12stringbassist

The SG on the left has had the chrome pickup covers when my mate had it. I'll try to find a bit more out about it from him. The SGII had a brass nut fitted, at my request, when it had its refinish.

I could have done it when I had two identical Hartke setups for a while up to last year. The two rigs wouldn't balance tonally. If I combine all the rigs, I get a really full range sound at low volume.

My old band were so well-drilled in our painfully static set list, that we didn't have to even look at each other. That's nearly two years of my life that I won't get back...

I think that advert would suit a 'retired gentleman of a certain age' who really only wanted to gig a minimum number of times to prove he can still do it, but is not up to regular gigging. They are straight up about what they want, including a large degree of exclusivity (well, that's how it reads to me). I have another 10 years to go before I am old and infirm enough to answer an ad like that or read it all the way through.

Reads as nobody notices, but more insulting to the buggers.

Here we have my normal bass rig - a Hartke HA3500 power amp, coupled with a 2x10 and 4x10 cabinet. This being taken at our Sunday jam night, my Fender Champion 100w guitar amp is also pictured. The view forward at jam night - Laney monitor, my guitar FX board, PA desk on bass bin, lyrics for the songs all the mortals do, a couple of basses and a guitar. My frightening 'Geddy Lee' set-up of bass effects (not). Flanger and tuner. Alternative bass rig, which sometimes gets coupled with the Hartke rig at big venues. Two Trace Elliot 715 combos. Basses: 'Active evenings': Fender P deluxe or Precision Lyte Hamer B12 12string bass Warwick Streamer CT NT bass or Thumb Passive evenings: Fender Jazz A couple of Rickenbackers Fender 60th P or something else Guitars Gibson LP Gretsch White Falcon Strat Vintage Midge Ure signature LP type or something else

My band The Three do the song and I'm a BIG John / Who fan. I swap the line over, too. No bugger notices...

I've got 4 4003's and the only issue i have ever had with mine is with the Midnight Blue finish bleeding into the binding. It stank of paint when I opened the case and while the paint felt fine at the time, it obviously wasn't and I got sticky hands a lot from it. The discoloured binding wasn't the issue as much as the utter sh*t I got from John Hall for asking about it on forums, including his. The bleed was a known problem. The bass was a total keeper, though and the bleed is just a bit of mojo, I suppose. I have never had tail lift, bad frets, poor action or anything. The neck pickup is normally set weaker on a 4003 and I wish it wasn't but them's the breaks. I always play with both on and everything set to 10 on the Rics and they just sound great. I'm not a snivelling Ric fanboy. They have made some right dogs, but fortunately, I haven't ever played one.

These are prototypes (which they will sell for big $, I guess). I think they will see the feedback on the pickup shape and revert to a normal shape, then the world will be happy. Thank God they have sorted the bridge out. They need to start offering it on 4 strings, too. It does amuse me though, when so many people say that Ric don't ever change anything.... and then when they actually DO...

Any Ric 5-string users / owners have got used to playing them, I'm sure.

I have the Mex P deluxe and just leave it active all the time.

I really doubt they would invest money in tooling up to make a more suitable neck width. This is about making money, not spending it....

No doubt there are online reports of why Ric stopped producing them some years ago. I have read that there were issues with them that made them give up. I wonder if anything is actually different now. It looks like enough people have shouted that they would buy one, so they have responded. They just need to sort out their bridges and pickups now and make the bridge cover detachable without the need for a bezel.

The imposters are : Retrovibe black 5-string. retrovibe Rickenbastard (was a Vantage) John Birch SCDR bass (1976, greenburst)

Apparently appearing at NAMM...

That's my wife's idea.

£2300 plus in PMT last week. A joke... Good job I bought mine before the prices went stratospheric (or before they reached the partway point they are at now.

As Midge said in his rather good autobiography, he 'had a relationship with Jack Daniels' for some time and that may have done him no good. He seems to be quite sober these days. Being unfairly 'in the shadow ' of the more media-savvy Geldof, who bumped Ultravox to a different spot on the bill at Live Aid, so that The Boomtown Rats could play before Charles and Di buggered off elsewhere, hasn't helped either. Midge had enormous involvement in that and it distracted from his career at the time.

If you fancy the fortnight's work and possibly some more to follow, take the rules as read, but ask another band member when on board. If someone was paying me good money to play bass on a cruise ship, I'd go on the lemonade for the duration.

My mate has a Dean R12. Looks aside (and I didn't mind it), it was really VERY playable.

Ha! Your wish, etc, etc.. From GIRLFRIENDS on ITV last night. If you watch it on catch up, the bass I played on the actual live recording of the song was a Ric 4003W

Adding chorus to an 8 string bass will not give you a 12 string bass sound. It will sound like a 'confused' 8-string bass, with the output signal rather messed up. I have a Dean Rhapsody 8-string bass and can attest that it is one of the best basses for all over intonation of its type. My two Hamer 12er's are also excellent for intonation (both are different scales). The sound is 'bigger than the 8-string, especially if you do not tune totally precisely. They are both active. They sound pretty thunderous through my Hartke rig.