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A lovely tribute from Doane Perry, which casts some light on how Neil dealt with his illness: Doane Perry 11 hrs Neil Ellwood Peart - 9/12/52 - 1/7/20 I want to thank all the people who have so kindly written, texted, posted or called regarding Neil's passing. Like so many, this has completely undone me and I haven't quite known where to start. I am working on something more substantial to be posted in the future when things have settled a little for everyone. During the last three and a half years, Neil faced this brutal, aggressive brain cancer bravely, philosophically and with his customary humor, sometimes light and occasionally dark - all very characteristic of him, even given the serious situation and the odds handed to him at the time of the diagnosis and subsequent surgery. But he fought it. By his own request for privacy, few people knew, but his understandable response to this news in no way excludes or diminishes ALL of those who also knew him, worked with him or loved and admired him from up close, or at a distance. His tenacious approach to life served him well during these last years and although he primarily kept his own counsel, he retained his dignity, compassion, understanding and his deeply inquisitive nature, which never deserted him. Remarkably, considering the severity of his condition (glioblastoma) and through the resulting aftermath, he really had no pain. This was always my first question when I saw him. “Any pain?” I asked. “No pain”, came the reply. What a blessing that was. We were all grateful for that. For every one of us who loved him, near and far, this is a loss that is difficult and impossible to summarize in a few short paragraphs. The outpouring of love, respect and appreciation from every imaginable quarter for this extraordinary, singular talent and beautiful man with a mind like no one I have ever met, is touching beyond words. To those that had to guard and hold on to this information closely for three and a half years, for obvious and protective reasons; his wife Carrie, daughter Olivia, his loving family, band, colleagues and friends, they have my undying admiration. You know who you are. Apart from his deeply gifted, genius talent and prolific output, which he brilliantly displayed through music, lyric and prose writing and that staggering storehouse of knowledge across an array of subjects in multiple fields, he remained a kind, gentle, considerate and modest soul and a consummate gentleman… as well as an extraordinary friend. If you were his friend, you knew it and he understood how to be the best friend that you could ever hope to have. I think I speak for all, known and unknown to him, to say he will be deeply missed, eternally loved, appreciated and remembered for his many invaluable contributions to music, art and the written word. That will be forever celebrated. Despite what he knew and we knew which was inevitable, I believe there is some sense of relief that this long, difficult odyssey has finally ended. Thank you my dear friend, for passing this way. We are all richer for your presence and light in our lives. 🙏💙🙏 Doane Perry - January 16th, 2020

Your strap is twisted. Whichever way you turn it first to untwist it will be the wrong way.

Just seen this posted on Miki Santamaria's Insta stories... Always wanted a BB with a MM style bridge pup. It's a shame there's no sign of a production model.

Fair enough. But then, and this is clearly only my opinion, but if I stand in front of the pedals then, being a righty, the lead from my bass is on my right hand side, if it were to then go into the left hand side of the pedal it has to cross my playing space from right to left at some point. So pedals right to left makes more sense to me to keep the cable run logical and tidy.

Already ordered the new Nighthawk Plus model in dark grey. I think that is the most beautiful bass I have ever seen in my life 🤤

Well I took the plunge. This thing looks, sounds, and feels absolutely superb! Thanks to everyone for all the help and advice.I just need to learn to play it now. 😂 Picked up locally for just over £200. I'm calling that a bargain!

I got my two Genzler Bass Array 12-3 SLT today, and I am very pleased. They are as good as I expected. The line array works well up to "cable distance". Very good horisontal dispersion, and rather "homogene volume" as long as my cable stretches. I used to own a Bose L1 model " with two subs once; these cabs act a bit the same but sound oh, so much nicer. I did a serious garage sale around new year to get these. No looking back!

We used to do house gigs regularly in our back room - a couple of times a year. It was great fun. Mostly up and coming singers we’d got to know on the singer-songwriter/art centre circuit and from writing for an online mag. But we also had Steve Lawson doing a solo bass gig with his wife, Lobelia, who’s a singer in her own right. We’d have 24 people sitting on sofas and garden chairs and used a small PA I’ve got (tho to be fair, that’s not really needed but since I had it already... why not). It was always a lovely informal setting for music and all our friends who came along loved it (mostly non muso types) and would rave about it to all their friends. We had some great singers from both the UK and US (who were over on small UK tours - solo artists, duos and even a fiddle/cello trio). Highly recommended if you ever fancy it. We’d charge (a voluntary donation of) £10, all of which went straight to the artist plus they invariably picked up a load of CD sales too - which meant it was probably one of their most profitable gigs given the way artists are treated in/near London! Lol! One of our house gig artists went on to win a Grammy or two for songs written with Ed Sheeran and some US country artists, another one is now one of the judges on South Africa’s version of “The Voice”... which gives you an idea of the level of quality of the singers making a living plying the folk club circuit!

