Muzz

Straight face, confident walk. Worked for Howard Marks. Mostly.

Oooooh look: it's a universal 110/240v power supply, which means one bought in the States would work over here...just sayin... 😁

Well done...I could hear the restraint from here... 😁 I'm sure Class D has a way to go, it's certainly improved over the various generations/iterations I've owned so far, and it'll get better. It's all a matter of degrees, and hinges on people's sensitivity/priorities. See 'Tonewood' or 'Are £3k basses six times better than £500 basses?', or 'Killing rock n roll', etc, for similar boxes of subjective frogs... In general terms, though, I'm finding more and more that the old traditional amp-behind-you-providing-possibly-heft to the back of your legs isn't needed like it used to be, and in fact is detrimental to sound (on and off-stage), even in small pubs. I've still got a small rig (WA/212), but I use it less and less. A pair of in-ears, two tops and a sub* is sooo much more useful if you're gigging as much as I am. And if you're as old as I am... 😕 * We're even considering getting better tops and dropping the sub...

Somebody mentioned Peaveys the other day, and I spent waaaayyyyy too long looking at MkVI heads in a misty-eyed haze... 😕🙂

The newer Class D power modules (the D800, Magellan, etc) are very good, and a different animal from the older ones.

The Walkabout preamp is the best thing about it (it's just enough - I thought the M-Pulse pre was too much), and I don't have any Class D baggage, so this looks very very promising - I like the HPF, too. I'd love to hear/try one, but it's gonna cost as much as a small car, so I can't see that happening for a good while... 😕

Yep: the best bit being 'We just played on...' 😀

My Shukerbird has no Gibson parts in it at all - it started life as a nice Epi body, and that's all that's left amongst the Hipshot, East, Dingwall and Shuker bits. I wouldn't trade it for a Gibson.

We went over to his home town in Italy (Lecce) last year to do some gigs, and I'll never forget the look of head-shaking disappointment on his face when I suggested one afternoon we pop into McDonalds for a quick bite...we didn't go in... 😕🙂

You name it, he doesn't like it...and we've played some very very well-catered weddings...the last but one we played was at a very nice hotel somewhere in Leicestershire, and the food was from the restaurant...I thought lobster and truffle ravioli might raise an eyebrow, but nope...

Oh no, I'm really sorry to hear that, it's a nightmare. Everything crossed for a speedy and safe return.

I've played in an originals band with a BL who wrote (and sang) everything, and was very sure of how he wanted it to sound. He was (and is) a very talented musician on all sorts of instruments, and I loved the songs, so I was happy to play what I was told, how I was told to do it, for a few years at least. A pub covers band, though, is a very different box of frogs, and the OP's guitard sounds like very hard work. It'd have to be a verrrry good band for me to put up with that sort of control freakery...

This. The next day, when my other/better half says 'How was the gig?', the first thing I mention is the food... 😀

Don't hate them: they're just making some music. All very talented, yada yada, but didn't do much for me, and though they're playing it 'live', it sounds like it's been put together on a laptop. Nice P sound, tho...

We have a picky eater in our function band - the drummer is Italian, and has very forthright opinions about English food. Like all picky eaters, we just shrug and ignore him... 🙂 For a wedding gig, we have it in our contract that we are fed and have one drink, and I don't recall any client who has objected. As for the order of buffet access, if the client wants us to go on immediately after the buffet, we politely request we get an early run at the buffet so we're done in time. Again, we've never been refused. The hardest part is maintaining a facial expression of delight when the fifth client in a row announces proudly "We've got a hog roast!" Oh goody... 😕🙂

I had a Peavey Mk, I think VI head, which was my backup head when my SVT went fizzzzzzzz, as it did with distressing regularity, and I preferred the actual sound of the Peavey. If I hadn't have been such a brand tart I'd never have persevered with the SVT... Edit: Just checking my memory and yeah, it was a Mk VI - one of the all-black/grey early ones. Good gravy: it was 250w into 4 ohms...now, I used it in LOUD 2-guitar bands with an 810 fridge and I never even considered the wattage, or difference in wattage: they were both plenty loud enough. You'd expect it from an SVT, but man, those Peavey chaps could squeeze all the noise out of 250w...

Not last night by any means, but one of the more impressive rooms we've played in...yep, that's Concorde 🙂

I love my ABZ4 (still), tho it's not quite standard - I put one of the Dingwall P-Tone pickups in the neck position and a John East U-Retro preamp in - this last more to be consistent with my other basses, all of which have the East pre in, but it really works with the bass.. It can growl like a growly thing which is particularly upset about something... 😀 Build quality, resonance and evenness of tone are better than anything I've owned (and I've owned a LOT of basses) with the possible exception of my Shukers, and the weight (7lb 6oz) is a joy. I play with a pick a lot, and I've never noticed any issues. The neck is a lot bigger than I'd normally go for (I like a slim Jazz width neck) but the whole fan fret thing seems to make it hard to notice. Oh, and it holds a detune like nowt else, too: just for fun, I dropped it to C last week with the standard gauge strings on it, and it was barely noticeable (and I like a higher tension, too). As an aside (although related to the chaps above who think they sound a bit sterile) I owned and moved on two Overwaters for exactly that reason...

That happened to me, too... 😕

I'm firmly in the 'it's about the song' rather than even 'it's about the band', and definitely not 'it's about the player'. Even my favourite players in my favourite bands have generated some duff old songs, which no amount of playing can save... There's bassists I like, but they don't dictate what I like to listen to, and I definitely don't gravitate to solo/virtuoso bass stuff, and definitely, definitely not the widdly/shreddy stuff. Most of those guys have got enough competition these days from 10-year olds on YouTube anyway...if you'll forgive a footballing analogy, it's like watching someone playing keepie-uppie rather than a good match... The only person I willingly listen to/watch playing solo is Bobby Vega, and that's mostly because of that little knee-bend shuffly boogie thing he does... 😀

Me too! 😀

I think, with the exception of the backwaters of jazz, that 'Standard' is a moveable feast: one man's Standard being another Man's WTF. In the world of general consumption, it's entirely understandable how these things move as popularity of music changes, and I'm sure any musical lessons about structure and theory can be learned from songs of a similar structure from any era. One startling illustration of how things move on is when our BL got some gigs doing his solo acoustic guitar/singing schtick in a number of old peoples homes. I'd imagined he'd have to learn some much older tunes, but he told me the things which went down best were Beatles and Stones/60s stuff... 😕 😀

I've just looked at these, as they look great for leaving around the place and noodling, but every demo I've seen they're fret-buzzing like mad... 😕

I'll second the Michael Kelly - I've had a Dragonfly for a good while. As Josie says, they've verrrry ornate, but I love the look of mine, it's just a nice thing to have around. It's very capable of gigging, too; the Fishman pickup/preamp is very nice. The revelation with mine was fitting flats - it improved the whole experience tenfold, I don't know why all acoustic basses don't come with them as standard. I'm not a flats player by any means, but they just work soooo well with acoustic basses.