tauzero

[quote name='OldGit' post='158788' date='Mar 17 2008, 09:16 AM']Our drummer has turned up this article about not using rechargeable batteries in wireless mics .. [url="http://www.wirelessmic.net/wireless_rechargeable.html"]http://www.wirelessmic.net/wireless_rechargeable.html[/url] However it's undated so does this still apply or are new rechargeables better?[/quote] Sounds like it's from about 10 years ago. NiCads used to suffer from the memory effect but IIRC they were developed to the point of not suffering. NiMHs and whatever other rechargeable stuff is out there doesn't. I've used rechargeables in my wireless for years. No problems. I put one charged one where I can get to it easily so I can swap if necessary. Normally get through a 2.5ish hour set with one. Kaz is using rechargeables in her wireless mic, again we keep one spare easy to hand but one charged one normally lasts for a four hour barn dance.

I have had some stuff from [url="http://www.ukdj.com/"]www.ukdj.com[/url] but they don't seem to have plastic corners in at the moment. Also worth checking out [url="http://www.bluearan.co.uk/menu/index.php"]Blue Aran[/url]. In an emergency, there's Maplin, but they tend to be three or four times the price of UKDJ and Blue Aran.

Saturday night, barn dance at Perton community centre (just outside Wolverhampton). They've had us there before and a few people had seen us before, either at Perton or in Wolverhampton. Good crowd, which was nice as it is also a fund-raiser for a cancer charity. Dances all went well, with the standard level of chaos. Sound-wise, the room is something of a nightmare - high ceiling, solid bare walls, and a stage which transmits everything through it. Kaz the caller's wireless mic was doing that sub-feedback ringing thing on a fairly regular basis. The melodeon was feeding back every time Penni got near the monitor (which is still in the experimental stage). For the first time, I'd brought the GK to use as effectively my monitor and DI box (all the other instruments are acoustic, so they can hear themselves to some degree) and I was also able to set up the bass and the upright through an A-B box and set their levels so they were the same and I could switch between them with no messing around on the PA, which was nice when we did the solos on the last dance and I swapped from upright to bass guitar halfway through. They want us back sometime soon as well, which is nice.

I started on guitar before moving to bass, and still play guitar a fair amount (I play bass in two bands and guitar in an acoustic duo). All my songwriting is done on guitar. I can also find notes on the keyboard and eventually work out what keys to press to play a chord - that's something I could really do with practicing. I also play electric upright as a secondary instrument.

I've had the Thumb for around 20 years and have no desire to change it. I've had the GK 200MB for about 15 years and have sometimes been on the verge of selling it but never have, and after attaining lucidity, I've decided it would be a bad idea to. I do buy other basses though - I play both fretted and fretless so needed to find a fretless I felt as comfortable with, then wanted 5-string fretted and fretless (one objective attained, the position of 5-string fretless is still unsecured), and I wanted a headless 5-string fretted too, for pragmatic reasons, so I bought one. Basically, anything I don't develop an attachment to gets thrown back into the pool, anything I do stays.

[quote name='beerdragon' post='158302' date='Mar 16 2008, 03:08 AM']This is whats left of Jacos bass of doom. believe it or not.[/quote] I think the term for that is "extreme relicing".

Has anyone mentioned Badge by Cream yet?

[quote name='OldGit' post='157574' date='Mar 14 2008, 04:48 PM']Some guy in Italy says you can't go getting ratted on St Pat's behalf during Holy Week so you have to do it on Saturday if you're on his team and both if you arn't ..[/quote] Perhaps it's just as well my gran is no longer extant, she used to send over shamrock for St Patrick's each year and that would have had her in a quandary. Although, thinking about it, a staunch Calvinist like her would have taken no notice whatsoever of the pronouncements of idolators...

[quote name='Soulfinger' post='157653' date='Mar 14 2008, 07:06 PM']I bet a custom gig bag for that beast willl cost you more than the bass. [/quote] H&S - hard case for about the same price as the bass. Or I get Kaz to sort me out a heavy-duty cardboard box to fit. That's what we've done with our mixer (which is just too big to fit into Flightcase Warehouse's cheapo mixer cases).

[quote name='OldGit' post='157462' date='Mar 14 2008, 02:55 PM']Ho ho .. Well at that price you can have fun without worrying, Hang on, don't you already have a dodgy back? ... So what are you selling? [/quote] I suspect the weight won't be that much of a problem - I'm quite happy with the 7-string, after all... There's a Keiper acoustic bass which has a rather high action - could do with bringing down a bit. Had to replace the original preamp and the new one goes in the other way round or the other way up. There's also a bitsa bass with a sunburst body and Westfield Precision neck plus Wilkinson 5-string conversion, P and humbucker pickups. I still need to make a control cavity coverplate for it. And the amp is a Laney DP150 4x10 combo. I haven't bothered putting them up in For Sale as I somehow don't think there's going to be any interest in them.

Ah. I was expecting an offshoot from the "The Wife" thread...

Mahogany neck? Looks rather more like maple to me... The overall, er, vibe is of a £100 bass tarted up with a quilt top, some binding and inlay, and a better bridge than standard Fender-type bent tin. If it was going for £150-£200, it would be reasonable if you liked the look of it.

