BigRedX

No. What I was trying to say is short-term a lacquered fretboard (irrespective of the wood used) is easier to maintain. So long as you do it every month or so (depending on how much time you spend playing it) it is basically wipe clean. However eventually the lacquer will wear away and the fingerboard need refinishing. Long term an unfinished dark wood fretboard will easier. The regular cleaning routine will be more effort, but it will take much longer before the actual wear to the wood becomes a problem compared with a lacquered board. The wood used for the fingerboard is irrelevant, unless it is an unfinished light coloured wood which I would not recommend, because it will be almost impossible to keep clean.

Having been the person in the past who has required multiple takes in order to nail a tricky part, I know that there is nothing more boring for the rest of the band to be sitting there waiting for me to finally get it right. I wouldn't want to be inflicting this on my band members and I would prefer (and be thankful) for them to leave and let me get on with it. If another band member was in the same situation and they needed/wanted me to be there because they are after my opinion on the sound and/or performance then I would be happy to stay.

The whole point of getting a luthier to make you a custom bass is that they do all the hard work for you. When I had my Sei made, I picked them because I liked one of their bass shapes. Other than that I specified 5-string fretless in grey and orange that had the potential to make me sound like Mick Karn. Martin Petersen at Sei did everything else. When I was unsure about a specification he had me play a selection of basses in the shop and asked me what I liked and disliked about them. Then he used that information to make my bass. Any luthier who is not going to offer this level of service is IMO not worth using.

During a recording session, if I'm not actually required to in the studio there for the purposes of either playing or to comment on the sound and/or performance, then AFAIAC there is no point me being there, so I'm not. If someone requires numerous takes to get the right performance that's fine, but they shouldn't expect the rest of the band to witness it and IME they would probably perform better without an audience.

There never was one. The bass version was Squier only.

Very early on in my bass playing gigging career, I broke a string during the first song and had no spare strings and no spare bass. I had to borrow the support band's violin bass which was strung with flats and consequently played and sounded nothing like mine, for the rest of the set. The next day I went out and bought a couple of sets of strings and found a cheap bass to use as a back up. Since then I have whenever transport space allows brought a spare bass to gigs - which meant that in the days when I was playing both fretted and fretless basses with the same band I had 4 basses on stage with me. I have only ever had two more string breaks at gigs. Luckily I had a spare bass with me which was just as well since on both occasions none of the other bands on the bill had a bass guitarist in their line up.

Thanks! There will hopefully be a "live" video for The man Who Hides From Love up soon.

Dingwall.

Thanks. The track which is most likely going to be the next single - The Man Who Hides From Love - has just been picked up for the daytime playlist on BBC Radio Nottingham. It's not the big time, but it's a step up from just being played once or twice on the weekly local music program which is the best most local bands can hope for.

4 out of 5 of my Hercules stands developed the sticky handle symptoms and were all promptly replaced. Unfortunately cleaning with meths or similar is only a short-term fix as the stickiness is caused by the plastic used in this batch breaking down, so while you are curing the symptoms it's doing nothing for the underlying cause and eventually the plastic of the handle will disintegrate. I would have no problems buying more Hercules stands. The bad plastic appears to have been limited to a particular production run and has been noted and fixed. Besides what are the alternatives for guitars and basses with asymmetrical bodies. Over the past 40 years I've owned numerous makes of guitar stands, but the Hercules has been by far the most convenient.

When mixing I only ever want to hear instruments solo'd when I can hear something wrong and want to know exactly what it is, so we can work out how to make it not sound wrong.

I had all the hardware on my black Gus G3 anodised. Original it was going to be black chrome after seeing what had been done on one of the sample basses, but by the time mine came to be built the company used had gone out of business and Simon Farmer couldn't find another who were prepared to take on the small volumes needed for a few guitars and basses at a price that made economical sense, hence the alternative was anodising. I've owned and played this bass from new for 18 years now, and apart from a couple of places on pickup covers the anodising has shown no wear at all.

AFAICS if you want active you are limited to offerings from either MEC or EMG. However unlike guitar pickups where "soapbox" has a definite meaning - fat wound single coil in the style of the Gibson P90, when it comes to bass soapbar pickups it's simply a description of the form factor and there could be absolutely anything (that will fit) lurking under the covers. BTW what makes a pickup aggressive? High output? Upper mids EQ hump? Both of which IME can be achieved at the amp irrespective of the pickup.

If it sounds right in the context of the overall song mix and production then it is fine. Personally I thought the isolated bass track just sounded like a random selection of notes, the sort of thing that you play when you are trying out a bass and not playing anything fixed, just noodling to see how it feels.

Unfortunately not. This track was recorded and the album released before I joined the band. if you want to hear the Gus have a listen to The Terrortones recordings. Most of those are either the Black or Red Gus

And here’s a brand new video for one of the tracks off the last album “A Certain Fractal Light”.

It's just a pity he makes every single one sound terrible. Just looked up the price of the 5-string fretted model... $8995! I think I'll stick with my Gus basses.

In Isolation's brand new album "Shards" is out now for streaming on digital download And here's the video for one of the tracks:

Deemed to be an important enough design for an example to be in MOMA New York.

So roadworn there's no wood left! Actually it's the rather wonderful Gittler.

Out of interest how thick is the fingerboard?

Other than it’s a P bass, what’s the problem?

Skinny Puppy would probably do a better job. Not so easy listening elevator music.

I'm not denying that you will always be using suitable jack connectors and cables for speaker leads. I was replying to Matt P's post: And the reason is: for every clued-up bass player on Basschat who knows the right leads to use to connect their amp to their cabs, there be at least one numpty who will think nothing of using any spare instrument lead they have lying about. I would have thought that most amp and speaker manufacturers would be doing their best to reduce user error when connecting amps to cabs, and the best way to do this is to only use Speakon sockets on their gear.

Any Japanese Pico-Pop