MyNameIsMark

I went down a “hypothetical” rabbit hole a few years back… There’s a UK Blues Federation ( link https://www.ukblues.org/ ) which seem to look after their own & I’ve noticed a huge crossover with acts on their awards & festival lineups If you do a bit of digging into this, you’ll find a few streaming/radio shows & venues If you get your faces known in a few such places, I’m sure the rest will come much easier

I’d suggest it’s worth airing any doubts before making a decision, you might find others feel the same & finding nice people might be half the battle? e.g. what changes might it take to keep you interested (for your own future direction & they probably will ask) That said, I’d understand why you might want to cut & run, it sounds like an experience mismatch too difficult to tackle… Taking the “not enjoying it / want to drop into something established” is probably honest & diplomatic enough?

I love Chi’s playing on ATF & WP, interesting, tasteful, solid. White Pony & Abe Cunningham in general are incredible. I sadly lost interest after that era, snippets like the one above don’t appeal

This chap Dr Kertz has a few videos knocking around showing controlled stretching This is a playlist of his stuff that someone made https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLmkhQsT566_L9PlROr4UCBt0kLrLBFkIW&

I did a 7 day toilet venue tour with a very loud band & on the final date the sound guy had big issues with my signal dipping out. The poor guy was stressing behind-the-desk the-whole-show, but not hearing myself was business as normal. A couple of weeks later I realised I was trying to power my 18V 1A in power brick with a 18V 150mA out adapter… the whole tour… this still haunts me And my farewell gig with the same band I had the genius idea of simplifying a weird stereo setup by using both outputs of the Boss TUx tuner instead… bypass AND output, genius… why didn’t I do that sooner? As I found out after the first song, and as any normal person would expect, everyone can hear you tuning when you use the “bypass” output, I hated myself so much

I found out about this last night, very nice, I love the aesthetic from that era & it should appeal to the Death From Above 1979 / Jesse F Keeler enthusiasts Thomann is quoting £879 and 9-12 weeks from release, seems competitive with other specialist amps of that power & size & weight… product manual available https://peavey.com/series/super-festival-series/ retailer https://www.thomann.co.uk/peavey_super_festival_f_1200b.htm designer comparing vs original https://youtu.be/LBTv-jnU1Ro

I worked this out this morning, after years of unhappy “drive” searching… My suggestion is to also try a compressor with extreme settings (high ratio, 100% wet, above unity output) - as an effect rather than tool… The extreme compressor gives the type of “saturation” I like… lots of clarity & raw balls without being weak/oversaturated/weird midrange/low end roll-off/biamping/etc I’m going… Bass - Compressor - Sansamp - Power Amp So really I’m using the extreme compressor to drive my preamp - which gives another great suggestion, the Sansamp BDDI, great for Ampeg SVT style “always on” grit The big muff deluxe bass was the closest to happy “heavier drive” I did have… but now it’s either not needed or the compressor pushes & enhances that even more. Hope this madness helps others, good luck!

@Hugsonicjust bought an amp from me, I complicated matters with a couple of “no-shows” before Steve got dibs, he reacted really fast & smooth & I really appreciate how easy he made the transaction. Highly recommended member, thank you very much 👍

Steve just bought a small cab from me, a very easy transaction & a pleasure to meet someone in my neck of the woods, thanks Steve

I made a trade with Artemis last night, my cab for his, I came away with a Barefaced Two10S exactly as advertised. Excellent comms, very responsive, was willing to travel to meet up, very nice chap, a pleasure to deal with & highly recommended. I still can’t believe my/our luck, right time, right place, exact cabs, thank you again! Mark

"It can't all be bad" update... It's not! Other than the above, the feel & look & finish & quality of this is great, the neck is very comfortable & easy to play, it's smaller & lighter than I expected, the string spacing feels natural to me. Overall pretty happy with a gamble on my first 5-string 😅