They need a guitarist who can play songs and not loads of random notes in the hope they work. what a poor performance on the guitar part (and no, i have no idea who he is, nor care).

Do you have documented evidence of this throughout her lengthy career or is it just an opportunity for you to slag someone off from the comfort of your computer? I'm guessing 'gold digging tart' is not an expression you'd use for a male musician who's had a similar rise to fame, maybe you'd just say 'lucky'.....? Happy to have a discussion with anyone but when they use pejorative and misogynistic words, it would appear their mind is already made up.......

or Ron Weasley...

I wish they would sell basses with maple fretboards without the black headstock !! Or at least matching ones. AND with the Yamaha inlays.....!!! PLEASE Yamaha !!!

Hans Peter Wilfer - "We have improved the Sadowsky logo design. We at Warwick are committed to taking something good, great even, and ruining it completely, then getting out of the consequences by having a team of lawyers that would make OJ Simpson's legal team look like rank amateurs who couldn't even get your 96 year old gran off a speeding ticket when she did 21 in a 20 zone. Previous cases against Spector, Status Graphite and Alembic have shown this. We are ready. Ready to ruin what you hold dear and take credit for inventing everything."

Manufacturers not giving me free kit to use until my next round of GAS. I've been polite and not said anything until now!

Ok.... I'm an audio engineer as well as session player.... I understand what you said, it is of course true. However - the point of this is to get a great sounding DI - and there are MANY passive DIs that sound better than many active DIs - yes ,due to transformer artifacts. Whatever the reason, though, these passive units are still sought after and highly respected in the industry. I was, though, just pointing out that one must not assume active is better for DI. Passive can be excellent - and as you and I both noted, it depends on your needs.

Hi folks. I just want to mention my Classical and Contemporary Studies for Bass Guitar has just been published by Mel Bay HERE - which can be downloaded straight away as an eBook, or hard copies are available from the publisher, or one of their sellers. It will take a month or so to reach Amazon UK, I imagine. So, what is it? Half the book is given over to 21 studies by "the Paganini of the bass", Giovanni Bottesini (1821-1889), very classical in style, and progressive, from fairly simple to complex. For the second half of the book I commissioned 12 Studies for Bass Guitar by Gilbert Isbin, whose influences run from contemporary classical to jazz, world musics, etc. If you like Charlie Haden, Steve Swallow, etc, you might well like these solo repertoire pieces. Isbin loves yearning, often haunting melodies, and the 12 pieces are generally in two-part counterpoint, or a melody and accompaniment. Every item in the book has a sound file recorded on a fretless 4-string bass by me, but all the pieces could just as well have been played on a fretted 4-string bass. You can see videos and hear soundfiles of every piece from THIS PAGE of my website. Any questions, just ask. Cheers, Rob MacKillop

Not quite a new bass day, I got it on New Years Eve. its a 57 Bitsa that I bought off Walshy. I’ve been taking my time getting used to playing it, it’s a totally different feel to my American Standard. It is a bit heavier too but it has a fantastic sustain. When I received it, it had flatwounds fitted, which I gave a go at but they’re not for me, so I’ve since fitted a set of D’Adario roundwounds & it now growls like a beast! The neck is also a fair bit chunkier, which took some getting used to but I’m getting there. All in all I’m really pleased with my purchase and can’t wait to try it out at our next gig, I’m sure it’s going to sound awesome.

I've been replying too, but it's been going down repeatedly then coming back up again. (that's what SHE said)

If only they had some kind of user forum to contact them

At my time of life a super-intimate gig sounds like bliss. I still go to gigs but most of the time the audience irritates the crap out of me and I really could care less about big production for most of the artists I like. And the big-production bands I do love are generally no more, sadly. Saw one of my current favourite artists, Lissie, in a bar year before last and it was one of the best gigs I’ve ever been to. Food for thought this, food for thought! EDIT - my band actually did a free surprise birthday gig (really only a few tunes) at a fan’s house a few years back. It was weird, but kind of cool. I’d happily do that sort of thing again, with a bit more planning.

Super late bump for a great book. Ordered it today as a digital copy and started, well at the start... Thanks Rob.

This is what I do, and I've always got away with it! 🤞 So far 😊

Dont time wrong, i don’t mind the hair rock stuff, its just that the guitar performance in the video posted was very poor (IMO).

Honestly, I think any decent amp will sound good through a two10. I have a pair of one10s and I've used a few amps with them. None sounded bad! Why not save a few quid and shed some weight and buy a Quilter BassBlock 800. It does everything I need anyway and I use it with a single one10 in small pubs with excellent results. Frank.

