mcnach

Okay, now I had the purple Squier for a bit, my impressions have changed somewhat. I was a bit disappointed at first because the CV series basses (early ones, 2013-14) I've had were perfect out of the box, so I had very high expectations. I had heard that the CV series had lost a bit, and it makes sense when you see everything else has gone up in price but the CV pretty much stayed at the same price. After taking care of the nut a bit... things are a lot nicer. I didn't really do anything else to it, I've been too busy and I didn't want to spend too much time on it. That neck is fantastic. Very smooth edges, low profile, fretwork is very good... it plays extremely nicely, and the pickups are better than I was expecting. It's a great guitar. Don't get me wrong, I still love the SX and I would be very happy with just that one, but the neck on the purple CV Telecaster is worth the extra money, for my liking... However, if I just wanted a Tele for around £100, yeah, very happy with the SX.

I suppose that a book aimed at bass players would have limited appeal outside our 'little universe', even if I would for one devoure it! However, I find that people who are at your level (the handful I've met, not exactly a large sample, but...) often feel as you describe: "ah, it'll be boring, who will even care? people will just want gossip", but I think their experiences can have a wider appeal than you imagine when approached simply as "the trials and tribulations of someone trying to make a living as a musician". A lot of us could write books along those lines, but very few got to 'make it' and become part of so much music that became the soundtrack of our lives, in some ways. My book would be really boring. It would start with my 'discovering' music and trying to play melodies and rhythms on anything I could get my hands on, until my parents made it clear that they thought music was something just for fun on the side and that I should go study at University instead and become an engineer or something. And I went "erm... ok". So rock'n'roll, eh? Well, I went to study Electronic Engineering (while listening a LOT to early Whitesnake, in particular ) and I thought I'd try to follow on the footsteps of Tom Scholz (Boston) and if I was not going to be a proper musician I could design and build equipment. Eventually I dropped out and became a biologist instead, and in my 30s I returned to playing music... and I've got a lot of stories: some crazy, some silly, some sweet... like that 5 year old dancing like a maniac in front of the stage at an afternoon festival in the park, who'd take turns to be in front each one of us, watching with attention what we were doing, and after we finished he kept insisting we continued playing and he wouldn't stop until we invited him over and showed him what the stage was like (he LOVED the drums and we let him make a bit of noise with them)... The look on his face will stay with me forever. Through the years, playing bars, festivals and small clubs, music has shown to be a great leveller. People with very different backgrounds, jobs, different skin colours and religions, brought together by music. Music has helped a lot of us through difficult times, it gives us strength, it can inspire us, or can soften our steely hearts and bring out emotions like nothing else can... and this is just from my observations at a very small/local level (the closest to a 'tour' I've ever done was spending a week travelling in a minibus around the UK, sleeping on floors and dirty pub seats when we were lucky, spending mindnumbing hours each day just waiting for those 2 hours we'd get to do our thing in front of some people, regardless whether they were 1000 or 50... and sometimes not even 50, hell, I've played to two barmen and kitchen staff! ) but still met lots of interesting people and had lots of interesting conversations, with music being the common thread. If I have that, I am positive that your book could be a LOT more exciting. I tell you what, if you write yours, I'll write mine

I suspect that the sunburst and black versions are essentially 'different' models commisioned at different times perhaps at different factories and likely different specs to some extent.

I would gladly give up all my guitars and keep just one if I could be in the same league as Neil, whose CV looks like my favourite record collection It's amazing to be able to hear these stories, first hand, here. Thank you @neilmurraybass for taking the time to indulge us, and of course, for all that music.

