Dingus

[quote name='Muzz' timestamp='1395392261' post='2401853'] Thanks for that Karl, I'm not keen on a 4004, for me it wrecks the best thing about Rics, which is the looks. Having played it some more last night, it's just not good enough; by which I mean, the woods and contruction are there, but the design is ergonomically hopeless, and with eyes closed it actually plays like a £450 bass, not a £1600 one. The neck pickup is incredibly low output and wooly, the nut's cut way too high, and I don't know what strings they ship with, but it plays in a pretty lifeless, inconsistent way. There's no zing to the thing, acoustically or plugged in. If I'd paid £450 for it, I'd grit teeth, possibly compromise on the ergonomics and make some mods, change the strings, fettle with it, etc, but for £1639? No chance. I'm on to GAK's returns department when they open at half nine. For the record, I'm not a 'Fender player', I've had many, many different sorts of basses, from luthiery lovliness to Explorers and Thunderbirds to 8 and 12 strings, and even my rather idiosyncratic but appealing Wishbass, so I'm very happy with lots of different styles of bass. I'm not exclusively a pick player, either, but there's no way to play it with your forearm on the bass that doesn't leave a mark on your arm within seconds, the edge is soooo sharp. Still gutted, but I'll get the money back, get over it and get something else. I'm almost as upset for my other half, she'd bought it for me for my birthday, so she's quite disappointed, too. It still looks lovely, though... [/quote] I hadn't realized that you could return the bass for a refund; for some reason I had assumed you had bought it locally from a retail shop and were looking at the prospect of having to sell it on at a loss.. If it is the case that you can get your money back then, yes, ( as I'm sure you already have done) get on that phone and do what you need to do to send it back! It sounds like you will be joining the ranks of folks like Gareth and myself who love everything about Rickenbackers... except actually playing them . I think you will just have to accept that they are not for you. I am sure there are lots of other basses that you could treat yourself to for that kind of money that, in contrast to this Rickenbacker, will rock your socks off and make you very happy Funnily enough, the Rickenbacker that I like the most nowadays is the 4004 and I would love a go on one. To me they look great , and from what little I have heard of them on You Tube ( not the best indication, I know) they sound like a slightly more punchy modern take on the Rickenbacker sound.

[quote name='Muzz' timestamp='1395343606' post='2401437'] Ok, well, I've just received mine...and I don't like it. To qualify - it looks absolutely gorgeous, it's faultlessly made, the woods and construction are as good as anything I've come across, but I'm not going to be able to live with it. I'm absolutely gutted. [/quote] Very sorry to hear you aren't getting on with the Rick, Muzz. Are you sure you're nut being a bit too hasty to judge? I've been in exactly the situation with basses I have bought sight-unseen, and some of them have grown on me over time, to the extent that I wouldn't part with them now.

Susanna Reid. Or the big girl from The Only Way Is Essex.

[quote name='cheddatom' timestamp='1395333079' post='2401281'] When it comes to sausages mate, no-one handles them better [/quote] Is it [i]your[/i] webcam that Mrs Dingus has been running those huge credit card bills to ? If so then please stop encouraging her. Then maybe she would have enough energy to make me a sausage sandwich, and I would actually have enough money left to buy the sausages.

[quote name='discreet' timestamp='1395327195' post='2401179'] We all are mate, regardless of circumstances. [/quote] Yes, "a face like a burglar's dog" is the phrase that springs to mind.

