BigRedX

[quote name='zawinul' timestamp='1475061850' post='3142686'] no exactly the same, 2 octave 34 inch.. they have different strings though,,, lighter on fretless , need some meaty ones i think !! [/quote] There you go. Problem solved. Off course lighter strings are going have less tension.

Is the ACG a different scale length to the Warwick?

Are you using the same make and gauge of strings on both basses?

There used to be a card tucked into the back on International Musician that allowed you to get more information from their advertisers simply by ticking the boxes of the manufacturers your were interested in. Then many weeks after you'd sent it off and complete forgotten about it, catalogues would start to arrive in the post. I think I ticked every single guitar and synthesiser manufacturer, and as a result had a whole stack of brochures for gear I could only dream about affording one day. I think my favourite was the John Birch catalogue full of photos of weirdly shaped guitars.

[quote name='thebrig' timestamp='1474974387' post='3141908'] In 1967 I bought a s/h Burns Sonic bass for £15, this was more than THREE times my weekly wage, which was £4/10/0d (£4.50p to all you younger people). I borrowed the money from my older sister and payed her back in weekly instalments of 10/- (50P) for the next 30 weeks. Today the cost of that bass compared to how much I earned would be the equivalent of about £1400/1500 I guess, although today, £1500 would buy you a much better bass than that Burns Sonic for sure! [/quote] Thinking about it my secondhand Burns Sonic Bass bought for £60 in 1981 was far more indulgent in terms of what it cost against what I could afford to spend than any that I have bought since. Certainly nothing I've bought in the last 20 years has required me to cut back on what I spent on food so that I could buy it.

My Sei 5-string fretless. I spent over a year researching luthiers and playing as many fretless basses as I could to work out exactly what I wanted. And then another 18 months waiting while Martin Petersen actually built it. The band it was made to use in split up 2 gigs after I took delivery. Fretless bass hasn't really been suitable for any of the bands I've played with since (although it did get used on the recording of one track for the "SnakeOil For Snakes" album), so it's hardly been used for anything other than noodling about at home. Having said that I've spend far more on studio equipment most of which is completely worthless now.

Is the music any good? And can you get on with whoever is responsible for writing the lyrics and doing the singing? Everything else can be fixed after you join.

When I was 11 I had just discovered pop/rock music having previously shown very little interest in any kind of music of any kind. It would be another 2 years before I started to learn to play the guitar, but had I been playing back then it would have been glam rock songs inspired by T Rex etc. that I had written myself.

It's well over 20 years ago since I last had to personally organise hiring a PA system so my prices won't be that much use. However when The Terrortones did our first single launch gig back in 2012 we had to hire in a PA as the one in the venue we had chosen wasn't much use for anything other than acoustic guitar and vocals. Mr Venom sorted it all out but I can't imagine we paid more than £75 as the whole event was on a bit of a tight budget and we did actually manage to turn a profit on the evening. When I first started gigging in the early 80s no-where had it's own PA system so you had to hire something in. It's only from the late 90s onwards that I've started to see PA systems permanently installed in venues. These days all the places we play provide the PA and someone to work it.

Who should own the PA? The venue or the PA hire company.

I haven't heard this track in years but on a quick re-listen, to me it's obvious that the whole rhythm section is synths/samples and sequenced. In fact I suspect all the instruments except the main guitar parts are synths/samples that have been sequenced, and maybe even the acoustic guitar isn't 100% played.

I really like that. Pity the back is so boring.

A rather ordinary looking bass with an interesting concept. However I'm not keen on the way the photographs manage to avoid showing clearly what is happening to the standard strings where they pass over the fret/nut and through the fingerboard. Also I can't help but feel that this lends itself far better to a headless design rather than the current Heath Robinson arrangement to get the strings to the tuners.

[quote name='Happy Jack' timestamp='1474297376' post='3136910'] I read history, for pleasure and to learn things. I listen to history for much the same reason. I listen to Bach and Mozart, Beethoven and Tchaikovsky, Gershwin and Cole Porter, Sinatra and Elvis, The Beatles and David Bowie. It's pleasant and I learn things. [/quote] But it is just history. As we get further and further away from the early 60s the musical, cultural and social climate that created The Beatles and allowed them to become successful and important at that time, it becomes less relevant to what is happening musically, culturally and socially today. I find the history fascinating but no more so than any other period or cultural/social happening that I am interested in.

