Jean-Luc Pickguard

When the blues band I'm in plays acoustically (guitar/vocal/drums/harp totally unamplified) I play one on my rubber-stringed [url="http://www.o5b.co.uk/category/bass/"]ashborys[/url] through a 12Watt practice amp. It sounds good to me and is a lot more portable than my double bass.

Nice one!

[quote name='Prosebass' post='453900' date='Apr 4 2009, 10:01 AM']I'm still buying up old copies of International Musician from the 70's and 80's. Best magazine there has ever been to give a full spectrum of players , gear and the industry as it was back then.
My new years resolution was not to buy any new magazines and I must admit I don't feel like I am missing anything.[/quote]
If you have the April 1985 issue (with tears for fear on the cover) you can read my first tape demo review on p12.

Anyone remember "One Two testing" magazine?

[list=1]
[*]Tune up quickly & quietly.
[*]Don't noodle between songs.
[*]If in doubt play fewer notes rather than too many.
[*]Don't slap unless its a level 42 tribute band.
[/list]

Sounds like you have fret buzz.

If you're lucky it just needs a setup which you can learn to do yourself or take it to someone who knows what they're doing. A decent luthier would charge around £30 for this. If you're not so lucky it may also need the frets leveled which would be around £70.

[quote name='waynepunkdude' post='452383' date='Apr 2 2009, 01:13 PM']I found an old head of mine in a cupboard ...[/quote]
I read that and thought of Worzel Gummage

Just found this clip of the Noisettes with Shingai playing bass on their current single.
[url="http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/showbiz/music/article2334489.ece"]http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/showb...icle2334489.ece[/url]
Great to see a proper band doing well in the charts for a change.

[quote name='KevB' post='449605' date='Mar 30 2009, 04:21 PM']A guy that plays regularly at my local jam session often uses a Shine Hofner type violin copy. He said he'd tried a few violin types and that was the best sounding and construction of the lot. Sounded good through his Hartke rig. I would have had a go myself but he's a leftie. Mind you if I could get a deal like this;
[url="http://www.incredibid.co.uk/acatalog/Shine_WVEB883_Violin_Bass_.html"]http://www.incredibid.co.uk/acatalog/Shine...olin_Bass_.html[/url]
I'd be tempted anyway from the sound quality of the one I heard, don't think he'd modded it in any way.[/quote]
like this? A fiver more - looks pretty similar to me.
[url="http://www.thomann.de/gb/harley_benton_beatbass.htm"]Thomann violin bass[/url]

Didn't know they made them in this shape

Naughty Naughty

[quote]Sarah5string had a Shine but she is MIA.[/quote]
Made in America?

Don't put long scales on - you'd probably get away with it with rounds, but when I put an old set of rotosound flats on a musicmaster the winding broke & came away at the tuner, exposing the core. It looked like it had the potential to twang & take my eye out.

I've bought from stringbusters.co.uk & stringsdirect.co.uk

Rotosound do a short scale flat set, I have them on a danelectro longhorn & a musicmaster
LaBella do some nice deep talkin' flats in short scale with a choice of gauges. I put some on my daughters Musicmaster & 30" daisyrock.

My favourites though are Thomastik JF 324. They are 32" so may be too long for some shortie basses, but are perfect for my daughter's daisyrock elite (32" scale) plus mine which is identical and my CIJ Mustang.

I had a Dean Pace 4 string before upgrading to my NS CR5M. The dean didn't have any eq controls apart from trimpots inside the control cavity, so I always used mine with a behringer ADI-21 acoustic preamp which really made it growl. If you get your hands on one of those to try witht he dean, you may like it - I did.
Cheap as chips, but sounded fantastic.

[quote name='waynepunkdude' post='448698' date='Mar 29 2009, 02:36 PM']Cute and attractive members of the audience always want to touch my instrument after the gig [/quote]
If thats the main criteria, the only bass guitar its happened with for me was my 1971 daphne blue Fender musicmaster - its so damn pretty.