[quote name='cheddatom' timestamp='1395326981' post='2401173'] You've got it all wrong! A sausage sandwich is my weekend treat, I have to make it myself. My main complaint was about the horrible sh*te sausages that sandwich shops use, because if they used good ones, I could stop in for a cheeky breakfast on the way to work. However, now I realise how important my physique is to the longevity of my "sandwich of love" I'll think myself lucky that I'm spared such a calorific indulgence. [/quote] I'm sure you are sincere in what you are telling me here, but is that how your [i]partne[/i]r is seeing things? To you, your sausage habit is a weekend recreational thing that you are confident you can keep under control, the old "I can handle it, I know what I am doing " stance that so many men with a problem take to justify and rationalize their unreasonable behaviour, both to themselves and others . All the while, your girlfriend is struggling to keep up with your constant need for sausage-orientated titillation and meat-based thrill - seeking. She sees first-hand how you are spinning out of control , or at least she would do if it were not for the fact that she is no doubt too busy with her head down and tears in her eyes , chopping onions and peeling spuds to make the bangers and mash with onion gravy that no doubt you expect to be sitting ion the table the moment you get home from work. It's men like you that give the rest of us a bad name. I personally have done so much to try and further the cause of feminism on Basschat, but your casual sausage chauvinism undermines all my efforts at one fell swoop.

[quote name='FinnDave' timestamp='1395325825' post='2401152'] Just find out what kind of sausages the butcher eats [/quote] I used to live with a girl whose family owned, among other things, a chain of butchers shops. I never saw them eat a sausage , and they refused to have Corned Beef in the house. To be fair though, they weren't that keen on me either.

[quote name='UglyDog' timestamp='1395324689' post='2401135'] Although in fairness, Macca and Chrissie Pretenderperson and that miserable git with the flowers up his jacksy have got just as much of a vested interest as the butcher. Only in the other direction, of course, because bangers are made out of bits of cuddly animal. [/quote] I was going to say that none of those people are making money out of being vegetarians, but when I think about it, two of them are , because Morrissey made cash in various ways from the whole "Meat Is Murder" thing , and Macca and Linda had the whole Linda McCartney veggie food business thing going. But none of that changes the fact that a butcher is not the most unbiased person to ask about the merits of sausages.

[quote name='cheddatom' timestamp='1395324686' post='2401134'] She is a veggie. Perhaps she's been adding extra pig penis to my sausage sandwiches and started feeling guilty about it? [/quote] You are forcing vegetarian to get out of bed on a morning and stick half a pig's arse between two bits of bread to satisfy your animal appetite and you wonder why she isn't happy? Oh , this relationship needs to get to Relate at the first possible juncture, or you are looking at years of sullen and resentful sandwich- making misery!

[quote name='BigRedX' timestamp='1395305715' post='2400820'] It is ultimately a question of taste. However it's definitely not fuelled by having a decent amount of disposable income. In fact a lot of attitude towards gear stems from a time when I had little income a certainly nothing supposedly spare for trivial stuff like musical instruments. While still at school I built my first electric guitar, because that was the only way I was going to get something close to what I wanted in looks and functionality on an income of pocket money and the occasional holiday job. In the 80s when I was playing synthesisers, buying a reasonably decent one meant selling a lot of my other possessions and cutting back to the minimum and cheapest food I could get away with. Even then it didn't to exactly what I needed, so out came the tools and circuit diagrams to get it to the state where it did most of what I required from it. When I got my KX5 MIDI keyboard the first thing I did after making sure that everything worked properly was to take it apart and spray all the bodywork yellow and red so it looked more interesting than the factory finish of black and pale green. In all these endeavours resale value never even entered my mind. The gears was there to do a particular musical job and present a certain image on stage and since I couldn't afford to have exactly what I wanted custom built, I bought the most suitable thing I could afford and then modified it until it was as right as I could get it. The alternative would have been to have had nothing, because in their factory state these instruments didn't have the functionality or looks that I was after. [/quote] You are absolutely right that it is a matter of taste, and as I have already said, it is, of course, your absolute right to do with your own property as you wish. I can't help but observe though, that your own taste is a little on the "extreme" side by most people's standards, as I'm sure you would acknowledge yourself, and so , if you think about it, it's not surprising that the majority of folks don't behave in a similar fashion. I am not having a go at you by any means, my friend, and I think it is a great and indeed a necessary thing that some people [i]do[/i] go to extremes, but at the same time it isn't very realistic to expect mainstream opinion and behaviour to follow that same extreme .

