noisedude

Spoil us with a photo!

[quote name='joegarcia' post='138584' date='Feb 11 2008, 11:54 PM']Hehe, yup. Glad someone on here knows who my avatar is of. [/quote] I thought it was someone from He Man. Cool story, and you're right ... I'm no Jamiroquai fan but THAT is the bass playing that made me want to pick up a four- or five-string and get some groove running. Did he play for you at all? Would've been awesome to get a quick masterclass!!

The best advice I've heard over the years is that sounding like your heroes is much more to do with playing like them than playing the same instrument as them. I suspect Cliff Burton could play a headless Steinberger or a fretless acoustic bass and still sound more like Cliff Burton than me playing his exact rig. With that in mind, it's really important that you try some out and play what feels right to YOU. In six-string world, I have toiled with guitars for years that I have bought because I love the look and sound of, but which just don't fit under my hands like others do at all. So try some in a few shops, and then make a decision at home before hunting for the best deal on one that you really like.

Seem to be a lot of Yorkshire people joining at the moment, myself included. Live in Leeds, currently spending my weeks in Bradford doing teacher training. Nice collection of gear! If you ever need to dispose of a Warwick at a convenient location, I have a secure "drop off point" and can ensure you never need to see it again!

[quote name='Mr. Foxen' post='137350' date='Feb 9 2008, 10:36 PM']I expect they all make bits, some necks and some bodies, and some put the neck and bodies together. At the end of the day they are lumps of wood, the ones I have make the required noises and for the most part fit together with other bits.[/quote] Totally! A friend of mine is inspired by the guitars made by Mansons for Matt Bellamy from Muse and bought a few AXL/Johnson Teles to start putting custom circuits and FX into. Now he's moving onto basses, was thinking about getting him to put a Whammy or some sort of MIDI controller into a cheap bass so I could try some awesome new sounds without trashing a more expensive instrument. Dumb thing is, lots of us have these cheap instruments that we play just as often as the things we saved up years for!

[quote name='Mr. Foxen' post='137291' date='Feb 9 2008, 08:30 PM']I was told that by a guy who imports them to America and uses them as a basis for customs (works out cheaper than painted body blanks or something) that was the case, when he was reccomending a buy from someone other than himself.[/quote] Oh I'm not disputing that they make that claim - as a matter of fact I had contact with the factory in China and they said the same thing. What I'm saying is that I dealt with other factories in China who made exactly the same claim - and they can't all be right. Speak to a rep from Saein or Dae Won, or from Cort (who claim to 'control' 25% of the world guitar market) or U.S. Music (who claim not to use OEM factories) etc etc etc, and you'll hear a lot of the same claims over and over from different people. Yes, Sound Control's Grainger amps come off the line that make the identical Epiphone ones, but if Dae Won make Epiphone and so do Saein but neither make Legacy, who is lying? And Cort and Saein can't both be making Ibanez and Washburn, can they? As I say - just take it with a pinch of salt because brand association is worth a HUGE amount to these companies.

I played an AXL (Johnson) Tiger 5-string bass yesterday and whilst it was a good looking thing with a fairly playable neck, the 5th string was dreadfully floppy to the point of unplayability, and the action wasn't low but the saddles were lowered onto the bridge - meaning that if you wanted to go lower you'd have to shim the neck, which is not ideal really. No worse than any other budget stuff but not honestly something that punches above its weight. It was a 5-string version of this bass and in an amber finish: [url="http://www.johnsongtr.com/Bass.66.0.html"]http://www.johnsongtr.com/Bass.66.0.html[/url]

[quote name='El_JimBob' post='137167' date='Feb 9 2008, 05:15 PM']AXL/Johnson build the chinese Squiers for Fender - for what it's worth [/quote] Hmmm ........... there a are quite a few companies who claim that (not to mention four different factories who claim to make Epiphone's Les Pauls) so with the greatest of respect I would advise taking that claim with a pinch of salt.

Quick update ... the Harley Benton pedals on Thomann are the same as the GLX pedals, so make sure you compare prices on there before you buy!!!

Hello mate. I'm from Leeds, not been here long myself and also a relatively recent convert to four and sometimes five strings. Great forum, just have to discipline myself to read more than I write or I'll never learn!!

