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I'm in the house band for the two Sunday for Sammy shows next weekend. I can't give too much away 'cos the line-up is under wraps, but with 5,000 people at each show, it's going to be fun. I'll take some pics and that, and try not to make any mistakes. Disclaimer: I fully acknowledge this is a 'boast post'. Apologies.

Me - Could I take a closer look at this bass please? Them - ** reaches it down and starts slapping 7 shades out of it ** Me - Is that hard to play? Them - Umm...?? Me - Cos it's f**king hard to listen to.

Me - Do you sell Rotosounds? Them - Yes Me - Why?

You do know that all this could be avoided if you played properly... with your fingers...?

You know that lovely feeling when a bass you've been gassing for years shows up, coinciding with having the cash? Just happened to me..I'm over the moon. I've been drooling over this bass for many years..picked it up a few hours ago. https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/1977-Greco-GOB-1200-Electric-Bass-Guitar/302609356900?hash=item4674ec5864:g:dUcAAOSwdTJaY0Vf It has many dings and chips, but all the controls seem to work. Not sure whether to play it as it is or restore to its former glory. What say you fine gentlemen? PS does anybody know of a source of spares for these basses?

I'll be adding to this! After lots of uhming and ahing, I saw a post on their Instagram which had me going to see them at first given opportunity. Went up to Alpher HQ for a few hours yesterday, and this morning I ordered myself an Alpher. Words can't describe my excitement! It'll be a 5 string Mako Elite 5, with a crazy burl top and matching headstock. Ebony 'board with a birdseye maple neck. Body is single piece maple (it looks amazing), pickups will be three Aguilar Super Singles, and an OBP-3 pre amp. 33" scale (because I'm a short derrière), not much weight. Oh, and some of the offcut from the cap (the electric blue bit) will be going into a 12th fret inlay. Untitled by Dave Butterworth, on Flickr Untitled by Dave Butterworth, on Flickr

You'll miss them when the interweb has killed them all off........no nipping in to solve last minute emergencies

Looks generic and values itself too highly; therefore it's a great fit for the Chapman name.

If only we could swap local shops, all would be well in the world

Papa Was a Rolling Stone - same three notes, same pattern for the entire song, and still fabulous after all these years.

I've always been quite enamoured by Stings bass lines, always tuneful but often very empty, so I'll offer up the obvious Walking on the Moon

Use wire clips to hold the power wires in place. Don’t use those double-ended connectors, most pedal enclosures have a slight angle to the sides and therefore the jacks... using those connectors can strain the jacks and also makes it more precarious to remove those pedals from your board.

It looks like a giant steampunk phallus.

Single knob compressors are the work of Lucifer himself....

I use a Variax and while the 8 and 12 strings are decent approximations, and will do the job in their own way rather than take another bass to a gig, that is all they are, approximations. As is that pedal above. None of these will ever have the sound of real multiple courses, that slight delay between courses, the characteristics you get from actually striking more than one string. This can't be replicated by modulating the sound of a single string.

In the UK and in the USA, but you had to be there, obviously. And, featuring Ritchie Blackmore on guitar and Chas Hodges on electric bass guitar, here's Joe Meek's production from 1962 of The Chaps also known as The Outlaws ...

I’m sure DFS will have one in their never ending sale.

Me - I'm here to pick up five Yamaha tenor saxes we ordered? Them - What the f**k? We're a shoe shop.

Buy a Trace V-type preamp. Does exactly what you want and it'd be a lot cheaper than having something custom built. They sound AWESOME too!

I'd miss the good ones, but I suspect they will last longer because they're good. I certainly won't miss the arrogant chancers though...

* whilst walking through Ashdown section * Me - 'scuse me, I don't suppose you have a light?

The Sadowsky aluminium items are pretty good imho. Two screws to secure plus sleeve for those slightly thinner pot shafts. They look and feel amazing and with the little white marker are dead easy to adjust. Definitely not a 'value' item though

I read the title of the thread and immediately thought of Tina Weymouth, was going to suggest "Genius of Love" (by Tom Tom Club) as an example but there's a number of others too.

