Baloney Balderdash

My Own Bare Hands - Ween

That's was pretty damn amazing!

They truly were at the peak of their time... And sadly they are dead, stone dead (though there are still fans who swear to the Amiga, even to this day, and 3rd party companies have made upgrade hardware, even new more powerful Amiga machines). Regret selling my Comodore 64 and Amiga 500 and 1200, which I had literally thousands of games for. Loved those machines. You can get emulators for PC or Mac though, and spec the emulation to be a super Amiga with modern PC powers, and find game files for basically every game ever released on it online to run on the emulator. Not quite the same as having the original physical machines though. Playing Monkey Island I and II on my Amiga 500 still to this day stands as one of my most fond gaming experiences ever.

Most recent shot of my current main instrument of choice, my 5 strings Ibanez GSRM25 Mikro Bass, named "Mr. Growley - The Noodlemancer", with the latest visual mods I did to it : You can read about it and the mods I did to it here:

I've painted the pickguard of my Epiphone SG Special guitar with acrylic paint (will need a couple of layers, remember to let the paint surface dry before applying another layer), then spraying it with a couple of clear coats (again remember to let surface dry in between), and it worked perfectly, looks great, and hasn't scratched or flaked or anything like that since. Just remember to wipe the pickguard in question with some ethanol first, and let it dry, to clean off any dust or grease, and handle it before you paint it in a way so that you won't leave your finger prints on it after you cleaned it, in order for the paint to be able to bind properly to the surface.

So this is the thread to post pictures of your modded basses and tell a bit about them. I tend to mod all my instruments, if nothing else then at least visually, to personalize them. I'll start with my current main instrument of choice, my just 28.6" scale 5 string Ibanez GSRM25 Mikro Bass, produced in January 2019 at the Cort factory in Indonesia, according the serial number, which I guess I really use more as a 5 string Bass VI type instrument than a traditional bass, though tuned in G standard tuning, that is 3 half steps above the lower 5 strings of a Bass VI, or 3 half steps above the upper 5 strings of a 6 string bass. It features a Poplar body, a Maple neck and a Jatoba fretboard, 16.5mm string spacing, and 2 J pickups, perfectly leveled frets from stock, and an incredible amount of sustain. Now to the mods I've done to it: First thing I did was wire the 2 stock J pickups in series, as it just didn't sound right, like really hollow and ridiculously burby, it helped, but it still sounded odd, until I discovered that there was something wrong with the neck J pickup, which had an extremely weak magnetic field over the lower half of the strings (I suspect a broken bar magnet, as these are ceramic pickups, and might need to look into fixing it at some point), so I ended up disconnecting the neck J pickup and wiring the stock bridge J pickup directly to the output jack socket, and it actually sounds pretty damn amazing now. Surprisingly little noise too, basically non to speak of, despite not having done any additional shielding, and despite running a single single coil pickup, which I credit to the fact that Ibanez used properly shielded wiring for the electronics and pickups, with the ground wire running as a braided shield all along the individually insulated hot wire. Rest of the mods are purely visually: A silver lotus flower with a OM sign in the middle of it decal, a paint splatter figure, made with a mixture of a white marble effect and grey acrylic paint, applied with a tooth stick, on the upper horn, and a strip of red insulating tape (also known as electrical tape) applied to the top of each of the two J pickups, also removed one of the redundant pots, covering the hole with black insulating tape, and replaced the stock chrome pot knobs on the shafts of the two remaining pots with transparent/black PRS lampshade knobs, and finally I covered the brand/model name on the headstock with black insulating tape as well. I also swapped the neck pocket screws out for slightly longer ones with Torx head slots, to ensure being able to screw them in tight without slipping or risk of stripping the slots. Here it is, "Mr. Growley - The Noodlemancer", as I named it : I don't have any pictures of it from when it was stock, but here's one I found on Google of s similar speced stock 5 string Ibanez GSRM25 Mikro Bass : I do plan making a few more mods to this instrument: Most certainly will soon replace the stock side mounted barrel type jack output socket, for a regular jack socket, which I will mount in one of the redundant pot holes, the one currently is covered by black tape. I also ponder on maybe at some point replacing the bridge for 5 single black mono rail bridge pieces milled from solid brass.

Love that! Green finfishes ought to be more common. Green has taken over as my absolute favorite finish over black, though sadly I own no green basses, yet.

Danny Carey and Ronald Shannon Jackson is on it, so I am all fine... Knowing how these Top 100 Musician lists works I am not too nit picking about their position, where, especially in Ronald Shannon Jackson case, they in reality ought to have been rated higher. I am just glad they weren't left out. However I couldn't have taken a Top 100 Drummers in a Rock magazine serious (not that I really do anyway) if they had left out Danny Carey. Danny Carey truly is one of the absolute greatest rock drummers of all times.

