mart

I spoke to him briefly at the London show, cos I was interested in his bass. And as some have already said, he is a lovely bloke. Slap is not my thing. But he was at the show working as a rep for Rotosound. Rotosound are famous for inventing round-wound strings, so as to get a bright, zingy tone. He isn't going to demonstrate that very well by playing Jamerson riffs, is he? And at that show, he could have stayed completely silent, and the hall would still have been full of the racket of a thousand slappers.

[quote name='chrisd24' post='1269002' date='Jun 14 2011, 06:31 PM']that gave me the confidence to plug in an adapter i had laying around and it works! although theres a distinct hum (kinda like a badly ground bass) with no instrument plugged in,and if i touch the chassis of the amp it silences it, is this a ground issue?[/quote] Sure sounds like it. What does your adaptor say it is? It should have a symbol like this: (in which case it's a negative-tip, which is the sort you don't want), or the same but with the + and - reversed (in which case it's the sort you want).

[quote name='Big_Stu' post='1269121' date='Jun 14 2011, 08:02 PM']+1, sounds like they used a standard jack. Refund & take it elsewhere.[/quote] Or fitted the correct (stereo) socket, but wired it up wrongly. Easy to fix, but you really ought to go back and complain at least, so that they know that you know that they've screwed up.

[quote name='tommorichards' post='1268448' date='Jun 14 2011, 11:39 AM']mm hmm. That one is also some weird 70% centre thing. Im just gonna buy 6 off ebay and see if anyone wants the spares.[/quote] Hmm. Hadn't spotted the 70% thing.

[quote name='tommorichards' post='1265499' date='Jun 11 2011, 11:05 PM']Yeah, i was looking at that, and although i could possibly get around using a 500k pot, as well as the fact its meant for PCB mounting, i just wanted to check out there for what im looking for, thanks anyway.[/quote] They've also got the non-PCB version, just below that one, albeit for 50p more. When I was last looking for pot/DPDTs I couldn't find anything cheaper than that.

I'd heard that Warwick were putting many more conditions on shops before allowing them to be Warwick dealers. As a result there are very few dealers in the UK at the moment. In fact, now that I look it up, according to the Warwick site there is only one "true" Warwick dealer in the UK: Bass Merchant. But there are many dealers for the Korean Pro series or the Chinese Rockbasses.

The p looks wrong too: [url="http://www.flickr.com/photos/bassplayermag/5734581299/"]http://www.flickr.com/photos/bassplayermag/5734581299/[/url]

[quote name='kurcatovium' post='1266845' date='Jun 13 2011, 12:09 AM']Signed! One of the worst burst I've ever seen (incl. some crappy japaneese lawsuits and chinese copies)?[/quote] Worst burst? That reminds me of the exploding sausage I had in Germany once. A burst wurst.

[quote name='wateroftyne' post='1266222' date='Jun 12 2011, 03:52 PM']Is Wales part of Manhattan now? Hiscox hard case all the way...[/quote]

Maybe the reserve is ridiculously high?

[quote name='obbm' post='1265881' date='Jun 12 2011, 11:45 AM']...Edit: Judging by his feedback he seems to have a stack of them. Can they all be "his lovely"?[/quote] Indeed. So he has these two for sale now: [url="http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Fender-Squier-Precision-Bass-Guitar-1968-replica-/180679033600?pt=UK_Musical_Instruments_Guitars_CV&hash=item2a114f4300"]http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Fender-Squier-Precis...=item2a114f4300[/url] [url="http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Fender-Squier-1968-replica-Precision-Bass-Guitar-/180679218830?pt=UK_Musical_Instruments_Guitars_CV&hash=item2a1152168e"]http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Fender-Squier-1968-r...=item2a1152168e[/url] And he sold "this one" last week: [url="http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=180670225472"]http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vie...em=180670225472[/url] Technically, if they are his, and they are lovely, then he can describe each of them as "his lovely p bass". But I put "this one" in quotes because it's clear that the images are not of the exact bass for sale, which seems a bit dodgy. But is it explicitly against any ebay rules?

Gig bag, but most of my "gigs" are two blocks away, so I walk.

[url="http://www.thomann.de/gb/rockstand_3fach_stage_gitarrenstaender_bk.htm"]http://www.thomann.de/gb/rockstand_3fach_s...staender_bk.htm[/url] Or there's also a tweed option. Just search for "Rockstand" in the Thomann website.

[quote name='EssentialTension' post='1265117' date='Jun 11 2011, 05:06 PM']I think which note of the scale you are playing can also make a difference. For example, say you were playing a blues using a blues pentatonic scale, accuracy on the root note seems to me to matter more than accuracy on the flat third - it's as though the flat third of a blues scale is a slightly variable and expressive thing. The other possibility is that my ears are ****ed. However, +1 on Beedster's vibrato.[/quote] I suspect this is the same issue as our varying sensitivity to different intervals. It's well documented that there are some intervals we're more sensitive about and some we're less sensitive about. Play an octave slightly out and everyone will notice. Play a third (major, minor, whatever) slightly out and far fewer people will notice. Neil Bibby's article in [url="http://ukcatalogue.oup.com/product/9780199298938.do"]this book[/url] has a lot more detail on this point.

