neepheid

"Promoter". Isn't it their job to promote the gig and get folk through the door? I fundamentally disagree with having to do any of this work - I'm here to play music and entertain - it's what I've spent years of my life honing and improving while spending boatloads of money on gear, travelling, rehearsal time, releasing music. If I wanted to be a "promoter" then I'd do that instead - it's clearly a difficult job if you're pawing off half your work to the bands.

Good luck!

I sold my last place to someone I know in the local music scene - he's in a band and promotes/organises gigs in one of the local venues. Was quite a surprise when he came for a viewing - my reaction went along the lines of "what are you doing here?" Didn't put him off - they still bought the place

Yamaha SC-02, new, tenner. Kennys Music were doing a ludicrous deal on these in Feb last year - you can't knock it for a tenner! https://uk.yamaha.com/en/products/musical_instruments/guitars_basses/amps_accessories/sessioncake/index.html

You're going to have to try harder than that to rickroll me

I played my 20th Anniversary JC at band rehearsal last night and it was glorious. I had recently given it a seasonal truss rod tweak and it's playing great. Smiling ear to ear. I f'n love this bass.

I just don't like it for the reasons I stated, that's my take on it and I'm not saying anyone else is wrong to look at it another way.

They could be reminiscing, recalling a tale of someone met long ago when they were that age too? They're not necessarily looking at a seventeen year old young woman right now. The lyrics are all written in the past tense after all. She could be 17 as of 5 minutes ago, or 40 years ago. There are many ways to look at it, everyone finds the one that suits their point of view. Me personally I'd have veto doing the Rolling Stones "Under My Thumb" - I appreciate that the song's not meant to be taken literally but it's just a long form way of saying 'coercive control' written in a time before we had a succint term for it. I'm not saying it doesn't shine a light on something horrible, but it makes my skin crawl just thinking about the lyrics, never mind me underpinning their musical transmission. I've listened to it, soaked it in, said to myself "yuck, I don't want to be that guy". Now I skip it every time it comes on in a Stones compilation.

Mon français de l'école est mauvais, désolé. Ou est la piscine? I know I just asked where the swimming pool is - the phrases that stick in your head!

@bigthumb you went with green? Curve ball!

You'll be back. I've bought 3, sold 2, oops

Perhaps picky was too pejorative a word, and if I used something bigger like discerning then it might have come across as sarcasm. Didn't mean anything mean by it - I interpret your direct quote of my phraseology as a sign of irritation so I'm sorry if it came across that way. Talking of the T-bird, the Embassy is a lot more manageable for the reasons I outlined above - I think the biggest noticeable difference is the reduction in reach to the first fret - and how much empty space there is in the top of my gigbag I'm going to snag some replacement tuners on pay day (I'm not swapping them out for balance reasons but functionality - the stock ones are as good as one can expect on a £300-350 bass - do the job but not that smooth with some play in them). Was going to get Gotoh GB707s but could get GB350s instead and let you know if I feel any difference in the balance?

I have one of these basses. Is it neck heavy? Well to be helpful I just popped the nastiest, thinnest, smooth, nylon freebie strap I could find on mine and put it on with just a t-shirt on my shoulder. It was maybe a little neck heavy, but it didn't dive for the floor, more it found a level equilibrium. With a decent strap (in my case a Neotech Mega strap - wider and grippier) it balances fine. It is helped in this regard (versus say the Thunderbird whose pickups and bridge/tailpiece it shares) by the relative shortness of the neck (bridge further towards the bottom of the body), the smaller headstock, the smaller tuners. If you like the sound of it but are picky about balance then I'm sure swapping out the stock tuners for some Ultralites or Gotoh GB350s will further alleviate any heavy feeling.

Well, that's how it came across to me but I'm happy to have got it wrong.

