asingardenof

The NYXL equivalent set is also relatively cheap at the moment: https://www.amazon.co.uk/DAddario-NYXL45105-Medium-Bottom-Nickel/dp/B019JD0P5I/

Oooh! *grabby hands* Edit: I already have three sets of these so I think I'm good for the foreseeable future 😅

Unless you really want your room cleared while you're there, leaving the "do not disturb"/"do not clean" hanger on the door means that nobody will (should) go in.

I can recommend the Elf/Two10 combination

The website looks pretty unpolished, with the Ts&Cs and Accessibility Statement just the website templates. If this is legit then they need better website designers!

Just make sure you find someone that can actually teach you all of that as part of a structured curriculum, and not just someone that wants to teach people to play songs. I've made that mistake before and it was very frustrating

Great for smaller gigs too to save having to lug an ABM about

Definitely worth doing. After @Merton's ABM 500 went pop on me (no such bad luck with my ABM 600 yet!) I bought a TE Elf and it was well worthwhile.

Record yourself playing along to songs, then play it back without the background music. It'll probably be a bit of an eye-opener in terms of highlighting any quirks or flaws in your technique or timing, and give you things to work on.

We play Adventure of a Lifetime which seems to go down OK, that's from 2015.

Apart from those strings being slightly thicker and stiffer than mine (oo er missus!) I have the same ones and think they sound great for pretty much everything I want to play. EQ and tone controls tame most of the high end so they sound very flattish, but having the ability to get them clanky is also good.

As you say, with Squiers the QC can be hit or miss. My VM 70s Jazz was excellent other than being a bit on the heavy side.

I'd be surprised if that was the case, and would have thought they'd use the same for both like they have the same bridge across the V series, however I stand to be corrected. If it's a similar spacing to the SBMM Ray5 then I found that quite comfortable.

Lobster reckons it's a decent buy as well.

Sire have very much put a shot across the bow of SBMM. I'd been eyeing up a Ray5 as a possible future purchase, but other than it having a cooler headstock and the cachet of the model name there's no advantage to getting one rather than the Z3, given the Z3 is cheaper, better built and sounds more than a MM Stingray.

Tickets purchased to see Katy Hurt at the end of November, featuring @Merton of this parish on bass, the night before I also have a gig to play. Just need to find a babysitter now!

I can happily recommend a Sire V7

*adds to Christmas list*

I wouldn't bank on that, the tuners on the V7 are still pretty cheap, and the bridge is a hand-me-up from the V3.

Been with the band for about 2½ years now, and while the core of the set is still the same we've had eight new songs make it into the set (not counting our abortive experience with the New Order song that dare not speak its name) with a further two potentially in the pipeline.

Caldy or Lower Heswall?

Hallelujah - take your pick

I'm in a fortunate position because our Evri delivery person is local (lives on the same estate, is part of the estate's FB group, son goes to the same school as mine) and, most importantly, competent, so I haven't had any issues where I am at the moment. You can always tell the usual person is on holiday because that's when the typical Evri-ness creeps back in.