Richard R

Welcome aboard! Hope you're staying safe and warm. Colleagues from Texas have been appearing on video calls in full artic gear, or not appearing due to power failure or dealing with the weather.

I'm out! I thought I would be in for ages, especially as my budget wasn't really as high as I'd suggested here (maybe by the end of the year it would have been) but in a stroke of good fortune I've just bought a bass I've been looking for for ages. NBD - Brawley 5 string at last :-) - Bass Guitars - Basschat

I did. And it's fantastic: NBD - Brawley 5 string at last :-) - Bass Guitars - Basschat 😁

Funny how things turn out (as Victoria Wood sung many years ago). I've been keeping an eye out for a 5 string version of my bass, a Brawley. They aren't well known in the UK, but were made briefly in the US for a couple of years and are a very nice mid-range instrument. Last year I posted this: https://www.basschat.co.uk/topic/398769-brawley-artemis-5-string-but-in-manchester-new-hampshire, which was an observation that there was a 5 string Brawley for sale in Manchester, but it was Manchester in New England not the UK. Earlier this year @Larry D messaged me to say that he'd seen the post, and I was the first person in the UK he had come across who had even heard of Brawley. He also had a very nice 5 string and we agreed we should meet up at a bass bash when we're next allowed. Then a bit later on he PM'd me again asking if I would be interested in buying the bass as it wasn't getting a lot of use. Well that was a silly question - of course I was! He sent some pictures, and the one thing that worried me was the width of the fretboard, 51mm at the nut and wide all along. Not having played a 5 much I was concerned how this would feel, and wondered if there was any way to try the instrument out. Step forward Larry's neighbour, who was working in Birmingham last weekend and offered to bring the bass up and meet somewhere public so I could try it out and if I liked it buy it! She knows nothing about basses or guitars, but what a very generous offer. So on Sunday I met her (and her colleague who very sensibly came along riding shotgun) in Tesco's car park near the M42 and was able to try and buy the bass. Pics now, and opinion afterwards 🙂 Brawley 5 string.MOV It is very pretty - and even better in real life. You can see what I was worried about with the width of the fretboard, but I really needn't have been. The 5 string bass has exactly the same scale length, 35", and string spacing as the 4 string, and the neck is equally shallow - which means it feels exactly the same to play. In fact I make exactly the same mistakes on it 😞 The low B sounds great, and I'm enjoying playing across the neck. Fortunately I've always muted with a sliding thumb, so no change there. The four isn't going anywhere, but the plan is to focus exclusively on the 5 for at least a few months and get good at that.

I'm playing in church on Sunday, but not as part of any band. I got a new bass at the weekend, and since I will be in church as part of the tech team I am taking it in with me, purely so I can play it LOUD through the PA when we are all finished 😎

As @Jus Lukin will need a lesson on what the switches do, and schools can reopen on 8th March, then meet up then and say it's Education.

I'm guessing that's a type of double bass? Welcome aboard!

This entire bass is quite obviously one man's unique creation top to bottom. And a gloriously over the top fabulous creation it is!

Did you watch the online holiday club service this morning? Martin just cracks me up - a man with no embarrassment genes!

Just up the road from me. I'm at Shirley Baptist, and there are a few people with links to both churches. I am very definitely the least talented musician when I'm on the stage. But I do consider I'm a pretty good FOH engineer 😉

Welcome aboard!

Off to the Famous quotes thread!

Welcome aboard! Unusual and friendly. Flame wars are very rare on these pages and get stopped by the mods PDQ. Terrible puns are rife though, you have been warned. 😉

"Corgi Registered Friends", by Half Man Half Buiscuit. Would have to be "Gas Safe Registered Friends".

If the string spacing is the same, does that must make the neck 25% wider than the 4 string, and did you find playing a much wider neck a problem? I'm particularly interested as the opportunity to buy a 5 string version of my Brawley has come up. Fabulous instrument, great condition, I know it will sound marvellous, but it's 50mm at the nut. It looks like the decision was to keep identical string spacing, but I am concerned I won't be able to play it. Thoughts welcome. (The 5th string and muting doesn't worry me, I use sliding thumb anyway and I don't have a repertoire of songs already learned in muscle memory)

Forgot Richard Digence! Saw him years ago and he was very funny, bit the poignant songs were real tear jerkers.

Almost any musical duo: Flanders and Swann, Stillgoe and Skellern, Kit and the Widow, etcetera etcetera. I'm a sucker for clever internal rhymes, pianos and dinner jackets.

"Operator" by Grateful Dead, no telephone operators any more.

"Could you file this please, Mary?" Another typing pool reference, from We Are Sane by Twelfth Night. "Got me a Chrysler as big as a whale". Love Shack by the B52s. Hope the mammal outlives the vehicle!

We are carefully spaced out, except for the tech desk where we installed polycarbonate screens between the three people working next to each other. Really looking forward to making a loud and worshipful racket again though!

Or he had drunk builders?

Good job my BC name isn't Richard R 😊

Welcome aboard! Usually I say something like "Stay away from the marketplace ", but it's too late for you already. 😞 Enjoy the thumb, nice bass.

Since the last update we have spent a bit more on streaming gear, the Piece of Cauliflower having proved successful. However it was successful for 2 camerasz adding a third complete crippled the system. The problem we found was that the PC could handle two phone cameras plus HDMI capture OK, but adding another source just crippled it. Wifi was tolerable for 2, but unusable for three. The biggest outlay was a PC capable of handling 4 video inputs, so that was a £1300 outlay on a gaming PC with a graphics card. The rest, in no particular order: Updating the HDMI capture card from £10 chinese thing to £100 reliable Taiwanese one. 2x Logitech StreamCam USB cameras to replace phones. 1xUSB 2 over ethernet extender to allow 15m runs to the cameras. Quality USB C to USB 3.1 adapters for the cameras. 1x Mackie Onyx interface purchased used on BC marketplace. New cost about £140. Having got this lot running perfectly for the Christmas Eve services with live band, video, three cameras etc, we haven't had a band in since. ☹ However we have been streaming the services live every Sunday but with recorded songs. Seems to be working OK 👌

Welcome aboard