People who are scared/confused about menus, don't understand the concept of one knob being able to have several functions, have a tendency to option paralysis, and think physical controls somehow magically will make it sound more analog. Such people does actually exist. Or simply people who just likes the concept of/needs having physical controls for all parameters, and prioritize that over having access to additional tweakable parameters, flexibility of routing/the signal path, and number of effects available. Again I am certain such a user segment does exist. For instance I would say this wins as a live impro multi effect over a traditional "modern" menu diving multi effect pedal, like for instance as a live noise and experimental electronic music effect processor that can actually be tweaked live on the fly, or whatever context elsewhat where effects are treated more so as musical instruments in their own regard, rather than just simply, well, effects (I do realize that with a midi controlled multi effect and a midi controller the same and even more would be possible, but that would also be much more circumstantial and require a lot of extra work to get going, less convenient and immediate). In any case it is definitely a niche product. But I am pretty sure also an actual exiting niche, with not a lot of other competitors on the market filling it out already, other than older used units that doesn't feature quite the same modeling quality (whether that then is desired or not). I'd say this is a wise move from Boss, who (unlike Zoom) rarely mess around.

So stereo rigs and effects is a lie?

Really cool.

Great point! Does indeed sound like the drummers work. That is at least if such is involved in the musical project in question.

Genuinely groundbreaking work is measured in $ now? In that case I wonder how come Einstein wasn't the riches man in the world... Or why more scientists aren't rich, and how come some inventors of pretty genius stuff even died poor... Or how a lot of truly groundbreaking musicians in most cases did... Also Microsoft got a habit of buying up smaller competitors and stealing their hard work, in other words they are basically the business equivalent to scavengers, or even worse parasites. Of course this is pretty common practice for all big companies with enough capital to do so, but Microsoft is no exception in that. And sure parasites are a very successful family of animals, but normally not that well seen.

Sounds awesome!

I removed the somewhat failed paint splatter figure on the lower horn of my 5 string just 28.6" scale 5 string Ibanez Mikro Bass (it did scratch the finish, and I temporarily fixed it with black permanent marker, but plan to fix it poperly with black paint and clear coat at a later point), and applied red insulating tape (also known as electrical tape) to the pickups. Before and after pictures : Also I found out there was something wrong with the neck pickup, having a very weak magnetic field at the lower side of the strings, so I since wired just the stock bridge J pickup directly to the output jack socket, it is surprisingly quiet though for a single coil, as in basically no hum at all, and also sounds surprisingly great for being a cheap budget stock pickup. And I tuned the strings up an additional half step, so that it is now in G standard tuning, as in 3 half steps above the upper 5 strings of a 6 string bass in regular E standard tuning.

Although I use a vide variety of finger "plucking" techniques, including 3 finger technique, I do sometimes just use 1 finger, depending on the pieces I play, however not exactly the hook, which is pretty far from how I relatively gently stroke or flick the strings, depending, with the outmost tip of my fingers/quite specifically trimmed nails.

Everything Mike Suggerbarf and El Ron Muff touch. Mircosoft and Gill Baits ought to be dead too, but can't be assed to go through the inconvenience of Linux. And can't live without Gööggels, but that ought to die as well. Politics Inc. for most parts too. Most big corporate business is a parasitic scam really, and sadly that includes politicians for most parts as well. Heck, the whole so called "Civilization" is a scam, as far as I am concerned. No wonder Trump and his associated conspiracist got such a hold on people, though they are a scam too, just lucrating on the fact that people have been lied to for basically thousands of years.

Also, which mainly studio musician did that at that time, let alone studio bass player?

I aim to make the audience cry at every single gig!

Anyone know what the average expected lifespan of a 12AX7 preamp tube is in approximate hours of operation? Also does this change depending on the kind of plate voltage they run at, like is there a notable difference in lifespan of a tube that runs at proper 300V plate voltage, and then a starved 70V plate voltage? Also does it shorten a tubes life significantly if it is turned on and then off for shorter periods of time frequently compared to instead less frequently being turned on for longer periods of time (but as in same average operating time)? Also does it shorten the life of a tube if is left turned on for several hours?

Cool! Well, it worked/works for Höfner. This!

I was just trying to be funny, but I see not very successfully, perhaps it would have made it funnier if I had indicated my jokes with emotes.

Yes, that was the joke.

Yes, and that is exactly why my reply in the same line of thoughts was a humorous comment to that as well. Insinuating that you were of the younger generation who are not familiar with any of the bass players I listed in my first comment, but only of YouTube celebrities. Are you aware that you don't have to use emotes to be funny, or that not every comment not followed by an emote is genuine, and that not every comment followed by an emote isn't genuine? And that sometimes jokes can be very genuine too. Also sometimes explaining that you are joking takes away from the genuineness of the joke?