Al Heeley

According to my old chum Wikipedia the Baroque period ran from 1600 to 1750, referring to european Classical music. Vivaldi's seminal work was composed in 1723.

welcome - please post bass pics, we like pics

I got a Squier '98 Korean JB off ebay for about £90 2 years ago and its done me proud - it had a few scratches and dents on the body but that made it ideal for pub gigging. A bit of tweaking on the neck, a shim and a set up made it a keeper - great to play, punchy tone, prbobly the nost comfortable neck for my hands and a real steal at £90.

You can't go far wrong with a Squier (by Fender) Precision or jazz bass and a 25Watt practice amp to get you started.

Seen a couple of the expensive Shure in-ear buds at various airport shops, ranging from £175 to £295. I can never get 'em to stay in my ears properly anyway so much prefer the over-ear mini sennheiser type. As a rule, i wouldn't pay more than the price of an ipod for a pair of ipod headphones, where i listen to the ipod it's seldom quiet enough to justify this sort of money. I do not doubt for a minute they are superb but for listening to MP3 quality? Too much for me!

If I were you I'd go for the 2nd hand ESP bass then you will have more money left to spend on an amp with a bit more power. Forget the 30W and lower amps as you will never be heard well in a band practice (unless you rehearse in a library). Go for at least 75W amp or they will never hear you with guitar and drums going.

Depressing reading, sad to hear more woes of this nature - I think its an anonnymity thing associated with modern culture of internet, forums and texting - you can promise all you want to someone you don't know and you don't face the moral consequences of letting them down. Maybe if all transactions were in person, face to face, there would be a lot less chance of someone over-committing to you as a potential buyer and then backing down in front of you if they change their mind. Mind you, some people are so self-centred they never see to give a 54!7 about other people or letting them down even face-to-face. Best avoid once encountered. Good luck with your sale, and keep the moral high ground - don't let the chavs pull you down to their levels.

I bought a pack of those planet waves kits where you can easily make up your own different size patch cables, comes with a load of simple push-fit right angle jacks that seem pretty good quality & robust. No problems to report from mine so far anyway.

Here's the Marshall crossover card, showing the vunerable points where I've had failure of the solder contacts at various times. These 2 components have enough mass to exert the necessary leverage under vibration to crack the solder underneath causing intermittent contact. This will render the cabs useless and overload the amp trying to drive them. One solution is to dispense with the crossover altogether, which means you can't use the horn (so why buy a cab with a horn in it?). Another solution is to reinforce the fixing of the components to the board, reducing their ability to move under vibration. My 4210 amp card had the inductor coil loop secured very badly to the card as the epoxy had been bodged on it. It took very little time playing a few gigs before the strees fracture caused the failure of the wire where it enters the PCB. Not sure why the white fuse block has to be on such long legs sticking out of the board but obviously the longer the legs the greater stress is exerted on the solder points during gigging. A couple of strategically placed cable ties might reduce the chance of failure again if the solder joints are less than robust. Shoddy design in my view - pity as the amp is a cracker for the money.

...or crap crossover cards. Incidentally, since I have now sent mine back i'm left with a couple of spare crossover cards that marshall sent me, if they are of use to anyone, let me know and for the price of the postage I can send them on to you.

The article I read said that C/G was a C chord with a low G added to it. Not sure what an inversion means!

I guess you've checked its still mounted nice and tight against the wood?

centre -to-centre (but not always, some talk of space from one outer edge to the next, so be careful) Most will also say string spacing at the nut as well as the bridge.

is a year or two difference significant in terms of quality / value? Does it matter to the value if it has been refinished? I'm genuinely interested in what makes up the value of these vintage instruments. As an instrument, in terms of tone as well as the market value they can hold.

Just bought a gator case off Rich, lightning fast transaction and case delivered well wrapped in record time. Great communication, pleasure to do biz with. many thanks!

[quote name='Duarte' post='683565' date='Dec 13 2009, 11:59 PM']...but the ray has many bumps and dents. This is a result of ... taking it to work where it gets scraped around the floor, chewed on and sucked.[/quote] I am intrigued, do you manage a creche or work in a kennels?

I've wondered for ages about those little thumb rests some people have on their vintage basses, the ones below the strings but I've alway been embarassed to ask and feel stupid. You know, the one screwed into the scratchplate near the vol knob. What's it all about? How does a thumb rest below the strings work? What's its real purpose? Surely it's entirely impractical as a position to offer any support to the right hand when playing?

[quote name='jake_tenfloors' post='680446' date='Dec 10 2009, 05:45 PM']1. Born 2B Mild 2. yorks5stringer 3. Al Heeley 4. Wonderhorse 5. simon1964 6. Tait 7. Mikey R 8. budget bassist 9. Jake_tenfloors 10. Gnasher[/quote] Hey Jake - if I give u a lift will you bring your avatars with you?

[quote name='garethox' post='681212' date='Dec 11 2009, 12:19 PM'][url="http://basschat.co.uk/index.php?showtopic=70359&hl="]http://basschat.co.uk/index.php?showtopic=70359&hl=[/url] This has just gone up for sale![/quote] pm'med - you may have yourself a buyer

Where do you buy your rack case? I need a 2u soon, theres a few online & ebay outlets, are they any good? Seen a thread about best ones to buy but I'm on a tight budget and don't want to spend more than £50 really. Wondering if I'm ok with ebay shops...

[quote name='Mikey R' post='680420' date='Dec 10 2009, 05:11 PM']Remeber to ask this time Al. Any new basses built this year? [/quote] Hey Mikey - you've been doing all the building this year - hope you're bringing along your creation(s?). I've been focused on pcb's and soldering irons this last 12 months but I'm not allowed to talk about the Zvex clones here or people start shouting at me and I get all upset.

Thanks, also found a really nicely written article here explaining a lot of this stuff, wish I'd learnt this 20 years ago... www.museweb.com/ag/chord_form.html