tvickey

My band 'Shreds.' has our first show of 2024 is in Hull, UK on Saturday January 20th.  Get your tickets in advance here: https://www.seetickets.com/tour/hull-punk-festival 

Act fast, because I heard that there are only 30 tickets still available for purchase online!

2 hours ago, Simon C said:

I bought it from Guitar Guitar in Epsom.  It is a 2022 model.  If my understanding of the serial numbers is correct then it was built in the 22nd week (a bit coincidental maybe that it's the 22nd week of 2022), but I guess that doesn't necessarily mean it arrived in the UK in 2022.  It was pre-owned - the guys in the shop said the previous owner said it was sat in the case which is why he got rid of it.  I didn't see any other Rics in there.

The bass looks brand new, so that's great!  Good deal!

11 hours ago, 12stringbassist said:

The 4003W is a lovely thing - doesn't feel like a regular Ric to me.

 

I'm curious about your comment Ian, what makes you say this?  I'm especially interested in your opinion because you have so many other Rics!    

17 hours ago, Simon C said:

I've had a request for pics of my very recently acquired 4003.  I didn't buy anything in 2023 (I completed the abstinence thread), the shop was shut on New Year's Day and it wasn't listed on the web site.  So after trying it on New Year's Eve the 2nd Jan was my first purchasing opportunity - duly taken with a deposit down about 20 minutes after the shop opened, balance paid, bass collected and back home by 1:30pm. 

 

I went to the shop to try out a pre-owned Fender American Pro Jazz, but saw the Ric so tried it too.  I've already got a white jazz (as you can see, albeit fretless) and the Ric interested me way more than the American Pro.  It ticks a lot (my wife hopes all) of my remaining gas boxes:

• A natural finish
• A maple fretboard that isn't roasted (I have a short scale Ibanez that is beautifully roasted - not shown in the pics as it is headless)
• Fret markers that aren't dots (though I do have very pretty ones on my acoustic 6 string pictured next to the Ric)
• An iconic bass that wasn't designed by Leo Fender (there aren't many of them)
• A sound I don't really get with my other basses, particularly with a pick

Although I didn't buy it for the Ric-o-sound, I'm starting to see possibilities which is making me think about affects again (which I didn't beyond those I already had at the start of my abstinence year). 

 

(Excuse the slippers - they aren't doing much for my street cred).

 

Just curious which shop you picked this up from?  There seemed to be a few of these walnut Rics that hit the UK last year... and then they quickly seemed to vanish / get sold!

I would sign up, but I'm afraid that this could adversely affect my GAS.

I agree that the 2023 Rics are amazing... Rickenbacker made some excellent improvements and I'm really enjoying my 4003.  

My band has a group Facebook messenger chat, and one day out of the blue our drummer just sent a message "Sorry, I can't be in the band anymore."  

My first reply was, "Are you okay mate?"   My second thought was about the gig that we were due to play in two days time.  My third thought was oh #&%$ we'll never find a drummer as good a fit as him.

He then sent a follow up message, writing "I'm now playing with these guys." and included a some other band's pr photo with a guy who looks exactly like him in the shot. 

My fourth thought was WTF?!?  Why would he leave us out of the blue for some other band?  I even announced to my wife that our drummer has decided to leave! 

Turns out our drummer played an evil joke on the rest of us.  That group photo just had some doppelganger stranger who happens to look JUST like him in that band image.  Long beard, piercings, etc.  

Thankfully he's still with us... but I remain shaken and paranoid.  I am really happy with all of my current bandmates, and I do appreciate that we might all be incredibly privileged / lucky.  But, I guess it could happen, one day, with any of us... someone could just decide to move on (or up!).  

On Saturday, December 16th, my band 'Shreds.' head to Bolton to play our 14th and final show of 2023!

It was our 13th gig as a band, so we knew that something just had to go wrong!

We played the Akēdo Gaming Bar in Lincoln last night (it's our second time there this year), which is a great little venue but with one of the smallest stages that I've ever seen.