Also have had people (of both genders and not always attractive) after gigs intrigued by my ashborys and wanting to touch the rubbery strings.

£500! I thought it was supposed to be a budget instrument!

Any £500 bass will blow a johnson or axl out of the water easily, but would a beginner be able to or want to spend twice as much as a Squier VM-series for an ugly-shaped pukey-coloured bass just because its has Flea's name on it?

I think something went badly wrong between concept and execution. It is simply priced out of the reach of its target market. I wouldn't be surprised if a few will be sold to hardcore flea/RHCP fans then the rest of the first batch will hang around until they're sold off at clearance prices then there won't be second batch.

I wonder if the free DVD that comes with it is as good as his 'adventures in spontaneous jamming and techniques' one? What a totally pointless waste of £15 that was.

blue pop you say?

Tempting...

but too far North for me I'm afraid.

[quote name='neilb' post='448016' date='Mar 28 2009, 12:31 PM']I don't think the 20 somethings of today can do [i]ANYTHING[/i] as well as their counterparts 20 yrs ago, whether it be socially, academically or whatever.

If I could have a quid for everytime I hear a spotty oik say the word "like" in one sentence, I could avoid the recession altogether.

eg. "Well, I was like walking down the road and this like, bloke came up to me and said like "Have you got the time please?" I thought , like, what? Like, Im the sort to wear a watch!"[/quote]
Why do they like do that?

And then there are those that put a rising inflection at the end of every phrase? So everything they say turns into into a question? It probably used to be just the losers that watched Aussie soaps? But it seems to have spread?

Then there are the chavs that don't consider a sentence complete unless it contains a f**k, f**ker or f**king in between every other pair of words.

but all the funk is in the dirt

Jam night from 8.30pm then a set by The Buffalo Bill Blues Band
at Mama Ks Friday 27th March 2009

Admission £2 (£1 for unwaged) & cheap bar.

Mama Ks is Every Friday at
Ruskin House
23 Coombe Road
Croydon
Surrey
CR0 1BD‎

[url="http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?oe=utf-8&rls=org.mozilla:en-US%3a%6ffficial&client=firefox-a&um=1&ie=UTF-8&q=ruskin+house+croydon&fb=1&split=1&gl=uk&cid=0,0,16225257193667777257&ei=BJbKSeWANoPLjAfpl9DNAw&sa=X&oi=local_result&resnum=1&ct=image"]Google Map[/url]

If you're not gigging on Friday and are close to Croydon, bring your bandmates and bass/guitar/drumsicks and don't forget to say hello to the chap that looks like my avatar.

since you'll be playing with a light touch maybe you'll like Thomastik flatwound strings.

Pluck me! I bought my black one in 1986 & still have it the same case as shown in that listing. Its a nice bass, but wish it was really worth that much.

I wish I hung on to the one I had which I sold for £80.

I was chuffed a the time as I only paid £50 for it though.

Cheers Subaudio

I've just uploaded some stuff recorded on the H4 at last night's rehearsal with another band I recently joined.

As I now have the 8gb card, I recorded it at 96k/24bit and left it running for the whole session.

The sound quality came out quite well I think. even if the bass playing is a bit ragged in places.

[url="http://www.buffaloblues.co.uk/rehearsal-23-march-2009/"]MP3s of The Buffalo Bill Blues Band[/url]

Mostly blues standards, but a few were made up as we went along.

I still have mine in the loft (upgraded to a massive 4mb ram). I was using the original version of Cubase on it from 1989 after starting with pro-24. Great machine. I recall spending many happy hours playing the Secret of Monkey Island I & II on it as well.

One of the Jonas Brothers seems to like his...

I have one of these that I used to use in the 80s for recording guitar. I never thought to use it on bass though, I'll have to dig it out of the loft & give it a try.

I'm happy with my LMII.