BigRedX

IIRC the original production run of the Rockbass version of the StarBass 5-string doesn't have the arched top and back of the full Warwick version. If that is important to you check which version it is before you buy.

[quote name='dand666' timestamp='1487674957' post='3241668'] MONO cases. /thread [/quote] Unfortunately not. I find my Mono M80 case very uncomfortable to wear on my back for any significant distance, and I know I'm not the only one with that problem. Also while it was the lightest of the new breed of semi-rigid cases when I bought it, it's very bulky compared with a standard £40 padded gig bag.

[quote name='Harryburke14' timestamp='1487672008' post='3241618'] I want a thunderbird but after playing an epi one at PMT yesterday I found it hard to get on with given the neck being so long. Is there a company that do Thunderbirds on the cheap that address this? [/quote] Where was the neck strap button on the Thunderbird that you tried? IME you just need to go and try them all. Although they look basically the same, every version and model is different and will sit/hang in a different way when playing.

Firstly in my very limited experience of playing covers, I think that bands whose key members have been playing the songs for many years together don't realise how difficult it can be for new band members to find their place musically. Also without them realising it the songs may have evolved away from the original recorded versions over time. When I joined my covers band I was given a list of songs to learn, and duly went out and bought to CDs with them on so I could get on with working out the bass parts. It was just as well this band rehearsed because at our very first practice I discovered: 1. On a couple of songs the drummer played a very slightly different rhythm to that on the recorded version (probably without even realising it anymore), which meant that my carefully learnt bass lines no longer fitted the groove properly and it was very noticeable in places that they didn't. That took more than a couple of run throughs to nail. 2. Although their excellent singer had no problem doing all the songs in their original keys, the guitarists had kept the songs that had been originally done down-tuned a semi-tone in standard tuning. It wasn't helped by the fact that of those songs, the two I'd learnt were both perfectly playable on the bass kept in standard tuning - in fact one of them was actually easier with the bass tuned to standard and the guitars in Eb! Needless to say those were a complete train wreck the first time we played them in rehearsal. 3. Unless the band has exactly the same instrumentation match all the overdubs of the original, some fiddling of the arrangement - usually to the rhythm section is inevitable. Especially on songs recorded in the 60s and early 70s where the "bass part" is an amalgamation of the bass guitar, keyboards and extra rhythm guitar, and simply playing the recorded bass guitar part on its own lacks sufficient drive to propel the song along. I found in those cases that bass line I ended up playing owed far more to the left hand of the keyboards than to the original bass guitar part. 4. Song length and version. It's all very well asking beforehand which version the band has based their cover on, but sometimes they are not even aware that alternative versions and edits of the songs exist. Several times I found myself still playing one part of the song while the rest of the band had moved on to another, because they played a different version, to the one they thought they'd told me to learn. And that's before we get into endings the band have written for songs that fade out (and intros for songs that fade in). Just about all those changes meant that playing along to the recorded versions in many cases was pretty much pointless, and the only way I was going to get my bass lines tight with the rest of the band was to practice playing with them. For the seasoned covers bands veteran, I'm sure all of the above is completely obvious, but for me whose previous experience of playing covers was to break the song down to the lyrics and vocal melody and then rewrite everything to suit the band and their instrumentation, it was an eye-opener and not always in good way.

IIRC the first batch of Thunderbird Pro Vs were fitted with 4 string pickups (either by mistake or because Epiphone thought they could get away with it), which is why the B string sounds really weedy. Later in the production run this was sorted out, so it might be worth getting in touch with Epiphone, explaining your problem and seeing if they will be able to supply the correct replacement pickups.

[quote name='prowla' timestamp='1487624322' post='3241352'] The V is another classic Gibson, showing imagination. [/quote] Which is why MS is playing a Dean!

It all depends on a number of factors. What are the extra basses needed for? Spares in case of string breakage etc? Different tunings? Fretted/fretless? How important is it for you to maintain the flow of the band's set? Could you get away with one bass for all the songs if you really had to? If you broke a string would you rather be able to grab another bass ready to go, or would you have time to fit a replacement string? How much room is there on stage for extra instruments? How easy is it to transport the extra basses to the gig? The answers to those questions will vary from bassist to bassist, and will probably change with a change of band as well. I've taken four basses to a gig in the past - fretted and fretless and a backup for each, and have also lived dangerously and only taken one, when space in the band transport (for a different band) has been at a premium.