Delivery truck left. I may be unreachable for a while. First impressions are nice, but the SX was built better. There are a couple of minor cosmetic flaws (a tiny bubble on the neck lacquer, some small flaking of the lacquer by the nut) and the nut slot for the high E is a tiny bit too low, so the open string chokes a bit against the 1st fret but fretwork is otherwise good (on the SX I had to level 2-3 frets around the 12th-15th fret area on the treble side). It is beautiful, the neck is really nice, a bit slimmer in profile than the SX... I like both, to be honest. Sounds... the pickups are a bit meatier than the SX, but not substantially better or anything: it's just a slightly different tone. With what I know now, if you just want a cheap but nice Telecaster, I'd pick the SX over the Squier... but the Squier is purple, so... Let's see after I adjust and set it up more to my preferences, balance the pickups etc.

Oh, a large box? Being delivered today? I wonder what it contains!

I'm not sure it's much different for local bands there. I think in general people treat better those who come from abroad, maybe they seem more exotic or important or something. What I've seen in the music scene in Madrid, for example, is that local bands struggle to make a penny but I've seen a few bands from the UK getting residencies and getting a pretty sweet deal with accommodation, food etc. I'm not sure musicians are treated that well anywhere, unless they're big names.

Wow, the 4 string one states 12-15 weeks now! 😄

I think 4 string ones are still available, it's the 5 string ones that they don't have in stock... Lucky me!

But.. it's not in stock,.. 3-5 weeks

That looks great!!!

... and I've been informed it's been ordered

Well, finally a decision: no, I won't be buying one. This is because it seems that my girlfriend is buying the MB-5 for me That tortoiseshell style pickguard has to go 'though. It's got to be black.

Nice! I don't own one but here at Pirate Studios they have a few and I always liked them, but in dim light with the mirror panel... yeah, not great. Last thing I want when trying to read which knob does what is seeing a guy that looks a lot like me staring right back.

oh, oh, oh! Is that the bicycle???

Ok, I get that not everybody is a fan of symbols over words, but what do we have here? Level, gain and some kind of EQ, as in a miriad of dirt pedals out there... Even I can manage that, and I'm having a doofus maximus week I'm pretty sure you will not damage anything by mistake by turning the wrong one, unless I missed the nuclear launch button Personally I had more trouble with the controls on a Mesa D800+, to be honest: dark knobs on a dark plate with a tiny white marker and small lettering labels above them. I replaced the knobs to aid visualisation, and as for the labels... I just learnt what they do. Much like in a lot of other amps and pedals: Ashdown RM series with their mirror-like face panels and black letters, great when I need to retouch my make up, terrible otherwise... and ultrabright leds on pedals that mean I can't make out where the controls are pointing at. I suspect we'd manage just fine

I'll be very disappointed when the amp comes out. I wanted a bicycle.

Meanwhile back in 1986, my first electric guitar cost new something around £100 and was a pretty poor instrument. Amazing.

very nice!

Not sure... a pedal would indent my financial reserves a lot less than an amp. Fewer temptations are a winner for me 😛

You're probably right, but reading the 'history' about this pedal was quite interesting and it makes sense to me how it came about. Barefaced + COG doing something together, made in the UK etc especially in these difficult times... is something to applaud, I feel. The product won't be for everyone (is anything ever?) but would it be better if they hadn't bothered at all? I don't think so.

Just recently discovered these guys from France, Dub Silence. Nice original stuff, and some relly interesting covers, like this one!

Well, I check an email I had from Andertons last week and find out that the estimated delivery is... summer 2021!!! 😲 Then I see that this is for a second batch, as the first one was sold out already, phew, mine is still expected in early December 😎

Interesting! I had him build me a pedal for my RATM tribute band (I called it "Raging Bull", logo on the bottom using the Red Bull font) that contained distortion, clean blend, dual LPF on the distortion, and order-configurable foot-switchable series/parallel loop so that I could add another source of dirt (or anything). Not much like the Machinist, but looking for the same kind of thing... to play the same kind of music (the Machinist being linked to Tim C)... I can't find pictures of the final product (sold it a while ago ) but here's one Tom sent me of the box in-progress:

That looks fantastic (I'm imagining a black pickguard for 'maximum stealth' look)... and... oh no... they make a 5-string too for £125. I'm running out of reasons not to buy one.