Huge Hands

I was a huge fan when they first started and saw them in a large venue, then arena after the first and second albums. I still listen to them occasionally but it was just never the same for me after Stuart Zender left. I am not knocking Nick Ffyfe or Paul Turner, both amazing players, but it is just not the same for me. There was just that something extra with SZ. I don't think I could go and see them without him, and especially now Toby has gone too (RIP). it would feel like cheating to me.

My best purchase this year? Forscore app on the iPad. Dusted off my boy's iPad which he doesn't use any more and paid £19.99 for the app. Has allowed me to scan all of my local concert band sheet music into the iPad. I also bought a cheap Joyo footpedal to turn the pages. It is dead easy to use and has transformed rehearsals as I am not spending ages frantically trying to find that one piece stuck to the back of another while the band starts playing. Playing my first actual concert with it on Saturday. Was dead easy to set up a playlist for the night and drag and drop the various scores into it. It now all clicks through the concert in order. Worst purchase? I guess the Joyo MA-10 practice amp. I can't complain too much as it was under £40 on offer on Amazon and it works as a practice amp in my home office, but it buzzes like mad unless you earth yourself on the strings and the sound is not to my liking. but I kept it and it does a job, so no major biggie.

I have both a Sire V7 (1st gen) and a 2001 ish 5 string Squier P5. I love them both, but I keep going back to the Squier due to the wider string spacing and it just feeling right in my hands. However, I had originally bought the P5 to strip and mod. Once I upgraded the pickups in it, I realised it was amazing and didn't want to spoil it, so bought a second one. Even before I stripped it, the neck was really unstable and has been a bit of a pig, resulting in an unhappy personal project bass. If you asked me based on the first one, I would say go for a a Squier. If the second one, I would say don't touch with a bargepole. I guess trying before committing is the best advice others have already given. ....and I have argued this point on other threads - although the Sire hardware on mine have always looked a bit toy-town and painted Halfords silver, they do the job and the guitar usually stays in tune, even in the gigbag. I've never felt to need to swap them out.

I've seen it happen with a few bands over the years - everyone is psyched up to rehearse and then someone pulls out at the last minute - do you all cancel (and potentially lose a rehearsal room booking deposit) or do you ask someone you know to sit in to save the time? For those that say "I don't rehearse" - not everyone has constant gigs lined up all the time and the getting together is part of the fun. In the cases I have seen this happen, it is usually because the rest of the band are disgruntled with an unreliable member, and hope the threat of this happening will get said member worried about their position in the band and sort themselves out, or as others have said, if they find someone gels while depping, they may just sack their current band member and go with the dep. I seem to remember this happening with a drummer once, but the dep was not so good and the plan backfired as it gave the original drummer more leeway to take the p*ss once he knew he was the best they had so far. Didn't take us much longer to find an even better one though....

I was about to say I have seen a few rockabilly guys do that over the years. However, I feel if I tried it with mine, with my weight, it would be an Ikea flatpack in seconds......

Mine all have bumps and chips in the top edge of the headstock, where I keep bumping it into things! On my Fender style basses, the farthest peg is usually bent in some way too. It is not through wanton-style rage rampages, I am just really clumsy! The first time I bent a peg was when I was a teenager - on a bus doorway through the gig-bag on my back...

Ha ha, I actually meant we wouldn't get away with sitting in those positions for a journey now in terms of cramp and DVT, but I know what you mean!

As a teenager I remember doing a gig in Stockton in the early 90's (we only lived in Gateshead so it wasn't that far). We borrowed a Sherpa van (the smallest one). I was in the middle seat, but even at 15 I was already my current 6'3". I think my Dad was our roadie on that gig so drove the van, but for him to change gear I had to sit diagonally with my feet in the passenger footwell and the bass player sat in the passenger seat next to me with his feet on the dashboard all the way. He was about 15 years older than me and a serving police officer, so I figured we'd be ok with that configuration if stopped, (but not so good if in a wreck). Thankfully we didn't but it was a challenge even for that short distance..... Wouldn't get away with it now.

I have Labella Deep Talkin' flats on most of my basses, but as other have alluded to, they are getting very expensive these days. As a DB player, you may be used to expensive string prices though! If you want to dip your toe into the flatwound world, I did buy some really cheap Harley Benton Flats from Thomann last year (about £13) and they seem quite good for what they are. I put a 4 string set on my HB 51 Precision copy and they seem fine, although feel a lighter gauge than the Labellas. (That could equally be me just being used to playing 5 strings nowadays) I did buy a 5 string set too, but they are still in the packet at the moment. Even with Thomann's £10 delivery charge from Germany, they still worked out quite cheap (although I had bought the guitar and strings together, so I passed the free delivery threshold). Just a thought if you are not sure you want to fork out that much as a trial.

i used to do pro sound in multiple venues in the late 90s/early noughties. We used a lot of Behringer outboard gear, such as quad gates and quad compressors. The running joke back then was everything seemed to cost £99, no matter the model! A lot of visiting engineers sniffed at the name, but they worked for our needs. We didn't need to hear noiseless perfection in a venue with 1500 drunk punters in it. We would get the occasional failure just out of warranty, but at £99 we were happy to chuck them in the bin and buy another one - which would have been a bigger issue if we had been using top of the range gear. 20 years on I now own a BD121 and a UMC-22 interface and am very happy with them, thank you very much.

I just checked that out myself. If you click "order form" it mentions no orders being taken due to the pandemic/ensuing backlog, so wonder if they are still active, or just bad at updating their website? I guess as the price is in US dollars, they are a US company? Did you have to pay import on them? Sorry for all the questions!

I have to be honest, I was being a bit lazy so just gave the dot locations a good hard rub with a dry cloth. I probably should have used something more liquid but couldn't think of anything I had that I was confident wouldn't dissolve the neck or something 🤣

Aaaaah - the classic "DFA" button or fader (Does F**k All). It is a classic often used control in the pro sound engineer's toolkit!

I don't know if this helps?

The strip that comes looks like a bog standard yellowy set of stickers you would get with any crafting pack. It does advise, and you will need, a pin (like a safety pin) to pick them up and lay them on. To my eyes, once on they are fairly inconspicuous unless you are looking closely for them, which is when you notice they can be a bit cock eyed, especially on the 12th fret double markers. When not glowing the colour is not too far away from an ebony fret dot (my bass has a rosewood fretboard). Put it this way, neither of my bands have so far noticed them as I have only so far been rehearsing in well lit spaces. I did buy the optional UV torch with mine and tried them in the dark when I first put them on - they do glow up well. I can't help but feel though that that there is probably a crafting shop that sells these for other purposes and they are a lot cheaper! I reckon there is enough in the pack for 2 basses but I think I will just keep these for replacing any ones that fall off. I think if you don't like them they would come off again fairly easily - as my 3rd fret neck marker can attest to.....