Do any videos in other threads show up for you? On the computer version of the forum they require Flash to work which of course isn't supported under iOS. Otherwise it might simply be the number of videos posted in each page of the thread is too overwhelming for mobile devices. I just loaded the first page of the thread and even with a nice fast hard-wired connection on my desktop Mac, I gave up out of boredom before all the videos had loaded.

[quote name='GarethFlatlands' timestamp='1487612182' post='3241218'] What did Kylie and Rick Astley play? [/quote] Sorry, I'm too thick to get the joke...

[quote name='GarethFlatlands' timestamp='1487610962' post='3241203'] I'm a child of the 80's, I just missed out! It was all pointy headstocks and Steinbergers when I were a lad. [/quote] I think it also depends on the genres you were into at the time. For me the 80s was all, Aria Pro II, Ibanez, Wal and Overwater.

[quote name='GarethFlatlands' timestamp='1487609270' post='3241185'] There's a few exceptions but when was the last time you saw a player you looked up to with a Gibson bass? [/quote] Well for me, about half of my favourite bands in 70s. And the other half were playing Rickenbackers.

It's a pity that Patrick Eggle is damaging his reputation by being associated with this. I'm lucky enough to own an Eggle-era FretKing Esprit guitar, which is a very fine instrument indeed.

[quote name='yorks5stringer' timestamp='1487359234' post='3239338'] Interesting video, Ben from Crimson came along to a Bass bash 4/5 years ago bringing a totally plexiglass Bass (including neck). He's got an interesting slant on things. [/quote] I've had a go on the Crimson bass with the acrylic/plexiglass neck and body. IIRC it was made for Charlie Jones who plays bass in Goldfrapp. The bass looks stunning from a distance, but it's massively heavy and close-up there are all sorts of things that don't look quite so good, like all the unpolished internal routing.

[quote name='BassTractor' timestamp='1487603643' post='3241095'] Gearslutz is actually a British forum and has a sales section. However, its main membership seems to be Mercan plus worldwide, so you'd have to somehow filter any search results. Dunno whether the forum software offers this type of filtering. I also wonder whether the Sound on Sound forum has a sales section. Good luck! [/quote] Sound ON Sound has a separate classifieds section for buying a selling stuff.

I wouldn't use USB for simultaneous multi-track recording unless it is full USB2 spec as a minimum for both the interface and the port on the computer, and there is nothing else sharing the the USB bus that the interface is connected to. That includes internal components of your laptop that use USB such as the keyboard, trackpad, webcam, bluetooth, WiFi etc. If your computer is a Mac you can check what devices are on each USB bus using the System Profiler, I don't know if there is a similar facility built into Windows.

[quote name='markdavid' timestamp='1487597779' post='3241020'] Wow I had no idea Fender were so much in debt, seems strange considering how popular their products are , literally everyone I know that plays bass or guitar has a Fender, knowing this I am glad that the majority of my bass purchases have been Fender made (basses,strings,straps) , I may not be the biggest spender but it is nice to know that I have supported them in some way however small [/quote] But looking at it another way, it could be said that you purchases have helped them to buy up and run down far more interesting competing brands such as SWR and Genz-Benz...

[quote name='LukeFRC' timestamp='1487454993' post='3239994'] it is odd isn't it - I wonder how influenced we are by American forums and press that the US versions of our luthiers are revered but ours less so. Some of it is the size of marked I guess - but if I compared Sei to Fodera, or overwater to sadowsky would I find a massive difference in the end product? [/quote] Being a Sei and Overwater owner, and having tried Fodera and Sadowsky basses, I would say that they are completely different instruments aimed and different players. IMO once you go beyond the budget Fender copy market, you really can't compare different instruments to say what is best. Only what is the most suitable for YOU.

Happy Jack, I'm assuming that the only difference between the Lull T-Bass and the T4 is the body shape? Do they sound significantly different in the band mix?

The 80s spans a vast range of sounds and styles from Post-Punk, via Synth Pop, New Romantic, Indie Guitar all the way to Baggy/Madchester and Acid House. Which style/era(s) are you covering? For early 80s pop you can't go far wrong with an Aria Pro II SB 1000 and a fretless Wal through a Trace Elliot amp.

