Stub Mandrel

I've found playing drum rudiments helpful in the past. Treat left and right as different notes. https://ae.vicfirth.com/education/40-essential-rudiments/

I've seen a lot of well attended local gigs the last month or so.

I have a Hohner B2. The leg rest works fine. Don't underestimate the passive humbuckers, they are incredible. Better than the Select by EMG pickips on my Jack V.

Photo from yesterday evening's guest spot

Got asked to do a dep in a couple of weeks. I know most of the songs. Not looking forward to sequeing play that funky music into superstition- that always fries my brain! And they have Mama Mia on the list 🤪

To deepen nut slots without using a file, use a scalpel or craft knife with a sideways scraping action to retain the curved base of the slot. Make sure the front of the slot is slightly higher to ensure you don't get rings or buzzes. These can be cured by reducing the back of the slot only. An over-deep slot can be restored with a tiny slip of paper, reinforced with a drop of superglue. After adjusting a truss rod, use the heel off your hand to rap the neck in a few places to ensure it settles. Light mineral oil is good for lubing machine heads. Lemon oil for fretboards is just light machine oil with a small amount of lemon oil as scent and can be used in an 'emergency'. Never use pure lemon oil on instruments. If you use 000 wire wool to take the gloss off a neck, it can usually be restored using t-cut.

Went to see a local band play their third gig of the day(!) Their schtick is playing requests and when in places frequented by local musicians they also have a lot of guests up in the second half. Got asked up to join in for several rock songs, mostly ones I know for a change, but ended up doing American Idiot and Money for Nothing entirely by ear which was fun. This is the band without me!

Find an offcut of old mains wire. Remove some 6" lengths of the thick copper wire. These can be soldered temporarily to the end of pickup etc. wires to aid threading them through awkward holes/spaces.

I'll sell you a set for £38 😈

I do think the full story gives a different perspective. Having used Pirate in the past and only stopped because they closed the local studio it rings true. Bear in mind a remote alarm will include the location so someone anywhere on the planet can review the CCTV and if it shows someone vaping under the alarm before it triggers and there are no other alarms then it's reasonable to assume it's a false alarm.

In its original meaning it meant looking at something at a deeper level, e.g. metaphysics is about the fundamental nature of reality, rather than how the physical world works.

I use hercules on stage. Got two of the foam leg type as the type with the fold down bit is useless on stage. I now use my one the foldy bit with it not folded down for my current home noodle bass. All my other basses/guitars are either cased, on the wall or in a rack. I keep my acoustics on the wall or on these: Excuse the stickers... it was my daughter's, she wanted to sell it as happy with her Tanglewood and I didn't have an electoacoustic.

I bodge an Arbiter stand to work like that nearly 40 years ago!

I felt I was getting a 'ric' tone from my P the other day.

Have you seen the new Hercules that come with extra rings that fit on the grab to make it narrower?

I was aware of the irony

Looks the sort of thing Joe Dart would have on stage.

Went to an OM after my rehearsal last night. Our guitarist was on bass. Played four songs on an MM Stingray, first time ever, and it was nice. Grapevine, Paddy, McGinty's Goat(!), Crazy Little Thing and something that I can't remember.

This was my immediate reaction to the sound on the video.

Don't place great weight on advice that tells you what to do. Focus on the advice that helps you make up your own mind.

Buy the bass that feels best and is most likely to make you want to play it.

Tonight we all sat in a circle, kept the volume right down and deep dived into the arrangements for three originals. We had all come up with our perspectives on WhatsApp in advance. I used my fretless and it opened some new sonic avenues. We got into some theory which was fun. I am turning a D into a Bm7 🙂... but only sometimes and i makes a big differenceto feel. We had long discussion on how to move in and out of solos and decided to end a song in Em on A major to accentuate the mbiguous lyrical ending. It was pointed out that one if my basslines sounded like Dani California so I ended up quoting that instead. Another song, relegated a really nice line I came up with using a different inversion of each chord to the chorus and came up with a mwah-enriched melodic line for verses. Similar attention given to drums, guitars and vocals, as well as overall timing and structure. Was fun working as a group and achieving some major improvements by thinking from an audience perspective. None of us could have achieved this alone. We aren't the beatles but still very satisfying.

Pirate started well but it is a concept that requires respect from the users. There's so much potential for abuse.