spinynorman

[quote name='nick' post='198705' date='May 14 2008, 01:24 PM']Gould did/possibly still do one(?) There was one on Ebay recently, looked OK, set-neck etc Unfortunately, was outbid on it, but it only went for £60! So can't imagine them being expensive in the first place. Tried finding distributer myself, but no success. Not much on the internet on Gould Could be worth looking out for though.[/quote] Here's the Gould TBird. [url="http://www.themusiccellar.co.uk/instruments.asp?expand=True&ID=975&cat=Guitar%20and%20Percussion&subcat=Bass"]Music Cellar Gould TBird[/url]

I guess you must like it.

There seems to be a steady stream of Fender MIM Jazz 5-strings on US eBay going for not much money - one just went for £158. I know the neck's quite wide at the nut, but I like that. Pickups can be changed. I want a cheap passive 5 and I'm finding it hard to think of reasons not to go for one of those. The new ones here have "Upgrade" in the name. Anyone know what the upgrade actually was and when they started?

[quote name='bremen' post='197212' date='May 12 2008, 03:25 PM']They want more for shipping than they do for the strings! Any European dealers? LordOfTheStrings don't do DR, unfortunately.[/quote] [url="http://www.stringsdirect.co.uk/strings/bass_guitar/dr?page=2"]Strings Direct[/url]

Just put G&L bass into eBay search and set the location to worldwide. There's even some on BIN with Best Offer, for example [url="http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/2005-G-L-Tribute-L2000-Bass-Guitar-G-L-2000-662_W0QQitemZ280222936745QQihZ018QQcategoryZ4713QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem"]Ebay link[/url] Watch the shipping though, I just saw one wanting over $500 to ship a $500 bass to the UK.

[quote name='BOD2' post='189735' date='May 1 2008, 02:04 PM']p.s. just noticed your username and avatar.......DINSDALE ![/quote] Shhhh! He thinks I'm dead.

Thanks. I'm amazed at the difference in prices if you shop around on the web and it makes the choice very confusing. For example, we've found Mackie C300z for £750 a pair, which is way off our budget, but now we've turned up a place offering them at £199 each. Compared to Tapco 6912, which we could get for £240 a pair, or Wharfedale Titans at £250, are the Mackies worth it?

I'm starting to resent my Precision. When I use it at gigs our guitarist looks happy and seems to relax and we generally have a good gig. The damned thing seems to be able to mould itself to the sound that's required for any song without me being aware of doing anything different. I have 2 other basses, but they seem to make the guitarist nervous. I can sometimes slip one in for a couple of numbers, but usually that's it. I have played entire gigs with the Gibson or the Spector, and in both cases we didn't get a repeat booking. So I'm sitting here with terrible gas for all sorts of things and no possible reason to buy any of them.

We're looking for a pair of 12" passive PA speakers. I've got a reasonable idea about Yamaha and Mackie, but I'm also seeing Tapco and Warfdale. Never heard of Tapco, but the descriptions talk about "Mackie Designed" components. I remember Warfdale from hifi systems long ago, but I have no idea what they're like now, or whether they're any good for PA? So I wondered if anyone here had any experiece of those two companies, or failing that, indirect knowledge of them?

The worst bass I've owned was a 1970s Eko Manta. Dead as a corpse. Other than that, I've had several japcrap basses and koreancrap basses, including Kay and Vester, all of which turned out to be good.

Interparcel give you a choice of couriers, prices are good too. [url="http://www.interparcel.com/"]http://www.interparcel.com/[/url]

Are the necks on the Tokai Jazz Sounds any wider at the nut than the Fenders?

"Blowing the Blues: A Personal History of the British Blues" Dick Heckstall-Smith Really good if you're interested in the 60s British Jazz/Blues/RnB scene, lots of personal views of Graham Bond, Alexis Korner, John Mayall, as well as Jon Hiseman and Colosseum. Also includes a very good CD. + 1 for "White Bicycles: Making Music in the 1960s" Joe Boyd. Charts the development of British and US folk and rock. Boyd did a bit and saw even more. I enjoyed it.

I bought a Westfield for a party I thought might turn out a bit rough. It was ok, just felt a bit new and unseasoned somehow. Put it back on eBay afterwards and got my money back.

I keep trying to find something more interesting, but our guitarist always looks happy when the Precision comes off the stand and vaguely uncomfortable if it's anything else.

How do you tame a TonePump? I take Imodium before playing mine.

It puts the "proper bass players use their fingers" debate in some sort of context. I wonder what sort of market research Leo did for that design choice. Does anyone play bass like that?

There's always the Gibson IV. All mahogany, TBird pickups, set neck, known as "The Poor Man's TBird" in some quarters. Body shape is Fenderish, you just have to get over the headstock. They go for about £350, if you can find one (and you're not having mine )

Strings Direct have High C and Low B as singles. Best place for strings in the UK, IMHO, prices aren't bad and delivery is very quick. [url="http://www.stringsdirect.co.uk/strings/bass_guitar/thomastik?page=2"]Strings Direct[/url]

Yes, that's OK, thanks. I understand the Google thing. I'd still be interested in which hosting service providers people have had good experience with, as ours is cheap, but the support is built to match. Like I imagine getting them to buy me a new URL without losing the package and space we currently have will take a while on hold, followed by a series of "I''ll just put you through to someone who can't help you either."

We changed our band name and since I last looked at it the domain name/hosting market seems to have changed quite a bit. Where are you all buying your domain names/hosting packages? Any places to avoid? I suppose we could keep the existing hosting package (which is cheap) and just buy the new domain with forwarding. Any reason not to do that?

Everyone's different and responds to things in different ways, but I was kind of in a similar position to you with guitar. I was struggling to get to grips with a Squier Strat I bought second hand and thought a better guitar would be the magic bullet. So I bought an Eggle Berlin, lovely guitar, played like a dream, wonderful tone, looked great. So now I still sucked on guitar, but with slightly less effort. Every time I looked at the thing, it seemed to reproach me for being so useless. In the end I sold it (and lost money on it). Armed with this experience, my approach to basses has been very different. I've had long scale, short scale, active, passive, 4-string, 5-string, solid, acoustic. Never had a fretless, but who knows. Few of them have cost more than 200 quid, the most expensive about 400, and even that was due to a shipping balls up. Trying something else has been part of the fun and to some extent what's kept me interested. So, the point is, you're not in a band, so you could afford to have some fun, and provided you don't buy a complete piece of junk, it won't hold you back. In terms of learning to play, lessons or even a piece of software like Guitar Pro would probably be better value than a boutique bass.

I've found various physical problems with the Rock-it, similar to those mentioned. It's ok on a Precision. On a Jazz I found it jams up against the tone knob. If the jack is on the bottom edge, it is quite likely to fall out. I haven't broken mine, but have had to retrieve the battery and cover from under the bed. I can see the attraction of not needing a lead, but it doesn't really compensate for the problems.

[quote name='Absolute-beginner' post='137624' date='Feb 10 2008, 03:30 PM']I think ill play the 'phone a friend button. Damned if i can get it to work........[/quote] Could be the licence management in your wma file is preventing you from copying it to another format. I've heard the way round that is to burn your wma files to a CD and then rip the CD back to mp3. Never done it cos I don't buy that DRM'd stuff.