EssentialTension

[quote name='Meddle' timestamp='1441133278' post='2856363'] Dear Mond, I'm sorry I ever set foot in this thread. Some eagle eyed bassists have noticed that the Dearmond Starfires have a different body shape to the original Guild versions. To counter some perceived gospel, some commentators from [i]back in the day [/i]don't have a nice thing to say about the original Bisonic pickups, including the bassist of minor league US prog legends Happy The Man. In their defense, Fred Hammon covered his website with pictures of Phil Lesh and Jack Casady, yet both modified their Starfires well beyond stock, and Hammon changed some of the key specs. Perhaps the biggest issue with Bisonic pickups is the odd design of the pickup adjusters. There is a French builder that makes accurate Bisonic pickups, minus the weird adjuster mechanism, that look a bit like P90 pickups with four poles instead of six. People would rather have the cumbersome black square pickup like the originals, even if it means paying a heftier price tag purely to offset the development costs of some fairly idiosyncratic and pointless flatwork. [/quote] ... also a factor in the development of the Lakland Chisonic pickup.

.. and furthermore Dearmond is really De Armond.

I wasn't meaning to correct you, merely to clarify. The Dearmonds were/are sometimes refered to as Dearmond By Guild too.

More interest here ... [url="http://basschat.co.uk/topic/197600-guild-starfire-bass-announced-at-namm"]http://basschat.co.uk/topic/197600-guild-starfire-bass-announced-at-namm[/url]

[quote name='Roger2611' timestamp='1440944611' post='2854878'] ... Dearmond Starfire bass .. [/quote] Just to clarify ... the 1990s Dearmond Starfire, like the 1990s reissued Guild Starfire, was fitted with the 1970s style Guild humbuckers (these where sometimes known as Dearmond Gold Tone humbuckers). Many people replaced the Dearmond/Guild humbuckers with Hammon Dark Stars which were a re-engineering of the original 1960s Guild/Hagstrom Bisonic pickups. Both the Dark Stars and the Bisonics are single coils, not humbuckers. The recent Guild reissues have a (different) re-engineered single-coil Bisonic. The point of course is that not all Starfire basses are the same. It's probably the case that most, although not all Starfire users, preferred the Bisonics/Dark Stars to the humbuckers.

[quote name='gareth' timestamp='1441032587' post='2855491'] Short scale = bad sound [/quote] Not in my experience.

I had a Dearmond Starfire with Hammon Dark Star pickups which both played and sounded excellent. Guild have recently reissued the Starfire.

Strings used to come in individual packets all in a box.

As soon as the audience will turn up and the gaffer is happy then it's not too soon. There's been a long tradition of bands playing weekly residencies or even playing every night - e.g. The Beatles at the KaiserKellar. Check out all these residencies at The Marquee - [url="http://www.themarqueeclub.net/timeline"]http://www.themarqueeclub.net/timeline[/url] Between Feb 1961 and Aug 1963 The Beatles played The Cavern over 250 times.

[quote name='Annoying Twit' timestamp='1440772063' post='2853746'] I think that at some time it will be repeated, but perhaps not with music. Or not with music as we know it. [/quote] In the Goodall film he suggests previous examples of 'changing everything', for example Wagner.

[quote name='Happy Jack' timestamp='1440771527' post='2853738'] ... If nor, why not? ... [/quote] If not, why neither?

[quote name='wateroftyne' timestamp='1440770790' post='2853724'] Jinxies! [/quote] Call me a southerner, but I don't know what that means. EDIT: Oh hang on, does it mean we said same thing at same time?

[quote name='Annoying Twit' timestamp='1440763814' post='2853626'] ... I don't think anyone is actually saying that The Beatles were singlehandedly responsible for the 60s, but they were the biggest influencing factor on popular music in that time. I've read that people used to wait around until The Beatles released their next album, so that they knew where the bar for popular music would be for the next six months. [/quote] Of course, I expect even some younger people (fewer years than 59) know that it was not single-handed, nonetheless The Beatles were the centre of a 'perfect storm' (as someone called it earlier - Water of Tyne, I think). Others were near the centre, e.g. possibly Dylan, while others were not really near the centre at all, e.g. possibly Dave Clark Five.

I had a fretless Ripper about 30 years ago and mine was definitely a defret.

[quote name='Annoying Twit' timestamp='1440688962' post='2853011'] ... Didn't Bob Dylan say that the chords that the Beatles used were outrageous ... [/quote] I wouldn't be surprised at that but also I read somewhere that Roger McGuinn, pre-Byrds, was working for one of the songwriting companies in the Brill Building. His job was listen to hit songs on the radio, analyse them and so write another hit. Upon hearing The Beatles he was struck by their use of chords and chord progressions that were uncommon to most pop songs of the time. Story also has it that George Martin warned against certain chords and cadences - e.g. ending on a 6 chord - because they were so old-fashioned but the band just responded 'we think it sounds great'.

Howard Goodall (born 1958 so maybe slightly young to be allowed an opinion but anyway ...) [media]http://youtu.be/ZQS91wVdvYc[/media]

[quote name='bottomfeed' timestamp='1440593649' post='2852220'] Another bit of old skool Epi porn..... Newport? With the bat wing headstock [/quote] Spot the headstock ...

[quote name='joshua.harris1234' timestamp='1440414667' post='2850392'] Hey, I was just wondering whether it is possible to fit soap bar pickups on a jazz bass instead of the standard single coil layout? Thanks, Josh [/quote] Soapbars are commonly single coils but it sounds as though you mean humbuckers of some kind. Can you clarify?

Takamine B10 [IMG]http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o316/EssentialTension/IMG_1248.jpg[/IMG]

[IMG]http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o316/EssentialTension/IMG_1249.jpg[/IMG]

[quote name='vmaxblues' timestamp='1439991145' post='2847313'] ... the guitarist for some reason didn't want to trouble the singer (his best mate) with shelling out for the PA ... [/quote] ... and that's why I'm out. Well ... would be out if it was my band.

[media]http://youtu.be/l0YmmSxLeH8[/media]

[media]http://youtu.be/kKhi4BfDNZE[/media]

[media]http://youtu.be/amklMQlQETc[/media]

[media]http://youtu.be/whTb96zr9_w[/media]