Muzz

Yeah, the 2024 (and 1024) were both drastically reduced towards the end of their run (the 2024 could be had for £1600 and as low as £650 for a 1024) which kinda left the S/H values at little at sea. Is the P34 comparable with the 2024 or the 1024?

The 70s (especially the late 70s) are a very mixed bag when it comes to Fenders - there's lots of reasons for this, mostly around the CBS buyout, I'm sure there are many nice ones out there, but these two were basses I bought unseen (well, unplayed), and in those circumstances you take the risk. And in these cases they weren't good at all. Nothing disastrous like a twisted neck (tho it had a neck pocket gap you could have kept a spare pencil in), just an instrument which didn't feel or play as well as something which cost a fraction of what it did. Investing, however, is another thing entirely - I'm sure the 78 Jazz has doubled in price in the few years since I bought it, as it ticked all the investment/collector boxes, like original case, nearly unmarked, etc. It was just as something you'd want to play, it left something to be desired. Which is possibly why it was unmarked in its case after 30-odd years...

Yup, a couple of the worst basses I've owned were real-deal 70s Fenders. I sold them for hefty chunks of cash (market value) that were several times what they were actually worth without the name, the age, the mojo, etc... The 78 Jazz, in particular...I hope whoever bought it just hung it up as a trophy*, because it wasn't much of an instrument... * And if they did, I hope they used long screws in the wall: it was 12lbs+....

That would not surprise me at all...I had an older amp to a tech after a courier did their best to destroy it, it was a Tech21, and the chap said it was capable of putting out significantly more than the number on the front...

We're in Tonewood Territory, and that's a rootn tootn place full of shootin from the hip: there's no AB, because it's all very subjective, I think the most telling phrase is '...someone who has paid (a lot of money)...and would, quite understandably, like to think it was worth the cost and an improvement on a stock item...' Marketing Departments live and die by this... Oh, and roasted maple, like a lot of tonewoods, looks lovely 😃

Again for the record, I don't have any coloured basses, and the woods on all mine are unique...as are my ding patterns 😀

Lovely 😍

Yep: may or may not work, but the marketing departments love it 😉 For the record, I loved the BB2024 I played for a while one afternoon at Bass Direct, and might have bought it were it not £2.5k*, and one of the nicest precisions I've ever played was a RW...just a shame it was all scuffed in exactly the same places as the one hanging next to it... 🙂 * but hey, all that toasting and wobbling's gotta be paid for somehow, right? 🙂

And that's my favourite Class D amp, right there 😀

The numbers don't tell the whole story, though - I like Class D amps (especially the newer Gen), but the numbers don't line up exactly with volume (even ignoring cabs) with different designs, and Valve is different again: AB to D to Valve are not really comparable. Not that one is inherently better than another (that's a bag of rats I don't want to open), just there's no point getting hung up on numbers. I've had 300w valve, 300-600w AB and 500-800w Class D amps, and you know what? Most of them were very loud indeed. Also, the WA is rated at 300w, but that's at 4 ohms, and I've regularly run mine at 2.67, which equates to more output. The Super Twin, though, makes the WA capable of Very Very Loud, so I don't have to any more. It's worth saying at this point that tone and EQ are essential to consider: for example, an aggressive mid-heavy tone can sound much more immediate and louder than something dubby, and therefore not need as much power to be perceived as loud...

The more efficient cab thing works. I run a Walkabout through a BF Super Twin, and it'll hurt your ears, and drown any drummer, which is more than enough. Having said that'just for kicks I ran it with a Compact, too, and that was even louder.

They're both fake. As fake as a fake Rolex, and about as impressive.

Oh, and I went to a boys grammar, so a bit shoite, but with the possibility of buggery in the air. Mostly in the Music room...

I don't agree with the 'stuck' thing. Yes, I still enjoy music I picked up when I was in my teens, but like a lot of my friends I was very compartmentalised and prescriptive about my musical tastes. If it wasn't type of thing I'd decided I liked, I didn't give it house room. For example, and although I was a very keen bassist, you wouldn't have got me to listen to a Motown song even if you'd brought a pack of dogs and a big stick. As I've aged, I listen to (and play) and enjoy all sorts of different music. Still, it's an internet video, so it must be right... 😐

I have had them on a couple of basses, never had that problem. One thing I did notice is they don't like being taken off and put on again much; I snapped a couple when relocating them...

Read it too fast, and was quite excited...thought this was what it was... In this kinda way...