The guitarist and I live relatively close, so we loaded up one car with gear and started out relatively early to give ourselves plenty of setup time (lots of snow, ice and fog on the road!).  Just as soon as we set off there is a text message from our vocalist:  He's just been in an accident.  Fortunately our singer is physically okay, but his car is not. 

Guitarist and I quickly divert to head north one additional hour and pick up the vocalist.  We arrive at the venue about 30 minutes before we're due to start playing; the organizer is relaxed and doesn't mind a late start.  Phew.

We played really well last night, maybe the best yet.  As I've mentioned on Basschat a few times, we always record our sets live.  This significantly added to the stress of a late arrival (with mic setup, etc.), but it all worked out in the end. 

There was a small boy, maybe 6 years old or so, in the audience (with some pretty serious hearing protection, of course).  He really seemed to enjoy the show, dancing around as we played our set. He and his mom are friends with our drummer and came up to the stage area afterwards.    We gave the boy a few souvenirs (setlist, drumstick, plectrum).  

Our singer crowd-surfed at the very end of our set, and fortunately survived.  No one broke any bones, this time!

Hi Mark,

I still have quite a few matched quad sets available.  HotRox does have these Electroharmonix KT-88s back in stock again, but their price is £300.  My asking price is still £250.

4 minutes ago, nilorius said:

I would not play and take the money if i had to play on my fretted Fender jazz bass, but absolutely play and not take the money if i use my Ibanez GWB1005 fretless 5 strg.

I just move my home bass rehearsal by an hour or two.  

2 hours ago, BigRedX said:

 

And there's the problem. £1.00-£1.50 isn't really a lot, but if it was offered on a regular basis day it would soon add up.

 

However if reducing your energy usage regularly also meant that your payments reduced over time, I can see there coming a point where the additional income become so negligible it is hardly worth the inconvenience.

 

Of course if you simply wanted to save money on your energy bills you could turn off the gas and electricity at the main switches every time the house was empty.

Octopus uses a 15 day running average for your power consumption during the relevant hours, and so far there have been about two weeks between "saving sessions".  The previous savings session could impact the calculation, but maybe just at the ~5-7% level.

2 hours ago, Babyboomer said:

I would think that a bass rig is more akin to a particle accelerator !

 

The recent energy crisis hit CERN / Large Hadron Collider as well.  They stopped the annual run early to save money.

5 minutes ago, King Tut said:

I’ve got solar with a battery. I did a forced export during last night’s savings session. First time I’ve done a forced export. From what I’ve seen from others, I’m struggling to see how it’ll benefit me monetarily but we’ll see soon and I’ll report back. I suppose it’s for the ‘greater good’!!

Oh that's interesting.  We have solar panels but no battery.  What kind of battery system do you have, if you don't mind my asking?

There was another Octopus "saving session" last night for 1.5 hours... just waiting for the tally to see how our household did.  

1 hour ago, JoeEvans said:

Thinking it through, you could get meters installed for ten imaginary flats (7a, 7b etc) and get an Octopus account on each of them, book out 24 slots a day for each of them while you live off grid, and retire?

It vaguely reminds me of the time when Tesco offered so many clubcard points on baked beans that one guy bought literally thousands of tins and made a pile of money out of it.

What they pay you is relative to your average use during that hour.  So even if I had 26 imaginary flats, if my deviation from the 'average' use is still the same then there wouldn't be an advantage.

1 hour ago, JoeEvans said:

So could you install solar panels, a wind generator and a battery bank, then book out 24/7 no electricity use sessions? In theory, obviously...

I do already have solar panels installed... and I have had many 'solar powered' bass sessions. 

I thought about getting a Tesla Powerwall, but if you do the math it's not really worthwhile.

1 hour ago, Switch625 said:

So do you have to turn off your fridge, internet router etc too?

No... I leave some of the 'vampire' stuff on... I just don't use lights, oven, bass amp.

2 hours ago, neepheid said:

 

Also, we saved £1.53 during our saving session.

 

You really made me smile... I just watched that recently (but obviously NOT during the saving session!).