[quote name='dudewheresmybass' post='157358' date='Mar 14 2008, 12:53 PM']did you have a punt? i can't believe the end price - obscenely cheap![/quote] I'd already won it when I started the thread... So that's two basses and a combo destined for the Bay, to keep my domestic karma up.

What's the octaving like on the AX3000B? I've been exploring the octaving on various bits of kit I've got knocking about and the best so far by a long way is an el cheapo Zoom RFX-1000, beating the laggy Lexicon MPX-100 and the ghastly sounding and poorly tracking Digitech BP-200 into respective cocked hats.

[quote name='Rich' post='157197' date='Mar 14 2008, 08:58 AM']I couldn't decide whether to overdrive the chorused/phased sound, or to chorus/phase the overdriven sound! Is there any conventional wisdom on this, or is it personal taste?[/quote] Conventional wisdom is distortion, chorus/flange/phase, reverb/delay. I think that logically if you're using delay and reverb, you'd put the reverb last.

[quote name='Machines' post='157204' date='Mar 14 2008, 09:07 AM']Hmm a 4 and a 5 string, both fretted ? Might be worth defretting one neck..[/quote] That's the intended route - it actually looks suspiciously similar to the H&S twin necks which are fretted 5 and fretless 4. It could well be why there wasn't much bidding, it is pretty pointless as it stands.

This should be interesting: [url="http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=160216434611"]http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vie...em=160216434611[/url] Definitely not one I could sneak in without it being noticed. The future Mrs Zero can not only count the number of strings on a bass, she even has some vague idea of the difference between fretted and fretless. I think that double the normal number of necks would have shown up on the radar... Time to stick the Laney combo up on ebay, I think.

[quote name='molan' post='154745' date='Mar 10 2008, 05:46 PM']This is precisely why brands like Fender have Squier & Gibson bought Epiphone etc. Allows them to use the more expensive brand to add a bit of glam to the lower end brand without damaging the rep of either.[/quote] A very successful businessman called Robert Townsend wrote a book called "Up the organization" (which I can thoroughly recommend). This has some anecdotes from the period when he was chairman of Avis (which he made a major success of). On one occasion, they were toying with the idea of a cut-price subsidiary to run alongside the Avis brand. They decided not to when one of the board members said "I don't know what you'd call this, but we Poles call it pissing in the soup". I'm not convinced that Squier has helped Fender anywhere but in the wallet. After all, the Squier name is associated with Fender, so if Squiers are crap then it will damage Fender's reputation, while if Squiers are good then people start wondering why they're paying five times as much for something that says Fender instead of Squier on the headstock.

[quote name='cheddatom' post='155852' date='Mar 12 2008, 11:14 AM']Can someone explain why you would have the volume pedal there?[/quote] Yes, if you put it at the start then you are changing the signal level going into the front end of the effects chain. If there's any noise in the chain (and there will be), then that will remain constant while the volume goes up and down. Also, distortion pedals will drop out of their distortion zones if you drop the input signal too far. With the volume pedal at the end, signal to noise ratio remains constant and the front end of the effects chain is getting a consistent signal level.

[quote name='cheddatom' post='156188' date='Mar 12 2008, 04:57 PM']Bearing all that in mind, how is it possible to say "learning music theory makes you a better bass player"?[/quote] Well, personally speaking, since I've taken a bit more interest in theory, I've played fewer bum notes and been a bit more exploratory because there's actually a few more notes I could have been using.

[quote name='Crazykiwi' post='156291' date='Mar 12 2008, 07:40 PM']Putting my bass geek hat on for a sec... [attachment=6375:imaginat...I_bass_1.jpg] Does anyone think the bass player miming or maybe playing a Wal MIDI bass? [attachment=6376:imaginat...I_bass_2.jpg] There looks to be a fairly chunky lead coming out of the instrument.[/quote] I'm not certain but it seems live to me. As for thinking it's a chunky lead - it's difficult to be sure when you can't even count the number of hands he has, let alone count the number of fingers he has on his right hand.

John Entwhistle - The 'Oo Dennis Dunaway - Alice Cooper Steve Currie - T Rex Kasim Sultan (although I didn't know his name until just this minute) - Utopia and bassist on "Bat out of Hell" Trevor Bolder - Spiders from Mars

I had a fretless P and a fretted P (both 70s, before the slightest notion of MIanywherebutA would have been anathema to Fender). The fretless was a far worse instrument to play, the neck was clunky even by P standards. I think it was also heavier (natural ash body vs the tatty sunburst on the fretted one).

Neoprene from an elderly mouse mat will do the job.

[quote name='neepheid' post='155395' date='Mar 11 2008, 04:32 PM']I'm definitely more P than J so I'm trying to source a nice wide spaced 5 string neck. I'm quite in love with the Warmoth Wide Gecko 5, but I'm not in love with the price! I'm thinking I could find a cheap 6 string from eBay, change the nut, fill the existing tuner holes, slap a headstock veneer on to cover up and redrill for 5. Does this seem plausible?[/quote] As long as the pickups are solid bars all the way across - the Bart 6-string pickups, for example, couldn't be used as there would be no signal from the A string. And there's also the bridge to consider, you'd really want one which started life with a monolithic bridge rather than individual bridge units as you should then have a bit less trouble filling and drilling. Oh, and probably not string-through originally either.