dougal

No xotic love huh? Oh well.

So I was in Tom Lee music in HK (http://www.tomleemusic.com.hk/home.php) and in amongst the usual selection of Fenders, ESP, Ibby, Musicman and Warwick, I stumbled across two beautiful Xotic 5 sting super-jazzes. Turns out I must be blind / stupid because bass merchant has the same bass: http://www.bassdirect.co.uk/bass_guitar_specialists/Xotic_XJ5_V_White.html My word, they're nice! I'm usually a 4 string man but this has me scratching my chin. Questions: has anyone owned (or does own) one of these? Is there much basschat love for them? How do they sound in a band context? In my mind the sound would be pretty good, but it's difficult to tell. Did / do you bother with the mid frequency switches? they seem like a good idea but I just don't know... Do we know what the resale value is if I get it back to blighty & the honeymoon period ends with a bang?

My ex was a Carvin XB75: 35.25" scale length. No 'standard' strings were long enough as she was strung through her body and the B string used to cross the nut after it'd started to taper back to the core. I used to string her with the extra long elixirs: not to everyone's taste, and quite expensive, but if you want 'bright' they've got it...

+1 for the Peavey Grind. I picked up a six on here for £200. Can't play the bloody thing. But still. I don't think I'll loose too much if I decide to move it on either.

Kevin (Bloody) Wilson?

[url="http://www.touchstonetonewoods.co.uk/"]Touchstone [/url]has been recommended to me. They seem to have a good stock (but no 6 string bass nuts - how hard can they be to find?!?!)

Quick question: one of my basses needs a new nut. I haven't done much luthier-ish work since I left the states, where I would always order from [url="http://www.stewmac.com/"]Stew Mac[/url]. What's the UK equivalent? I need nut blanks and files.

Dan bought my Sansamp DBBI pedal. Pleasure to deal with.

Chad Smith - Drums Joe Satriani - Guitar Steven Page - Vocals & Acoustic guitar Jean Michelle-Jarre - Keys Suitable eclectic I think

[quote name='thumbo' post='1245427' date='May 26 2011, 11:58 AM']My girlfriend takes the piss out of me for only reading biographies about musicians with drug problems, but on that note, Motley Crue - The Dirt, The Nikki Sixx Heroin Diaries and Slash autobiographies make for great reading.[/quote] How [b]could [/b]you leave out: [url="http://www.amazon.co.uk/White-Line-Fever-Lemmy-Autobiography/dp/067103331X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1306506859&sr=8-1"][/url] Also excellent read. I've got Keith's autobiography on my bedside table that I keep meaning to start too.

I'm surprised no-one's mentioned "[url="http://renegademinds.com/Products/GuitarDrumTrainer/tabid/65/Default.aspx"]Guitar Drum Trainer[/url]": Since I migrated to OSX I've stopped using it, but it was always my favourite looper / slower downer / EQ for learning songs. (I'm now using "amazing slow downer" which isn't nearly as good) +1 for Guitar Pro. I think TuxGuitar does the same thing for free, but being able to isolate difficult bass lines, loop them at 50% speed & then make them gradually get faster is a godsend. (Requires accurate gpx files which aren't always easy to find) I've also used it to program in the piano parts for my grade pieces on double bass. I'm glad there are Reaper fans out there: I could never get it working properly on my PC, all sorts of latency issues & it would lock inexplicably. I'm sure it was particular to my hardware / software combination, as I'm the only one I know who had problems. I'm using Logic now, which I'm now used to. This is my third DAW (used guitar trax 2 & sonar previously) and I'm not sure I'm enough of a a power user to actually be able to differentiate between them. Not being able to use standard VST plug-ins is a pain, but I can't being myself to shell out the money or time to learn yet another interface! Oh, and metronomeonline.com gets an honourable mention. I've used that a lot too.

[quote name='BB3000S' post='1241480' date='May 23 2011, 12:42 PM']Plenty of Sadowsky love here. [/quote] ...and here...

[quote name='Fat Rich' post='1238985' date='May 21 2011, 09:02 AM']Sometimes a high end bass arrives eventually (they usually take ages to build) but it doesn't quite hit the spot... you need to understand very clearly what you like in a bass before you order. A highly personalized bass might not resell for as much as you paid if you decide you really don't like it. But if you get it right it might be the only bass you ever play. Buying a few cheaper basses and tinkering might be more fun in the long run, plus I've never found just one bass that covers everything I want to play.[/quote] +1 Was bitten by that one. I'm only going off the shelf from now on. Plus they retain their value better.

+1 for the "can sight read well on upright, playing classical / show tunes and did grade 5 theory but doesn't read nearly so well on electric." +1 for theory & reading are important but so is groove: I memorise everything for the functions band (most pop / rock songs are repetitive enough, and my interpritation lax enough, to be memorised). Interestingly I think there are further sub-divisions of "theory", with different empasies (?sp?) on what's important: modes & scales that to a jazz cat are indispensible, are unlikely to turn up in a classical theory exam, whilst writing a Eb melodic minor scale in alto clef using accidentals only is of no practicable use, but you are trained do it for the classical exams.

Just bought a P-Bass offa him. Lovely bloke. Lovely dog. Cheers mate!