uncle psychosis

They don't have to like your music but they have to understand it.

I pretty much always tap my feet. It really helps me keep time. Flute is my first instrument and so head nodding was never really an option!

Never "got" the stones. I suspect that being born long after their heyday doesn't help. Its hard to see a band as a revolutionary when the revolution was twenty-five years before you were aware of rock n' roll! They've always been part of the musical establishment for me! Hope you enjoy it though, Blue. Seeing your idols is always special

I get my RAT fix using a standard Proco RAT and a Boss LS-2. Sounds awesome. Sound guys love it because the bass doesn't disappear, and if you buy second hand the pair of pedals can be had for about the same as one of the Boutique RAT types, but with the added bonus of having an LS-2 which is useful for lots of things.

[quote name='timmo' timestamp='1427829802' post='2734854'] Why do people buy signature basses and change the bridge and pickups? I thought the whole point was you got the same bass. Does it devalue it if you change bits? [/quote] You're assuming that people buy a signature bass because they want to sound exactly like the artist or have an exact replica of their instrument. Loads of people buy signatures just the same as they buy non-signature models. They're just a bass with a spec they like.

If you think about it, (nearly) all that a "good" bass is is a collection of good parts that have had some care and attention applied to them. Now, you can either have these good parts and attention to detail applied in the factory, or you can apply them yourself. The main problem with doing the latter, so long as you have the correct technical skills to do the work properly, is that the resale is (generally) terrible. Of course, some people will (probably rightly) argue that you get a better instrument if you aim for the best right from the beginning of its life but for lots of the simpler basses---fender styles, for example---there's no reason why you can't get[i] most of the way[/i] to "top" instrument status by `pimping' it.

[quote name='UglyDog' timestamp='1426696630' post='2720949'] While the first bit may be true, the second & third bits are entirely subjective really. 100 people would tell you 100 different things. [/quote] Ask 100 bass players what the best bass ever is and you'll get 200 different answers!

Sounds like Ken Smith but cheaper? Buy one of my new asian knock offs. I'm trading under the name Ben Fifth.

Maybe I'm weird but I just can't be bothered owning lots and lots of different instruments. Maybe its a hangover from being a classical musician---just having one really good flute and not worrying about anything other than that. I like to have a main one and maybe a backup and just play them. Changing between instruments all the time is irritating (to me) and I don't like having stuff lying around not being regularly used. Don't get me wrong, I love looking at pictures of shiny new basses as much as the next guy but I don't think I'll ever own more than 2 or 3 at once.

I've never used it on bass. On guitar, I found that it did help strings last longer but I didn't like how it made them feel.

Flute is my first instrument. Nearly went to music college as a flautist but didn't want to risk becoming a music teacher! Ewi are cool but I don't know that I'd recommend one as a starting point. There are loads of amateur bands and orchestras to play in if you play a more conventional instrument and in my experience that's the best way to learn. The "easiest" wind instruments to learn are the alto sax and the Bb clarinet. I'd recommend flute though, it's a great instrument.

Looks great. I'm beginning to gas for jazz basses again. Oh dear.

[quote name='timmo' timestamp='1427142542' post='2726431'] Something else I have learned today. Now I see the point of capos. Thanks for that [/quote] Thats not the really main point of capos. The purpose of a capo is to change the pitch of the open strings. This is particularly useful for guitarists who want to change the key of a song but still be able to use chord shapes that make use of open strings. They are less common amongst bassists (I've never seen a bass player use one) but they can be useful as a way of trying out what a shorter scale bass feels like to play as EssentialTension suggests.

Never bought from them but I have been aware of them for a very long time. Richard runs a forum that I was part of for a long time. He used to run "Regents Guitars" but I think they, err, went bust. Richard himself seems to be quite an interesting character---very passionate and wears his heart on his sleeve, can come across a bit confrontational as a result. He used to do some very generous giveaways at Christmas on his forum. That said, he has a very public committment to deliver quality instruments and I've never heard of anyone complain about the service they received from him as a customer. He seems to have a very high threshold for QC (he used to detail on the forum instruments he had rejected!) and will only stock brands he personally believes in and likes (he dumped Gordon Smith with a rather public and extremely scathing blog post slating their QC). It used to be the case that all of the guitars they sold came with a free setup (to the buyers specification). Suspect they still do, it was a big part of his sales spiel. If they had something I wanted at the right price I'd be happy to order from them but I'd maybe phone them to discuss it first (I don't know what their stock levels etc are like and frankly the website used to be rubbish, maybe its better now).