Like the way it says "comparable to hardware solutions"... Considering that IME all the pitch to MIDI hardware solutions add too much latency to be any use unless you learn to play ahead of the beat, I too am rather sceptical. And some are considerably worse than others... However I will be downloading the demo as well to see what I think of it in practice.

[quote name='molan' timestamp='1474285633' post='3136762'] There's a reason people like Fender copies - still hard to get some gigs without something that looks like a Fender and many beginners want to start with something that's familiar. I realise BC can be very elitist at times though so maybe that's why they aren't as popular. . . [/quote] What I was trying to imply was there are already hundreds of copies of Fender basses available at all sorts of price points, so why yet another brand doing it and what do they hope will make them more special than all the others? Especially when the headstock logo is so eye-waveringly ugly! And if I was a beginner after a Fender-style bass I'd probably want be looking at one that actually said Fender on the headstock even if it was only a very small logo.

[quote name='blue' timestamp='1474290903' post='3136846'] I'll never understand why you guys mock and have very little appreciation for this incredible part of music history which is yours. Or is pride another culture difference? Blue [/quote] And that's exactly it. It is history. And while the majority of pop/rock musicians who have come in their wake have to a certain extent stood upon the shoulders of the Beatles to get where they are, as time goes on their influence becomes less and less relevant. Here in 2016 two of them are dead and the other two might as well be for all the impact they have had on popular music in the last 20 or so years. Even when I was getting into music at the age of 10 in 1971, to me the Beatles were already old hat. And as a band they were no longer playing together and therefore they weren't releasing any new material. I quite liked one of Ringo's singles and thought that Wings made a couple of decent albums, but when there plenty of bands coming out with new and exciting music, why bother with a band that isn't going to be releasing anything new? Made nostalgia is something you get more into as you get older?

I'll wait for it to be on the telly...

[quote name='molan' timestamp='1474279042' post='3136663'] Great value for money. Can't understand why there isn't more love for them here. [/quote] Because they are mostly Fender copies with a horrible looking logo on the headstock? How many more Fender copies does the world need?

[quote name='Dan Dare' timestamp='1474020155' post='3134961'] If the instrument's worth a bit, isn't a cheap gig bag a false economy? I went through a couple of cheapies before seeing the light and getting a Fusion. Wish I'd got one first off. [/quote] Having owned all sorts of cases from what was essentially a guitar-shaped plastic bag to full-flight cases you need to pick the right case for your situation. IME a £30 padded gig bag that is comfortable to wear is going to be fine. Unless you need maximum portability and maximum protection, I really can't see the point of these modern semi-rigid cases, and I'm saying that as Mono M80 owner.

[quote name='dood' timestamp='1473766316' post='3132886'] Long detailed answers very welcome! [/quote] So dood, care to enlighten us on the purpose of this poll?

The only thing to watch with the Ibanez Artcore guitars is if they have a Bigsby-style vibrato, check that it's happy with your playing style, as the break angle over the bridge is very shallow and anyone who plays even moderately hard will have the strings popping off their saddles.

No. I'll buy the one that I like the best, although I'd probably pass on both if the one I liked the best was the more expensive one and didn't look/play/sound significantly better than the cheaper one.

[quote name='stingrayPete1977' timestamp='1473935095' post='3134256'] Which we know and afaik no one disagrees with? Even two maple necks the same cut I the same cnc machine would have differences, changing necks totally would no doubt change things. The only way I could see this bring proven would be to rig up done kind of computer driven playing device with the bass clamped in ay a set nm torque then shave the neck without removing the neck or strings then retest it, maybe even shave the neck with the bass clamped in place. The results would be of no interest and totally pointless after so I'm struggling to think of a university or lab that would take the task on! [/quote] Even if you did this, the only thing it would show is how altering the thickness of that particular neck attached to that particular instrument at that moment in time alters the sound.

[quote name='chris_b' timestamp='1473931328' post='3134198'] Other than changing the neck does alter the sound of an instrument. [/quote] It could be that simply removing and replacing the same neck will change the sound of the instrument if you don't put it back on exactly how it was before.