KingBollock

[quote name='bluejay' timestamp='1397644876' post='2425926'] Being absolutely useless at doing most things with my right hand I may not be the best person to comment on this, but it looks like a spurious argument to me. I mean, if it was true, then there would be a lot of demand for lefty instruments by right-handed players who would want to use their more "dextrous" hand on the fingerboard as opposed to using it for plucking. [/quote] Yeah, I have trouble with this argument, too. It is not a case, as some have suggested, that righties don't play lefties because they can't get lefties, because if it was more natural to play that way then guitars, and other instruments that have a bias, would have always been made the other way around (except for the occasional black righty for the lefties, obviously). I am right handed, though I do enough things left handedly that some of my friends and family used to think I was left handed, but I can't get my head around playing bass left handedly at all, it feels completely alien to me, so I really do feel for lefties forced to do things the wrong way.

You seem to be under the rather odd impression that companies like Gibson and Fender won't be successful if they don't make left handed guitars.

I think one way to absolutely know what you want is to have to save up for it. All that time and anticipation makes it so you really, really don't want to make a mistake. It's tempting to say it takes discipline, but in my case it's probably more just a matter of not having any choice, I have never had a credit card, overdraft or a loan, never tried to get one, don't want one and wouldn't know how to go about getting one. So I can't spend what I don't have.

Another of the Cort T series, this time a 75.

[quote name='discreet' timestamp='1397118569' post='2420741'] I'd say everyone with a laptop is a laptop musician, including all the guitar/bass players! [/quote] I am a laptop musician. I don't own a laptop but I like to sit on my wife's knee and play drums on her tits.

This is a Cort T35, which I have. It is not easy to see but it has a lovely finish, with copper, red and green flecks in it that sparkle in moving light. The Cort Curbow. I don't own one of these but I wish I did.

For me it would be price, if I can't afford it then it doesn't matter how it looks or plays. The second thing would be looks, mostly. My main bass is one that I had wanted for a very long time, even though I had never even seen one in the flesh, only in videos and magazines, I bought it online, I just got lucky that it plays like a dream. But I do have a bass that is ugly as sin, I bought it because I wanted a five string and I could afford it, but I have another five string now and the ugly one never gets touched, though that is mainly because the new one sounds better.

I don't have my own story, as I am right handed, but one of my brothers was left handed. It was never an issue until my dad decided that he wanted to manage a band and made that brother play guitar. The first problem was that there weren't any left handed guitars around at the time that my parents could afford. Then his guitar teacher told him he should learn right handed guitar because it actually made more sense to do the complicated stuff with your dominant hand. That sounds like bollocks to me, there is no way right handed people would have bothered to learn to play the more difficult way all these years, if that had been the case. Though the guitar teacher was also left handed but played right handed. My brother never did get the hang of it and quickly gave up.

I have only ever ordered from the US once, it wasn't music related (it was a camp bed), it took 3 days to go across the states and to Scotland, and 10 days to get from Scotland to the Midlands.

The Hyperdrive is good but a bit of a one trick pony, I find. However, the Digitech Bass Driver is a seriously underrated pedal. It is very versatile, with a large range of overdrive, distortion and fuzz options (in the sweep of one knob), and it can be found quite a bit cheaper than the Hyperdrive. Mixing the two together can produce some amazing sounds.

I'd be looking at Corts. Always a lot of bass for your money. http://www.cortguitars.com/en/instruments/basses

Excellent, thank you. I was thinking, for someone like me, who would be doing it as a way to save money, as much as pure interest in the subject, £100 would be perfectly reasonable and well worth saving up for. Unfortunately I can't make it that far from here, but now I know such a thing exists I will keep an eye out for more local events.

With the discount on tools, what sort of cost would a basic set of tools, for the jobs you learned to do, be? £40 sounds perfectly affordable for such an experience, but how much is it really likely to cost in the end? I hope that doesn't sound negative, just do trying to be practical. I know you end up saving money in the future, would just like an idea of how much I would have to save up to come away with the skills and the tools for the job.

That looks amazing. I would love to be able to have such an experience.

I used to get his in the Nuneaton Tandys way back when. How can they not know what a capacitor is?? If I need something from Maplins I find it on their website and get the catalogue code for it. I still get problems, even then. Prefer to use http://www.cricklewoodelectronics.com/Cricklewood/home.php when I can. But boy do I miss my RS account and living less than a mile from their massive distribution centre with the little shop attached.