I did have a Victory Artist. Yes, it was heavy as hell (12lbs+), but that's the price you pay for a thick maple body. Did sound good though. Never been reissued and never been seen with the punky, grungy types who picked up Grabbers, G-3s, Rippers and RDs when they were super out of fashion and could be bought for peanuts in the 90s, which may or may not be important to you. I've never had the pleasure of trying a Victory Standard but I can imagine it's quite a punchy beast - single pickup in the middle position rather than the spacing of the 2 pickup models (Artist/Custom). All the info you could ever want on the Victory bass is here at Jules' site - https://www.flyguitars.com/gibson/bass/Victory.php My own personal experience? Lovely basses which are off the beaten track, heavy though. Quirky enough to be interesting (little touches like the angled pickup, the angled neck heel giving 24 frets (but only on the D and G strings), a decent bridge with a very clever mechanism for adjusting string height; two opposing wedges which move up and past the other as you tighten/loosen the adjustment screw) Things to watch out for - abuse - unoriginal electronics. The bridge on mine had a bit of tail lift going on - not enough to affect the working of the bass but something to be wary of. I think the bridge can be 1:1 replaced with a Schaller 3D bridge but you lose the Gibson branding and the wedge string height mechanism.

Pete Quaife - The Kinks Tom Hamilton - Aerosmith and Sir Alex Ferguson, famous hairdryerist

I'm finding this rather argumentative - who said there was anything wrong with it? I do take issue with your added point to the post I initially replied to - "Pay a bit extra to buy from a shop and save the cost of a setup." So seeing as you brought up how cost effective buying from a shop is, let's see how it tallies up. Travelling down and back to Edinburgh or Glasgow from Aberdeen is at least £40 - be it a tank of fuel or public transport. Never mind your proposed long weekend and the costs that would incur, let's do it in a day (let's face it, you can do the main stops worth visiting in Glasgow - Kenny's, Guitar Guitar and Merchant City - in a day easily). That'll be the whole day - as I'll be spending a minimum of 5 hours travelling. It also depends what you're buying. If I was going to buy a £1000+ bass then I might make the trip - make it a road trip for the ceremony of it more than anything else. But for a £300 bass (which is what the bass I most recently bought cost)? Forget it. Did I mention that I do my own setups? They cost me nothing, save for 20-30 mins of spare time.

Fair enough - it's not for everyone! I don't know where you live, but as I am up in Aberdeen the local choice is pretty thin. Travelling to Glasgow or Edinburgh is no guarantee that I'll find what I'm looking for either. I would rather order a bass online (for the best price I can find) and pay the postage to return it if I decide I don't like it, it's still cheaper than travelling to anywhere with a well stocked bass department. Also, a couple of years back I found what might have been one of the last Epiphone 20th Anniversary Jack Casady basses for sale new in the country - in a Yorkshire music shop. I'm not traipsing all the way down there when I can get it couriered up to me for a fraction of that cost.

Also, can someone please explain to me where the misspelling of neck as 'kneck' came from? I get that heel and heal get mixed up as homophones but kneck? That isn't even a word!

Overuse and inappropriate use of the adjective "vintage"

Agreed - loose frets is an absolute no-no, at any price. I'd say return it - and because it's faulty not because you've simply changed your mind.

No, not everything is getting through QC. Recently bought an Epiphone Embassy in the same price range as this and its fit and finish were excellent - never mind loose frets, the fretwork was competent with no snaggy ends and the only dirt on my fingers was whatever nickel poisoning I'm going to get from whatever cheapass strings it came with The only niggles were a loose knob - easily fixable with split shaft pots and the tuners are poor quality - I will likely replace them. That's not because they're faulty, they do the job but they're just cheap and a bit jumpy with play in their movement. I'm not bothered about these things at the £300-350 price bracket.

Big box shifters won't do anything to an instrument before handing it off to you. I would guess they don't have the time/staff to do it. So you're relying upon whatever was done at the factory - however long ago and however different the environment was in that time zone. That's why learning to do your own setups is an absolute must as far as I'm concerned. It's the second thing I do after the initial look over for any fit/finish issues. Then I play it.

Almost every maple boarded black Gibson? It's not their fault they almost always have a black headstock, it's the Gibson way so it's pretty much colour matched by default.