Solved...sort of! It turns out the cable is correct as is the output from the phone and the IPad, annoyingly the mini jack was not fully inserting into the headphone socket on either the phone or the IPad so was shorting between tip and ring hence the click and backing tracks out of both channels, I have trimmed a little bit of the plastic surround from the mini jack and with a firm shove we get click on one side and backing tracks on the other, so it was either the plastic surround or a crap mini jack but at least I now know what the issue is!

In fact, Nuno Bettencourt started his musical career as a bass player, he then switched to guitar, because, urm, urm, he was playing too many notes. These are his own words in an interview with Extreme looooooooooooooooooooooooooong ago (still had long hair, or simply put hair).

Looks like Fender should be announcing the black version of the JMJ Mustang at NAMM....

That's the thing, though. This is a discussion forum, not an 'only posts that agree with the OP' forum. And, tbf, if SC wasn't a gold digging tart who blanked the real talent on her push for stardom, the comments wouldn't have been made.

NEw vid

That's just Keef richards on a good day.

My point is I'm amazed they've brought them to NAMM with such a terrible logo, rather than a nice one. People will look at it and think 'Dear me. That looks tat'. No, it probably won't doom the line line to failure, but why let that happen?

*cough* after-game bath *cough* american football team *cough* *musical casting couch* *cough* gold-digger *cough* etc (NB: allegedly) Where's my cough syrup when I need it?

Jolly good, pleased for you. Glad my gloomy predictions came to nothing!

There was a Mexican Road Worn for sale at the same time, which I was tempted by but I thought the spec would be higher on the bitsa. Also, I had a reliced bass before and never felt too easy with the look of it, although it was described as having been dragged along by a car! Also the tuners are rock solid, unlike on the Mexican Jazz that I had, in fact I think that they are probably more solid than my American Standard too! Either way, I'm happy with my purchase and that's all that counts for me.

The logo is a non-issue... you can buy Fender ones off ebay!

Just thought of one. Rack amps/pre-amps that don't have an input on the back. If I plug straight into the tuner then I need an extra rack space to get the cable to the front.

nah, he's using a pick. 😝

For clarity, I understand it as this: * A "DI box" is a thing which converts a 1/4" jack instrument level signal into a balanced XLR signal (of indeterminate level.....because there's different kinds - an active does a boost, a passive doesn't/can't do any boost). * So long as the mixing desk's input pre-amp has enough gain, there is nothing technically wrong with a passive DI signal. Yes the volts are very low but 1) the signal is balanced, so very unlikely to be interfered with 2) the impedance is high, so long runs aren't going to degrade 3) the vast majority of mixing desks, so long as they have an available suitable input, can & should cope with this, and amplify it as relevant. If they can't, its not the inferiority of the DI box which is the issue here. * A passive DI box, for all technical considerations, is a simple device which does not interfere or put its own "colour" onto the signal, except perhaps as rounding errors when measured with scientific instruments. * An active DI box shouldn't colour the signal either * There exist other devices (ie, pre-amps, other pedals/effects units) who's entire raison d'etre is TO colour the signal (in a nice way); they include a DI output for convenience but its the effect unit colouring the signal, not the fact that its output is by XLR connection. One could debate whether the signal is different on different outputs, if it has more than one (it might be deliberately different?)

Maybe because the bitsa is higher spec than the mim fender.

I think the key thing is knowing what you want from a DI box....either something transparent OR something which alters your sound. The key thing for me after a lot of gigging / touring abroad was that I'd have a great rig / bass /setup etc and be playing some nice gigs and the sound gig would pull out a £15 nasty Beringher DI box....not cool. So I quickly realised that a standalone DI box as part of my pedal board was vital for touring when I couldn't bring my own amp. That way the sound is in my fingers / bass / FX / DI and not in the amp or in somebody else awful DI box. It's been a revelation to be honest and means I'm ca happily share amps or even just go though the stage wedges if necessary but I still have my sound.

For any folks interested in Neil's books, Audible has made the audiobook versions free for this month. The list is here, though the Clockwork Angels books are not included. If you're going to try one, I'd recommend Ghost Rider.

Bruno is actually a very good guitarist, probably better than Parfitt.

Well, it’s been 4 years in the making but my band Plague Doctors finally hit the recording studio last weekend. We have 8 tunes fully ready to go but only managed to get 4 completed at the weekend. This may not sound like much but this is not the type of music I’m normally associated with and it has gone through so many iterations and re-writes it’s ridiculous. It started as an experiment with myself on bass and my mate on vocals, backed up by programmed drums and synths. It always felt like something was missing and when we got our old bandmate to play guitar the puzzle was complete. This is a very personal project for me and the lyrics reflect that. It’s dark and it’s heavy and I’m kinda proud of it. Once we have agreed the final mixes I’ll post links: I would love to hear your opinions!

I saw that one and was very tempted, it just looked like a great bass.

9. Why is left to right more logical?

Walsh's eyes look like they belong to someone else.