neepheid

I do alright. The rest of my current band haven't tried to replace me that I know of, and the last band I left got me a card and a bottle of bubbly after the last gig so I must be doing something right.

[color=#282828][font=helvetica, arial, sans-serif]I am a long term bass player who cannot play any guitar, I couldn't recognise a B7 chord visually without looking something up, and I pick up the more random seeming chord progressions from a guitarist by either listening, or asking them what they're playing.[/font][/color] I was no good at guitar when I tried about 20 years ago and I have no interest in trying again.

Gibson used a rather pointier variation on this in the early 80s called Pozi-Lock. Then stopped. Of course.

Does a plumber charge differently based upon the amount of water which will flow through the pipe?

I guess I had a bit of a leg up on this when I started writing songs because I used to write poetry. When I write I tend to come up with a line or two then it kinda grows from there. I was annoyed one day because my wife was very busy (she is a self employed music teacher (vocals)) so I had a melody line already and fit the words onto it - "I'd like to ask a question of you if I may, would you be free to spend some time with me today?". Then I thought "If we had the time, what would we be doing?" - so it turned into a song about skiving off work and going to a beer garden. Lovely. So basically for me it grows from a seed - a line, a title or a concept. Also I don't force it. If it's not coming through naturally, I park it and come back to it at a later date.

[quote name='spacey' timestamp='1425993190' post='2713141'] If thats the case, you wont want one, no problem, stick with the copy. I would say they cost so much, because the people who can afford them disagree they are a poorly made instrument. Market forces, supply outstrips what they make and has done for many years. A greedy boss would cash in and start knocking out Chinese junk, a clever one, knows he might be better been happy with making a good living over a longer period. But to do this, they must protect the brand and tradmark, all succesful companies do, try selling supermarket pop as Coca cola or pepsi and see how long you get away with it. Fender decided to turn a Blind eye and look where that lead them and now Gibson are doing the same and we are seeing fake Gibson basses, even SG specials landing daily, the latsest snide offerings. The only people who appear to get upset are those wanting to buy snide. [/quote] You appear to be getting upset, if I may observe. Fender did not "turn a blind eye". They started making Squiers in order to beat the copyists at their own game, by legitimising some of them - getting them to make legitimate Fenders for the Japanese market in return for them taking their own branded copies off the shelves. An arguably more positive approach than the necessary "threaten everyone" approach when you go down the trademark/trade dress approach. Am I the only one who finds the whole "Chinese junk" thing a bit off? A bit disrespectful in my opinion.

Have you got the other tuners? I'd suggest very carefully and methodically dismantling another one, noting where the plastic one is.

Don't feel bad, I once dismantled my cab because of a weird distortion I heard. Turns out it was a dodgy lead. Oops.

The keyboard player in my band says that my Jack Casady is his favourite sounding of all my basses.

I'd expand upon "clear on what you are looking to get from the sessions" to be make a plan - plan everything - which tracks to record, what instruments on them, any overdubs they'd like to do for each track etc.

[quote name='Thunderbird' timestamp='1425640654' post='2709263'] BBOT never bettered does the job and is hassle free [/quote] Nasty troll, get back under your bridge!

[quote name='ubit' timestamp='1425479050' post='2707739'] You sound like a barrel of laughs ! [/quote] I hope you meant it jokingly, but it still comes off a tad harsh to me.

[quote name='tauzero' timestamp='1425400145' post='2706958'] And English bassists too, Moffat is border country. It's not like it's in Aberdeen. [/quote] Well, indeed. I was merely referencing what Alan said about "I had expected more interest from my part of the world". Everyone is welcome. They must be, they let people from Aberdeen attend!

I had my first proper listen to them in the car last night on the way home from band practice. I wasn't driving, so I could concentrate on it more. Or so I thought. Once I had track 1 out of the way, the next time I looked it was track 7 and I wondered how the hell it happened. Seems to be a bit samey, tracks merging into each other a bit. It was competent enough, but I don't think I'll seek out my own copy.

