Stub Mandrel

You lot are slow on the uptake. John Hall is visiting at the same time as Donald Trump, because they know all the protesters will go after Hall, allowing the Trumpmeister a peaceful visit.

Interesting observations: Nearly every band had a telecaster in it, the only 'strat' shaped ones were a Yamaha Pacifica brought in when someone snapped a string and our guitarists home-built bitsa strung for slide guitar. Basses: 2 Fender Jazz, 1Peavey, one genuine 1960s Gibson SG and my Fender Performer. Who said everyone plays a Precision?

I've just got back from my first gig since 1995, the 'Abbey Road Army' one. We were the 'Grizzly Beers' and on second. The sound was spot on as you might expect from a venue with a proper stage and a list of past bands like this: Were were hoping not to make fools of our selves but in the end we had a great reception and everyone was saying how good we were, especially how we fitted all the instruments together. We started with Going Back Home as easy to play and a crowd pleaser. The Saturday Night's Alright for Fighting which is a tad more challenging! Our secret weapon was Boulevard of Broken dreams where we got all those stops spot on, including the end - our effort to practice endings really paid off. We did 40 minutes and finished with My My, Hey Hey. I started it with my HM2 pedal dialled and a plaintive howl of feedback, calmed down a bit for most of the song, and finished with HM2, tremelo, flanger, EQ and chorus on and the compressor off! The plan was to go out with a bang and it turned out we managed to make a picture fall off the wall at the far end of the building in the next room 🙂 We ended witha group hug! A few moments of sheer terror, but in the end we all had a brilliant time and the other bands were great too! We are meeting up in a couple of weeks top discuss a plan for world domination!

Shows why short-scale basses are a bad idea 🙂

It's definitely the one with the steep steel steps and the list of bands! It went well - we were the only band to end with a group hug!

... and it's my first gig since 1995! If anyone is in Nottingham and looking for something to to do, we will be on around 4:30; First band likely to be nearer to 3:30 than 2:30! After the great success of last years Abbey Road Army gig we are dropping you a reminder that ARA Take 2 is happening this month! Gig is on Sunday 19th May. at the Boat Club. · First act will go on around 2.30 pm. · Yes the 'bar' will be open! · Social Media - Tell Everybody! · Under 10’s go in free. Other than that the entry is £5 per person on the door where a large gentlemen will take the money and hand stamps will be in place. Please bring cash as we don't have a card machine!

Take it apart, bend it into alignment and file the burrs off. If you are doing electrical engineering a set of torx bits and a screwdriver holder, pliers and a set of small files will be invaluable down the line anyway. Use folded paper or card so using hefty pliers to grip the panel doesn't mark it.

Always avoided CNC as I love manual machining, but I recently acquired a KX-1 mill - just looking for the time to set it up and get it working.

It will attack shellac/french polish type finishes and some water based ones. OTOH white spirit can bleach out tiled finishes. 'Test on an inconspicuous part of the garment'

Respect! I thought my 1x18 was impressive!

Started with crap nylon acoustic which I put steel strings one and more or less pulled itself apart. Then a Kay KT-2 'SG' I still have, cheap as chips but curiously nice to play and hear. I sued to use with with an amp made out of an old valve record player, overdriven by diasy chaining a fuzz box that was a tube amp built into a case. I was well ahead of the tube preamp curve back in about 1980! About 1984 a mate lent me his red sunburst Fender Precision; I also got to play with a Mustang for a day. Not too long after I got myself a Hohner Jazz bass and a very useless 50W Sound City SC50B combo which I used for (I think) just one gig before chopping it up to be a monitor wedge and separate amp. Upgraded to a Laney Pro-Bass amp and a single 18"(!) in a cab about the size of a washing machine (I had a Cortina estate by then) and added a Hohner B2 and Maya fretless to my collection.

He made Slade cut off their hair...

Not sure if this has some slap in it or just aggressive picking - but it's brilliant? Listen from 1:55.

Has anyone else noticed taht when he is soloing Mark King starts to look like Gruber from Allo Allo?

I played my slap version of Living After Midnight at Friday's rehearsal. The guys didn't prefer it and the guitarist was almost rude... 😪

The problem is all the aluminium necks or bodies I've seen are polished alloy which tends to feel horrible. Anodised aluminium feels lovely, but doesn't have the same look.

Whoever invented self-adhesive plectrum dispensers deserves a long, slow and painful termination. My brother bought his wife a lovely Ibanez Talman semi-acoutsic with a gorgeous figured top (basically everything a Fender American Acoustasonic Telecaster should be except it looks fantastic, not sh1te like the Fenders). First thing she did was fit a crappy pick dispenser on the front 😱 Meths and white spirit are what I use, stickness that responds to one of these rarely comes off with the other.

Why not turn up wearing fake JH moustaches and see if he sues...

Have you considered a dog or cat?

The guitarist brought in his laptop a focusrite box a a couple of mics. I've got similar. If you have a laptop already you can get a recording setup with a pair of small condensor mikes for very modest outlay. Mike placement is key - as far away from teh sound spources as possible (assuming you are in a small practice room with sound deadening walls).

Its a shame that I've spotted clones of both your hollow basses and David's Vantage/RV4 designs on there. Either the original factories simply keep building them or the designs get passed around:  I don't know much about the bass market but I do know a lot about the background to importing tools and machine tools. In China (not sure about India) they are very efficient at resource use. Any QC fails are often sold at the back door or passed on to a 'family member'. If you are lucky they then get repaired (I've had speed controllers which had failed reflow soldering and been manually resoldered by someone in boxing gloves with plumbers solder, but they worked) or just tidied up a bit. They then get sold to Ali Baba, Aliexpress, eBay etc. and people see they look to all intents identical to the 'real thing'. Down the road, the buyers complain of poor quality Chinese products and lack of spares/seller support... My advice is always buy imports off a seller who has the size to hold spares, undertake quality control and give you customer service if anything is wrong. This does cost more but you are actually paying for something worth having.

We also shared started record the sessions and shared the best version of each song afterwards to practice against at home. Helps nail endings!

+1 for making sure everyone is learning the same version - we shared you-tube links to solve this.

I got a ridiculously cheap but well made TC Electronic 'forcefield'. It's effect seems to be that of the legendary 'better knob' for many songs. There are songs where no compression is better. Wish I'd never sold my Arion compressor back in the 90s.