BigRedX

And IMO both of them look equally dull. It's all subjective.

Which means that in 50 years time an intact and functioning Ikea table will probably be more valuable since the Victorian one is unlikely to significantly deteriorate any further. The shrewd invested would be identifying which Ikea flat packs are going to be regarded as design classics in the future and buying them to keep unassembled.

The thing is it's not the courier service that is good or bad but the performance of the individual depots - hence the horror stories for pretty much every single courier service. Therefore such a sticky is only relevant if you can identify the actual depot giving the good or bad service and also know the area that they service.

Sorry didn’t make it in time, far too busy over the weekend... :-((

But a solid electric instrument comprises great big chunks of wood slathered in glue and stuck together in the most ad-hoc manner imaginable. The most important qualities in a piece of "tone wood" in this situation are that it looks nice and it will be structurally sufficient for the loads put on it by the strings and the strap without making the instrument too heavy. The overall shape of the instrument is a combination of eye-catching looks and player comfort. It's not like an acoustic instrument where the type and position of every join is critically important to the overall sound of the finished instrument, and the shape greatly contributes towards the type of tone the instrument produces.

That's certainly been the case for me when I've voted for the composition competition - overall enjoyment of the piece is always above the technical aspects of the recording or performance unless either is particularly sub par (although I don't recall that having happened). I'd like to submit the piece we are going to be recording/broadcasting tomorrow as it's the less obvious choice given the musical style of the band, but considering that we've only been working on it for a week and we played it together as a band for the first time at last night's rehearsal, I'm a little worried that the performance won't be up the standard that I would like. The alternative is submit the track we recorded earlier this year. However it is available to buy on iTunes etc. - does that make it exempt from the competition? Also I won't be able to put it up on Soundcloud, I'll be submitting a link to the Promo Video on YouTube that we made to go with the track - is that OK?

DAWs that have their roots in the days of computer-based MIDI sequencers tend to have a lot of esoteric functions designed to get the best out of the manipulation of MIDI data. A lot of this stemmed from the days when apart from the vocals, you would hope to do everything else using the synths and hardware samplers available at the time. To get a convincing performance out of these devices required a lot of fiddling about with the data of each individual MIDI event, and anything that could help simplify and speed up the process was invaluable. These days when It is just as easy to record a real instrument or use a sample playback plug-in accessing a sound library composed of gigabytes of data (as opposed to what would fit on a handful of floppy disks) that kind of microscopic control is far less important. For those of us who still use a lot of complex MIDI commands (especially when controlling external hardware) this kind of MIDI editing and control is essential. TBH if you haven't missed it so far then you probably don't need it.

Out of interest what is being judged? The standard of the recording or the interpretation of the song? I ask because I have two possible entries - one is a proper studio recording and actually already available to purchase as a download from the usual outlets (would that exclude it from the competition?) The other is going to performed live on the radio tomorrow, and while it's possibly a more ambitious choice might not be as well recorded as the first.

For pretty much everyone, most of the time, the use or not of open strings will always be a trade off between how you want the notes to sound and your technical ability. Of course there are times when in order to get the right sound and feel, open strings will always be the right choice.

IIRC the Bas Extravaganza bass is off-the-shelf plywood bought from his local DIY warehouse.

There's plenty of basses made out of plywood - and not all of them are cheap MiJ 70s copies. Here's one from Bas Extravaganza: And another from high-end luthier Jens Ritter: And TBH there's a fine line between multi-laminate which appears to be a perfectly acceptable construction technique and "plywood".

If you are starting from scratch, it doesn't really matter which DAW you pick, there will be a big learning curve but once you have got to grips with your DAW that will be the one that you'll probably stick with as learning another way of working will just be too much hassle. I terms of standard features AFAICS all modern DAWs are on a fairly even footing. However if you intend to do a lot of work with MIDI instruments (either external or plug-ins), rather than simply treating it as multi-track tape recorder, then I would go with a DAW that has its roots in sequencing such as Cubase, Logic, or Digital Performer, and steer clear of Reaper or ProTools. I would also steer clear of anything that uses hardware copy protection especially iLok. IME these devices fail at the most inappropriate time and as many iLok users discovered the zero downtime option doesn't always work.