First rehearsal today - six hours' worth. It was loads of fun. The show's being shot for DVD, so everything has to be spot-on. We've got a week in the rehearsal hall, so we'll have the monitor mixes pretty much there by the weekend, so hopefully the check in the arena will mostly be tweaking stuff. The band is great.. the drummer's from Lindisfarne, the keyboard player's from Dire Straits, the other keyboard player and sax player are from The 1975's live band, the guitarist was a touring member of The Arctic Monkeys, and one of our vocalists sang on 'I Would Do Anything For Love' with Meat Loaf. And then there's me. I daren't pinch myself. Loads of pics here: https://www.sundayforsammy.org/sunday-for-sammy-2018-access-all-areas

Guitar or player?

Pitch to CV or MIDI for the bass guitar is just not feasible unless you have the world's cleanest and precise technique and are playing downtempo music. The laws of physics are always going to be against you. The theoretical minimum response time has going to be one complete wave cycle for the device to have a good guess at detecting the pitch. The open E on a bass is 41Hz, that means at the very, very best you are looking at 24ms between playing a note and the device working out what pitch it is. That's slap-back echo territory (i.e. noticeable), and in reality the actual response time is going to be closer to double that. Notice how in the demo in the OP you never get to hear the controlling signal in combination with the synth output except when it is making random glitching noises along with the drums. Also notice how the controlling signal is always something high-pitched like guitar or another keyboard. You can't blame the manufacturer for wanting to show their products in the best possible light, but I think a lot of purchasers are going to be very disappointed when they try and use these in a real world situation. There are various tricks that you can use to make the tracking quicker and more accurate but all of these take the expressiveness away from the controlling instrument, and IMO the whole point of using something like a guitar to control as synth is that you can make full use of that expressiveness. Otherwise you might as well use a keyboard and the standard synth performance controls. Also while in theory a monophonic device might be fine for bass parts, in practice one of things that makes the feel of a bass line played on bass guitar different from one played on a keyboard or other monophonic device is what happens when you play parts that swap between the strings. And once you've lost the feel of the bass part from that of playing on a bass guitar you might as well play it on a keyboard (or sequence it). There are players that can make pitch to CV or MIDI work for them. What you will find is that they are mostly guitarists and that they have spent years honing their technique and modifying their instruments to get around the inherent limitations of using pitch detection to control a synthetic waveform. I found very quickly that it was far easier for me to develop enough of a keyboard technique in a day or so that enabled me to play synth parts than it was to modify my guitar playing style to get the tracking to work well enough to satisfy my very basic requirements.

If such an inconsequential thing as pop-ups annoys you to the point of driving you from the forum you must indeed lead a charmed life. Heaven forbid anything important happens to you!

Probably best to avoid those people in future.