[quote name='BB3000S' post='1264489' date='Jun 10 2011, 11:23 PM']I've seen much much worse jobs at much much higher price points tbh. .....[/quote] For example, this "professional" job that GAK are offering for a mere £1500.

[quote name='Grand Wazoo' post='1264642' date='Jun 11 2011, 09:13 AM']No it doesn't although I agree with you that on the "artist" impression it does looks that way, but if you look at the real thing in the picture below it does not stick out from the body [/quote] Phew. I was hoping it was just a photoshop artifact - I couldn't really believe Dingwall would do such a thing. Btw, I love that photo and how you've got the Grolsch strap lock to colour-match the finish.

The short answer is no. The way your amp is wired, both cabs will get the same amount of power, and there really isn't any way to change that. There may be some piece of kit you can buy that will do what you want - some sort of speaker attenuator, but I don't know about those things.

[quote name='BigRedX' post='1264123' date='Jun 10 2011, 04:47 PM']Has no-one else noticed that the bridge is in totally the wrong place? It should be somewhere around the position of the angled pickup. No wonder it won't play in tune.[/quote] Good spot. He doesn't actually say it won't [i]play[/i] in tune. He says "it does not [i]stay[/i] in tune" (my italics). But before we get into a witch-hunt, let's be clear: at the very top of the listing it says "For parts /not working", and the ebay clarification - "An item that does not function as intended or is not fully operational" is entirely accurate. Anybody who's thinks they're buying a usable guitar is fooling themselves, they're not being fooled by the listing.

[quote name='Delberthot' post='1264416' date='Jun 10 2011, 09:37 PM']I remember hearing that he preferred the Rick and only went back to the Hofner because Elvis Costello said that he suited the Hofner more than the Rick. And someone mentioned the lack of artist relations. I had quite an interesting debate on the Rickresource when I suggested that the Rick that Lemmy used with the maple fretboard and the star inlays was in fact a copy which meant that the extremely limited edition of about 50 Lemmy Basses hand carved by pixies in gum tree lane was silly as he had never played an original one. Plus it had no bearing on anything he had used as it couldn't possibly be a proper signature model as it was a completely different spec No one could provide evidence that the Rick in question was real but it didn't stop their witch hunt[/quote] You could also have some fun on the Ric forums with this quote from Lemmy about the pickups in his sig bass as compared with their standard pickups: "Yes - Rickenbacker finally made a good pickup!" (BGM Ric special, Sep/Oct 2007). And now that I've got the mag to hand, here's a quote about Bruce Foxton's use of a Ric on The Modern World: "Like many of the listings here, care is needed to ensure that what you are hearing is a Rickenbacker bass." So BGM at least don't seem to feel that the Ric sound is only obtainable with a Ric. Of course, depending on your opinion of BGM, that might not impress you too much!

Is the bass side of the bridge really sticking out beyond the body? That doesn't seem ideal to me. Apart from that it looks pretty good.

There's so much to like about this guitar, but I think the position of the B and E tuners is the highlight.

[quote name='Beedster' post='1263167' date='Jun 9 2011, 07:56 PM']... how about I rephrase the question: why is it that established bass players don't seem to gravitate[i] towards[/i] Rics?[/quote] This seems a good question to ask. And I wonder if it's simply that RIC don't work hard at artist relations. Putting that another way, when famous bassist X switches to brand Y, is that generally because a nice rep from brand Y came and visited him/her and persuaded them to switch? I don't know if that's the case, but if it is, one could speculate a bit further (since that's what 'tinternet is best at, eh? ): RIC don't seem very interested in increasing their production capacity - they've got a huge waiting list for their gear and are happy with that situation. So maybe they can't see any point trying to get other famous players to play Rics, since that would only lead to more people wanting their kit, and an increase in the waiting list.

I got the BGM Rickenbacker special and that was fantastic because when they went to profile famous Ric users, almost all were actually ex-users. The other classic in there was when they talked about the distinctive sound of the Ric bass. And then when it came to actually recordings featuring Rics they said you had to be careful because some sounded like they were Rics but actually weren't. So not actually that distinctive then! Why did people stop? I don't know, but my best guess would be it's because of how distinctive it is (despite what I've just written ). Most creative types want to keep moving. Just like Pino had a really distinctive fretless sound in the early '80s, and very quickly moved on to a much less distinctive sound, to avoid getting pigeonholed.

[quote name='bubinga5' post='1261639' date='Jun 8 2011, 07:08 PM']How much does it cost [to fret] a fretless bass. ...[/quote] How much does it cost? Your soul.