pete.young

It's all over the site already, but I owned one of the Vox teardrop basses, a Vox Wyman. It weighed several tons partly because of the chrome scratch plate, had a nice narrow neck but otherwise had few redeeming features. Sound was a rather characterless thud due to the pickups and short-scale neck. As an instrument to play it's the least favourite bass of all the basses I've owned in the last 35 years. No wonder Bill Wyman hated it and refused to play them. Wish I still had it though- immaculate examples were going through the bay for round about £1500 last time I looked, which is roughly 100 times more than I sold mine for in 1974. Mined ewe, 15 quid were a lot of money in 1974.

I'd much rather not have to post this if there's someone who can come and pick it up. Matthew Sanchez, please PM me if you're still interested and we'll work something out. I live on Martlesham Heath. It weighs 3.2 Kg so it'll cost about £12 to post allowing for packaging material. I'm not able to get to a post office during the week Here are some pictures. In the second picture you can see my first attempt at a template showing where the neck pickup rout should be and where I was going to put a MM pickup in the bridge position.

I saw Gary Karr play when I lived in Whitehaven, probably 20 years ago. What a fabulous player and thoroughly nice chap too.

NOW GONE, thanks for all the interest.

[quote name='stingrayfan' post='258576' date='Aug 8 2008, 10:54 PM']Too Much Too Young The Specials[/quote] I heard this on the radio in the car t'other day on the only set of decent speakers that I possess. What a fabulous bass line that is. Our list is written in html that's too difficult to disentangle, so here's a link. [url="http://www.crossoverband.co.uk/id1.html"]http://www.crossoverband.co.uk/id1.html[/url] We're currently working on 'Misery Business' by Paramore, which I love. Life is good.

[quote name='Sibob' post='257507' date='Aug 7 2008, 07:31 PM']A sign of the severe lack on traffic going through it, whereas the myspace is updated daily if not hourly (much easier and quicker than standard websites) and has enough consistent traffic to keep us in the top 15 unsigned 'progressive' bands on myspace, we've previously been top 5 for weeks on end....no mean feat! I'm not bragging about 'how big we are' (because we're not), just commenting on the fair amount of consistent traffic going through the myspace. When the album is complete, the website will be revamped with some relevant artwork and other bits and pieces, but will most probably just link directly to the myspace! Oh and with regards to loading times...the myspace profile loads perfectly quickly on my lil 'ol laptop Si[/quote] You completely missed the point of that helpful message. Either take your website down or update it - it looks like your band has folded, and anyone coming in through that route won't get as far as the myspace. We find that we get far more bookings through the website than we do through the myspace pages. I guess it depends what kind of a band you are, and what kind of a website you have.

Plus one for Ferret's incantation of the Law of Alex. I have an EBS 2x12 Neo which is a perfect match for my Burman Pro 4000, and I believe that CK has also ended up with the same combination. It's the same size as a 4x10, though if you went for 2 single 12s it would probably be slightly narrower but taller overall. I'd heard this story about damping and emailed the guys at EBS in Sweden to ask their opinion. I got a very swift reply from the technical director who said that there were no problems and his cabs could be used with any amp, no problem. The only stigma is having an amp that weighs 6Kg more than the cab. If you can get past that ...

I have both the EBS Octabass and the Digitech Bass Synth Wah. There isn't much to chose between them - the EBS is easier to blend normal and octaved signal and sounds slightly better IMHO and the Digitech tracks slightly better below G. I have them both on my board because I also use the envelope filter and it's easier to do that than keep fiddling with the Digitech settings between songs.

Doh. Turns out that I had installed No-Script and not enabled this site. Now works fine.

[quote name='spinynorman' post='247043' date='Jul 24 2008, 05:00 PM']I think this is the first strings thread I've seen where 90% of the replies didn't say TI Jazz Flats.[/quote] TI Jazz Flats are great, I've got a set on my Precision! I love them, but I can see that they're not going to be to everyone's taste. I use Webstrings detroit nickel for cooking strings - www.webstrings.com. I bought 3 sets and they worked out about 7 quid a set, though I'd be tempted to follow that link posted earlier and try some DRs for 10 quid a go, seems like you can't go wrong at that price.

Couple of gigs coming up for the covers band I'm in, Crossover [url="http://www.crossoverband.co.uk/"]http://www.crossoverband.co.uk/[/url] Thursday 31st July Milestone, Ipswich Saturday 2nd August Swan, Long Melford

Wherever this thread belongs, it isn't in this forum.

