KingBollock

Another vote for Fender strings here, if you don't want to break the bank. I have Elixirs, that I got for free, on one bass, but they are expensive and I haven't decided of they're worth all the extra cost, being that they, usually, cost more than twice as much as the Fenders.

Pick player here. I have to confess that I just don't like playing finger style. Please don't burn me! I say that, but I do actually use my fingers, just not in the usual way. If I play without a pick I use my thumb and first two fingers (the same way I play the banjo) or three fingers, with a digit for each string. But the way I use them most often is also with a pick, where I will use my middle and/or ring finger for playing chords or the octave simultaneously with the picked root note. I use a range of picks for different styles and sounds, if I want a finger type sound I use a thicker pick. For the best part of the last twenty five years I used 3mm picks, and they can be incredibly versatile, but for the last few months I have been using .60 picks (Dunlop orange ones) for playing fast, heavy stuff and still be able to clearly make out every note.

You need to find out what the thread is, size and pitch, then get the relevant tap set. http://www.amazon.co.uk/Flute-0-5mm-Taper-Metric-Pitch/dp/B00MJSGCL2/ref=sr_1_1?s=diy&ie=UTF8&qid=1429142160&sr=1-1&keywords=m3+0.5+tap http://www.amazon.co.uk/Toolzone-M3-Ratchet-T-Handle-Wrench/dp/B002NH2CXG/ref=pd_bxgy_diy_text_z I haven't tried the ratchet handle, but I have just bought the tap set to replace the worn out ones from my big tap and die set.

Everything I have heard of Radiohead, except Creep. Meatloaf's I Will Do Anything For Love There are songs that I used to love, and still would, but can't listen to because they bring back bad memories and just cripple me.

A word of warning... Because I was a young teenager into electronics when I started playing bass, the tips of the fingers on my right hand were eternally injured in one way or another, so I started using a pick. I have been a pick player, pretty much exclusively, ever since. The problem with that is that you will get looked down upon by huge swathes of the bass playing community and considered a failed guitarist (despite bass being my first and main instrument). Consider yourself warned!!

What about a preamp pedal?

Post Modern Jukebox - Creep (Radiohead): http://youtu.be/m3lF2qEA2cw I love the original but this is better. It's actually the only Radiohead song I can bear to listen to. There used to be a couple of their songs that had good videos, I used to mute the music because I really, really hated it, and just watch the videos.

[quote name='chriswareham' timestamp='1428571947' post='2742471'] There's not many more black than my Stingray Stealth (although the mythical ebony fretboard version would be a little blacker): [/quote] I am not usually a fan of those basses, or anything with a scratchplate really, but that is rather lovely.

[quote name='discreet' timestamp='1428444699' post='2741420'] WTF??! O brave new world that hath such things in it! I'm so shocked I can't even come up with an obligatory filth-comment. [/quote] I have a set of 5.1 surround sound gaming headphones, with two speakers and a bass rumble unit in each ear. They sound cool and the rumble thing tickles, it's nice... You can even get rumble units to attach to your office/gaming chair stem, which is basically a sub-bass speaker with no cone and a lump of metal attached to the coil instead.

When he says it's a bit of an eye catcher, does he mean like a coat hook hung at the wrong height?

I love my five string. I am thinking about putting the bottom four strings, from a five string set, in my beloved four string, just so I will start playing it again.

I wish I had the guts to have a go at it.

My Warlock is pretty black. The frets are steel and it has a white headstock logo and little white logos on the pick up covers, but other than that it is black. I have considered, and not given up on the idea of, changing the pick ups to DiMarzio DP127bk black bladed pick ups. I like the idea of black coated strings but I can't imagine they'd work well with a pick.

[quote name='Annoying Twit' timestamp='1428056200' post='2737503'] EDIT: Oooh - it's possible to buy gold bass guitar strings. Anyone else think that the jazz bass up there would look even better with gold strings rather than steel coloured ones? EDIT: Holy ... something! The following strings are gold coloured because they are actual gold plated! http://www.optima-strings.com/gold-strings-electric-bass.php#p2 [/quote] When I was a kid I bought a set of those for my guitarist bother, for his birthday. Thomson do a five string set that I might be very tempted to try at some point, they'd look gorgeous on my Cort (which isn't a particularly black bass so probably shouldn't mention it in this thread...).

