Deep Thought

Seven. Hoping to improve on that this year ( and to make some money!)

Can't comment on the basses (although it looks nice!) but Captain Sensible raves about the six-string version on his bit of The Damned's website.

Lovely bit of kit-I profess to be happy with my '07 P-bass, but if there's one thing I still hanker for it's a proper 70's P in black/black-preferably with a maple fingerboard but rosewood is nice too. Saw one (fretless) in Manson's the other day but they want £1300 for it.

I find playing a gig and drinking similar to when I used to play darts. There was a definite line between playing really well and going all to hell. Sober I played crap. Up to 4 pints I got progressively better, after 4 pints my performance began to go downhill rapidly! For our first few gigs I played sober, and was not particularly happy with the way I played. Then we played a beer festival, where we were paid in beer and I didn't have to drive, so I had a couple pre-gig, deliberately not going silly, just a couple. I played considerably better, without making anywhere near as many mistakes, as I was more relaxed. Last gig we played was a Landlord's birthday, again as much as we could drink, although during the first set, as I was working at 1 o'clock the next day I stuck to Coke. During the interval I decided to take advantage of the landlord's generosity and hit the beer, and again played considerably better in the second set. I'm pretty sure it's not me just thinking I'm playing better, we're only talking a couple of pints here so I'm not exactly out of it. I've yet to get to 4 pints prior to a gig and think that best avoided!

My Fender P-bass-I've waited 25 years to get a black/black P with a maple neck, I'm not giving it up now! Mind you, I've owned my faithful Westone Concord 1 for all of those 25 years, but if it's one and one only, it's the P!

3 more-221

I've had several sets of Rosetti's, bought off Ebay, and been perfectly happy with them. I'm not particularly fussy however and have cloth ears-I have a job to tell one set of strings from another. I'm currently using a set of Skull Strings which the lads at my local shop pointed me in the direction of-they seem pretty good-long, thin and shiny and go twangg when I pluck them-just what I look for in a set of strings!

I have phases of both-depends what I feel I need at the time-since I bought my P-bass I haven't felt the need for a new bass for a while, and I've been eyeing up extension cabs to go with my Trace combo lately, but I keep an eye on both. I plan on moving to a head/cab setup at some stage but it'll have to be done in stages-cab first, head later, and for that reason I've paid a lot of attention to Markbass Little Mark II's. Have been having definite leanings in the direction of a CIJ '70's reissue Precision to back up the Fender, and fancy a fretless, but can't see me getting either for a while, especially as things are looking a bit iffy with the band at the moment. Thing I can really do with the most is a Zoom H4 which is the thing I'm most likely to be getting in the near(ish) future. But you know how it goes, as soon as you think you're happy with what you've got, along comes something else you've got to have. It takes an iron will or a different mindset to a lot of us to stick with what you've got for any length of time-cue a lot of 'I've had my So-and-so since 1957 and never seen the need to change' type replies!

'Dad, do you know the piano's on my foot?' 'You hum it son, I'll play it.'

First one played (I think-it was a loooonnnngggg time ago) was another Satellity type thing belonging to a mate, although I remember playing a black P-bass (like mine!) in Frank Yonco's shop in Mount Charles. First owned was a Black/maple white scratchplate Westone Concord I which I still own and play regularly-it's my 'downstairs' bass!

[quote name='David Nimrod' post='95805' date='Nov 28 2007, 09:09 PM']Give me Norman Watt Roy over Mark King anyday ;-) (awaits flames...)[/quote] No flames here-couldn't agree more.

Likewise. where you at? Welcome.

[quote name='MB1' post='92980' date='Nov 22 2007, 08:28 PM']MB1. Only FIFTY?....I wonder how many of those basses are actually in use?(probably all in bank vaults). Dont tell Old Horse!..... his mrs 'll kill him! .....................with his luck he'll probably find one!.[/quote] There's one on here (sold) for those interested in what one looks like:- [url="http://www.the-music-connection.com/riccol.htm"]http://www.the-music-connection.com/riccol.htm[/url]