[quote name='kevbass' post='133070' date='Feb 3 2008, 03:15 PM']Well, I dont ever think you can cure yourself of gas. Say you gas for a jazz, and you get that jazz, and you think "great, now I'll get a precision I really dont need to match my jazz" and then you get that precision, and then you find yourself playing the precision more and you think "I'll sell that jazz and get something active and modern to contrast my precision" so you get that modern active bass, then you think to yourself, "I know I'll sell my precision and get something 5 string active to go with my active 4 string" and then after a while you decide your playing five strings and you sell that four string in favour for a second five string and one day whilst playing on one of your fives you say to yourself "You know I really miss the simplicity of a passive 4 string jazz bass" and thus it continues, and it gets worse when you see a bass player who really inspires you when he or she is playing something you are yet to own or play. Once you've got gas its not going anywhere, unless you manage to guilt yourself into not buying anything else, but then that only usually lasts for a short while [/quote] This is exactly my process ... except I find that I keep more guitars than I sell!

[quote name='NJW' post='132744' date='Feb 2 2008, 08:05 PM']Noisedude - I need you to do something for me. Go to your kitchen and get a knife, or find a screwdriver from your toolbox. Then turn your bass round, and give it a good stab somewhere on the back. It needs to be done.[/quote] Haha yeah I used (as I keep saying) to sell guitars and I used to tell people I advised banging the new axe on the shop door frame on the way out to get that first dent out of the way. I've even got a couple of guitars I've smashed up deliberately. This worrying protective feeling is new to me. Photos coming soon.

Brought into the country by the same importer who does Richwood guitars. Have a bunch of them. All of them are good for the money - the bass EQ is quiet enough and does the job, the bass overdrive is fine as long as you don't mix too much in, the 'soft distortion' is terrible and the 'heavy metal' HM-100 is absolutely excellent but a little too scoopy in the mids. I've not personally had any problems but I have friends who've had reliability problems so best to use a dealer you can take it back to. Only sold in the north of England, in the Yorkshire / Lincolnshire areas. No website because if Boss ever spot them they'll be stopped.

Johnson was the replacement name for AXL guitars, basically a manufacturer who put out their own line of "me too" copycats. They changed distributor in the UK about 18 months ago, from British American Distribution to Westside. I used to sell AXL/Johnson guitars and basses (in my previous life before being a lowly school teacher) and they were decent but not superior to the Aria, Stagg, Encore etc etc etc starter stuff. One thing I'll say about them is that they were dreadfully set up as a rule. We had to work much harder to make a Johnson play well than a Stagg, for example, including fretwork more often than we'd like too. I think that they were spoken to by Fender at some point and had to (officially at least) pull all of their P-Basses, J-Basses, Strats, Teles and other Fender copies. Whether the things you see out there are old stock still doing the rounds or cheeky copies made under radar I don't know. Incidentally, anyone want a Warwick? [url="http://www.johnsongtr.com/Scavenger-Bass.1241.0.html"]http://www.johnsongtr.com/Scavenger-Bass.1241.0.html[/url]

[quote name='Mike' post='132495' date='Feb 2 2008, 12:02 PM']I was watching that bass. I used to own one, and gigged with it regularly. Just go for it - it's a tool (and a very nice one) and you'll kick yourself if it gathers dust at home. Just take care of it at gigs, watch it like a hawk etc![/quote] Yeah someone listed the item number up here I noticed after buying it. At the time I wasn't delighted with the price, it was a decent buy but not an amazing one, but now I see the condition it's in, I'm looking at a pretty professional-grade instrument and thinking that I couldn't have bought a MIM P-Bass for that money. I have another Ibanez, an SR300FM that's about to have some Quarter Pounders put in, but this is so much better to play that I think that's strictly backup and "I need a bolt-on sound" only now.

235 then. I have about 22 so I make that a total of 257 so far. Lot of 9v batteries there.

[quote name='Thunderthumbs' post='132371' date='Feb 2 2008, 01:28 AM']Any pics?[/quote] Tried earlier but need a bit more daylight to get the colours right! Will sort it out tomorrow!!