I thought there was just one, the key of bass

Here are my thoughts of the Genzler Magellan 800 bass amp after having gigged it for the past several months. I've deliberately left it a while to make sure that the honeymoon period was over so that any issues or quibbles that I may have with it have become apparent. For reference, I play in a 5 piece, female fronted, rock, pop and party band playing a mixture of pub and club gigs as well as some private work and functions. My cab is Tecamp M212 and I use a variety of basses, usually with a bias towards the neck pickup. I play finger style more or less exclusively and am pretty heavy handed too, I love to dig in when I'm playing! If you're not already familiar with the amps here's what Genzler themselves have to say about them, the Magellan 800 and the Magellan 350. When I originally bought the amp, I tried it against some of its peers. To see how I thought it stacked up at the time see the thread here. Overview The 800 amp has both a transparent clean channel (that can be coloured by the Contour control, more of that later) and a coloured Drive channel. That makes it extremely versatile and usable for pretty much any and every musical situation that you're ever likely to find yourself in from soft jazz to the lesser extremes of metal. Clean channel The clean channel with the eq set to noon and the Contour control dialled out sounds even across the frequency range, there are no peaks or troughs in the signal. This sound works great in the mix straight out of the box. The Genzler marketing talks about a “weighted feel to the notes” and this is absolutely correct, the low end is definitely forceful, punchy and powerful but without being overbearing. Those that claim that class D amps lack heft should take an objective, unbiased listen to the Genzler. Pre-amp The EQ frequencies that the Magellan uses are absolutely perfect for real world live use. The bass EQ is voiced at 75 Hz which is great for adding audible bass to the sound if you're in a room where the bass is sounding a bit thin, or for backing the low end off if things are booming on stage. In my experience this has proven to be a far more useable frequency for controlling your low end than 40 Hz that many other bass amps use. The semi-parametric mid covers a wide range from 150 Hz to 3 KHz. It sounds perfect with the mid eq control at noon, which keeps things flat but I personally like to give it a slight push in the upper mids to help the bass cut through a busy mix. But you have massive flexibility here to control those critical mid frequencies whatever you want to do with them. The treble is voiced at 6 KHz so is useful for adding some presence to the tone or brightening up dead strings. Or backing things off a touch for a great retro tone. The treble never gets harsh and the tone is never completely dulled when the top end is backed off. The simplicity of the tone stack and the choice of frequencies that they operate on cannot be praised enough. The Genzler just delivers everything you need and nothing you do not. To finish of the awesome eq section there is also the dual voiced Contour control. A button on the front panel allows you to choose between curves A and B; Curve A is a mid-scoop pre-shape. However, compared to similar controls on other amps, this one is more gentle and is more usable because of it, it is usable throughout most of its range. Its only when its cracked beyond about 3 o'clock that the bass sounds like it could potentially to disappear form the mix. Curve B bumps the low mids while rolling off the upper mids and the extremes of the frequency range to give a great retro vibe or to tame a bright sounding, scooped rig . As with Curve A, things are still kept subtle and musically usable with this control throughout its range. Drive channel The 800 model also sports a footswitchable drive channel that has its own gain and volume controls. Genzler have wisely allowed the use of any generic latching footswitch to be used rather than forcing you into using a proprietary one. Although the drive channel is completely valve-less, it is one of the most convincing, warm, valve-like sounds that I've heard. When engaging the drive channel a pre-set eq curve is applied that subtly rolls off the high and low ends and leaves you with a silky smooth, valve like drive that never gets fizzy. Even at full gain, the drive is always usable, it does not get into the realms of distortion. The slightly mid biased voice of the drive is more suited to Motown or classic rock than it is for anything extreme. If you want more gain, or a modern scooped distortion then you'll need a dedicated pedal. But for those of us who want that touch of hair or a light, usable drive that works in the mix, this is, as with everything about this amp, perfect. HPF There is no mention of any form of high pass filtering by Genzler, but I emailed them to ask about it and none other than Geoff Genzler himself responded to say that; Yes, we do utilize a High Pass filter with the MG-800. It is a very steep slope and set low around the 30 Hz range. This allows us to achieve a clean, solid and authoritative low end without potential flubbyness. This also helps with protection from over-excursion for speakers under high power situations. I hope this information is helpful. Best Regards, Jeff Genzler How's that for customer service??? Construction and finish The amp is a great looking design IMO and the quality of construction is flawless. Genzler describe it as; aircraft-grade, brushed aluminum (sic) chassis with a sleek custom extruded front panel. It certainly looks classy and feels substantial. Anyone concerns over quality because it was built in the far east are misplaced. And it has 4 ultra-important blue LED's on the front panel. Nice. Niggles As you have probably gathered by now, I'm struggling to find fault with the Genzler Magellan amps. However I do have a couple of very minor criticisms. It'd be great if the Contour voicings were footswitchable so you could switch between the different curve options on the fly. But this is just nit picking, and not something that I'm likely to ever do anyway. And then there's the name. No doubt there is a reason or story about why Magellan was chosen, but it just seems a bit of a daft name for a bass amp to me, It's more like a name you'd give to a dog! Summary Honestly, I can't fault the Magellan amps. Everything about it is just right. It delivers everything you need in the real world. I've played many gigs in many different venues with mine and I'm yet to get a bad sound out of it or have ever been in a situation where the sublime eq section wasn't able to eq the bass to a room with poor acoustics in a matter of seconds. In fact, I like it so much that I bought the baby 350 model as a rehearsal and back up amp. The 350 has the same great tone and features of its big brother but it does lack the jaw-droppingly brilliant drive channel. However is makes up for this by being smaller, lighter and cheaper. I've also gigged the 350 and don't let its nominally low power rating put you off, this thing has more volume than you're ever likely to need on a typical pub, club or function gig.

