctly 80s influenced style, so certain effects are essential. If you want to go all 1950s, then go ahead - I will continue on with my small pedalboard with chorus, flange, drive, delay and comp (not in that order).

Well, I ordered a set of heavy gauge flats (50-75-95-110) so looks like that's decided, I am going D standard. Let's hope I don't hate them!

Nah, turned it down, sounded way too much like there'd be a stream of innuendos.

What are the two that appear to be doing black ops stuff? Or is that top secret above-my-paygrade stinky poo?

Immediately followed by cries of "But Jaco didn't need to punch below the belt!"

Scott's Boxing Lessons - but it entirely relies on just using one arm and it has to be the left hand, which is the only one you're allowed to wear a glove on.

Sounds like something viral that might also cause the pained faces Scott likes to pull when a particularly nice bit of jazz is played in earshot.

Yes, that was intended to be my point I could perhaps have been clearer though.

I just realised, on both my Schecters, they came with nickel round strings and I just switched them out for flats and never even gave much of a thought to the extra tension I was putting the necks under, so loosening all the strings for lower tuning probably won't screw them up either.

Scarification, Bloody Lovely!

Thanks everyone, that's a good few things to consider. I guess one thing I should think on is how I feel about the tension difference of the strings on the bass I have in drop D, because clearly the low D is less taut than the other strings. Would I be happy with that across all strings? This is kinda relevant because I have two remaining unopen packs of standard gauge flats that I don't want going to waste if I just jump on to buying heavy gauge.

There's certainly truth in what you say, absolutely. I think your last point really is the part I should hold most closely to, I don't need a theoretical background to create art. It would just be nice to not feel excluded from learning pathways and to understand more of the terminology that gets thrown around, and jazz noodling does feel exclusionary. Again though, I'm autistic so maybe my interpretation is not what everyone else gets from SBL. Back to the topic though: SSBL Scott's Space Bass Lessons - all the standard SBL material but now hosted from the SSBL space station, which just so happens to be in the shape of a vintage P bass with a 340 metre scale length. Governments around the world are deeply concerned that this monster bass space station is just sitting there in geosynchronous orbit above the Atlantic Ocean and no one knows where it came from. Scott, Ian and the team are all up there laughing their bottoms off, knowing the world trembles in fear of their mighty bass power and now, no one can avoid their podcasts, absolutely no one who isn't completely off-grid - not now the station has taken control of all Earth's electronic communication systems.

Ghost Light (being a recently formed goth band) are looking for a keyboardist, and/ or guitarist to play original songs, with a fairly consistent rehearsal schedule and intention to get gigging and recording in due course. We currently have eight songs in some stage of development or other. The vocalist and I are both early-mid 40s (but look slightly less mortal for it), if that sort of thing is important to you. Vampirism not essential.

I think it depends on who you're marketing to. The last email I received from SBL mentioned John Patitucci, Gary Willis, Sean Hurley, Rufus Philpot, Steve Jenkins, and Rich Brown; most of whom I've never heard of - a couple I only know the names of because Scott Devine repeatedly name drops them like a priest during sermon name dropping God and Jesus, and none of them remotely interest me (which also applies to God and Jesus, as it happens). With that in mind, it has to be assumed SBL isn't marketed toward my kind of bassist and I should simply block SBL emails. Still, I can't help but feel that perhaps there are methods that SBL could utilise if they wished to upskill those of us with less lofty technical ambitions, who maybe just want to be better at fundamentals within a far less complex genre than microtonal jazz-funk - and name dropping bassists those of us interested in those less complex genres actually enjoy and are inspired by. Perhaps though, that's not where the money is and my autistic donkey should just get on with making the sort of music I like to hear.

But is it not more fun to inflict my mental images upon everyone here? It's certainly cheaper.

I'm increasingly considering tuning my 4 string Schecter SLS Evil Twin to D standard tuning, with a professional set-up using heavy gauge (50-75-95-110) Roto flats (I typically use standard 45-65-85-105 gauge) flats and wonder whether there's any thing I maybe should be aware of? The Evil Twin has a really thin neck, 38mm nut, 20mm depth at 1st fret, 22mm at 12th fret, modern "C" shape through neck. Thanks.

They make a series where they learn to talk and act like each other and then, having planted cameras around each others houses, spend a week trying to pretend to be each other with the others' wife and family. It goes badly, as the respective wives pick up on it immediately, but pretend not to notice and spend the entire week trying to get their "husbands" into bed. At the end of the week, whilst Ian and Scott go on "business trips", the wives go on their own trip away, together. Once Scott and Ian find out, they decide to move in together themselves and fully realise their bromance, just the two of them and their collective $6,000,000 worth of basses (after paying alimony). I realise I may be "shipping" (as people younger than me are wont to say) Scott and Ian far more than is healthy and I should probably seek therapy.

I wouldn't want to share a stage with even one other bassist, not while we're both playing bass anyway.

In the Army Now - Status Quo.

Awesome! I hope it works out for you.

It occurs to me, Mr. Devine isn't on here by any chance? I haven't got to worry about him hunting me down, kidnapping me with his best buddy and stowing me away in his cellar have I? SBL Podcast #120 - Scott and Ian reveal who they recently kidnapped! 45 minutes after the podcast started. They make the mistake of taking my gag off and I start shouting over them about how they can raise Jaco from the grave so he can kiss my moonlit gothic donkey! Ian stabs me through the heart with a vintage P bass and they livestream them burying me under the Armley Gyratory. It becomes their most watched podcast ever!

We all go to Leeds and hunt Scott Devine down, for causing the very situation where our beloved bass is now illegal. Scott starts wearing a wig to hide his baldness and never wears a hat again, and grows a beard.