I'd be annoyed too, and I'm no newbie. I also think the response was pretty restrained from an obviously irritated person.

[quote name='BigRedX' timestamp='1425381599' post='2706656'] Really don't get soft covers for cabs. IMO a properly made cab is its own case. Also my experience with soft covers on something much smaller and lighter than the average bass cab was that they had the durability only slightly greater than a wet tissue and unless I could afford to replace them every 6 months or so the amount of protection they give when loading in and our of the band van is going to minimal. [/quote] Don't expect too much - covers keeps rain and dust off/out and that's principally what they're for IMO.

424 has angled through body stringing and a 5 piece maple/nato neck over and above what the 414 has. The posher ones add stuff like different pickups (P with blades instead of pole piece pairs), spline jointed bodies, maple/mahogany neck instead of maple/nato, nickel silver nut (same material as frets so in theory open strings sound more similar to fretted ones), and some mad wood treatments which claim to make the wood "old" but fresh from the factory.

Sulking's always disappointing from grown-ups. I've quit two bands in the past, one time the split was amicable (with leaving card/booze and everything after the last gig) and the other time I got a stroppy passive/aggressive email from the band leader telling me that using a band meeting to tell them in person that I was leaving was a "futile and theatrical gesture" but it'd be fine if I wanted to come back. Riiiiiight then.

The "wish I'd gone to the loo before we started" The "bum note" The "I'm playing an RD Artist, ha ha!"

Difficult to say. The last time I left a band, I told them at the end of a rehearsal. I was going to wait until after our last gig for a while but my hand was forced when emails started going around about some potential upcoming gigs so I had to make my move. It was OK in the end, everyone was sad but nice about it, and they made a fuss about the gig being my last, even presented me with a card and a bottle of bubbly. In my remaining band, if we're not gigging, we're creating new stuff, and that's fine by me. We've not got any more gigs booked (enquiries have been lodged with a few festivals, waiting to hear back), but I can probably get us a gig at a local venue in the not to distant future if we decide to air some of the new stuff. But my real aim this year is to get some recordings done. Something to hawk at gigs. Something to talk about if we get interviewed by blogs/'zines/community radio/whatever. Something to get better gigs with. Band kitty has been (very slowly) building so hopefully we'll be able to spit out at least a 4 track EP or something.

I used to be a bit of a tinkerer, but I've calmed down a lot. The only one which survives from that era is the Epiphone Les Paul (not so) Standard: Physical changes - pickup selector switch installed in the rightful place. These basses didn't come with them, even though they had the internal routing for it. Doesn't look like a Les Paul without it, so I did it myself. Taking a drill press to a carved top instrument was a bit of a scary moment, but it turned out OK in the end. Cover on the back is a little tight and difficult to remove, I made the rebate a little too snug. Internal changes - guts ripped out entirely and replaced with 2x EMG-HB pickups (split P rails in a guitar humbucker sized package), 2x volume plus selector switch fed to an EMG-BQC 3 band EQ. Controls - vol, vol, bass/treble stack, mids/mid sweep stack. Somehow managed to squeeze a battery in there too More recently, I changed the neck pickup on my Gibson Midtown Standard to a DiMarzio Model One. Not trivial - the Model One doesn't fit in the hole left by Gibson's "I look like a mudbucker but I'm really a TB+ in disguise" so I had to enlarge the route a bit. Just did it by hand with the chisel - only needed a couple of mm each side. Found a spare push/push pot, so I have series/parallel selectable on the volume pot.

[quote name='NancyJohnson' timestamp='1425244862' post='2705563'] I've never owned one, but if I can make a teensy-weensy observation/comment it's that the headstock on the above models is way better than the[i] chewed by a bear[/i] ones on the later models. Message ends. P [/quote] Wrong! Eye gouger FTW.