tauzero

Isn't it nice to know that, whatever the variability of wood, all strings will always sound exactly the same, regardless of who they were made by, how they are constructed, how much they've been used, and how many grams of human detritus are lodged in their windings?

The Variax doesn't use MIDI, it's a DSP system (digital signal processing, same as you find in multieffects). It's slightly frustrating that they've missed the opportunity to include a feed for a 13-pin lead from the individual bridge saddles, it means I've had to put a MIDI pickup on too so I can go mad with silly sounds.

We're giving £280M a year to India. Perhaps they could afford that themselves if they stopped their nuclear weapons programme.

[quote name='AttitudeCastle' post='1332591' date='Aug 8 2011, 07:21 PM']Would you say they are decent? Might get a seven string one if another with a great big inlay on the fretboard comes up! (I love inlays and what not like that!)[/quote] I find them very playable, and they sound fine to my cloth ears. Keep an eye on the auctions rather than the BINs, although he only seems to be punting 5s out in the auctions at the moment - they're going for about £50 + £95 postage (plus about another 25% for VAT and duty), so you could get one for £200.

[quote name='icastle' post='1332949' date='Aug 8 2011, 11:24 PM']Riots and looting are usually exemptions on insurance policies. As for government compensation... not sure where you got that from... [/quote] I thought that riot wasn't an exclusion, war was. For example, [url="http://www.directlineforbusiness.co.uk/business-insurance/contents-insurance.htm"]Direct Line cover losses through riot.[/url] Where are you all getting your insurance?

[quote name='thisnameistaken' post='1328315' date='Aug 5 2011, 09:40 AM']No I didn't intend to offend anyone and can't imagine how it could offend anyone but hey ho, it's impossible to say anything without offending someone isn't it.[/quote] You can't go poofy-footing around all the time.

[quote name='BigRedX' post='1323970' date='Aug 2 2011, 10:52 AM']I've not played a Variax Bass, but I have spent some time with the guitar versions (I was seriously contemplating a Variax Acoustic at one point). Unfortunately even a very average player like me could tell that although some of the sounds were excellent, as instruments from a playability PoV they were a bit pants really.[/quote] Oh. As someone who'd been playing guitar inadequately for 40 years, I'd say that my Variax 300 is fine in playability terms. I was not quite so impressed by the 500 or 600 (although the 600 does have a maple fretboard which would be better for string bending than the 300's rosewood board) and only briefly tried a 700 which felt awful. I use it for impersonating an acoustic, because it's ergonomically better suited to me than an actual acoustic, and it saves me switching between 6-string and 12-string.

[quote name='derrenleepoole' post='1325285' date='Aug 3 2011, 09:58 AM']Or one of these from Vietnam: [/quote] His earlier models looked like this: which was the 7-string version of Now he's gone over to his new style, which is the seven string version of this: I had to do a bit of fiddling with the nut and put in new pickups on my 7-string. It's got a lovely neck though. I must say, though, I do prefer the look of his older models.

The ridiculous Strat guy also has a [url="http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/fender-stratocaster-hendrix-zappa-relic-replica-strat-/120753935593?pt=UK_Musical_Instruments_Guitars_CV&hash=item1c1d7ed4e9"]"Hendrix replica" [/url]- surely it's a good idea to look at the guitars that your target replicee [1] plays, in which case he'd have seen that the way to replicate a Hendrix guitar for a right-hander is to a ) take a left-handed Strat and turn it upside down and b ) that's it. Also, in every picture of Hendrix playing that I've seen, his Strat is in immaculate condition. This "replica" isn't even a slightly convincing copy of the post-immolation Strat, which looks like this: [1] Replicant? Beware of Deckard...

[quote name='Chris2112' post='1324658' date='Aug 2 2011, 06:37 PM']It makes me wonder - who the hell buys these things new?[/quote] I did. Though that was 1987.

[quote name='Ou7shined' post='1311945' date='Jul 21 2011, 07:32 PM']To my mind 0 feedback and oddness = shill.[/quote] Why? If someone inexperienced is bidding, they might not understand the concept of someone else having put in a large bid. To them, it will appear that they're in a bidding war as the other person's bid keeps increasing. I find it perhaps excessively cynical that every time an odd bidding pattern occurs, the immediate response is that it must be shilling. Why, if someone were to sell two identical items using the same photo, one after the other, I suspect there would be some who would be cynical enough to start crying foul.

The first two pictures are of the neck twist, as if everything else about it wasn't enough. I do hope the nude was drawn from the recesses of the artist's mind (I use both words loosely), as if she was done from life she'll be appearing on one of those Channel 4 programmes about getting on with your life despite your deformities.

They seem ridiculously overpriced to me. Why the solids are more expensive than the electro-acoustics is beyond me.

[quote name='Johnston' post='1310994' date='Jul 20 2011, 11:20 PM']75 fooking quid That must be good Mojo.[/quote] Most astonishing is that someone actually bought it.

"Parcelforce - we can lose an elephant and break an anvil"

They all sound the same. Just get the one that looks nicest.

After last week's nightmare, we had a much better time of it at a pub in Walsall. Friendly, danced a bit and sang along, gaffer wants us back.

I'd be up for it. Can't make the first or third weekend (3/4 and 17/18).

If you've got a [url="http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Clifton-Downright-5-String-Electric-Bass-Guitar-/280711155647"]Clifton Downright 5-string for sale[/url] and you're starting the auction at £1200, is it wise to include a link to the [url="http://www.cliftonbasses.co.uk/page10.html"]Clifton Downright page[/url] where a potential buyer can find out that the same bass can be had brand new for £1300?

My Variax guitar is rather heavier on power than the average active bass - I run it off rechargeables (6xAA) for up to half an hour or so, but if I'm playing any longer than that, I use the phantom power system. It's all very simple, either I use a normal mono lead and run off batteries, or I use a stereo lead to the floor box and a mono lead from that to the amp. I'm not sure how the switching is done at the instrument end.

It finished up as a rather annoying and upsetting gig. It was the celebration of the first anniversary of a landlord taking over a pub (the Horseshoe on the Alcester Road in Birmingham), and he booked the rock/blues covers band to alternate with his resident DJ. We were at the back of the lounge - the pub has narrow everything, rooms, passages, and minds. There was a minor hitch when smoke started appearing from one of the speaker leads running to the monitors for the vocal PA. Not entirely sure what had happened, I unplugged the lead and carried on, we coped without monitors. After the first set we went outside. Mrs Zero wasn't with us when some big bloke said "You need a singer". After he said this for the second time, I said "we're happy with the one we've got, ta". Later, one woman wanted to get up and sing with us so Mrs Zero let her, then a couple of girls did the same, and then the big bloke started shouting abuse at them. We finished our second set to some applause and loud booing from this bloke. Mrs Zero told me that afterwards he'd followed her up the room, repeatedly saying "fat bitch, you can't sing". My opinion was that he was a cloth-eared ignorant bullying cnut. We decided that if we ever played there again, it would be without sharing with the resident DJ - it seemed that a lot of the people were there for him, including the obnoxious shitbag. Personally, I'd be happy never to play there again. It did upset Mrs Zero quite a bit - her self-confidence can occasionally be shaky, the legacy of bullying former partners, and she needed quite a bit of reassurance.

Almost 100% fingers, occasionally use a plectrum. Nothing to do with the sound, it's that some fast repeated notes I can't manage properly with fingers since someone broke my hand 30+ years ago.