[quote name='cheddatom' timestamp='1395323671' post='2401109'] If you get a good sausage, you'll notice they're made from prime meat. Many scare stories about the contents of sausages put me off my favorite food for years. I actually looked in to it and spoke to a couple of butchers. I'm pretty confident I'm not just eating the tripe and sawdust off the abatoir floor Anyway, thanks for the advice, I'll make sure to never get married! It reminds me of another related event. I once opened my sandwich bag at work only to find an extra foil packet. Inside was cake! I got the cake for nothing, no extra compliments or shoe funds required. [/quote] Spoke to a couple of butchers? Have you never heard the phrase "that's like asking a butcher if meat is good for you" , ? Ask Paul McCartney , Chrissie Hynde or Morrissey ( or a pig, for that matter) if sausages are O.K and you will get a very different answer. And if you are getting unsolicited cake in your lunchbox then it is time to start wondering exactly what it is she is feeling guilty about.

[quote name='Zenitram' timestamp='1395314836' post='2400953'] Sounds like she fancies you. [/quote] Sounds to me like she is [i]obsessed [/i]with him. I am a bit worried where all this will end , to be honest with you . If WoT acknowledges her two teabag attention-grabbing stunt then that will encourage her fantasies, and if he ignores her attempts to make contact then she may well go even further in a desperate attempt to establish a relationship. As an extremely attractive man myself, I have encountered this kind if situation before, and quite often the only satisfactory resolution can involve some powdered rhino horn and a daytime trip to a budget hotel .

[quote name='cheddatom' timestamp='1395313658' post='2400938'] I am basically married. My girlfriend (8 years) makes me a sandwich for work most days, and she is an excellent sandwich maker You are so wrong. My local butchers do chilli and leek sausages. If you don't like them you probably need a taste bud transplant. [/quote] Oh, how much you have to learn about women, my friend! That is how they ensnare you, with tasty sandwiches to take to work and the promise that if you make their dream come true by putting that ring from the Argos catalogue on her finger and make an honest woman of her then life will always be like this. It won't, and before you know it you will be getting up early so you can scrape some vegan paste onto a couple of slices of stale bread before heading out for a hard day of toil, whlist in the meantime she stays in bed until mid- morning and then spends the rest of the day buying shoes off the internet with your money and talking to her friends on the phone about how she could do better than you . The eight year tasty sandwich stage in your relationship can very easily turn into the twelve year " f*** off and get your own lunch" stage. That is why you need to lay off the sausages, keep yourself lean and trim , and make sure she knows that if she doesn't keep on her toes that you will be snapped up by some brazen hussy who will be happy to cater to your most intimate needs in the sandwich department. Chilli and leek sausages? That sounds like an unholy union of South America and Wales in a tube of encased meat. I will not be tempted by that , or any other sausage for that matter . They are revolting , made up as they usually are of the bits of left over animal that they can't do anything else with. All you sausage munchers need to think less about how good they taste and more about what is in them.

[quote name='cheddatom' timestamp='1395242488' post='2400111'] You'd get a few sandwiches for £117! No Tesco big eat chicken and stuffing though, they're long gone, never to be seen again [/quote] [quote name='cheddatom' timestamp='1395245193' post='2400157'] Why did Tesco stop doing the big chicken and stuffing wedge? It had loads of mayo and the stuffing was some sort of pork, sage, onion etc. It was my post gig snack of choice. I replaced it with a 4 pack of ale. I've considered suing tescos for causing my liver damage but that's probably pushing my luck a bit far. When you buy a pre-packed sandwich with onion, it has spring onion or red onion. When you buy a freshly made sandwich you get big chunky bits of white onion. I want fresh, but I don't want to stink for 2 days! The sausage sandwich is without a doubt the greatest culinary creation ever made, but to really pull it off, you need a good sausage. Why do no sandwich shops use decent sausages?!? There's one locally to me which is next door to a butchers, but she buys massive bags of cheap frozen sausages which basically taste like cardboad. [/quote] If you are this disappointed by sandwiches that don't deliver what you had hoped for , just wait 'til you get married. And then there is no one to blame or chase for a refund except yourself. Also, there is no such thing as a "good" sausage...