[quote name='Clarky' post='242228' date='Jul 17 2008, 10:25 PM']You could get the bass a bit cheaper by going to the Fender Ishibashi website but then you have the complications of communicating your order, dealing in Yen and paying the customs charges (c.20%) yourself. Far simpler to pay slightly more and let Guitaremporium deal with all that.[/quote] Ishibashi no longer sell to UK customers direct, after Fender turned the thumbscrews. [quote]One thing I will add is that MIA fenders are made of a wood (Alder) that is generally preferred to the basswood which Fender Japan use in their standard models. However I have also read that basswood varies immensely and that Fender Japan tend to use a high quality densely-grained basswood that has excellent tonal properties. Can't say that I ever noticed any tonal shortcomings with either of my CIJ Fender P's.[/quote] There are two kinds of Japanese Fenders. The export variety have basswod bodies and hardware from i know not where. The 'Not For Export' models have alder or ash bodies and US pickups, and are generally built to a very high standard of quality. You might like to talk to John Blackman of Far East Guitars and see what he has in stock - he imports very low mileage not-for-exports and the one I have looks new. He seems to have a nice '57 with a maple board at the moment, if that's your thing.

[quote name='bilbo230763' post='242408' date='Jul 18 2008, 09:39 AM']Captain Smith and Pocohontas my a***. 'Summertime' was written as light opera (Porgy and Bess) (and how you can call someone a contemporary musician when he died in 1937 is beyond me ).[/quote] Compared to some of the stuff I like to play, he's still the new kid on the block :-)

The last couple of times I've tried to use 'Fast Reply' it comes up 404 with the following error: The requested URL /qr_open was not found on this server. Any ideas?

[quote name='steviedee' post='240511' date='Jul 16 2008, 12:01 AM']And Aargh who is Hobgoblin??[/quote] These guys: [url="http://www.hobgoblin.co.uk/"]http://www.hobgoblin.co.uk/[/url] The last time I was in Denmark St. Macaris had a guitarron in the basement with a notice on it which said "no we dont' know how to tune it either" Tuning is A D G C E A (top A is pitched between the C and the E). Lone Star Guitars make decent instruments : I have a Columbian Tiple made by them and the quality is excellent, solid spruce top. Didn't cost a lot because of the exchange rate.

[quote name='bilbo230763' post='240952' date='Jul 16 2008, 03:23 PM']The offending tunes are: Fever Mercy, Mercy, Mercy Canteloupe Island Watermelon Man Summertime Mac The Knife Tenor Madness[/quote] Uh-oh. So much for my jazz credentials: the only one on this list I could play from a standing start is Summertime, and I don't care how many abysmal renditions you might hear at the heart it's a brilliant piece of writing by one of the all-time-greats of the contemporary music scene. I kinda see what you're driving at. Your gripe is not with the songs but the useless and deluded people who think that all it takes is bowler hats, waistcoats and jumping up and down yelling "shoot that tiger"! My grandad used to say there's no such thing as a bad tune, only bad musicians. Anyway Bilbo, with the kind of stuff you're knocking out on a regular basis in the Mar Azul I'm surprised that you've got any time for playing jazz ;-) Say Hi to Gione for me.

[quote name='Oscar South' post='241370' date='Jul 16 2008, 11:14 PM']I occasionally sub as bassist for a local Ceilidh band (gig coming up actually), the way this band operates is that the Melodeon player just plays tunes and everyone else plays along by ear, its not too difficult and the only real challenge is making sure you play the same as the guitarist (as the tunes can often be harmonised in a few different ways). I'm not sure how the regular bassist plays really as I've not been to any of their gigs that I didn't play at. The style doesn't really invite a very 'busy' bass role, my personnel approach consists of keeping a pretty even beat most of the time without much variation, broken up occasionally with a bit of Mccartney-Mingus-esque hybrid double time style walking (if you can imagine it ) on the more 'intense' parts and sometimes joining the melody in unison/parallel octaves. It just struck my however that apart from taking a little from Dave Pegg, I've really never looked at any reference point, what approach does anyone else who plays in the style take?[/quote] Get yourself a copy of 20 Golden Tie-Slackeners by the Oyster Band, from www.oysterband.co.uk . This is a master-class in ceilidh bass playing by the legendary Iain Kearey, and in English ceilidh music in general. There's a lot more to it than just following the guitarist. And by god does it make you want to get up and dance! For something more current, Rick Kemp (yes, him of Steeleye fame) is currently playing with Whapweasel, who are my favourite current band. They have a number of CDs and are excellent live. Bellowhead also have some great bass lines, played on Tuba rather than bass guitar.

My Immortal, Evanescence. It's about time for the classic wedding story - the bride decided that she'd like to go out of the church to 'Robin Hood', thinking of the Bryan Adams number that we all know and love. No problem, says the organist. As they walk down the aisle at the end of the service , the organ strikes up: "Robin Hood, Robin Hood, Riding through the glen. Robin Hood, Robin Hood, with his band of men, Feared by the bad, loved by the good, Robin Hood ..."