Skybone

King of the Road - The Proclaimers

Paul Gray

Mourning Of A New Day - Cathedral

ACS Custom moulded earplugs and some strings.

I Think I'm Going Bald - Rush

Lemmy, what about Lemmy?

Geezer Butler

Roger Glover

Cliff Burton

Peter Hook

Sunburst (or any "burst" for that matter)

Humbuckers

Active Electronics

Twin Pickup Basses without separate volume controls

Go Now! - The Moody Blues

Summer of '69 - Bryan Adams

2 hours ago, MrDinsdale said:

This is the key bit for me.

 

I don’t believe that SS strings on nickel frets will “literally wreck your frets so fast it’s not even funny”. I think it’ll take a long time either way.

+1.

Been using Stainless strings for a long time, and I have yet to have any of my basses re-fretted because of wear. 

There's usually plenty of older Ashdown amps/cabs/combo's knocking about for next to nothing, they'd definitely be worth a look.

Long Haired Lover from Liverpool - Donny Osmond

Liver in the City - Stevie Wonder

Cold Sweat - Thin Lizzy

15 hours ago, Shaggy said:

 

Thanks Skybone, these seem to have been the “Pamela Anderson” of the bass world, in being unattainable objects of desire for a certain generation of bass players whilst in their formative years.......

 

Though my main object of desire when I started out was a Ric, as in your avatar.    I’ve since been lucky enough to own 3 - still got my early ‘73 4001. 🙂

Very true.

Mine still IS a 4001, I'll settle with my 4003.   

Assault & Battery - Hawkwind

One of my "dream" basses back in the late 80's/early 90's. That is such a great looking bass. GLWTS.

Agreed.

The only thing with merchandise, especially if you don't gig that often, it is a bit of a "slow" return.

I suppose it will depend on the design for the front and back prints. If it's a relatively "simple", single colour design, it should be feasible to get them done at a reasonable price. The more complex the design, the more expensive it'll be.

If you look at getting a vinyl print, it might reduce the price even more. The downside, IMO, is that the print isn't quite as good as screen printing.

It cost £306 for 50 shirts. The more you buy, the cheaper each individual shirt will be. We can sell the shirts for a reasonable price at gigs, and still get some money back with profits going into the band coffers. 

Having done t-shirts before for another band, like you say, the larger sizes sell better, so I went for 10 Medium, 20 Large & 20 XLarge. All of the Mediums have been sold, I think we're down to 10 Large and about 12 XL's.

The band had been talking about getting merch / doing a CD of the album, but that's as far as it ever went. I got a tad frustrated with this and just ordered them. I did have to chase people to get the artwork in a suitable resolution to order the shirts, but thankfully, everyone chipped in, so I managed to get 3 quarters of my outlay back, which helped.

Chairman of the Bored - CRASS

On 27/11/2023 at 08:35, BigRedX said:

I've used Shirty Something for Terrortones T-Shirts and I believe the last In Isolation design was done by them too. However I'm not impressed with the current web site design as it makes finding print prices far too difficult. In fact AFAICS you now have to call or email them to even get a quote for anything other than unprinted items. That certainly wasn't the case when I last used them.

 

BTW the full colour design while looking fantastic may turn out to be too expensive to print unless you are considering a print-run of thousands

They were pretty good in answering emails and/or phone calls.

Obviously, they need a high resolution image to base a price off, but they'll also give you options. Looking at the image posted (especially the colour one), it'll probably need the "Direct to Garment" print, rather than your "traditional" screen print. I'm assuming that it's basically just like an inkjet printer type piece of kit that prints direct onto the shirt. Unfortunately, this isn't cheap, IIRC, it was working out at around £12 per shirt for a small number run. The more you have printed, the cheaper each shirt will be.

I only ordered 50 black Gildan shirts with a white print, turnaround was about 8 days from paying to them arriving at my door. Great shirts, well happy with them.

Payment was by Bank Transfer, they don't take cards or PayPal.

Doctor Doctor - UFO / Thompson Twins

It is a case of trying to retrain your self to play where you want. Create a new habit as Paolo said.

I did something similar about 10-15 years ago. I'd always been a pick player from when I started playing. Finger-style didn't work for me when I started, and playing with a pick allowed my to get my playing speed up. Anyway, I'd had a bit of a break from playing bass, and decided to get back into it again, but this time playing with fingers. It would have been easy to pick up a plectrum and start where I'd left off, but thought that it'd be worth the effort (it was).

Add to the fact that I was playing a Ric, which kind of demands a slightly different playing style to a P or J style bass. Just to add a bit more complication into the mix.

Anchor your thumb on the edge of the pickup, and use the thumb as a pivot.

There is also a lot to be said for moving your playing hand anyway, as you get a different type of sound when you play near the neck and near the bridge.

Had a couple of good dealings with them. 

Bought a couple of speakers for an old cab from them at a very good price. Spoke to them a few months ago because I couldn't find any combo handles in the spare parts section of the main Ashdown site for my amp, as the rubber was splitting. They couldn't find any, but took my number and said they'd have a look around, and call back if they found some. Lo and behold, about an hour or so later, they called back as they'd managed to find some and sent them out to me.