I hope Amazon don't cotton on to this! I often buy books for £2.81, and sometimes DVDs for £1.27, where all but 1p is postage.

Why not just grind the proud part flush or maybe grind it down so that it is lower than the surface and drop a drop of paint in the hole to hide it?

That just reminded me of another small venue. It was in the cellar of a restaurant in Warwick. It was lovely but tiny, we had to get rather creative with the lighting rig. The place was made of stone with vaulted roofs and actually had a door that lead to a tunnel that went all the way to Warwick castle. I remember a really annoying kid, with oblivious parents, who kept sticking his face in front of the smoke machine. There should be a thread about annoying audience members.

Try as I might I can't remember the name of the pub I am thinking of. It was in the Hillfields area of Coventry, a famously rough area full of prostitutes and drug gangs. The pub had the most fascinating clientele, if you've ever seen Pirates of the Caribbean you'll have a pretty good idea of what they looked like. The place was packed but there was only a handful of teeth between the lot of 'em. There was far too short a complement of eyes, too. Carrying the gear in through the bar was really, really scary, but then I was only 16. In the end, though, the gig was great and everyone enjoyed themselves. Oddly, the worst one was a disco gig in a massive, very, very posh and expensive hotel. Again, I can't remember the name of the damned place. I remember being tickled pink when, while we were setting up in the middle of the day, a waiter in full get-up, white gloves, the lot, came and served us tea with a silver service. I'd never seen such a thing before. The gig was a Christmas do for Travellers. There were over 300 of them. Every table had crackers, party poppers and streamers on them. The first people in were three kids, probably around 7 years old. They went 'round and took everything off the tables, destroyed the lot and dumped them in a huge pile right in the middle of the dance floor. And all night the little f***ers would threaten to get their dad to kill me if the DJ didn't play the songs they requested. Normally my job was to do the lights (the light rig for the disco was massive, the biggest I have ever seen for a mobile disco. Sometimes if we had booked three smaller discos for a weekend we could actually split it into three and each still be bigger than others we usually saw. It was brilliant, I loved that job.) but the boss was a coward and decided that that night he would hide behind the lighting console and stuck me on the stage to take requests, which was a job he made up just to be a dick.

When I first saw this it angered me somewhat, however it does actually make sense, in that it prevents all those that try to con Ebay by swapping the postage and article prices around to skip the fees. That can't work now, so I can't really blame them.

What a shame. Someone needs to throw dirt on this sh*t. I love Duff. If there was ever a gig I wish I could have been at or even played at, it is Guns & Roses live at the Ritz in 1988. That thing sends chills up my spine every time I watch it, which is often. And I am being a bit of a hypocrite here because I don't usually care if a band goes off in another direction or just goes to pot, because I will always have the stuff I loved, no one can take that away from me, but Axl has done nothing but piss all over the memory of Guns & Roses. He might own the name but the band left him way behind. He's the last person mentioned in the video at this link. I should warn you, some of those videos might make you cry. http://www.cracked.com/video_18831_4-musical-performances-that-will-ruin-your-childhood.html

[Dons golden underpants and starts singing/squawking] The sword of Damocles is hanging over my head And I've got the feeling someone's gonna be cutting the thread Oh, woe is me, my life is a misery Oh, can't you see that I'm at the start of a pretty big downer!? [shuts up]

When I was in school my parents bought me some trainers of the brand Purvey. Can you imagine the stick I would have got? I coloured the name in with a permanent marker and wore them for a full year, until someone sitting behind me in class asked if I had coloured them in. I hated those damned things, they were made of plastic and made my feet stink and had a plastic knobbly bit inside that hurt like hell. But what can you expect for trainers that cost £4?

I don't see the problem if it doesn't effect sound. Why waste a string if it actually works? Unless I was having to use it live and it was my only Bass, then I would be more inclined to replace it, if I had the money, probably best not to tempt fate when there are band members and an audience to please.

It's the kind of knot that works better the more pressure it has on it. I know it's not on the speaking length of the string but does it not effect the sound of the string? A guitar shop I used to work in had a bloke come in one day screaming and ranting that he was going to sue the shop owner. His son had bought a set of bass strings and when he tried fitting them he over wound by an octave. The E string broke and went right through his cheek! I have never had a string break like that, in fact I have only ever had a couple break at all, but normally it's just the core that goes and the winds keep it from flying about.