Steff

I've never played a Lakland - only heard a few played by other people and I really like it. However every time I go to do a gig with something other than my Stingray 5, I always miss that aggressive, very fast and authoritive delivery of the notes. It's a rude boy. I wouldn't call it versatile - at least I couldn't find more than two useable tones. Bear in mind that if your timing isn't perfect, a musicman will expose you more than most of the other basses.

Bought my Stingray5 in 2000, and have played 95% of my gigs with it ever since. About 3-5 gig a week. Has a few dings and dents but still looks and plays gorgeously . I love her.

I bought a stock BBN5 for £50 a couple of years ago on gumtree and pimped it up nicely with Audere, Bartolinis and Badass bridge, cavities shielding and so on... and it's a great player, all the parts and bass costed me about that - £350 and a couple of days work, I guess this one is worth about £250 tops with the JE preamp and the Ken Smith bridge, but there's always people who are unreasonable - a few days ago there was a listing for a 5.1 Kef surround sound speakers usually sold for about £200 second hand, was on buy it now for £1200 ...

Hi guys, just got this email from Amazon - currently they're doing an offer on some guitar strings and things, check it out - it's 4 for 3 with this code - guit4for3 on checkout . Elixir strings are already about £10 down but the code should work with them too. http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/aw/s/ref=mh_s9_acss_ln_refSpend_1_1?rh=i%3Ami%2Cn%3A340837031%2Cn%3A%21340838031%2Cn%3A406550031%2Cn%3A407738031%2Cn%3A407750031%2Cp_n_feature_keywords_browse-bin%3A1943629031%2Cp_6%3AA3P5ROKL5A1OLE&bbn=407750031&rw_html_to_wsrp=1&pf_rd_m=A3P5ROKL5A1OLE&pf_rd_s=mobile-hybrid-2&pf_rd_r=113V5QX2H8RM3SJN485E&pf_rd_t=1201&pf_rd_p=632479667&pf_rd_i=2448467031

Right... So I went to see Dream Theater last night at Wembley Arena. I am a prog fan, my favourite bands are Yes, King Crimson, Rush, Gentle Giant, Karizma, Planet X and so on... I never liked DT too much as I find them too cold and too concerned about the mathematical side of things rather than emotional side. However I do appreciate their musicianship, those guys are some of the most technical musicians I've ever seen which I respect a lot even though I don't necessarily like it. Now... for a start, the whole night I thought they looked as they had a huge argument just before they got on stage. I don't know if that's some sort of thing they do, very clinical, much too serious, stone faces and all... the only person who was showing some excitement was the keys player. Mike Mangini... I remember back in the late 90s watching his videos on precious VHS' with my jaw dropped, admiring and loving it... Last night he looked a bit like "yeah... another gig, another 20 grand in my account... whatever". No excitement, no pleasure, no emotion on his face apart from a brief moment when he was chatting to the keys player while playing. Also what struck me was after every tempo or time signature change he was dragging the beat, not creating the needed pressure and tension for the moment. It was always taking about 4 bars for the other musicians to get together with him and start sounding tight, as they were getting in the moment with a bit more excitement (which I think is appropriate and necessary for live playing). John Myung now there's a question: If John plays a super complicated, technical bass line and no one in the audience can hear him, does he really make a sound? Why would you hire a sound technician who would put the bass so low frequency wise that the only thing you could actually hear from it was... no wait, you couldn't actually hear it. You could only feel it. With the same results John Petrucci could have used an octave effect. There goes Myung's 30 or 40 years of exercising 8 hours a day... The singer - not my type of voice or singing, but I gotta admit - he was flawless at what he does. Not a single false note. Brilliant. The keys player was good too, performing very well and sounding great. Petrucci at the start was a bit like he hadn't taken his espresso before the gig but after the second song he got awake and played great. Massive guitar sound. Drums sounded a bit distorted, especially the snare and hi-hat. (I have a few years of live sound and studio mixing experience). Apart from that and the lack of a distinctive bass sound, the sound was phat. Big, like a thick brick wall. From the 3rd - 4th song on it was clear, with a nice punch and I could hear what every instrument plays (apart from bass, don't remember if I mentioned that already). They had some sounds on track, on the LED wall behind them during a couple of songs there were some clips going, and there was car engine sounds, gunshots, thunder and other sounds. Way too loud and with a piercing top end, overwhelming the whole high register almost painfully. Really, get a new sound tech. I did like it in general but it won't make me a DT fan. Still I'm glad I went to see them, great work with the odd time signatures live and great playing skills. Anyone else been there last night?