Silvia Bluejay

Thanks for that Chris, and well done. Despite being female, Lakeside is my idea of hell - together with the various Westfields and Oxford/Regent Street etc. - so if I make the trip from West London when I'm (eventually) ready to buy, it will be to see you guys and the basses only Edited for typo - can't even spell Westfield correctly, let alone entertain the idea of shopping there.

*reads above post and smiles with Zen-like serenity*

Heh, not being sexist - I guess most women's hands are just too small for a 6-string bass...

[quote name='dmccombe7' timestamp='1323448319' post='1463573'] In my day you only had 4 strings. How i managed to have 6 strings I'll never know. Don't even know what the other two are for Dave [/quote] LOL probably some weird stuff more suitable to guitarists - but their 6 strings are puny and tuned stupid

I think you can remove and replace the knobs easily by either unscrewing the small fixing screw on each knob or by simple push-and-pull action if they have no fixing screw. I guess it is possible to mask the pickups; I'm not sure whether you'd be better off removing the back plate and carefully masking and protecting the electronics inside, though, rather than leaving the plate in place. Afterthought: if you remove the knobs, you will still be left with the potentiometers' stems to mask.

[quote name='dmccombe7' timestamp='1323343983' post='1462157'] Good poll. Surprised me just how many players had several basses. When younger i had one bass up till i had two. Dave [/quote] If you're like me, you hold on to your cheap 4-string student bass for sentimental reasons (I would never sell it, and as a L/H model it would have a very limited market); then buy a good 4-stringer, then feel the need for a 5-stringer, then for an upright. I'm at the stage when I feel the need for a 5-string upright, but can't afford one yet (esp. as I need a L/H one). Such is life

Blimey, there's currently 20 of you with 10+ basses. Awesome. I 'only' have 4 - waiting for my financial situation to improve (as in: reached rock bottom, the only way is up...) before allowing myself to become a serious case of GAS

I've been a member for one month today, and very happy I am that I joined. Threads that are both interesting and fun, friendly discussions, a wealth of info to be found both in past threads and in expert members' very helpful replies to my recent questions, and the knowledge that there will always be someone who shares your experiences. Thank you all for making me feel at home here. Keep up the good work.

Absolutely. But to go back on topic, left-handed people are a minority: if not even they are united in creating demand for left-handed objects - because a percentage of them, happily or otherwise, manage to learn to use the right-handed version - then manufacturers won't bother catering for us properly. (The exceptions in our field being the German guitar makers I mentioned above.)

Some info here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Left-handedness With apologies for going off topic! Will stop immediately.

[quote name='leftybassman392' timestamp='1322748503' post='1455310'] Don't get me started! The entire language is thick with it. *pause for deep, calming breath* [/quote] I'm not a Romance Philology expert (although I studied Latin and ancient Greek, as well as Germanic Philology), but I seem to remember learning somewhere that many of the unfavourable connotations to anything "left" originate from the use the Church made of the concept in the Middle Ages, possibly also on the basis of previous superstitions. Can't remember the exact reason though. Enough material for another dissertation!

Yeah, and what about the meaning and connotations of the word "dextrous" vs "sinister"? Sigh.

I had guessed that correctly then, after checking the strings online. Thanks for clarifying.

[quote name='EssentialTension' timestamp='1322672969' post='1454307'] TI Jazz Flats are low tension nickel flats and have a brighter more middy sound than is common with many flats. They are sensitive to the way they are played and can produce a range of sounds. [/quote] Thanks for that Dave - sounds good, and I'll keep it in mind.

Excellent, thank you Geoff.

PS I think I need to add that I did change the strings following the proper procedure, and the unwinding/exposing the core/dismantling and general fiddling around was simply out of curiosity! Also, it wasn't the first time I did it, but the previous times I had replaced like with like, and noticed no particular difference in stiffness or difficulty to cut or wind around the pegs. Very possibly, all the sets I replaced were pretty sh*te, considering that they came from the factory with each of the basses.