Not really my kind of thing, but it can't be as embarrassing as the time I was bouncing around the room playing guitar along to Shania Twain and my wife and best mate walked in...

[quote name='julietgreen' timestamp='1427908375' post='2735785'] I've been playing a few years, Twincam. Maybe longer than you have if you're a 'relative novice'! Never enough practice in that time though, obviously. [/quote] Do you play with a pick at all?

[quote name='julietgreen' timestamp='1427843161' post='2735078'] Yes - in fact I have already done that (as well as put it into drop D instead of drop C as per the singer's request)! [/quote] This is where I like to use Guitar Pro to pick songs apart. You can alter the tuning of the tracks and isolate tracks. You can also slow it down without altering pitch and loop isolated sections easily, which is immensely helpful, I find. All while following the tab or score. The iPad app isn't as versatile as the PC program.

As I no longer play in bands I don't need to warm up for performances, so I don't do any specific warm up exercises. I like to practice/play for a couple of hours every day and don't find I have to warm up if I have played the previous day. However, if I have been unable to play for a couple of days, for whatever reason, it can take about ten minutes to warm up.

When anyone ever talks about warming up it always reminds me of reversing in the winter at the Jam Pot in Arley. Because everyone used to help with everyone's loading in and out and setting up, it meant, rather than two journeys to get my own gear in, it would be several, and by the time we'd done, my fingers, rather than warmed up, would be stiff and turning blue and I'd barely be able to hold my bass for ten minutes, never mind play the damned thing. As for trying basses shops, the last bass I bought from a shop I was barely able to play while trying it out. It was a five string with a much wider string spacing than the one I already owned. But, oddly, I knew that it felt good, so I bought it. Once I got it home it took me four hours to get used to it. After that, though, I was fine with it and was able to switch between that and my four strings and the other five string easily.

I spent years thinking that I would like to try some kind of dirt for bass but struggled to find something I liked. I avoided fuzzes because of the name... It conjured a sound in my imagination that was unpleasant. Then, last year, I saw a YouTube video that compared various dirt boxes and one of them was a Big Muff, and I fell in love with the sound. So I built one. I have modded it a bit and will be adding more mods, but I am keeping the basic sound as an option, too. I also built a Musket, which is another modded Big Muff, which I haven't modded any further, yet, but will be doing at some point. I have them in the same box with an order switcher and a blend, I've named it Dank & Fetid. Love it.

I am actually currently building a rack mount DC power supply. It has four transformers in it, three of which have dual secondaries at 12v which will be regulated to 9v, and a separate 12v transformer for lighting. The output is a 25 way D-Sub socket that goes through a 5m cable to supply the regulator and filter section of my pedalboard PSU. This is so that there is no AC near the pedalboard. Anyhoo, as I don't yet have a proper power strip in my rack to run the actual rack, I have a normal extension power strip cable tied to the brackets on the back of the rack, so that it doesn't move around.

I finally found a music shop near by (as near by as anywhere is in this country...) that has the replacement reeds for the metal kazoos you find on shop counters. I wanted to buy a couple but, for various reasons I'm still not sure about, they wouldn't sell me any but gave me one for free... Anyway, they said that they get given them by the company that supplies the kazoos. So, if you find somewhere that sells those ones, they should also have the replacements.

[quote name='hairychris' timestamp='1427285312' post='2728219'] The UK doom scene is absolutely insane right now. Soooo many good bands. As for Serpent Venom... Yeah, all are good blokes. Nick has just ordered a Barefaced Vintage 6x10 (for those gear geeks amongst us) and is a silly bugger of the highest order. [/quote] Last time I spoke to him he was buying his third 8x10. It was a long time ago.

[quote name='Thump' timestamp='1427066371' post='2725490'] Don't forget "ad hominem" at every possible opportunity [/quote] That did give me the rather horrid feeling that it was going to turn into one of those "arguments" where no one actually makes any points, they just quote the names of arguments at each other. "That's a logical fallacy!" "Well... That's a straw man argument!" "How dare you?! That's an ad hominem!!" And so on...

Well, that's me off the hook. I don't have any testosterone and I'm not wearing any underwear.