mcnach

[quote name='tauzero' timestamp='1430697258' post='2763857'] I have - one of those Washburn Statuseses which went "plunk plunk plunk". [/quote] I don't play any of that new fangled plunk music...

[quote name='Norris' timestamp='1430141301' post='2758313'] Short of wiping them down with a clean dry cloth after use, do any of you have suggestions for prolonging the life of your strings? I find that even being meticulous I start to get signs of rust after 6 months or so [/quote] 6 months? My strings get replaced more often But even when i keep them longer, I don't ever recall them getting rusty. I don't do anything particular to them. I do tend to have clean hands before playing, and I don't do anything to them afterwards. I may wipe the neck if it's warm and feels a bit sweaty etc... but don't really touch the strings.

Through "Strings & Things": [url="http://www.stringsandthings.co.uk/acchom.htm"]http://www.stringsandthings.co.uk/acchom.htm[/url] click on Ernie Ball/MusicMan and then look for "spares" and find the tuners you want there. I once bought a couple there that were also bent, for a USA SUB that was sent to me with inadequate packaging.

[quote name='dave_bass5' timestamp='1430560291' post='2762560'] In a way I'm glad mine didn't come with a singed plate. I appreciate the idea but I think they look ugly. [/quote] it's only on the back anyway...

[quote name='discreet' timestamp='1430401312' post='2761042'] You see a lot of stuff on the interwebs about Behringer and their alleged low-quality and low-reliability, but it's worth saying once again that they do manufacture and distribute more products than every other brand put together, so statistically you're going to see more instances of Behringer failure than anything else. Of course people don't post anything at all if their products are performing OK, why would they? For what it's worth, the Behringer products I've used have all performed perfectly well with no issues. I think I might buy that £99 bass amp for the hell of it and kick it around a bit, see how that goes... And another thing, I had cause to use a TC bass amp as backline and I did not like it one bit. It didn't blow up, however. [/quote] I used a Behringer BX4500 as my first bass amp head. It was heavy, the fan wasn't the quietest, but I liked the sound. I have had only ONE amp head failing on me, during soundcheck, with a nice cloud of smoke. It was not the Behringer, it was a TC RH450! To be fair, TC reacted really fast and I was able to collect a new RH450 locally three days later. Now, that's service! My little kick-about practice amp is a Behringer BXL450A. It doesn't sound half bad either. I had it since 2007, and I use it all the time. Never missed a beat. See, it's boring to post about success stories... so I won't continue with my Behringer UB1002 mixer, my Behringer V-Amp2, my Behringer AC112 guitar combo... etc

RHCP tribute: Richt Hoat Chillis, inactive since May 2014, but currently in talks with view to resuscitate it. We formed in May 2009. RATM tribute: Radge Against The Machine. Formed in 2011, we stopped in June 2014 when our singer decided to quit. We haven't found anybody suitable since. From time to time we look... and next Monday we are auditioning a guy who seems very promising, we'll see!

[quote name='lefrash' timestamp='1430412661' post='2761205'] Sounds a bit ropey to be honest. I'd like ti hear what users can get out it after months of tweaking and gigging etc, but it sounds like quite an expensive toy at the moment. [/quote] yeah, that demo doesn't sound too exciting to me...

[quote name='alembic1989' timestamp='1430143867' post='2758347'] If your pots are noisy...change them. You are just delaying the inevitable by using contact cleaners. [/quote] hmmm, define "delay". If they're really bad, sure, it'll only be a short-lived cure. But I have guitars that I have owned a couple of decades and I've sprayed the pots once or twice when I heard a little scratch... and they're ok.

[quote name='cheddatom' timestamp='1430317406' post='2760219'] This is all about the size isn't it. Sort of the opposite of the mental 8x15" cab, what about a 1 x 15" with totally over sized proportions? How would this sound? Like a 6 ft high 1 x 15" [/quote] with a door at the back, so it doubles as changing room...

