BigRedX

Nothing wrong with my post here in Nottingham. I've had a couple of time-critical work-related deliveries in the last week both of which have arrived on the day they were supposed to. OTOH my Boris letter has only just arrived a few days ago...

Just remember that when you come to sell it, it will be in the eBay Weird & Wonderful section with the usual suspects pointing and laughing...

Well the playlist that best represents me as a musician would be tracks that I wrote and/or played on: 1. The Midnight Circus: Pre-Natal Counselling From the cassette album "Pre-Natal Counselling" (Bland Craze Recordings/Deleted Records 1980) re-released on the CD "Richard, Roger, Rodney, Rastus, Raoul, Roderick, Randy, Rupert" (Hyped To Death 2003) 2. The Perfect Party: Sex In A Glass From the Radio Nottingham cassette compilation album "The Bomb Party" (Radio Nottingham 1982) 3. SSURAEA: Melodramatics From the cassette EP "Plug Into Electric Living" (Beat Trouser 1984) 4. Senior Love Daddy: Assassin Limited edition 10" white label (White Label 1990) 5. Optimum: Love Junkie From the CD EP "Love Junkies" (Aster 1997) re-released as SugarBox on the "Skin-Tight" digital album (Aster 2011) 6. SugarBox: Skin-Tight Recorded 2000, released on the "Skin-Tight" digital album (Aster 2011) 7. Mabel's Husbands: Pest From the CD "...I Direct" (Mabel's Husbands 2009) 8. Dìck Venom & The Terrortones: Invasion Of The Spider Queen From the EP "Invasion Of The Spider Queen" (Jailhouse Morgue 2013) 9. The Death Notes: Syncretize From the EP "The Black" (Sonic Disruptor 2018) 10. Hurtsfall: Calling Out Digital single (Sonic Disprutor 2109) Apologies for all the tracks I couldn't links for, even in this digital age where almost everything is on-line somewhere if you look hard enough! I'll try and get them up on a Soundcloud playlist at the weekend. But if you want me to do this like everyone else has done here's my list of influences in chronological order: 1. The Pretty Things: Cries From The Midnight Circus 2. The Sweet: Hell Raiser 3. Cabaret Voltaire: Nag Nag Nag 4. Comsat Angels: Total War 5. The Human League: Being Boiled 6. Freur: Doot-Doot 7. Underworld: ME 8. The Postal Service: The District Sleeps Tonight 9. The Birthday Massacre: Goodnight 10. IAMX: Stardust All together on this Spotify Playlist

Good to see the Hooky is deemed to be so important he's on there twice! No JJ Burnel though.

I can't understand why anyone would buy a drum machine and not create their own patterns for it. I know for a fact that no a single drum machine I've owned has ever come with any kind of pre-programmed rhythm that I would want to use for my songs. And it's not that difficult - you just hit the pads in time with the metronome just like you were playing the drums but much easier!

Here's the weird thing about the Carlsbro Stingray bass amp. Back in the early 80s the one bass player who I really admired was in a local band and used an Aria SB1000 bass with a Carlsbro Stingray combo - the green version with the 15" speaker. He had by far the best bass sound of any band at the time, crystal clear and always up front in the mix and this was a six-piece band with two guitarists and a synth player so lots going on sonically. Maybe it's not the amp but the user who is at fault?

I run the Helix Floor and use HX Edit exclusively to program it and manage the firmware updates. Unless something has changed with the most recent update, I can confirm that it works fine with El Capitan on an even older Mac than the one you are using. Having said that it does have significantly more RAM than 4GB.

Just remember with the round cores you need to bend them before cutting them to length.

Unless the 2+2 headstock is very big you are unlikely to get all 4 of the 4 in line tuners to fit properly. I would imagine that at least one of the tuners on the "wrong" side will either protrude beyond the end of the headstock or not fit at all. Just buy some 2+2 tuners. you know it makes sense.

Surely the hole size depends on the machine heads you are intending to fit? As others have said, drill a pilot hole first. I'd want to be using a pillar mount drill to guarantee that the holes were at exactly 90° to the surface of the headstock. I've also see build videos where the luthier will drill the full-sized holes half way through and then flip the neck over and drill from the other side to prevent tear out. You will definitely need pilot holes and a pillar mount drill for this method.

The easiest way to get the silks to line up is to use strings without silks:

No, the Smooth Hound has relatively high latency compared with other wireless systems. On it's own most people won't notice it. Combine it with one or more digital devices in your signal chain and your experience might not be so good.

I think the fact that your silks lined up last time was completely down to chance.