"I've never even returned a jumper before" update... All pole pieces made incredible noise when touching, it's just that my fingers bridged the strings far more easily when testing the others. The upper split pickup has foam underneath, with a small strip of 'paper' backing which contacts the underside of the inner-most pole pieces (which is designed for a 4 string so the outer pole pieces directly contact the foam, but it's non-conductive foam). There was a stray piece of metal in there, but it made no difference. The rear housings of the volume & pickup blend pots test through to the output jack, the knob tops do not, and the knob tops are conductive - I'm not sure how the knobs do/should connect to the shaft & to the rear pot housing, but probably not a big deal. All surfaces of the bridge have a non-conductive coating, seems the screw holes do not & there's a small conductive white rectangular strip on the underside of the bridge behind the G & D strings that the bridge ground wire should contact. My bridge ground wire was a good 10mm away, tracing in the wrong direction. A bit of stripping & swearing & all is better. The noise floor has significantly reduced, strings now test through to the output jack, touching strings makes a small improvement. It's still noticeably noisier in any position on the active circuit, but no worse than a single coil.

Hi folks, I have a lovely Yamaha BB735 in my hands, but it has big noise problems & might have to go back. There's a bad noise floor, it's not subjective, it's bad. Touching the strings makes zero difference. Any position of pickup blend makes zero difference. Touching the bass/mid/treble knobs reduces noise, but it's still unacceptable. Switching to active increases the noise floor. Touching the pole pieces of the top split coil is awful, all others are silent. Continuity tests w/ a multimeter... metallic treble + mid + bass knobs + active/passive switch all test to the output jack. metallic volume & pickup blend do not test through to anything (can anyone compare please?) the strings test through to the screws holding the bridge in place, not to the coated bridge itself, and not to the output jack. My best guess without taking things to pieces... Bridge grounding wire problem, possibly simple to fix if I can hit the bridge screws or if the underside of the bridge is not coated. Volume+pickup blend grounding problem, maybe easy to run new wires, maybe awful if fighting the crimped Molex connectors & PCB. Split P grounding magnet coil grounding problem - if the underside of poles are exposed it could be simple if they're waxed/strapped up or if it's windings/solder joints... urgh... (does anyone know please) Thanks very much, Mark

The guy playing is the author of this https://www.amazon.co.uk/Soul-Fingers-Legendary-Bassist-Donald/dp/1495052923 I adore Donald's playing, I'm certain he'd sound the same on any old bass. I'm strangely not at all into Labellas & that's the overwhelming impression I got from those clips. RIP 😭

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I've been a P person for donkeys years... I just had my first rehearsal with a lovely new-to-me AVRI62 Jazz bass. I could hear it all! Every nuance. And that was with flats. Chef's kiss.

Bought a rather nice J Bass from Mark a couple of weeks back, great comms, easy meet up, perfectly smooth transaction, lovely chap, thanks again!

Hi all, I just signed up to this, I'm not affiliated. For aspiring Jazzers, Morley College (Paul Westwood) is running an online "Jazz Bass" course Thursday evenings 18:30 - 20:00 from Sept 2022 to Jun 2023. It's actually split into 3 separate semesters, I missed the boat for last year, but had a very promising 1:1 with Paul. https://www.morleycollege.ac.uk/courses/course/jazz-bass/

Quick update... Typical me, I got back from my jollies with a shiny new Ampeg SCR waiting for me. I love it! P bass with flats + SCR w/ ultra lo + a flat ABM600 + Barefaced SuperCompact is something special. All other bass/amp/cab/EQ combinations are in the same ballpark. Thanks all!

Another: jazz is the ultimate tool, it has it all. Listen & Learn & Play jazz.

🤓a.k.a. share your brain & save others some pain One revelation for me, a very light picking hand often gives a better tone (the quintessential sound of whatever it is you're playing - clearer, more balanced across frequencies, more consistent across strings, more detail... beautiful 🥰)