uncle psychosis

I'd be interested in trying the FatBeams. My TRB came with DR roundwounds but the seller couldn't remember which variety. They lasted *ages* (I've had the bass for nearly 18 months now and the strings are still OK---I took them off to put flats on last month but they're otherwise fine) and sounded good. I'll probably buy more but £35 is quite a lot to gamble! Certainly, your photo is consistent with what my DR strings look like.

One other thing that I've learned is that the gear you use isn't all that important. I've seen enough pros just using "any old gear" now to realise that so long as your gear is setup well and in tune talent and hard work are more important than the name on the headstock or amp.

This is an area Fender really need to improve on. Their Mexican basses don't come with a lot (I thought it was just manual / allen keys / tags) but because they don't make it clear it means that retailers just send any old junk and hope you'll accept it.

[quote name='Marvin' timestamp='1358810859' post='1945630'] Is it still panto season??? [/quote] No. It's behind you.

[quote name='Dingus' timestamp='1358810424' post='1945621'] It'll sound very different though . [/quote] True, I'll need to buy both

[quote name='elephantgrey' timestamp='1358787047' post='1944981'] EDIT: if so, why don't they just say so? why hide behind meaningless acronyms? [/quote] Given how many pedals these days are cloned and copied I can forgive a company for being slightly circumspect about giving away details of how something new works.

The MO-2 looks cool. Not convinced by the marketing spiel---from the description and sounds, I'd guess that they're splitting the signal into different frequency regions and applying the effect slightly different to each one?

Its not a *million* miles away from this other beauty: http://basschat.co.uk/topic/192862-fs-fender-roscoe-beck-v-green-teal-metallic-2003-great-condition-new-price/

[quote name='Ghost_Bass' timestamp='1358781954' post='1944859'] I would never buy a bass with bad assembly/fit/finish, if i'm paying a considerable amount of money i expect the bass to be well buildt. [b]A neck pocket gap is a big flaw[/b] and there's no mass production story that justifies such thing. [/quote] Is it, though? Really? I'm not convinced it is. I've played enough basses now to know that some set-neck basses have rubbish sustain and some bolt-ons with neck pocket gaps have sustain in abundance. Sure, if you pick up a bass and play it, and the sustain is rubbish, then by all means discount that instrument. But just looking at the neck pocket and deciding---without playing it---that it isn't going to sound good is (IMO) almost as silly as judging the pickups before you've plugged the thing in.

I thought I'd finally cured myself of any real GAS. But the last few weeks there's been so much nice stuff that I've been bad and just bought something...

[quote name='Telebass' timestamp='1358702654' post='1943648'] [font=Verdana,Arial]Well, the bass sounds great at gig volumes. But two songs in, and it was history! I can still feel it 18 hours later! [/font] [font=Verdana,Arial]But for home/sit-down gigs/rehearsal/recording - it's the one![/font] [/quote] Doh! Seems a bit silly to have a really cool plexi bass and keep it hidden away though

Wow. Just wow. Want.

Last time I went "serious" bass shopping I tried a whole load of Ibanez basses, some Laklands, and some Fenders (I bought a Yamaha, but thats another story). The Ibanez basses (three or four of them) had horrid setups and the Laklands were no better than the Fenders at the same price point. I'm sure that there are Fenders out there that have issues---they are mass produced instruments, after all---but I honestly think that some people are imagining QC faults that, well, aren't, and are just parroting things they've read on the internet. I'm not sure that a neck pocket gap is necessarily a bad thing. It [b]may[/b] be, but you should judge a bass by picking it up and playing it, not looking at it and thinking "oh, neck pocket gap, must be crap". I'm sure if you asked people to play these basses blind they wouldn't be aware of many of the supposed "flaws".

I quite often attempt little fills which (to me at least) I've totally ripped off from Mike Mills.

K. I'm quite busy at the weekend but I'll see what I can do. Just give me a PM

[quote name='mcnach' timestamp='1358709055' post='1943818'] You can indeed But it's unlikely to go anywhere anytime soon Are you in Edinburgh at all this week? Andrew (aka 'apa') is visiting (coming to a Sea Bass Kid gig on the 24th too ) and we will be sharing a few beers and checking basses out etc... if you want to join? [/quote] That would be fun, but I'm quite busy...when were you thinking?

Looks great. Can I call "dibs" if you sell it?

[quote name='mcnach' timestamp='1358653488' post='1942906'] THis is a quick mock reassembling, with the original white pickguard: pretty, eh? [/quote] That looks really, really good. Definitely go with the white. I'm really impressed with the job so far---I really want an orange bass, suspect at somepoint I may ask for a "tutorial"

[quote name='thepurpleblob' timestamp='1358684842' post='1943195'] I read a lot of threads on here and there's a lot of chat about finding "your sound". I don't have one. Am I ok? I turn up at a gig, set everything in sight flat. I have a listen. If there are any odd resonances or other oddness in the room I try to dial it out then off to get a diet coke. That's it. I'm weird aren't I [/quote] Flippant comments aside, I'm quite glad I'm not the only person who thinks like this! Its one reason I manage to curtail my GAS---I'm not really overly fussy about bass sounds so one or two good basses is all I need.

[quote name='molan' timestamp='1358637188' post='1942767'] Isn't some of this due to songs being fractionally sped up or slowed down? I played with Carol Decker once on China in Your Hands and she told me to use the album version to learn because the single had been increased in speed and it was fractionally out of tune if you tried to use concert pitch tuning [/quote] Some recordings are speeded up slightly in production---it gives them a little more "bounce"... Diana Ross speeded up a lot of the stuff Nile Rodgers did for her, rumour has it that she did it to sound younger!

I'd love to come but Moffat is a bit too far for me