[quote name='cheddatom' timestamp='1395247412' post='2400204'] I once bought a double quarter pounder with cheese but the whole sandwich only weighed half a pound. There was definitely cheese and a bun, they can't have weighed nothing [/quote] Pre- cooked weight.

[quote name='bassace' timestamp='1395245862' post='2400170'] Funny that, I bought a Phil Jones cab from Bass Direct. At 24 lbs I thought it would be good for my poor old back. It seemed bloody heavy so I sold it on to a BCer who weighed it and told me it was 29lbs min. Should I have owned up and offered to pay BD for the extra poundage? I'm sure one of our law students (mature) will be able to advise. [/quote] I'm not (and never was) a law student, but I was a general -purpose student for many, many ( no, I mean more years than that even ) years and that means I am an expert on just about everything, whereas a lawyer only really knows about the law. It is my considered opinion that you should sue either Bass Direct for selling you the cab at the quoted weight, and/or the manufacturer for making it heavier than they said it would be. The extra strain on your back , and therefor your relationships, caused by that additional five pounds in weight is almost incalculable, but may be worth a few quid or maybe just some free stickers and a t- shirt.

Funnily enough, a few days ago I spotted a very upmarket bass for sale at a well-known shop for one tenth of its' correct price , which in this case is a few grand. Of course, I wasn't daft enough to mention it on this site, where it would inevitably have led to the usual jobsworths telling us how the shop are now obliged to actually sell it to them for that price. They are not, and they wouldn't have done, but I suppose it would have been interesting to hear what kind of rebuttal each individual chancer would have got . Just had a look on the shop's website and the bass is priced at its' true value , so no doubt someone else has drawn their attention to the error, no doubt by trying to walk away with it for Argos money.

[quote name='Musicman20' timestamp='1395237575' post='2400046'] I agree. Even into the 90s I usually found quite modern shaped basses, very slim necks, almost Warwick-like styles. I found the shops had a few Fender's but not like it is now. That or Stingrays...which seemed (in my area) to be the holy grail (and they still are for me!). [/quote] Stingray is an interesting case, because it is both modern and traditional at the same time, but they have[i] always[/i] been popular, regardless of trends. In the end, a good design will always win through, I suppose, and a Stingray is such a useful and practical bass guitar for so many styles of music that they will always be perennially popular.

What amuses me about trends in basses is how uber- trendy bass players nowadays assert that retro-style basses strung with flatwounds and old tube amps are preferable with exactly the same zeal and unerring confidence as trendy bass players asserted that hi-tech fancy basses with active electronics and bi-amped amplification rigs were the way to go back in the 1980's. The same folks would have been using the opposite equipment what they do now and espousing the opposite philosophy regarding playing it . There was was an age when , in the world of bass, more was better and to play the style known as "more" you needed up-to-date gear. One day, that style will return.

[quote name='thumperbob 2002' timestamp='1395231088' post='2399934'] Fenders are always on trend. [/quote] No, that's not true! Right around the time I started playing right at the beginning of the 1980's Fenders were out of fashion in the same way that Victoriana went out of fashion in the 1950's. The general consensus was that Fenders were old fashioned, outmoded and boring. If you did have a Fender it had to modernized, with a big heavy bridge and hi-tech pickups to try and drag it into the Modern Age. This was the era when so many Fenders were vandalized in the name of progress. The renaissance of Fender basses is a far more recent phenomena than you might think, although they have of course been a residual presence regardless of whatever the trend in basses and never completely went away. Nowadays, it's as if history has been rewritten to assert that bass player's dalliance with basses other than Fenders and similar vintage models was a big but short-lived mistake, but up to about fifteen years ago most of the basses in high-end shops were modern hi-tech designs and, to a greater or lesser extent , that is what most serious players aspired to in the era from the mid-1970's to the turn of the Millennium . During that era, a lot of bass players might indeed have a Fender bass, but as another option to their main bass which would be an up-to-date contemporary design.