I do backing vocals and sing lead vocals for several of the songs we do. At first I was reluctant to sing lead as I didn't want to tread on our singer's toes, but it turns out some of the stuff we do suits my voice better than hers so I do them. I also sing the stuff I've written as I'm no good at writing for anybody else. I really like to do it, although I'm much more careful about what I sing these days-years ago I would attempt anything, but I often sounded crap as I was singing stuff that was outside my range. I sound OK as long as I'm not trying to go too high-it's a thing that a lot of people don't realise-most of us can't just sing any song. We did a gig a while back and the boys from my old band came along. One of them told me 'Your voice has improved!' Maybe it's just practice but I'm sure a lot of it is that I don't try to sing stuff that's beyond my capabilities any more. As for playing and singing, depends what you're playing. I've found that sometimes busier bass lines are easier to sing over than sparser ones with more gaps, which it's hard to get the timing on. Also on more complex ones it's very much a case of practice-I find that with more complex ones if I think too hard about what I'm playing I get lost-it has to be automatic. There are songs I've never been able to play and sing (REM's Losing My Religion for one) but it's probably because I've not tried hard enough-there have been others I couldn't play whilst singing which I finally got through continuous practice.

We found Gnarls Barkley's 'Crazy' cleared the dancefloor like a dose of salts.

It occurred to me the other day, whilst looking at new Marshall cabs in my local geetar emporium, that we don't hear much here, or anywhere else for that matter, about Marshall bass amplification. I had a 60W Marshall combo years ago, which wasn't quite up to what I was using it for, but I had no complaints otherwise. Does anyone here use Marshall stuff? Presumably their bass amps aren't held in the same high regard that their guitar amps are. Nobody ever recommends Marshall-it's always Markbass, GK, Trace, Aguilar, Epifani etc. etc. How come their bass amps aren't as well liked?

[quote name='Alien' post='87826' date='Nov 13 2007, 12:36 PM']One of my basses has a switch on it that's not wired to anything (never got round to it), but most people believe they can hear a difference when I flick it to a different position! Andy[/quote] Ashdown amps have that-it's called a Subharmonic Generator

[quote name='99ster' post='87117' date='Nov 12 2007, 12:09 AM']From what I understand, the 'router hump' was a feature of most old Fenders (both guitars & basses) - certainly up to the mid 60's, though I'm not sure exactly what year it stopped appearing. I have a '66 Precision with a 'router hump', and have owned a '69 Precision without. It was caused by a routing machine at the Fender plant that was unable to complete a smooth curve on the tight curve on the lower horn of the body. This 'feature' stopped appearing when a new routing machine was installed at the plant - sometime in the late 60's. I have heard it said that sometimes it was smoothed out by hand - but personally, I wouldn't buy a 60's Fender without it. That said, some of the better custom body makers add it as a feature on re-issue guitar & bass bodies.[/quote] Cheers for that-illustrates it very nicely.

Oooooooooh, it's gorgeous. Well done.

Whoa, that looks stonking. You must be like a dog with two whatsits. I'm intrigued by the 'router hump'-I'd like to see a pic of that when you get round to it.

From what I can gather it was more than one fuse-and I was more than happy to pay it since I was envisaging forking out for a new amp. Plus I felt it was my own silly fault so I deserved it!

Nine grand? Bog off!

I wouldn't dare attempt anything similar again! In all honesty I can get by perfectly well with the Trace, for the size of venue we're playing. We usually get complaints that we're too loud anyway! I'm holding the Ashdown in reserve to use as a part-ex for an extension cab, probably a 4 x 10. My fiendish plan for World domination is then to get a head (LMII is the current favourite) to go with the 4 x 10, and move away from the combo scenario altogether. That's if I ever get my hands on some money, which currently seems like a long way away.

[quote name='Hamster' post='83368' date='Nov 4 2007, 12:56 AM']Ummmmmmm.................. time to request a site admin to change your forum name from "Deep Thought" to "Not Quite As Deep As You Thought Thought" Hamster[/quote] In this instance 'Insufficient Thought' would be more appropriate!

Many thanks for all the advice chaps-unfortunately this was the result, through nobody's fault but mine:- [url="http://basschat.co.uk/index.php?showtopic=7833"]http://basschat.co.uk/index.php?showtopic=7833[/url] What I did I'm still not sure, I wasn't as careful as I should have been. Didn't seem to be getting much out of the 4 x 10 by using the line out method, so started fooling around with the speaker outputs in a haphazard and ill-considered fashion hoping for an improvement, and knackered both amps in so doing. I know you're all far more sensible types than me so would never be daft enough to do this sort of thing, but if not then learn from my mistake-I certainly have.