[quote name='Hobbayne' timestamp='1430263438' post='2759718'] Looking at this for my markbass mini cmd 121 combo. I have a couple of questions. How do you connect it to the combo? What is the dial on the side for? I have only ever used a bass combo amp in my recent years, and technology has moved on. [/quote] You connect it with strawberry laces. The dial is the talent booster control. I always have mine set to "stun". (you already got the answer, so I felt I had to make up a different one to confuse you )

This is not the same type of resource, but I find it very useful anyway: backing tracks. I loved backing tracks from my bedroom guitarist days, much better than playing by yourself... but they also make learning songs much more fun, at least for me. If I need (or want) to learn a specific song, I listen to it and figure out the bassline and practice it playing along to the original. From time to time I had access to a backing track that did not have my instrument (guitar or bass), and that makes it more fun to practice. Over the years I ended up buying quite a few "Play with..." tab books, purely for the backing tracks. I have recently found a website that is a pretty good source of reasonable sound-alike backing tracks: [url="http://www.karaoke-version.com"]http://www.karaoke-version.com[/url] The cool thing is that you select a song, and you can choose your mix changing a couple of basic parameters: you can alter levels of instruments, and you can mute them. You can then download the result (it's not free, however, it's £1.99 a pop). The thing is also that once you bought a track, you can continue to download alternative mixes. This means you can get a mix without guitars, a mix without bass, without drums, vocals... etc, to suit whatever you want to play. In addition, you could listen to just the bass alone, or just the guitar alone, when trying to figure out something that's not so clear in the full track. Of course, learning a bassline from here means you learn the bassline another guy played, not the original... They are generally pretty good, but I've noticed a couple of occasions where I disagree. Still sounds good, and it works as a backing track regardless. I found it when I rediscovered my fretless Precision and The Police, and bought a "Play with" book+CD that did not have "So Lonely" in it. Their version was pretty good. It's not Sting singing, but does a good impression! Disclaimer: that site has nothing to do with me!!! I'm just a happy user.

[quote name='jonnythenotes' timestamp='1430083600' post='2757890'] I have decided to go for a P bass, but realise a new or second hand American made Fender for £500 is not going to happen, so what is the next best thing, eiher new or second hand that is as good as or even better? There must be one or two gems out there that are ignored or undiscovered as they have the wrong name on the headstock.. There is the obvious in Squier, but anything else that is worth a squint.... [/quote] Without a doubt: A Classic 50 Fender Precision. Made in Mexico, but nothing like the standard MIM range. I bought one in October last year and I barely touch anything else since. Fantastic basses.

[quote name='ahpook' timestamp='1430152544' post='2758436'] Isn't this topic [i]thoroughly[/i] done to death now ? [/quote] You're right. Enough of this. Let's try something else now: Jazz or Precision?

[quote name='charic' timestamp='1430227501' post='2759175'] I turned up at an outside gig with my Hartke Kilo and Berg NV610 and the sound engineer was telling me to turn down during soundcheck... he looked rather embarrassed when I told him that the amp was muted because I was tuning [/quote] As I brought my 210 and 212 vertical stack speakers into the bar, the sound guy warned me I was too loud. "Really, before I plug in, you can tell?" He said yeah, that was too big. I said "but my amp comes with a volume knob, they're great!". He went away grumbling. I wasn't too loud, it sounded great, and I could hear myself beautifully. Did your sound guy have a brother in Edinburgh?

Love it! It's beastly!

[quote name='BigRedX' timestamp='1430172031' post='2758707'] I still view my CDs (and vinyl) as backup for my iTunes library. Back in 2001 when I bought my first iPod I spent a week testing different MP3 converters and bit rates to find what sounded to me the best and then spent the next year ripping my CD collection (as well as digitising the vinyl that wasn't available then on CD). Now that storage is both cheap and plentiful I'm in the process of re-ripping everything as uncompressed AIFFs. However over the last 14 years I've bought quite a few tracks on line when the songs I wanted weren't available any other way and trying to keep track of where they came from so I can add the best quality versions to my new library. I know that I'll invariably miss transferring some over and short of going through around 35,000 tracks to spot which ones I've missed there is no way to ensure I get them all. There will be no problem getting everything on CD transferred across, just the time it will take. I'm still not convinced by the subscription model for software either, and I'm not alone in this respect. Only one of the advertising/design agencies that I freelance for has "upgraded" to Creative Cloud and that's only because they needed more licences and CC is now the only option for adding new seats. [/quote] Same here, almost everything (almost, I still would pay a subscription -price & coverage dependent- in addition to my continuing to purchase music). When I started ripping my collection to mp3, computers were much slower, and I felt storage was expensive... so I ripped at 192kbps (the minimum I thought sounded ok in my mp3 player), and not every song, but only my favourites from each album. I saw mp3 as a supplement, only for music on teh move. After a few months of that I changed my mind... back to rip everything, and at 320kbps. CDs took a while... but vinyl... uf. I have bought many "digital copies" in the past few years, buying only CDs that I felt were more "special". But Amazon lately seems to have many where buying the CD is not much more expensive (and a handful ot times, cheaper!) than buying the digital only, and buying the CD gets you the digital instantly as well, so I started getting a few more CDs lately. I'm considering getting into the Raspberry Pi computer trend, and using one as a server, to have my own "streaming" service, where the server has all my music and I can then listen/download anything I want from my collection. Should not be too expensive and it's great for travelling (or work, I listen to a lot of music at work) But software subscriptions... I detest!