5 hours ago, BigRedX said:

You still play your bass, just not with the amp switched on. I do nearly all my practice with the bass unplugged, and only have it plugged in when I am sorting out the sounds on my Helix that I am going to use for a song.

Good point!  Yes, I do occasionally grab my bass and noodle around unplugged (usually when there is an idea in my head that I want to try out quickly). 

I'm effectively being paid to NOT play my bass. 

No, I'm not so terrible at bass playing that folks are paying me to put my instrument down (put perhaps that day is not too far off!).  We have Octopus as an energy supplier and have been joining their winter "saving sessions" where we're paid to NOT use electricity (e.g., between the hours of 17:30 and 18:30 on a given day, announced in advance).

So, when I would normally come home from work, fire up the amp and start jamming away... I just keep everything turned off.   So far I've been paid a whopping £1.09.

1 hour ago, tvickey said:

My band 'Shreds.' played in Boston, UK at The Carpenter's Arms ("The Carps") on Saturday.  It was a great show with a number of excellent bands and one solo act, but had one unfortunate incident.

 

An audience member was crowd-surfing and fell, landing on his hip (not during our set).  He was screaming in pain and yelling for someone to take him to the hospital.  The bar staff called for an ambulance straight away, but it was taking too long to arrive and ultimately one of the other musicians drove him to the hospital.  Fractured hip apparently, with a few days in hospital.

 

Otherwise it really was a great show.  We played well, although the sound guy was all but absent.  While this seems really bad, the lack of his attention actually made our show easier since we always record our set live using our mics, preamps and a laptop.  He was visibly drunk by the time we arrived, and at some point handed me a broken SM-58 to use but when I turned it over to plug in the XLR cable I found a vacant cavity missing any pins!

 

Our show recording turned out great.  Perhaps the best yet.  I gigged the Rickenbacker, and used Ric-o-Sound... I sent the bridge pick-up through some distortion and into my bass amp during the show, and sent the neck pick-up directly to our recording gear (it was a small venue, so only vocals were going through the PA).  Once back at home, I re-amped the clean neck pick-up and mixed it in with the recording of the amplified bridge.  This turned out really well!

 

At the end of the year, we're going to take our 2023 gig recordings and make a live album. 

Update on the crowd surfer:  Broken left hip, and he'll have surgery this morning.  Poor guy, we're sending him a free 'Shreds.' t-shirt.

My band 'Shreds.' played in Boston, UK at The Carpenter's Arms ("The Carps") on Saturday.  It was a great show with a number of excellent bands and one solo act, but had one unfortunate incident.

An audience member was crowd-surfing and fell, landing on his hip (not during our set).  He was screaming in pain and yelling for someone to take him to the hospital.  The bar staff called for an ambulance straight away, but it was taking too long to arrive and ultimately one of the other musicians drove him to the hospital.  Fractured hip apparently, with a few days in hospital.

Otherwise it really was a great show.  We played well, although the sound guy was all but absent.  While this seems really bad, the lack of his attention actually made our show easier since we always record our set live using our mics, preamps and a laptop.  He was visibly drunk by the time we arrived, and at some point handed me a broken SM-58 to use but when I turned it over to plug in the XLR cable I found a vacant cavity missing any pins!

Our show recording turned out great.  Perhaps the best yet.  I gigged the Rickenbacker, and used Ric-o-Sound... I sent the bridge pick-up through some distortion and into my bass amp during the show, and sent the neck pick-up directly to our recording gear (it was a small venue, so only vocals were going through the PA).  Once back at home, I re-amped the clean neck pick-up and mixed it in with the recording of the amplified bridge.  This turned out really well!

At the end of the year, we're going to take our 2023 gig recordings and make a live album. 

The "10/8/4" painted on the side indicates 10 m length with 8 in and 4 out:

https://www.bax-shop.fr/boitier-de-scene/devine-snc-10-8-4-stagesnake-cable-multipaire-8-entrees-4sorties-xlr-10-m

Are you any more flexible on the price?  I'm up in Sheffield. 

Still available?  Did this Tech21 AvecAmp unit sell in the end?

The bassist for the Subhumans uses one of these... and he has such a great tone!