KingBollock

I have seen bands that, for songs that require changing from an acoustic guitar to electric, have the acoustic on a stand so they can play it while having their electric strapped on as normal, and can walk away from the acoustic without hassle. So, while I can't give any more detail I can say that stands do exist. Personally, if it was bothering me so much, I would use a tall stool and sit down. A stand is going to hold your instrument rigid, where as sitting down you can still move with the music.

[quote name='gelfin' timestamp='1398028017' post='2429739'] I guess I have the same experience in this shop, possibly on Walter Rd. Went in on my way to another shop for work stuff. Found a bass I was really interested in. No one seemed to want to serve so I left. When I got to work I told the manager of our shop about how useless I thought they were. He happened to know the owner and gave him a call. I was offered a discount if I went back ( price agreed), and was told ask for the manager. When I got there he was out, this was twenty minutes later. Tried the bass and liked it. Told the staff that the manager had agreed a price of £179.00. They didn't question this and even threw in a strap of my choice. The bass was a Tokai Thunderbird priced in the shop at £329.00. If they had got it right on my first visit I would have paid the asking price. [/quote] Not the same place. This one was on an industrial estate. There is a large music shop downstairs that sold classical instruments and keyboards, upstairs was my the guitar shop and further through was a PA shop that I had to pick something up from, so I actually had to pass through the guitar shop to get there. I can't be sure that the bloke I got ignored by was an owner or a manager, I can, however, be sure that he was a grumpy twat in the wrong job. At the time I was looking for a 4x10 cab. I was in one shop where I found an Orange cab. A young lad spotted me looking at it and started talking to me. Not about the cab, he was just talking like the clappers about all sorts of unrelated stuff. I kept trying to get him to give me a price, as there wasn't one on it. I had a feeling it was going to be more than I was prepared to pay, I told him how much I had and he just kept talking. The cab was in a really poor looking condition, so I was a little hopeful that they might come down to my price range. After almost half an hour he disappeared upstairs to see how much it was. He came back and gave me a price that I later found out was only just shy of the price of a brand new one. But he still kept talking at me, again not about the cab, it took another ten minutes to get out of the shop. I had given up finding a cab, I was positive that I didn't want to buy one online, that's why I ended up buying the bass from the other place. After buying the bass I did have a look online for cabs and actually decided on one that I saw on the GAK site, but where it said about delivery it said to call them on the phone. So my wife called them and they were actually quite rude to her, treating her as though she was stupid because it obviously meant they didn't have it in stock so it was pointless calling them! I haven't bought from them since, either. I did actually find a 4x10 online that was local and he only wanted £40 for it, so I got that and it's been great.

[quote name='flyfisher' timestamp='1397951834' post='2429021'] 30 mile round trip in a private car would cost £27 according to HMRC allowances (45p/mile), and they're not known for being overly generous. Petrol alone would be £8.85 assuming £1.30/litre and 40mpg. Inexcusable to lie about the return postage though. I wonder what their online T&Cs stated? But you raise an interesting point. I wonder how many millions of miles and hours of time are wasted by people travelling to the shops for stuff they don't find? [/quote] This was over ten years ago and we actually had a diesel car, so it wouldn't have cost quite that much. Online shopping has moved on somewhat since then, I doubt they would get away with it now. It was a huge place with different buildings full of cool stuff, and was fun to wonder around, that's why I used to go, didn't get that when I threw £8 down the drain for nothing, though.

There is a great outdoorsy/camping/army surplus store in Burton on Trent, about thirty miles from where I used to live. I used to go there quite often but I hadn't had an a excuse for a while and I was looking for a hat. Being the kind that liked to support proper local shops I decided to order a hat from their website, rather than use an online only shop. I ordered the hat in my exact size from the range of sizes they said they had. The £4 postage would have probably been less than the cost of petrol to get there and back. A week or so later the hat turned up, several sizes too small and the label said "one size fits all" which is always an absolute lie. Got I touch with the shop and they admitted that they were entirely at fault and that they only have the hat in one size, so they said they would refund me the price of the hat and the postage both ways. They lied about that, too. They refunded the price of the hat but not the postage, so I ended up paying £8 for absolutely nothing. Never went back to that shop again either. Most of the stuff I buy now comes from Amazon. It is often the cheapest place to buy from and often there is no postage charges. Delivery is usually very fast, normally just a couple of days, and our postman puts our packages in the utility room so we don't even have to answer the door (which is handy when my wife's shift patterns means we are in bed when the post comes). I no longer feel guilty about buying I online, and I used to, but it is very different living in a village in the middle of nowhere from a large town with three major cities within twenty miles.

A couple of years ago I was in a music shop in Swansea and I saw a bass I liked the look of, but the whole time I was in there the owner didn't look up from his computer. Even when I tried to talk to him he literally just grunted at me (I wish I was joking or exaggerating, but I really am not). I went back the next day, which was a Saturday, because there was something in the shop next door that I wanted to pick up, so I popped back into the music shop to have another look at the bass. Fortunately they had three very friendly and enthusiastic staff in, the owner was not there, and I got to try the bass and got a nice discount that I didn't even ask for. I don't normally leave the house on weekends, but had no choice that day, otherwise he would have lost that sale. I actually felt bad for buying it afterwards, because I felt he didn't deserve my money, but I really like the bass. I haven't been back since though. In fact, that week I had been to every guitar shop I could find within a thirty mile radius, about eight of them, I think. Some of them tried to be helpful, some of them didn't give a toss. The biggest problem I found was a lack of variety in stock, and only three of them had any bass stuff at all. I have only bought stuff online since, which I feel is a real shame but I have been given on other choice.

As others have said, it will only make a difference if you are changing specs or repairing a fault. I don't have much money so, usually, the cheaper the better. But CTS pots aren't that expensive. If I am repairing a fault or changing something, such as adding push-pull pots for coil tapping, or a blend pot, I like to replace everything (if it is all still stock, I have yet to have to repair anything that I have changed myself) so it all matches and looks nice. I like to use good quality components that aren't too expensive, and I mainly do it because I enjoy tinkering. Soldering is an inexpensive, easy and useful skill to learn.

I would imagine that the main gain would be not having to go to the hassle of doing it all yourself; getting all the parts and putting it all together. And if you're unsure of your own abilities then you have the reassurance that it is a job well done and you don't have to worry about it. To me, the fun is all in doing it for myself, but I've been wielding a soldering iron since I was 14 years old. As for the capacitors, basically, the higher the value the more treble you can roll off, so they shouldn't make a difference of you don't use the tone knob. Some people say that you can get different tones from different types, but I'm not so sure about that. I, personally, use the Orange Sprague types because they are easy to get, not badly priced and good quality. I get my parts from WD Music. They even do wiring kits that you put together yourself. If you don't need all the parts you can just look at what parts of the kit you do need and order separately. http://www.wdmusic.co.uk/wiring-kits-175-c.asp But this all depends on your confidence in your soldering ability. Edit: Found this, thought it might help: http://www.guitarelectronics.com/category/wiring_resources_guitar_wiring_diagrams.wiring_faqs/

Reading between the lines, it looks to me like they were beginners starting their first band and didn't want someone too far above their skill level.

I was going to suggest a second P, but I noticed you have one in your sig. So, while I have no experience of them, something I might consider would be a stacked Jazz with a coil tap for extra versatility.

[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.