Intersting insomuch as I was surprised by how few of the musicians interviewed hadn't been "screwed over" by their employers. Maybe there were plenty with less charitable things to say about the "stars" they played with that could not be included for legal reasons? However I though it was much too long. Under an hour would have made a much tighter documentary and nothing important to the main narrative would have to have been left out. Ultimately it re-enforces my opinion that the musicians who do well out of the music business are the ones who also write and/or produce the popular songs. Not the guitarists who play the killer solos.

Has just been discontinued by Gibson (not the first time they have done this with music software they have acquired) so your lifetime updates are now worthless.

I don't know. At a guess I would say that TalkBass is probably big and affluent enough to have some sort of financial agreement in place with the relevant royalty collection agencies to cover themselves. The other forums either do the same or are small enough to be currently under the radar. As I said, it only takes one copyright holder to make a fuss...

Having just had a look there (it's not a part of the forum I would normally venture into), I think that Basschat is on dodgy ground by allowing these to be published, hosted and linked, until they have received proper legal advice that tells them otherwise. If there are transcriptions there have been made available with all the copyright holders' blessings then they can stay, but probably everything else will need to be removed or at the very least change the status of the forum to be invisible to anyone who is not a Basschat member (which IIRC will also stop it form being indexed by Google and other search engines). Remember it only takes one over-zealous copyright holder to take exception, and it could be the end of Basschat.

I don't really find YouTube a very useful resource. It's too full of waffle, self-promotion, and takes far too long to get to meat of of the "lessons". Plus I don't think there is any real substitute for one-on-one personal lessons when it comes to music. I certainly can't tell if I doing sometime right or not from a video tutorial, I would need to teacher to be there with me giving instant feedback. My guitar, bass and keyboard playing is full of nasty in-grained habits which over 45 years of playing I have finally managed to make work for me. I don't want (or have time for) the same to happen to my singing.

Thanks Ped. I'd have never seen it myself. I also think that it might be a good idea to remove the link in the OP until you are 100% sure that publishing this is not going to land Basschat in legal trouble for copyright infringement.

IME buying a 5-string set and chucking away the G, nearly always works out cheaper than buying individual strings. Also that low B is way too light gauge compared with the others. For those gauges I'd be looking at a 135 minimum.

It's a Reverend Mercalli.

I suspect there is also an element of maintaining the "vintage vibe" behind Ampeg's continued use of jacks instead of Speakons. They would probably also still be using Bulgin mains connectors if they thought they could get away with it ;-)

This was indeed my first thought, but it appears that he hasn't been on Basschat for almost 3 years, and if my internet stalking is up to scratch this is him now, and TBH I can't afford the rates he charges for the amount of lessons I'm probably going to need.

135 tends to be at the heavier end of the scale for a low B so unless the rest of your strings are heavy gauge that should be fine. There should be much to do regarding the truss rod going from G-E to D-B, it might need slackening off a bit as the low B is lower tension than the high G. Most of the work would be widening the nut slots.

Are you 100% sure and prepared to stake all your worldly possessions on being right? BTW being dyslexic the only way I can make sure what I type is right is if people point out my mistakes so please what is wrong with the phrase "No I’m not a lawyer specialising music copyright" to warrant it having a "sic" after it in your post? Because I can't see anything wrong with it.

Start by trying the 5-string set with the same E A D and G strings that you would normally use, but make sure that the low B is at least 128 minimum for a 40 - 100 set. IME most low B strings are too low in tension compared with the rest of the string unless you go slightly heavier than normal. However getting a good balanced sounding and feeling low B is a bit of a dark art and you may have to trial and error your way through several sets to find what works best for you. Unfortunately what works for one player on one bass won't necessarily work for you on your bass.