Silvia Bluejay

While I agree that life would be easier without Invapay and its successors, punters at a pub are not suppliers. Suppliers invoice their clients, be that pubs, supermarkets or anything else. Bands are suppliers, so it's not unthinkable that, to have a clean audit trail, pubs want invoices from us. As discussed earlier in this thread, the system appears to be aimed at stopping landlords cheating the brewery. Now, if the system receives a valid invoice and can't recognise it, or read it, that's another matter. 🤔

Watch out for The Death Of Cash. At the end of our NYE gig, we were paid by card (we have one of those small readers you link to your mobile). We hadn't agreed that in advance, but the pub had £70 in cash at the end of the night. EVERYBODY paid by card. We added the small handling fee, and everybody was happy. This is going to become a rather more common occurrence, I think.

If you buy new, as a bass player, being left-handed usually costs you more in terms of restricted choice than in actual monetary terms. The minimum 10% surcharge for lefty models is a fact, except in the case of certain companies, notably Warwick, who say they charge the same for identical LH and RH models. The problem is that they - like every other company - offer a far smaller choice of lefties than righties. (We're not talking custom shop models, of course.) Uprights have the same surcharge and restricted choice problems, with the additional secondary issue of almost always having to order one and wait for it. As a rule of thumb, you have to assume that lefty double basses do not exist. Thomann used to have some models a few years ago, and may still have one or two, but they must be the only store who can afford the warehouse space to cater for that tiny market! (They did/do apply the minimum 10% surcharge too.) In general, you expect to either order a lefty DB to be built from scratch, or buy an old righty and get a good luthier to move the bass bar and the soundpost, replace the nut and the bridge and, often, modify or replace the tailpiece. [Edit: and re-shape the fingerboard!] The above is more of a statement of fact than a moan. For as long as left-handed people give in to pressure and learn right-handed, this parlous situation won't change. I am grateful to Paul McCartney for insisting on staying a lefty player and, as a consequence, putting 'proper', non-upside-down lefty instrument playing on the map for the benefit of the rest of us.

@Happy Jack and I collected the Lull from Andy this afternoon! It will be in action at our next gig, this Saturday in Chiswick. More to come after that, of course.

I have a made-in-Indonesia Höfner Beatle Bass, which I bought new in 2014 for I think about £200, which looks and sounds the part. I don't play it much, mostly because I'm not keen on the sound and the ergonomics, but I like to have it in my arsenal all the same, a bit like my Steinberger Spirit.

Damo is also the songwriter and 100% copyright holder for the band's originals. Edit to add: he's The Talent, while Jack and I are the band's managers...

Wonderful. The fretless version looks so gorgeous that even the tort pickguard is all right on it... 😉 💗

My understanding is that NS supply an endpin if you're not too happy with the (rather ugly!) tripod. I think it has to come from NS because I can't see how you could attach a normal endpin to the upright bass (I've got one right here) without some kind of huge kludge. Although I hate the look of the tripod, I find it immensely comfortable and easy to use. Switching to a 'normal' endpin would look cooler, but also give me trouble in keeping the correct distance from the bass, as it doesn't have a spacing bracket. The advantage of a full-size acoustic DB is that you can't possibly hold it too close to your body and get your plucking elbow and your wrists into trouble by using the wrong technique. That, however, is a risk in a 'stick' upright, and you should keep that in mind at all times.

Matter of taste, peeps, matter of taste. 😉

That is fantastic! Congrats. 👍

Yeuch. I blame Fender for starting the rot. 😉

Yeeuch. 😱

We got home around 2am from the Buckinghamshire gig, and I managed to hit the pillow around 4am, after downloading the footage to the computer and faffing around a bit (I'm a girl, after all... 😉). Up at 9.15 this morning, not exactly bright eyed and bushy tailed, but feeling perfectly human. Happy New Year to all! 🙂

Now if only that horrible, horrible tort pickguard could be replaced with a black one... 🙄

Lefty Wal in the house. The drumkit has the Junkyard Dogs' name because the band were the organisers. None of the musicians on stage in this pic are currently in the band.

Thanks Piers - the night went well beyond our expectations, everybody was friendly, there was some great music being played, and it was great to both see old faces after a long time and new faces joining 'the club', so to speak. I wish I could have had the time to play your lovely Wal a bit, but of course, and unsurprisingly, it was not to be - what with three cameras, a PA and the occasional technical glitch to take care of... We had @chris_b, @MacDaddy, @Piers_Williamson, @Happy Jackand yours truly from this parish - Basschat 'pwned' the place! 😉😂

It entirely depends on what kind of gig you end up playing. Certain places, landlords and/or audiences make it an absolute ordeal from all points of view and totally not worth it, no matter how handsomely you may get paid. There needs to be a lot of recce work on the place, the logistics and the clientele before accepting a NYE gig. (Indeed, if possible, before accepting any gig, but that's not always easy.)

I agree with that, the only exception being gigging. No gig, no going out for us. Apart from last year lockdown, we need to go back a number of years for us not to have had a NYE gig. I wasn't too keen on going to NYE parties and similar even when I was younger either. The worst one was NYE 1999, in London, where my then BF and I wanted to see the fireworks in person as opposed to the TV, and enjoy the 'new millennium' atmosphere. It was crap, we weren't allowed anywhere near the action, nothing was open to the public, people were either being crushed in small corners with a hint of a view or wandering aimlessly in the streets... we went home and swore we'd watch it all on TV in the future.

Excellent! Any Basschatters attending, do come and say hi to Jack and me - I'll be on duty behind the camera(s) and sharing the workload at the mixing desk.

No, if it's only got three strings it's an old-style double bass. 😱

In times like these, that's way safer than being smooched by strangers... 😉

If we don't get locked down, and nobody in the band catches Omicron or is pinged etc., we are gigging with Damo And The Dynamites at a nice small pub in Buckinghamshire. There will be little space for the band and even less space for the PA and the sound engineer (me), so we'll try to simplify the setup as much as we can. 🤞

Googling around a bit I was able to find a couple of articles that examine the characteristics of strings in slightly more detail than the usual beginner help files. For an in-depth study of the actual properties of each metal used to create a string, though, I think we'd need to brush up on atomic physics! Presumably the structure and types of bonds in each metal's molecule is what gives the metal its characteristics. Would be lovely to see, say, a PhD study of their effects on sound. Anyone? Article about bass strings Article about guitar strings

No. No fee to pay, at least by the supplier. We got paid exactly what we invoiced, and we didn't have to add a percentage for the handling fee, unlike what we used to do with Invapay.

Thoroughly fascinating. 👍🙂