Silvia Bluejay

For my most recent purchases I've dealt with Jessica Wilson and Cristina Szlopp there - both extremely nice, and both of them remembered the female bass player from London!

They reply to emails with a delay of at least 24 hours, even if you respond to their reply within 30 seconds - so the delays mount and mount and it takes a few days to do something that in this country would be solved in minutes. But I can't fault them on the phone, not just for sales but for customer service as well. They all speak good English, some of them are clearly native, so language shouldn't be a problem.

In my experience they are crap on email but super-efficient on the phone. Get thee on to skype and talk to them.

I tend to notice either the melody - usually only if the singer is awesome, say Halford, Dio, and similar - or the bassline - as in, I start humming that, not the melody, and I will recognise the song by its bassline the following time I hear it. It usually takes me a few listens before I manage to appreciate the song in its entirety. I have known drummers describe a song only through its rhythm, and heavy metal guitarists describe a song via a succession of memorable riffs. I reckon that most musicians apply some sort of "filter", i.e. they concentrate their attention on their main instrument while listening to a new song. I know that, as a musician, I now do just that to a far higher degree than I used to when I was only a keen listener.

oooooo can't wait!!!

Welcome AJ! Switching from guitar to The Mother Of All Stringed Instruments is a good move Good gear too. Next, you'll find you want a 5-stringer of some sort

I'd missed this thread! Fantastic, and full of good humour. I haven't got any pic of me playing any of my basses, as I don't play live, so here again is one that some of you may have seen on ped's recent Show Us Your BC Merch thread. I'm wearing Happy Jack's t-shirt pinned with hairclips at the back.

Good to know you had fun! Love the photo - and you play double bass in the band! I really want to check you guys out.

That is one beeeeeautiful R**********r!

Heh. Good to know there will be no slappers. Me and Shell no slappers, Sir. Cake, tea and coffee, on the other hand...

Oh, wow, that sounds brilliant! Count me in!

That sounds lovely and i'm totally up for it!

The reason why we decided for a Saturday was that Sunday public transport is pathetic, and those who have to travel a long way to get home would be in trouble. Hopefully we'll be able to organise more meetups after this one.

I want to be there too, when the next one comes! Will try to read this thread from the start, to see what the bash is about Edit: Aw, hope there will be some other lefties? Otherwise there's no point in me lugging one of my lefty babies around - I could just come along sans instrument and stand there and smile and perhaps serve tea?

Couldn't make it tonight even if it was closer, I'm afraid. But please keep us posted on your future gigs!

I tend to be a bit sentimental about the gear I own, and I don't think I would consider getting rid of any of my basses, no matter how cheap or expensive they may be. They are all different - as in, fretted or fretless, 4 or 5, upright or guitar, and a new acoustic bass guitar is due soon - so I have no "doubles" sitting in a corner gathering dust. The only bass guitar I don't play anymore is my student bass, my very first instrument (bought as part of a combo with amp for around £60 a few years ago!), but I cherish it for the memories, and it will continue to be part of my music family like the others.

The D ang G strings on my two active Rockbasses (fretted 5 and fretted 4) have the same "characteristic" to a certain extent, and I found it very noticeable - and a bit irritating - at first. However, the D and G strings now sound practically as good as the other strings, after I put on D'Addario Chromes on the 5 and T-I flats on the 4. I had already raised the pickups slightly under the D and the G long ago, but I don't think that made a lot of difference. My fretless 5, which has passive MECs pups and D'Addario Chromes, doesn't have and never had the problem at all. Edit for clarity: I'm talking about the raw sound, as I don't use any effects at all.

Unfortunately there's no way we can find a day everybody can make! But we'll have more meetups in the future, if this one is well attended.

Good to know you find the Vox useful. It appears to be incompatible with my MEC pickups, as I haven't found any setting that sounds acceptable on my bass guitars. However, the Vox works OK on my uprights.

Thanks for that! Note taken

My initial post says from 12pm - if that sounds too early we can do 1pm instead - let me know your opinions. Those who'd like to have my phone No, feel free to PM me.

Thanks for the reminder! I was looking at this thread last night, but chose to leave it alone. I desperately hold on to the hope that, by 26th, summer will have decided to make an appearance, and this interestingly wet drought will be over...

Doing most of my non-upright playing on the sub-£150 Corvette fretless 5, and loving it. Having said that, all my basses are cheap, except for the NS 5 upright...

Excellent idea, well done. Hope you both had a good time and did good business. I wish you guys were based nearer where I live.

Thank you all for this thread and for making it a sticky. Fantastic.