NickA

Not heard of "chestnut" ..tho I guess it's quite a common horse colour. I've black on my best ( arcus Carbon ) bow and white on my spare (wooden dorfler) Not a deal of difference, but new hair and good rosin are useful...and when bowing spiros you need all the grip you can get. Amusing fact... Stallion hair is apparently grippier than mare hair as the mares piss on their tales which polishes out the grip.

The issue with long leads and wet ground is that your body is at one voltage (that of the ground you are standing on) and the earth of your kit is at another voltage (either an earth spike in the place the power comes from or more likely via the neutral wire to a local substation many meters of cable away). The resistance between those two earth points is likely quite high so the current that flows through you is too small to trip an RCD .... BUT you will still feel it. My house is very poorly grounded and you can easily get a tingle if using power tools in the garden in bare feet (!!) or off the stainless toaster or microwavestanding on the damp kitchen floor. TBH there isn't a lot you can do. Using one of these portable battery generators (eg a Jackery Power Station) is one way to get around it. Another way is to use an isolation transformer and an earth spike near where you are standing (getting a bit techie at this point). In any case if an extension lead is the only option, do use an RCD - you may still get a tingle but it would trip before you got electrocuted. Try not to play in bare feet on wet grass 🙂 (PS: I'm an electrical engineer, I'm not making it up)

if you're happy with it get it rehaired. It's 10s of pounds not 100s. they'll replace the wooden wedges and who gives a monkeys that the tip is super glued on. still if you fancy an upgrade, nows an opportunity, but you won't get much improvement for under £200.

Good left hand technique from a teacher or ploughing through Simandl, (possibly the world's most boring book) is useful..helps you find the notes, stay in tune and play what you're thinking not what your hand will let you. But you can't learn everything from classical or (even) jazz musicians. Nb: using "the evil 3rd finger" is de rigeur above the neck joint, as is using your thumb. Rabath is all about whether you can move your hand without moving your thumb ( Simandl says don't), it doesn't involve using your ring finger below the neck joint... does it? Most people's hands are just too small to reach a semi tone with every finger. Rabath is useful for some things and worth adopting at times at least .eg the bass line of boogie stop shuffle which is easy on a 34" scale electric but a workout on a 46" scale dB ( unless you have massive hands)! Pivots make it easy again. Sorry thread drift.

Anyone teach slapping? Right hand technique ( decent pizz, let alone slap) is a mystery to most classically oriented bass teachers. Being a classical and mainstream jazzer ..It's not something I'd ever wanted to do ( tho I admire the skill of some people who do it) but was in a big band playing Mingus' music this year and the parts were sometimes marked "slapped". Well I tried but with highish tension strings it didn't work well. Back in the day there were no amps, strings were gut and most of the players had to slap to be heard ... by the late 50s it was applied ironically or nostalgically, but those guys could do it. Dying art?

Only 2 of my electric basses ( and an acoustic bass and a viola da gamba) have those. I find they make things more difficult tbh. We are!!! Don't go!!!

I play electric bass one finger one fret as I can reach..though 1 2 4 would be more comfortable in lower positions. I play the double bass 124 with some back and forth extensions. Really, they are quite different instruments with different techniques. The only thing in common is the tuning of the strings. Technique does matter if you want to expand what you play. Lack of technique or a personally derived technique will likely limit you. It sounds tedious and snobby, I know, and there's a lass in my town who plays in "Americana" bands by just clamping her whole hand around the neck at a root note..then up a string for a 4th, down a string for a 5th.works ok .but she's kind of stuck playing only that style. Nb: that very nice " realist sound clip " pickup whilst excellent for jazz and for classical players wanting occasional amplification....probably not what you want for rockabilly. Stick it up for sale and put proceeds towards that shadow system probably.

Great strings. Awful! Actually they sound ok, bit brassy but solid fundamentals. They just take ages to start sounding, the bow kind of skates over them. You can bow them if you have to but they're not really intended for it.

That pickup is £300+ worth. Go for it, but factor in a new bridge and probably a decent set of strings down the line ( another £250 ) It won't get you in the LSO but decent to learn on. Nb: my own bass (£10k worth of antique German timber) has a fingerboard bevel. You don't need it but it's pretty harmless and I've never needed to get it altered - they were for bowing with floppy gut strings.

Probably as useful and the amp will appreciate it 🙂

Portable Appliance Test. Hence PAT test is, like PIN number, a misnomer. but everyone says it. Checks electrical equipment that's connected to mains to ensure no-one will get a belt off it ...in theory. The test...Checks the plug earth pin is connected to any exposed metalwork and checks there is no leakage from live or neutral to ground. Venues and health and safety oiks think it makes electrical kit safe to use and that it's lethal otherwise. I have a PAT machine and a roll of stickers and a log book of stuff tested. Easily done, I'm m not convinced it's worth the fuss but easier to do it than convince a health a safety oik that it's a waste of time.

A Shout out for bassbags simply as they are local and have always been helpful for me ..and also my local emergency luthiers.. and they do get a discount and do pass some of it on. For a set of Eva's, I didn't find anywhere cheaper. But Amazon and eBay do indeed throw up all kinds of occasional bargains. Big question is...do you really need guts, and all their expense and inconveniences, when synthetics are so very good these days. Personally I like steel wound steel rope core strings best for pizz ..but the rest of my orchestra would rather I didn't 😂.

Not sure I've ever seen such abysmal repair work. Having recently had far less serious renovation done on an old cello and a new neck on my bass ..you're probably talking £5000 or more to bring it up to scratch, more still to fix the cosmetics. Taking the front off is major and expensive work..... and is that a crack in the heel of the neck? Might be possible to pin it, might need a new neck.. and that's £4k or so straight away. But, nice wood and a pretty shape. I'm guessing German factory bass late 1800s, fully done up it "could" be worth £10k in a sales room ( IE you won't sell it for that, but a dealer might), but maybe only half that.

Yes, they are made of unicorn intestines, hand wound by Bavarian nuns, high in the alps. I think they were originally aimed at pro level classical soloists playing basses that cost £50k+ . A louder and more projecting sound than eudoxas. Not sure about pro double bass players these days, but cellists seem to have given up on them and switched to steel and tungsten ( Larsen and thomastik) which are cheaper, stay in tune and last forever... and sound very good. Even pirastro recommend using Eva Ps for the A and E rather than olives across the board.