Dear Basschatters, Help me! I'm experiencing something that I expect is quite common but totally new to me. I scored a very nicely priced Ibanez DWB3 Doug Wimbish signature off the 'Bay and it came today. The thing is absolutely brand spanking new. The case is tolex, the sort that scrapes quite easily on the corners, and it's got one mark on it. The guitar doesn't even have those surface scratches from shirt buttons and straps that a fastidious collector would T-cut out. Big deal. I've had lots of new guitars before, and more expensive ones too. So why am I now already looking at cheaper alternatives for sweaty club gigs? Surely I bought it precisely for such packed and noisey nights and yet I'm convinced that I'm going to dent it the first time I turn round too fast near the wall at rehearsal. I'm actually scared of denting this bass, even though it's technically already 2nd-hand! Maybe it's the untarnished gold hardware or maybe it's the gloriously unblemished finish. I don't know. But can someone tell me why I'm not happier at getting exactly what I wanted?? Yours in confusion and turmoil, Noisedude

[quote name='yorks5stringer' post='132263' date='Feb 1 2008, 10:09 PM']Do you mean Bonzo Dog Band "Gorilla" -only blue men sing the whites, or are they hypocrites...? Everytime this happens it really hacks me off. You ring them, they give you a date, you confirm and drop off posters, then they ring and are very sorry but...[/quote] No I mean [url="http://dictionary.die.net/guerilla"]guerilla[/url]. It's very annoying that it happens, I think promoters double-book quite often, expecting that one will pull out. I quite often turn up for a gig that should have three bands, and there are four or five who have all been told that.

Hmmm .... interesting stuff. I've been looking at a 5-string Rebop but part of me wonders whether I should save a little extra to do it properly and get a Euro .... any thoughts, Spector owners? Cool review, good to see how it stacks up against some pretty worthy competition.

[quote name='OldGit' post='132121' date='Feb 1 2008, 06:35 PM']Seem to... Talkbass guys like them too and you know what they are like for expressing their views ...[/quote] I'm learning!! Looking through the various sites it would seem that SX have a lot in common with both Richwood and Shine's Chinese models ... the tell-tale numbers in the product codes and the combinations of finishes (not to mention that Telecaster with a dope leaf which I'd recognise from Shine's Frontier Series anywhere!). I reckon there's really only about four OEM factories in China and they account for the Chinese output of dozens of brands.

Richwoods are absolutely NOT made in the UK. They're imported from China via a company in Holland by a chap who has an old farm in Pickering. He happens to be local to a photography firm who on the side sell his Richwood/Boston/Caliber etc lines for him. The instruments aren't bad but nothing special for the money, wouldn't say they're any better than Stagg and the like. Shine are good value (it is a mis-spelling of the Korean company Saein, whose Chinese factory used to be contracted for some Epiphone lines). I'm intrigued by these SX things. My experience of cheap stuff is that you can stumble across a great one (I have an awesome Caliber T*le) but they're inconsistent. Do these SXs really keep coming through good? Who wouldn't want a good backup for that price??

[quote name='yorks5stringer' post='132075' date='Feb 1 2008, 05:19 PM']Just been rung up, gig cancelled because they had double booked...it's not the first time and I expect it won't be the last but it still pi**es me off. Will post the new date when she rings again! [/quote] I think you should play a guerilla gig on the street outside. That'll teach em. Although it might not work so well in this sort of weather.

[quote name='yorks5stringer' post='131800' date='Feb 1 2008, 10:39 AM']Great, you can tell the audience to stop talking then and listen![/quote] You have that problem too? I always just assumed it was something about me.

[quote name='slapathy' post='127900' date='Jan 25 2008, 05:42 PM']I agree, there MUST be someone in W Yorks/Bratford/Leeds/Wakey/Cleckhudderfax/Pontefract/Cas area who can help me with my embarrasing problem??? I bought a semi acoustic bass which has an action like the Humber Bridge, needs fixin before it goes back on evilbay. I had heard there was a bass luthier in Dean Clough, Halifax, anyone know any more?[/quote] You're right - there's quite a shortage around here. I don't know any one guy who's good at it all (and I used to work in the trade) but I know one chap who's good with general maintenance, electronics and all things custom and another who's excellent at frets/action etc but who charges much less and so doesn't do the thorough cleaning/maintenance stuff that you pay others for. I'm new to the forum so I will respect the system and not post names and numbers at this point, but if you want the acoustic bass sorting out then feel free to PM and I'll put you in touch with one or both of these chaps. A few years back there was a guy called Shane who did all of Sound Control's repairs who was excellent but I don't have his number and can't remember his surname to look him up!