Thanks again for the abundance of highly intriguing facts, Noel. I'm going to re-read your post several times and learn it all! Sorry if I seemed to misunderstand the fact that the core is always steel - I thought otherwise because of my experience of removing the old strings, which felt easier to cut and/or unwind from the tuning pegs even after I had stripped the external (round) windings and exposed the core. The flatwounds (both the complete strings and just the cores) were harder both to wind around the tuning pegs and to cut to length. The gauges were the same - maybe the strings I removed were simply absolute crap...

Thanks Noel! I knew the facts you mention in your explanation, but in a less detailed way, so it's good of you to go through them for me. One of the reasons why I prefer flats is that I have to shift my fretting hand a lot when playing, unlike those who have larger hands, and so I sometimes make more 'noise' than I would like to. I don't mind the 'deadness' at all - it's the looow end we're dealing with, after all My - admittedly limited - experience with strings is that, as you say, flats tend to be made at least partly of steel; those I have on my Corvette are entirely made of steel, hence their stiffness. As I said, I'm not particularly looking for nickel, so I probably better concentrate on what the core is made of, and what shape it is, in the sets I may buy. I know about half-wound strings but I've found it very hard to ever come across a set, online, in shops or at music fairs - can't think it would be any easier to find a set for a 5-stringer. I think I'll get one of the flat sets helpfully mentioned in the replies above, but not immediately, and in the meantime I'll keep my eyes open for all the options you guys mention. Thanks a million, everybody!

Excellent, Coilte (and Machines), will check them out. Thank you so very much. I'm not necessarily after cheap, for the reasons you mention.

Thank you Burg. I should probably have said 'non-steel' rather than nickel flatwounds - I'm simply looking for something less stiff. Will do a search for the names mentioned above asap.

Wow, three replies within less than an hour! I'm infinitely grateful! Could you guys possibly tell me the product code/ID for the sets of strings you mention? I only seem to find sets of 4 whenever I search for flatwounds of any type. Thank you! Love this forum

Last year I bought a set of steel flatwound strings, as an experiment, to replace the normal nickel roundwounds on my 4-string Rockbass Corvette. I have decided that I really like the less noisy flatwounds, and would like to put a set on my 5-string Fortress as well. I hope you guys' collective wisdom will help me see if that's a. possible and b. advisable. In a nutshell: 1. Does anyone know if nickel flatwounds exist, especially in sets of 5? Steel strings are fine on the 4, but I don't fancy tackling a bloody great B string made of steel, as it'd probably be too stiff for my tiny little fingers to press properly... 2. In case the answer to the above is yes, do you guys think it would make sense to try them? Or will a flatwound 5-stringer be barely audible, or sound awful, at lower frequencies - what with both flatwounds and 5-string basses being less bright in sound? Thank you in advance for any advice. PS I blame my taking up the double bass for learning to love the feel of flatwound strings

Heh...

I agree, Ped. And there are threads like this in every single forum I've ever been on. Tthe forum I've been on longest, for 11 years, has had scores of threads similar to this one throughout the years, but is still there, and thriving, and using the same ancient software which everyone hates because it's old-fashioned - but clearly not crap enough to stop them all posting and debating like mad. (That last observation is aimed to those of us here who hate this new interface and sometimes feel they'll have to stop posting because of it.)

I'm a newbie here but a veteran on other forums (for instance, I've been a member of one of them for 11 years now), and I can assure you that the vocal majority on any site does tend to change as time goes by. It's not always a case of evolution, sometimes (often?) it's actually involution, for instance if many of the good old posters are driven away by new, aggressive posters who, however, aren't aggressive enough for the mods to justify kicking them out altogether. Other times it's life that gets in the way, for instance in those cases where many of the regulars are more or less the same age and leave school/find a new job/get married/have kids or whatever. Doesn't apply here, though. Any forum needs to hit the right balance between technical/specialised topics and general interest threads in order to retain a wide audience. Controversy usually puts bums on seats, so to speak, so in general (but not necessarily here) some troublemakers are tolerated unless they seriously cross the line. I voted against the reputation system here, but my impression is that it's been up for too little time to have a big influence on the atmosphere on the forum - happy to stand corrected if I'm talking rubbish... I have no solution to suggest, but I would like to say that, judging from what I've seen in my first few weeks as a member, I like this community, and yes, it definitely [b]is[/b] a community. As such, I'm sure it will assimilate the new arrivals and move on with no lasting damage.