[quote name='BigRedX' timestamp='1430160905' post='2758553'] There's a service called Pandora (which sadly is no longer available in the UK) which offers this. When I've used it in the past it has been very good at suggesting music I should be interested in based on my tastes and I found my current favourite band "The Birthday Massacre" through Pandora. Unfortunately for musicians it's royalty rate is even poorer than Spotify. [/quote] I heard of it but I arrived too late!

[quote name='BigRedX' timestamp='1430160686' post='2758551'] I'm quite happy to use a streaming service to listen to bands I've heard about that sound interesting, but if I do find something worth hearing more than a handful of times I'll still buy the CD. I wouldn't want to rely on the streaming service being the only way I could listen to the music and I certainly wouldn't be prepared to pay for it, when I'm using it solely as a try before I buy service. While internet connectivity is a lot better than it used to be it's still not 100% reliable, whereas so long as I have electricity I can alway listen to my CDs, and even in cities mobile data can be very patchy. IME the infrastructure still isn't good enough to make streaming a viable substitute for actually owning a physical copy of the recordings you want to hear. And that's before I even start looking at the huge gaps in the various streaming services catalogues... [/quote] Absolutely, it's not perfect. Gaps in coverage both for connectivity and the music selection are quite big. I still buy music and will probably continue... even if it's only out of habit. But I think one day streaming will probably be good enough that most people would not care about buying. Only us old die hards It's not there yet, but the idea is attractive. Ad even if it isn't attractive to me, it seems that's the way we're going: moving to get people to pay smaller amounts regularly rather than larger sums once. It's even there in software, look at Adobe and Microsof Office 365... Little by little, we pay for a service rather than ownership. Once we moved to CDs, I stopped progressively caring about the physical format. The old records with the big sleeves, the artwork, all the information inside, photographs... thatw as interesting and precious. Then CDs arrived and it's all small, if it exists at all... it's just not the same. I converted all my CDs to mp3 and that's how I play music most of the time, from a hard drive.

[quote name='discreet' timestamp='1430162276' post='2758573'] I don't like sunburst, but strangely I have GAS for the honeyburst version... [/quote] Don't worry, they only ever did a handful of solid colours

[quote name='cetera' timestamp='1429916046' post='2756441'] Will do, chaps..... just give me a few days as I'm mad busy at the moment and I've given it to my tech to set up/clean up etc [/quote] not good enough. we want pictures, and we want them NOW, damnit!

[quote name='TimR' timestamp='1430136198' post='2758229'] Isn't this just like the BBC radio though. Technically you pay a license fee to listen to the radio/ watch TV. If you hear a song you like on the radio, you go out and buy it. I don't know many people who buy songs from previously unknown artists without hearing them first. [/quote] and there's that too! A streaming service that recognises what you play, and suggests "others you might like" has a huge potential. I have spent hundreds on Amazon after buying a CD and checking the "other Cds you might like", discovering some interesting bands in the process.

[quote name='BigRedX' timestamp='1430127159' post='2758112'] But most people who are older than 6 don't want to watch the same movie over and over again. I'm quite happy to pay to stream a movie once, and if I thought it was any good I'll be happy to pay in couple of years time to watch it again. Songs that I like I will want to listen to all the time. If it's through a streaming service you are totally at the whim of the service and the artist allowing their music to be on that service. At least with a CD ripped onto my computer and iPod I can listen to the song whenever I want. [/quote] ... yes, and that's why I wasn't keen on music streaming. Until it started to become easy for me to find music I wanted to hear at a reasonably low price. I still buy... but I like not depending on having the music physically with me. As long as I have internet connection, I'm set. It's not great yet... but eventually coverage/selection will be better. It frees you from having to have that particular CD with you, or the mp3 in your player or whatever. Enough people like that to make streaming popular.