tauzero

If anyone with a bolt-on Warwick 4-string were to buy [url="http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=300270545818"]my short-scale neck off ebay[/url], there could be a definitive experiment...

It's been a long time since I've done any gear sharing, but I'd be happy to in principle. But it would have to be prearranged, and all of the bassists involved would have to be willing not just to share, but to offer up their gear for sharing, and then we decide which would be the best bet. I have a bass which I bought specifically for lending out - this is at the Roadhouse open mic night, where I'm the house bassist, and traditionally the bass has been supplied. As I tend to take just about anything except a 4-string fretted bass along, I picked one up that was a decent bass but which I wouldn't mind getting a little battle scarring (although it's not a Fender, so the finish will last more than five minutes anyway). I would lend my good basses to a very small subset of the bassists I know, and to none that I don't.

[quote name='bnt' post='312751' date='Oct 23 2008, 08:38 AM']I think I'd rather have a piano than one of those ERBs. That 11-string has only 11-note polyphony, after all... and the piano strings have even longer scale and higher tension. [/quote] But a piano only has 10-note polyphony unless you're from Norfolk.

[quote name='bilbo230763' post='315617' date='Oct 27 2008, 10:26 AM']Doing the right thing professionally is often the same as ‘good enough’. But ‘good enough’ and excellence are not nearly the same thing and, frankly, ‘good enough’ is not what gets me excited. What happened to ‘the best it can be’? What happened to interesting, to innovative, to intriguing or provocative? What happened to exciting, challenging, emotional, scary, flying by the seat of your pants?[/quote] Have you been writing the advertising copy for Honda by any chance? There's a time for everything and everything in its time, be that 4/4, 3/4, or 15/16. I don't go exploring the fretboard at cover gigs (except in "Dance the night away", lest I die of boredom). But I will happily push the boundaries, and play at least one in four bum notes, at open mic nights, and like making diddly diddly bass lines at ceilidhs rather busy (I normally manage to play the right notes too) - the challenge is to provide the rhythmic framework for the dance and supply a melodic part that doesn't conflict with the two other melodic parts that are also playing.

[quote name='peted' post='312202' date='Oct 22 2008, 02:40 PM']My 53 Fiesta is definitely worth more than my two basses combined.[/quote] I didn't realise they made Fiestas 55 years ago. So that's classic car status then?

To set the scene for this, we rang up the club we were supposed to be playing on Nov 1st from rehearsal and were told they thought we'd have got another gig by now (the club was damaged by a fire recently and they've been busy refurbishing it). No, we'd left that booking as it was. Tw@s. So yesterday we turned up to another club, to a gig which had been postponed because they'd been putting up new curtains or summat. Only trouble was that someone else also turned up (one of these pub singers with backing tapes) and told our keyboard player that he was booked in so tough sh*t (there are better ways of telling another band that there's been a double booking). Turned out that the secretary (who likes us enough to have booked us for her 60th birthday do earlier this year) had forgotten to put us in the diary and the club chairman had booked the arrogant tw@ a couple of weeks ago (hence him being an untouchable). At least we're getting paid for it. We left, hoping that the audience of zero that he had by then would represent "John Williams, the local Matt Munro"'s best turn-out of the night.

Does anyone fancy telling him that removing the patina has halved their value? Well, that's what they say on the Antiques Roadshow, anyway...

Seen Partysounds ref 89237 ?

Went for £200... I've got three of those sitting in my bedroom (one shortscale, one fretted and good, one which I've removed the frets from which has a bit of a twist in) which were eventually maybe going to go onto projects. At that price I think I'd be better off selling them, I could get half a Shuker for that...

My collection of basses is worth more than my car but less than my collection of bikes.

It must be light (< 5kg). It would be nice to have a mute facility, which should give the option of front panel switch and footswitch. Not bothered about a tuner output, I have basses that stay in tune. 500W+, two speaker outlets connected in parallel with hybrid speakon/jack sockets. DI out, switchable pre/post eq. Jack and XLR in - not that I'm ever likely to use the XLR in but it looks kewl. Graphic EQ with a memory. It must have gadget credentials. I am geek. Lots of lights. Low noise, low distortion. In fact, an Ashdown Superfly with a few improvements (mute switch, bridgeable output, XLR in, pre/post eq switch for DI, manufacturing consistency & decent QC).

[quote name='metalmickey' post='310405' date='Oct 20 2008, 01:28 PM']+1 there. Shame I can't get on with those damn necks.....[/quote] There's a JD Thumb in the basses for sale at the moment. You should give that a try...

Mondeo estate for me - having had three 2-series Volvos, I'd say they might be very slightly larger but there's not much in it. I tend to just sling everything in as I generally don't have to worry about concealing it under the blind. It'll take my 7-string case no problem.