IMO too many of the bands mentioned in this thread are far too well known - especially those from the 70s and 80s who were all fairly regular fixtures on John Peel's shows. So in the interest of featuring some bands who you really won't have heard of, but who all had records available to buy, I present some of my favourite bands from Nottingham in the early 80s: [b]Medium Medium[/b]. In the early 80s this was the band who were tipped to put Nottingham on the musical map. Post-punk white boy funk. Got signed to Cherry Red and released a couple of singles and an album "The Glitterhouse" and then singer/sax player Rees Lewis left to form C-Cat Trance (who IMO are far too well known for inclusion here). The rest of the band soldiered on with a succession of guitarists and keyboard players as less than successful replacements until finally calling it a day in 1983. [b]23 Jewel[/b]s. Their debut single "Playing Bogart" was a regular on John Peel's show, made Single of the Week in the NME and was covered by Any Trouble, but none of this was enough to make them famous. Two more singles followed to almost complete indifference and they split without releasing their 4th single "The Bomb Party"/"I Can't Think Of More Than One Thing At Once". Singer and songwriter, Nick Simpson is now a classical composer and conductor. [b]One Million Fuzztone Guitars[/b]. Developed over the course of 2 singles and an album from a rather weird Stylophone and drum machine two-piece to a full-blown rock band. Very favourable coverage in the music press and Julian Cope was a fan, but still they got little interest outside of Nottingham. [b]None So Blind[/b]. Debut single "My Favourite Eyes" was produced by Dave Stewart of The Eurhythmics and recorded in the same studio where they made the "Sweet Dreams" album, but it took almost a year from the recording session until the record was actually released, by which time the band had all but split up. Their record distributor going bust and all the unsold pressings getting destroyed didn't help either. [b]The Howdy Boys[/b]. Started off life as a bunch of art students cavorting about to backing tapes dressed in charity shop suits covered in flour. Eventually morphed into complex improvised drum-machine driven post-punk funk pop. Regular fixtures on the Nottingham scene and released two singles, but like many bands of the era, their recorded sound failed to capture to energy and anarchy of their live show and by the time the second single had been released, the band was pretty much over. [b]Splat![/b] Imagine The Birthday Party as a jazz-funk band if you can... These days they are far better known for running Ron Johnson Records (who brought you Stump and many other better known artists) than for any of their own music.

Excellent! Is there going to be a CD version as well?

I think the reserve price stems from the days when your listing fee was based on the start price that you set. Therefore in order to minimise the listing fee, you started low and put a reserve price on your item. These days when everyone seems to have more than enough free listings - I've been selling on eBay for almost 10 years now and have never paid a penny in listing fees, the reserve price is somewhat redundant. Simply start your item at the minimum price you would like to get for it and go from there.

The fuse in a detachable mains lead is there to protect the lead, not the equipment it is attached to which will have its own appropriately rated fuse. The difference between a lead for a kettle and a "kettle lead" has already been adequately explained in previous posts. Surge protectors/power conditioners and similar are only really required in places like the USA who have a considerably less than robust electricity supply compared with the UK. IME when there have been mains problems in this country nothing less than a properly spec'd UPS would have been suitable.

I have no problem buying and selling musical gear on eBay. In fact for a selling PoV it has been a lot less painless than selling on here (or anywhere else). Also I think that eBay's fees are very reasonable considering the size of the audience you are going to reach compared with all the alternatives. Remember in the "good old days" before eBay your local musical instrument shop would sell stuff for you, but they would take at least 15%, it was likely to take to months to actually sell, and maybe even longer before you actually got any money, and during that time it was subject to abuse from anyone who wanted to to "try it out" in the shop. And if you just wanted to PX against something else in the shop, then good luck getting more than 50% of what you were selling was actually worth.

[quote name='Ghost_Bass' timestamp='1487238255' post='3238217'] This bridge was enough to put me off them. It may be pretty and retro looking but who wants to play with a guitar where you can't get your intonation straight? [/quote] You will be able to get the intonation right, but only with standard string sets. If you favour something a bit more esoteric like light top/heavy bottom, you are going to be struggling and if you want to use it permanently in a non-standard tuning with the appropriate string gauges for that tuning then you are going to be sh*t out of luck.