Ash is a very wide-ranging description as there are over 40 species of tree that are described as "Ash". Strangely enough "Swamp Ash" isn't a distinct species but simply refers to any ash species that has grown in swampy conditions.

I forgot about my oldest and perhaps most important guitar: A mid-70s Kimbara acoustic heavily modified. This was my 14th birthday present from my parents - the one time they supported my musical activities. When I wanted to go electric I couldn't afford a solid electric guitar and an amp, and I couldn't see any point in owning an electric guitar without some means of amplifying it. However I could afford an amp and a cheap piezo pickup for my acoustic so that's what I got. Later on still not being able to afford a proper electric guitar and not being particularly happy with the amplified sound via the piezo, I added the Schaller magnetic pickup. It was supposed to be attached to the end of the fingerboard, but I didn't much care for the sound I was getting in that position. However there was sufficient room between the top and the strings to squeeze it in at the bridge so that's what I did held in place with double-sided tape and still in position over 40 years later. The piezo was moved to underneath the bridge inside the guitar and both were attached to a TRS jack socket on the side. This connected by a two-conductor and earth cable to a footswitch that allowed me to switch between the two pickups and a second footswitch routed the signal to either the bright or normal input on my amp. I later added a Practical Electronics fuzz-box circuit between the two switches and this was my guitar set up until I completed my self-built solid electric during my final year at school.

I will never own or even play a Telecaster.

That lyre engraving on the bridge plate looks oddly familiar. Any ideas?

As NancyJohnson has said you need to have a bridge with separate saddles for the main and octave strings otherwise your bass will be noticeably out of tune above the 5th fret. I'd be recommending the 8-string version of the Schaller 3D Bridge but it no longer appears to be in production, so you'll have to find a supplier who still has one in stock or buy second hand. Otherwise as has been suggested try and see if you can buy one from a manufacturer who is making 8-string basses as a spare part. Dean and Schecter both use a generic far-east bridge and tail-piece combo. There's also Tune Japan. However unless you are lucky, they are all going to be around the price of the bridge you linked to in the OP. Also I've just had a look on the ABM website and the 8-string bridge no longer appears to be in production.

I'm also down to just two guitars, and unsurprisingly they are unconventional ones. Gus G1 Vibrato: FretKing Esprit V Custom: Both were custom made for me over 20 years ago now! The FretKing is an Eggle rather than a Wilkinson version from the days when they were made in a workshop behind Musical Exchanges in Birmingham.

Personally I wouldn't for two reasons: 1. If you use PA support for the bass guitar, your choice of cabs have very little impact on what the audience hears. If you are lucky enough to end up with a combination that gives you the sound you want, then you would have to mic up both cabs and get them balanced FoH to replicate what you are hearing on stage. 2. If you FoH sound is entirely dependant upon your rig what you find with using multiple different cabs is that the sound will be inconsistent across the venue, and maybe even across to stage area. So while you bass might sound awesome where you are standing on stage it's just as likely to sound horribly boomy or thin and weedy in other parts of venue as the waveforms produced by each cab interact in different ways in different parts of the room. The best way to go is to find one amp and cab combination that gives you sound that you want and if you need to be louder get another cab the same. If your amp and cab combination aren't giving you the sound that you want then they are not the right ones for you.

Can you 100% state that the difference in tonal characteristics was completely down to the wedge neck? IMO unless the basses were identical in absolutely every way except for the neck material you really can't.

It's been discussed in the later posts in this thread about Bass VIs. I have a red one on order, but the delivery date keeps getting put back. Originally it was for the end of March and now is at some unspecified date in June. Generally I'm not a fan of the Eastwood approach where interesting and quirky guitars and basses have everything that made then interesting and quirky removed by using standard parts and hardware (compare their versions of the Ovation guitars and basses with the originals for what I consider to be the worst of this practice) so you end up with something fairly standard that just has a different body shape. However as far as I can tell to get this bass right Eastwood have had to make a special bridge and pickup so there is hope. I've played one of the original Shergold models so I have a good frame of reference to compare it to. I didn't know that Eastwood were still taking orders. When I put down my deposit there was a deadline of early March if you wanted one.

Made by John Birch. AFAICS apart from the shape it's the same as all his other basses.

Would it not be better to Titebond the veneer to the neck and let it dry before epoxying the fretboard? Depending on the thickness of the veneer won't the water-based glue affect it if you don't let it dry first?

Lists like these occasionally make me wish I had the talent to slap my way through a medley of all of them and then fix the shop employees with a "what the flip are you going to do about it?" glare...