[quote name='danlea' post='308772' date='Oct 17 2008, 05:18 PM']- Looking into the physics of a faraday cage won't necessarily answer all your questions given that the conducting enclosure is far from complete.[/quote] A Faraday cage doesn't have to be a solid enclosure, it can have holes in it.

[quote name='Stingray5' post='309041' date='Oct 18 2008, 04:18 AM']Look at the two shorter pins (live and neutral) of any of your mains plugs and they should have a plastic 'sleeve' wrapping, usually black, going about half-way up the pin. The longer 'earth' pin is not sleeved.[/quote] Just to give a background to this: UK mains sockets are shuttered - you can't just stick something into the holes when there isn't a plug in. The earth pin is longer than the other pins - it is therefore the first pin in, and when it goes in, the shutter is raised on the other two pins. At this point, the earth pin is in contact and the tips of the other two pins are also in contact. There's plenty of room under the plug body for someone to slip a finger in. The old plugs had live and neutral pins which were solid, completely exposed brass, so it was quite easy to put a finger on the live pin and be earthed at the other end, and to die as a consequence.

Schecters would also be worth a look - they have pretty slim and shallow necks.

[quote name='Ou7shined' post='308235' date='Oct 16 2008, 10:49 PM']I can't get it to hum until it is a couple of inches away from the telly - even with the pup side facing the telly. How does that work?[/quote] Google for "faraday cage" and you'll get the answer.

[quote name='budget bassist' post='307483' date='Oct 15 2008, 11:33 PM']I don't like to have many more than 3 winds, maybe 4 on a string, i dunno why, it just looks neat. I hate those guitarists that don't cut their strings down, they REALLY piss me off.[/quote] On my guitars, I don't cut the strings down, I loop them round in neat little circles. It was a tip I learnt from a professional busker - if you break a string at the bridge (most likely place), you can make a bit of slack from the top end with the spare string length and then loop the string through the ring bit that's fallen off and twist it to secure it.

I bought a BSX Flip electric upright bass, which is tripod-mounted and lives in a long thin gig bag. The seller just stuck the EUB and tripod into the bag, without taking much care about the separating bit of padding, stuck a label on the bag, and sent it like that. I don't know whether the 2p-sized dent in the body was down to that or pre-existing. Mrs Zero works for a firm which sells bespoke cardboard boxes as a sideline, so I get decent boxes made up. I also keep bubble-wrap from stuff that I buy, and bits of expanded polystyrene which are good for supporting necks. I did send one bass out in a hard case wrapped in brown paper - buyer told me the bass had arrived intact but the case, a reasonably good wooden one, hadn't survived the experience too well. I did offer to put in a claim against Parecelfarce but he told me not to bother. I've had five Tsai basses from Vietnam, one in a hard case, all the rest in gig bags, and they've all survived the experience quite happily. It seems very much the luck of the draw.

Are you using an advert blocker that you've filtered these images out with? Can you see the images in the body of the post, and it just goes to the freeimagehosting website if you click them? If that's what you mean, then that's the way the images have been set up...

[quote name='dave_bass5' post='307924' date='Oct 16 2008, 03:02 PM']This is the bass i mentioned. Strange as they call it a P but it has Jazz pups. [url="http://www.thomann.de/gb/fender_squier_standard_pbass_special-02.htm?sid=4107bb7f725ac032a55dde96595c89cf"]Fender Squier P V[/url][/quote] Oh, I had one of those, briefly. Anyone who likes Jazz necks would loathe the P special, it's probably even chunkier than modern Warwick necks.

[quote name='lowrentdiscographer' post='307427' date='Oct 15 2008, 10:08 PM']I don't want the overall rig to be much bigger than a large-ish combo, so I was thinking about a 1X15 using the Electrovoice plans linked in the 'stickies' of this section.[/quote] How about a 2x10 with piezos using [url="http://www.billfitzmaurice.com/Omni10.html"]Bill Fitzmaurice's plans[/url]?

I use one which a fellow bassist gave me - he'd bought a pair from Aldi and just wanted one for his Phil Jones briefcase. I originally used one which cost a tenner or so from Ikea, which was fine but not folding. You could get something not dissimilar to my folding stool [url="http://www.argos.co.uk/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductDisplay?storeId=10001&catalogId=1500001151&productId=1500271143&langId=-1&engine=froogle&keyword=Theo+Pair+of+Folding+Bar+Stools"]from Argos[/url].

[quote name='dood' post='307158' date='Oct 15 2008, 03:40 PM']YOU GUYS!!!!!!!! I can see that you lot are not gonna let this lie for a second! Bloomin mustang sally!!! Grrrrrrrr!! ha ha ha ha ha ha!!![/quote] Well, I did take the opportunity to play Mustang Sally on Doodle when I played it at Northampton...

Looking at the shadow on the backdrop, I can't help thinking that you've taken a section of doctorofthebass's fence along with you to add some bassy character.