What he said...especially the bit about the paste... 🙂

I take your point about the guitar mix, though...it's not an uncommon phenomenon with Guitar Heroes 🙂

Ummmm... 😕

I've posted a couple of extremely curmudgeonly reviews of bands at the Arena in Manchester (Alterbridge were I think the last), and although it wasn't necessarily the only moan I had (did I mention 'curmudgeonly'?) the main problem was the sheer volume that the sound engineers were trying to generate in an enormous space, which resulted in a positively painful experience when looking down the barrels of the PA, and was still godawfully loud, even when we moved (we moved several times) right to the very back of the arena, in the out-of-sync* seats by the back wall. Just stupid, and of course everything revolved around the howitzer-sounding kick, and went downhill from there. It's not just small gigs that suffer from excessive volume: it'll be some time before I consider going back to the Arena, and I'm not the only one... * You know, the ones so far away from the stage the sound and lights are out of sync...as proved in the legendary experiment with the difference between relative speeds of sound and light aka 'Give us a shout when you see it' ...

Coupla things: 'He is a good drummer apart from the dynamics' is kinda like 'He is a good bassist apart from the notes', and if your guitarist can't hear himself, point his cab at his head; I'm gonna guess he's standing in front of (at worst*) a 412 pointing at his knees - one of those tilt-back things works a treat, and costs about a tenner. We did this with a Dep, and he soon got the point... my tinnitus really kicked in (yeah, I know it's a cumulative thing, but there was one gig when it started properly, and it's never stopped) after a gig where we were squeezed into a booth area in a chain pub in Leeds, and the second (dep) guitard had had to put his 112 combo onto a bar stool at nearly head height behind me. In context, we weren't massively loud, not was he, but the combination of his tone (again, not necessarily bad in context, just harsh close up) and the 112 pointing at my head did the trick. 😕 * Actually, I've realised 'at worst' could be a full 2x412 Martial Stack, in which case there's no hope, because he's already deaf... 😕

