phagor

Just purchased some strings from Rabbie - a pleasant, painless experience! Many thanks.

I've had an early Japanese Metro UV70 5 string for nearly 20 years, and it's still my workhorse. It's been super reliable and solid. I have other basses but mostly play this one unless I need a P bass for the gig.

I had a Hondo P bass in the mid 80s. My parents bought it for Christmas when I was 15. They had it under their bed until the big day - I remember sneaking in to have a little play on it. I eventually changed the pickup for a Seymour Duncan, and put an active circuit I built in to it. Finally I stripped the body and defretted it, painting a load of boat varnish on the fingerboard and body. It ended up a sticky, plasticky mess. I lent it to a friend and lost contact with him. If anybody has a tacky, stripped, no-name fretless P, it might be mine!

Just got one of these. I've got a Diamond Bass Comp (old one) that I love. The tilt eq is great for passive basses and I love the pop the compressor adds to the beginning of notes. But I don't love the 12v reverse power socket, side jacks, size etc. It doesn't work great with my active basses, tending to sound a bit fuzzy and fluffy. I wasn't sure that the Alma would have the same character as the Diamond, but I needn't have worried. It can do that and way more. First off, Nuno was very helpful, responding to emails even on a Sunday evening. He assembled and posted the Alma within hours of the final go-ahead and it was with me by tracked post the next day. The Alma v2 ticks all the boxes - parallel compression, different ratios (the Diamond is like 2:1, but the 8:1 on the Alma is surprisingly useful especially when blended), 9v, top jacks. It doesn't have a side-chain filter, but I don't think an opto compressor really needs one. The Alma seems to handle B string notes without blowing out, unlike the Diamond. Side by side, the Diamond EQ goes slightly deeper than the Alma, but I don't think that's a problem, the Diamond could sometimes get boomy at the full anticlockwise/250hz setting. The Alma works great with my active basses. I really like blending just a little bit with the eq boosting at 900hz to give a bit more presence for a rocky pick sound. Last night I ran it on my board with a Cali 76 Compact Bass, and switched between a passive p bass and an active 5 string jazz. I used the Alma to balance the level and tone for the p bass and give a little extra compression. The Cali was doing fairly modest compression too, I trust the sound engineer. The Alma sounded fab. I may run the Alma on its own tomorrow without the Cali to see how it works out. Nuno kindly made me one with a chrome enclosure (the others have always been white). Looks stunning under lights. Definitely worth checking the Alma out if you're looking for an opto compressor.

Hi Gwilym, time flies! Still got it. It's a beauty.

I just bought a bluetooth page turner from Nick. Great communications, speedy delivery and a pleasure chatting with him. Highly recommended.

Dunno but any time I raise or lower the action on a bass, I find I have to tweak the intonation by moving the saddles. Fitting this must be like lowering the string height? Also I imagine you would need higher than normal action for this to fit.

I hear you. But Jaco's boat varnish is kinda like plastic, right?

Just saw this clever doohickey. It's a plastic board that slips over your bass's fingerboard and nut to turn your fretted bass into a fretless. Almost instant - you have to take the strings off or at least detune them til they're floppy. Could be done between sets if not between songs. I wonder what it does to the intonation though - might be a problem, especially on a fretless where you are using the frets as markers.

Nothing to add on the DBs, but just wanted to say your videos are awesome @skej21! Just watched a bunch of them. Great content and editing. Deserving of many likes and subs.

A good drummer told me he only did one exercise for his timekeeping, and it helped me a lot. It's a simple subdivision exercise. Similar to TheLowDown's. Put a metronome on very slow, maybe 20 bpm. Then count 1 with the click, then try to place 2 3 4 evenly before the next click on 1. Each time, you will be early or late - adjust your spacing until you land on 1 with the metronome consistently. Then do the same but counting in 3/4 - 1 2 3 1, dividing the metronome into 3 beats. The important thing is to count aloud. If you count in your head, you can 'fool' yourself that you were closer than you actually were. Counting aloud is the key. This builds up you internal sense of time which I think is the main issue with timing. I did it for 10 minutes a day for a month, and it fixed a lot of my time problems and helped me to hear what else I needed to work on.

Prompt communications and speedy delivery. Thanks very much Simon.