Paul S

Indeed there seems to me to be little consistency - a few trends perhaps. From the basses I have owned I believe there were certain 'purple patches' that various production lines went through. Japanese JV and SQ were generally held to be very good - the ones passed through my hands certainly were. I had a JV Fender logo Precisin that was superb. A slightly later JV with a Squier logo that I actually preferred. I have had a couple of A serial no. MIJ ones and they were also very good - one (a 32" scale Precision) was probably the best Precision I have ever held/owned/played and I should never have parted with it. I had a later E serial number MIJ Jazz that wasn't very nice - really heavy and apparently made of MDF, but a couple of E series 32" scale Ps that were fab. Then a few years along the history line and I had a Silver Series P bass and, unlike Hobbayne, mine was brilliant. I had a Chinese 'Vista Series' Musicman and that was fantastic. Indonesian VM Mustang and that was also great - both superior, IMO, to the '78 fender Musicmaster I had.

Likewise the JJ Cale ditty 'Travelling light' is not an allegory about Ryanair's cabin bag policy but, rather, about casual sex.

You could probably get by with small bits of heat shrink tubing. A bit Blue Peter, though.

Its Spanish for sandwich!

Not so good here - I'm 61 but my hearing has been knackered for the past decade or so - I started to hear it around 35Hz and lost contact at 7.5KHz. And that is with my hearing aids in!!

I have a Line 6 G50 in the classifieds at the moment.

I was going to buy a Hercules mic stand but then saw one standing abandoned in the corner of a rehearsal room with the height adjuster thingy broken. As that seemed a big draw it was a deal breaker. Bought a K&M and probably won't need to buy another.

Met him at the couple of bass bashes I went to back in the day - lovely man - big guy with a big heart - RIP.

I bought a Hercules one for my tablet after my generic one fell apart after about using just a handful of times. I like the idea that you can change bits around so that it easily clamps to the side of an extended mic stand or to the top of a retracted one, depending upon whether you sing or not. Or, in my case, have a mic but can't sing.

Not directly but I recently did a 2 band gig and the other bassist had both an Aerodyne and a Jazz Bass Special. He said, of the two, he preferred the JBS. It certainly had more oomph and growl at soundcheck. Another bass is the Precision Lyte - PJ basses, MIJ. I had one for some time and the neck was the slimmest profile I have ever played. Tone was not quite exactly like a regular P bass but close enough. Another one I just remembered is a Peavey Fury. USA ones, anyway. VERY slim neck and quite an aggressive P style pickup. Despite being really well made the generally go for peanuts.

Very useful - thank you.

Or.... You can hit a nail with a hammer. You can hit the same nail with a sledge hammer. Imagine what the nail feels.

You seem to be getting the hand of it - nicely played. Very Bobby Vega.

When my 'classic rock covers' band decided to morph into a 'Bon Jovi tribute' band a couple of years ago I had little choice but start playing 5 strings as there are too many songs in their back catalogue that need the extra low notes. I changed to playing exclusively 5 string basses, used the 5er in my other band, finding as others have reported that playing across the neck - not just using the deeper notes - is the way to go. Once I got used to it I really liked it and sold off all but one of my 4 strings, a Squier JV Precision. Just very recently I started up with a blues power trio and kept looking longingly at the JV, thinking how suitable it would be. So I stuck some flats on it and discovered that I was able to quickly adapt back to 4 strings, at least in terms of switching from one band's set list to another. There is nothing I play with the blues band that I couldn't do on the 5 string but the JV is so nice it seemed a shame not to use it. I've since gone completely jelly knee'd over a Gibson G3, too, so now have two 4 stringers. So it seems that, for me, I will be switching between 4 and 5 strings for the foreseeable. Not because of any limitations of the 5, just because I have acquired some damned fine 4 string basses it would be shame not to use. The main thing I found is that, just like 4 string basses, you have to kiss a lot of frogs before you find your prince as not all necks or B strings are created equal.

Fender Jazz Bass Special would be what I would look for. One of the earlier MIJ ones with a Jazz width neck. They have a J pup as well, although you don't have to use it.

I just bought a Gibson Grabber G3 from Gary. Great guy to deal with, great comms, friendly fellow. He happened to be passing nearby and so dropped it in as well! Thank you.

Another good Fab4 cover - Whitesnake's take on Day Tripper is certainly interesting.

Should be a rotary chrome nut on each side of the bridge. Just turn those clockwise until the action suits. You could slacken the strings off a bit first to relieve the pressure on the thread. If you go too far, just turn the anti-clockwise. But you will definitely need to slacken the strings if you want to do that.

I can't remember which now but it was something by Status Quo. I used to play along to Piledriver, Dog Of Two Head and Ma Kelly's Greasy Spoon. That's how I started to play guitar when I was in my teens back in the 70s so I thought it was probably a good way to go about learning bass when I took it up in the noughties. Probably not progressed a huge amount, tbf.

I thought of someone else whose songs I almost always prefer when other people do them - Chuck Berry.