80s, but not the good 80s; the kinda naff, spandex-driven 80s... We're the By Jovi band I've alluded to in the Audition From Hell thread a while ago, we'd achieved a functioning drummer, and decided to embark on a UK Tour in installments...basically, we'd been through the back of Kerrang, listed the pubs/venues that other folk were playing, and phoned them up. The furthest North was a place in Stirling, which, of course, we couldn't manage to hang another gig off, so we were going to have to drive up and back in a day. Oh good. Singist blags a Merc van off his Dad, which was certainly big enough for all the gear, if a little elderly. Guitarist turns up with his mate, whose reputation had preceded him as a Proper Roadie. As he and I are the only driving license holders in the entourage, it's decided I'll drive up and he'll drive back, as I've spent the morning in work, and I'm clearly going to be far too fatigued with playing and then fighting off the attentions of adoring fans and almost certainly herds of groupies to drive back. Off we go. 400 yards later Proper Roadie demands a comfort break, an event which he repeats at depressingly frequent intervals during the 250-mile journey, hinting at early-onset incontinence issues. The trip is made even more depressing by the realisation that the van's 50mph top speed isn't quite enough, even with all the windows down in the rain, to expel all the carbon monoxide which the broken exhaust is depositing into the cab. The van's also doing about 8mpg, but at least that means we get to stagger out, coughing and wheezing and doing that wafting thing, at every services between Manchester and Stirling. By teatime we're at the venue, all is suspiciously quiet, and the total lack of any of the posters we'd sent should have set warning bells ringing. The landlord, who in hindsight had been just a bit too keen to get us to play this particular weekend (I might add here we were doing this for a fee based on 'Either what you can take on the door, or 10% of the bar, boys' i.e. nowt from the landlord himself) welcomes us with a beaming smile and cheerful predictions that 'the place'll be rammed very soon, boys'. Predictions he seems happy to repeat throughout the evening, despite increasingly overwhelming evidence to the contrary. And so, chanting the hopeless mantra 'Well, we're here now, we may as well...' we set up and soundcheck. Proper Roadie, his heavy lifting duties discharged for the time being, returns from the bar beaming and holding a pint "This Drybrough's Heavy* is good stuff. I'll just have a couple, I'll be right as rain by the time you're finished." I should really have paid closer attention, but right then we were more tasked wondering where the the adoring fans were all meeting prior to turning up en masse. We settle down to a couple of hours of taking it in turns to wander outside to look up and down the street, eyes peeled for any signs of the crowd, before eventually deciding that we'll go on and start, because then the siren-song of, erm our songs will inevitably draw the punters in... I might add at this point that in the three hours we've been at the venue no-one, and I mean no-one, has even looked in the door, and the sole other occupant is the landlord, who has disppeared to his back room, and has taken to just popping his head round the door every now and then, giving us a two-thumbs-up, pulling another pint for Proper Roadie (I did say I should have been paying closer attention) and disappearing again. After some tense negotiation, we decide that a door take might scare off the potential punters, and we'll settle for 10% of the bar take, relying on some last-minute hard-drinking Scottish rock fans to take the edge off the diesel bill to get home. Off we go, all staring at the door, willing the punters in. Nothing. Not a Scottish sausage. Another scout of the postcode in the break reveals a deserted neighbourhood, with nary a punter to be seen. Spirits are low, with the exception of Proper Roadie, who is very happy indeed, about something or other. As I've said before, I wasn't paying much attention... Then, in the middle of the second set, two ladies wander in and up to the bar. Our somewhat listless performance jumps up several gears, anticipating the late surge of fans, and many unwise shapes are thrown for their benefit. Perhaps understandably, given the desperately pirouetting, lungeing and eyebrow-waggling idiots on stage all trying to catch their eye, they drink up quick and leave. Are they rushing off to bring all their friends? No, they aren't. We finish the second set, not even able to face playing an encore to ourselves, and start to break the kit down. The singist, always a man of infinite resource when there's things to be lifted which might be heavier than his mike stand, volunteers himself to seek out the landlord. He returns holding aloft our earnings for the day, the princely sum of 15p. He shows us a piece of paper on which the landlord has helpfully detailed the important financial transaction: '2 x halves of lager @ 75p each = £1.50 x 10% = 15p. Cheers boys.' We look up. The landlord is once again absent. 'Read it again' says the drummer, squinting like Peter Grant looking for the catch in a new contract... 'We could raffle it' says the guitarist, ever the optimist/cretin. It is by now gone midnight, and we've the really big PA boxes to shift, and now, far, far too late, I'm looking for Proper Roadie. He is eventually found out in the beer garden slumped in a pool of...let's just say 'his own making' and leave it there. Drybrough's finest (or at least Heaviest) appears to have snuck up on him somewhat. We take an arm each, and without getting too close at any point, give him a cursory rinse under the outside tap before depositing him damply in the back with the gear. And so it's down to me to drive us all home, dispirited, unadored and possibly even more tragically, un-Groupie'd. I've been awake for twenty hours so far, have participated in loading up, out, setup, played, and loaded it all back again. With added Comatose Proper Soggy Roadie. And now another six or seven hours before bed. Showing splendid soldarity in the face of adversity, everyone is snoring by the end of the road, and only my lung-busting coughing is keeping me awake. Somewhere in the Borders and the Wee Small Hours I succumb into the arms of Morpheus and we have a refreshingly exciting 150-yard off-road excursion up an embankment of a dual carriageway, eventually thumping back onto the road with miraculously little damage, although Proper Roadie in the back sounds like he might have to have a stand removed from a body cavity when we finally get back home. I pull over at the next layby and kill the engine. Some more tense negotiation reveals the fact that the drummer has a Provisional license, and is willing to consider a spot of Deserted Dual Carriageway Driving. We convince him it'll be good practice. As his de facto supervising license holder and guiding presence, I immediately get into the back bench seat and go to sleep, albeit in a supervisory and possibly guidey manner. We got home just after lunch the next day. Proper Roadie never roadied for us again. We never did find out why Stirling was deserted on a Saturday night. Oh, and I've just rememberd the Battle Of The Bands thing we did at the (then kinda big) Willows Variety Centre in Salford, hosted by none other than the brother of Johnny 'What's Another Year' Logan, erstwhile Eurovision Song Contest winner (where's the Hobnobbing With The Stars thread?), who made a point of telling us he was wearing the very jacket that Johnny won in...his breathless pause for gasps of awe came and went without remark, which seemed to disappoint him. We came third to a children's steel band and a vent act. That wasn't a great afternoon but, like facing a firing squad, at least it didn't take long. * For the Caledonian Quaffing Cognescenti, this'll date it a treat, given that Google tells me Drybough & Co were Borg'd and shut down by Allied in 1987...

This, in spades: we've had deps before (not recently, and seldom twice) who were one-level shed-builders, and you're doomed from the start. I've always found it fascinating that when there's an issue with a mix, most people's immediate reaction is to turn up, not down...even if it means turning five things up instead of one thing down...

And this also plays to the strengths of in-ears: if you can control the mix, and more importantly volume of what you're hearing as a player, then ear fatigue doesn't set in and lead to the 'I can't hear myself clearly, I'll juuuust turn up' volume wars. Since we dumped the backline, our control over our volume as a band has been much tighter.