Jean-Luc Pickguard

Get a copy of the Ed Friedland slap bass DVD - a very good guide.

Too modern? - try a set of flatwounds

Best option - get an ashbory. Light as a feather & tiny.

I like TI flats they seem to sound best after about a year of use. I wouldn't say they go dead with age though, just deep rich & bassy. I've never had to change any in the several years since I've been using them (must be about six years). If I ever want zing I'll take up harpsichord or clavinet.

[quote name='allighatt0r' post='536021' date='Jul 8 2009, 09:32 PM']The lower horn is so you can get to the higher frets. Upper fret reach is very hard on a normal thunderbird![/quote] I've never gone higher than the seventh fret on my thunderbird. And even then I've only ventured further than the fifth once or twice by mistake. That ESP is shoddy - daft bu99ers put the tuners on upside-down.

[list=1] [*]cheapo behringer limiter pedal [*]cheapo behringer BDI21 preamp pedal on the mustang / ADI21 on the NS CR5M [*]The magic VLE & VPF controls on the LMII [/list] But the tone really comes from the fingers.

It looks like it should be hanging in toys-R-us with an £80 price tag next to the Hannah Montana washburns and the plywood squier bullet strats.

[quote name='BigRedX' post='532114' date='Jul 3 2009, 10:56 PM'][/quote] That is the bass a grandmaster of ecky thump would play

Just what the world needs - more jazz clones

I've replaced all my grolsch ones with Shower hose washers - 20 for a quid from screwfix.

Make yourself a nice bacon butty and while the bacon is frying, record the sound. Make a short loop from the recording and overdub it onto your track. Probably won't sound as as good as the isotope plugin, but you do get a bacon butty.

Terrible news and at such a young age. Sincerest condolences to his family.

I used to work with someone who had a collection of fridge magnets on the side of his PC. As I was the IT admin at the time, as soon as I notice this I pointed out to him that it *may* not be the best place to keep them and he totally shot me down in flames insisting that there's no way it could harm anything as they were only fridge magnets and the PC had very solid steel sides. A couple of weeks later he came whining to me that his PC is acting up and it looked like his hard drive was corrupted. Of course there's no way of knowing what actually caused the issue, but I told him there wasn't anything I could do beyond a reformat and reinstall do as some numpty had stuck magnets to it.

I'd try to get the seller of the secondhand one to give the price a bit of a haircut to make it a more attractive deal.

guitar stands are well worth the investment

wrap them in newspaper and bury them in the garden.

That's definitely shop soiled

I could do with one. I'll probably have one on my birthday - like I do most years.

This is a bass forum. Asking a community of bass players how to perform without a bass player but with a karaoke version instead seems a bit weird in my view. Using a backing track is more like to karaoke than live music. There's no substitute for the interaction you get with a decent band playing together and reacting to the vibe.

Get a rhythm section and do it properly. Using backing tracks is half-arsed.

No need to shave anything off. Put a shim under it towards the front of the pocket. That'll bring the height at the bridge down.

I must try to resist the short scale precision.