I can see what VW is saying here, but surely this is all about how you THINK about the notes you're playing, rather than actual physical playing. If you play through major scales staring on every note, there are only 12, unless you give some of them different names and then play them again!

I'm in a band where we love to end on a non-tonic chord so nobody knows what key we were in - sometimes even I don't know what key we were in.

Might sound good, not going to be the same though. I don't see how there is an effect way of getting to an 8/12 string, because it isn't a question of taking what you play and making a copy an octave up, as that is not what you get on an 8 string, you sometimes get an octave up, sometimes not quite or just over an octave, sometimes slightly after the note, or slightly before the note, or maybe just the octave and not the lower note.

Top advice from the dudes above

The worst for me is the snidey, disinterested and condescending attitude often offset with someone slapping the bass that I've asked to try for ages before handing it to me. Thankfully what was a constant in my teens and early 20s never happens now I am middle aged.

The wattage of the VT Bass 200 is about 150 watts with its internal speaker. With an 8 ohm extension speaker it's 200 watts.

Just bought a lovely Fender mij Marcus Miller jazz bass from Janez. Great guy to deal with who did a perfect job of getting the bass to me safe and sound. Thanks Janez!

This would be my suggestion too.

Is there a law which says all small music shops are run by self declared comedians?

ah..wrong topic. i was looking for medical

You're on a hiding to nothing with this one, lad. Your blinkers are showing.

He is certainly entitled to his opinions, as he may be right on some things, and overblown on others. On McCartney I would severely disagree with Q. I disagree with what his mental state as some have said here. I do think he has hit the grumpy old curmudgeon stage, however. Eddie Van Halen was quoted saying that "Robert Fripp (King Crimson) couldn't play 12 bars of good guitar music ." Mr. Fripp, when approached by the press, was asked what he thought about Eddie's comment. He politely said "I do not comment or make remarks about other artists." That's class. Learn, Quincy.

There are 30 keys??

Bad news I'm afraid... Unfortunately (for you) Trace gear goes for virtually nothing nowadays - even in good condition. You can pick up cabs for between £50-200, heads for £150+. Ridiculous I know, amazing quality gear for nothing but people are getting used to lightweight gear so the price of vintage gear has gone through the floor. The weight of the 4x10 makes it virtually unsaleable, the head (15lbs?) should be more desirable but on a bad day could sell for less than £100 - I just sold a really clean GP7 combo for £150 - they were £800+ back in the day. I still rate Trace gear - in the past 4 months I've bought/sold Mesa/Glock/Darkglass heads in the search for that vintage Trace sound - none ticked all the boxes. The Glock was, IMO, by far the best of the lot. I'm sure they would suit somebody, just not me. It's a disgrace that such good gear turns out to be nearly unsaleable I know, somebody will get a bargain.

Quality made equipment.. ive owned more than eight pieces of the SWR ENGINEERING stuff..& it still sounds great to my ears... had a few problems with capacitors & the like' over the years...but im still using a Basic Black twenty years on....