chrkelly

I'll be about from 18th. Should be a great laugh. Haven't done the festival in about 5 years so really looking forward to it. If any of you guys are that way inclined, I'm doing a show at the Pleasance called 'The Last Five Years' which for a musical is actually bloody great. Brilliant tunes and lots of fretless shred (got to learn how to play a fretless in the next week, S**t!). Still got to check out the other listings though.

Apologies to all those NS design users out there, but just couldn't get a sound I liked. I tried various setups and strings (steel and synthetic core) but ended up selling mine after 2 months. I also found that because the fingerboard is flush to the body, there is limited space to put your thumb and then it's quite difficult to get the full weight of your arm into each note.

After posting just a week ago, my korg tuner has now failed due to a broken input jack socket! New cables will be on the way very soon!

Any of the hollow body Azolas, no question! [url="http://www.azola.com"]http://www.azola.com[/url]. Amazing instruments and amazing customer service. Stay well clear of the NS Design. Its a great instrument but in a class of its own. It sounds absolutely nothing like a upright as you know it.

I have a few Monster cables and really rate them. I've heard about them wearing out jack sockets but I've never had a problem and I've been using them for quite a few years now. They're incredibly well put together, very heavy cable and solid jacks. However, there's no way on earth I would buy a monster cable for the money they charge in the UK, daylight robbery or what! I got mine in the US while on tour and they cost me about £20 each (20ft each). To be honest though, if you use high quality cable with quality jacks and connections, they're all the same, and from the reviews OBBM gets, it sounds like he's your man.

Bought one of these blind off the internet last week and would would like to say hats off to Squier for making an incredible instrument at a truly incredible price. If anyone has ever wanted a fretless this is definitely the place to start looking. I always need one for work, but having borrowed my friends' basses for the past few years, I finally figured I needed my own. Being completely skint and having a show with a pretty difficult fretless part coming up fast the Squier seemed a good deal at £219. It obviously needed a severe set up and new strings when it arrived but apart from that, damn this bass is good. Slightly uneven fingerboard around the botom C on the A string that needs careful fingering to avoid a bit of buzz but apart form that, stunning! Tons of mwah and the usual passive jazz versatility. I've used it on a few rehearsals this week and this bass definitely cuts it. I'd also happily turn up to a recording session with this bass, it really sings! I'd prefer to have a rosewood/ebony fingerboard (the ebanol is a tad bright and synthetic for my liking) but for that price I can't complain. I know the quality of cheap far eastern instruments vary a lot, but if you get a decent one, for £219 its an absolute steal!

Reading is definitely the best thing you can learn. If you can sight read very well, and are a decent player, you can make money doing so.

Most stock cheap plywood basses have never been set up properly and have a completely unplayable action so I wouldn't use them as a comparison. However, I play with a very high action on my double bass. It's a lot harder on the left hand but if you play regularly you'll get used to it within a month or so. Main advantages are having a lot more space for the string to vibrate, less noise from the string hitting the fingerboard, you can really dig in to the string, a hell of a lot more volume and a beefier sound. It requires a lot more effort to shred though. Don't expect rapid Eddie Gomez style lines to come easily, think more Larry Grenadier. Another way to get this sound is keep the setup the same and change the strings to Spirocore Stark or similar. The much heavier gauge will help. I find light jazz strings way too sloppy on 3/4 scale eubs (the ones that come on NS design basses are awful). Hope this helps, Chris

If anyone's down at the festival this week pop down to the avalon cafe stage late thurs night, or the main avalon stage on sat 12.45 for beers and good tunes.

click the link [url="http://basschat.co.uk/index.php?showtopic=1833"]http://basschat.co.uk/index.php?showtopic=1833[/url]

Here's my big rig before it turns into something a lot smaller. I'm goin to really miss it. 1972 Fender Precision EA iAmp 600 SWR Henry the 8x8

+1 on that. Got a lesson in school when I was 10. 14 years of practice later I'm a professional bassist. If you love the sound get yourself a few lessons. Most teachers will let you use their bass in the lesson, so you won't have to fork out a load of money on an instrument before you've decided if you really want to go for it.