It's interesting to see what seems to be "normal" in different parts of the UK. In Edinburgh and Glasgow I've never encountered a practice room that *didn't* provide PA and mics, guitar amps, bass amp, and drum kit (minus cymbals). The drummer brings his own cymbals (and maybe his own snare), I take my bass/pedals , guitarist takes his guitar/pedals. No one has to pay extra to hire anything. If either myself or the guitarist are feeling really keen we could take our own amps but the ones in the practice rooms here are all fairly decent and tonal nuance isn't too important to us. Practice is always split equally.

No doubt this will be seen as an "argumentative" comment by some but the idea that this place is particularly aggressive strikes me as quite amusing. I can only imagine that the people who have that impression aren't on too many other forums? This place is incredibly friendly in comparison to almost anywhere else online! As for the regulars leaving, I've been away on holiday so no idea who we're talking about but it always happens on every forum I've ever been on (quite a few now). There's only so long you can discuss the same topics with the same people. Priorities change, lifestyles change. I myself have grown tired of forums and left them after thousands of posts and years of membership. Let's face it, all of us have drifted away from real life friends so why would Internet friends be any different?

[quote name='Cameronj279' timestamp='1425992605' post='2713125'] yup. heard a few people who went to get pickups changed and they've replaced the likes of £100 pickups with £40 ones etc. [/quote] I have heard that story but not about Jimmy Moon (who has an oustanding reputation as far as I'm aware). There is another luthier/repairer in Glasgow whose first name is Jimmy and whose name I was given in relation to horror stories but I'm not going to risk getting BC into trouble by posting his full name.

Lozz - when you distort a sound it gets naturally compressed. It's pay off the reason why people tend not to compress high gain sounds - they don't need to!

[quote name='KevB' timestamp='1425906854' post='2712004'] How have we done since 2000? Here's a direct quote from one of the sites you linked to: '[font=Verdana][size=2]The new millennium saw a sea change in many countries fortunes with more and more entrants from the former Soviet Union leading to a massive issue with neighbour and diaspora voting, most shamelessly in those countries and those of the former Yugoslavia, that threatened the very future of the event. The power base in Eurovision most definitely moved to the East and South of the continent and to a select bunch of countries within that region.'[/size][/font] [/quote] Things might have changed but not because "everyone hates us" which is the point I was responding to.

[quote name='discreet' timestamp='1425901203' post='2711901'] People in other European countries simply have no sense of humour [/quote] What a magnificently enlightened attitude.

[quote name='SpaceChick' timestamp='1425839915' post='2711333'] that said, we could put in the greatest composition the world had ever heard and we still wouldn't win as the rest if Europe hate us! [/quote] This is a myth that gets trotted out every year and its just not true. The UK has won the bloomin' thing 5 times and came second fifteen times. On the "all-time" rankings we're near the top (if not actually at the top) depending on how you measure it. [url="http://www.nulpoints.net/rankings.htm"]http://www.nulpoints.net/rankings.htm[/url] [url="http://www.eurovisionhouse.nl/rankingat.php"]http://www.eurovisionhouse.nl/rankingat.php[/url] [url="http://www.eschome.net/databaseoutput122.php"]http://www.eschome.net/databaseoutput122.php[/url] We don't win because we don't try to. Things like the Norton/Wogan piss take comments are known to the other countries (last year the main coverage made a point of embarassing Norton live on air). If we stopped treating the entire thing like a joke and being really snide about the other entrants we'd be able to win it.

I'm fairly sure you can buy clones/build your own kits of the Power Boost circuit and I think it would probably be easy to modify them to make them bass friendly (although if you like the sound as is why change anything?)

The behringer bdi21 is basically a clone of the sansamp at a fraction of the price. I also really like the hartke bass attack. On a slightly different note, the zoom b3 is excellent fun for headphone practice.

Cris I used to have a TRB and I think I changed the battery once in the three years I owned it. You should be getting much better battery life! As for the question - I have to echo the advice of "at that budget, play everything you can". Good luck!