EliasMooseblaster

Must have been a guitarist...

But what if Mooseblaster really was my mother's maiden name?

Funnily enough I recently found myself on the other end of the problem. We don't have a car (living close to London and all that jazz), so we contacted a number of people in a similar position to you - got a sofa to shift, free as long as you pick it up - and told them that we'd arrange a man-and-van to come and collect it and a time that was convenient to them. A rather alarming people seemed to take fright at this idea, and I received a curt: "No, sorry, collection in person only." I don't understand the objection - we're saving them the hassle and expense of transporting the thing, the only difference is that the derrière that sits in the driver's seat won't be the same one that sits on the sofa. And surely, it's not as if your average car owner has a big enough vehicle to take a three-seater sofa bed as it is?

So basically, "give us your Streamer, and in return I'll etch a permanent reminder that I've pretty much mugged you onto your skin"?

If you wanted to have a punt on a few different models, you could pick up* a Tonerider, a Wilkinson and/or a second-hand Duncan or Fender and still come in under that budget. I have personally been impressed with all of the aforementioned! *no pun intended

They were obviously being widely stocked at one point - I'm sure Anderton's has (had) a video in which they compared the Studio (passive) and Session (active) models, and Westside (Denmark St) were touting the passive Model T as their alternative to a Fender Precision back when I bought mine. But yeah, Schecter's heart doesn't really seem to be in it compared with how they promote some of their other models, which seems like a missed opportunity, if you ask me.

The secret might well be in the Mid-Shift button! I gave this a prod while playing around with the EQ and found it did exactly what I wanted it to with the mids. I think I'm right in saying it raises the centre frequency (it certainly sounds like it); in any case it gave me a much clearer tone. Nowadays I tend to have the bass around 9 o'clock, and the mids and treble at noon. I've started going easier on the input gain and pushing the master volume instead, but then I've typically been plugging in Gibson-style basses (T-bird, Epi EB-3) with big humbuckers; a bass more akin to a Precision or Jazz might warrant a bit more gain to maintain similar levels of oomph and heft.

Update: GORN.

Ah! I stand corrected, then - I was always under the impression that it was, first and foremost, a music festival. I certainly wasn't aware of the full title. My mistake!

I'll stand up for some of the smaller festivals, as the ones that are run well have been among Cherry White's better gig experiences: Togfest in 2014 stands out in my memory (people on hand helping us to load-in, and a proper soundcheck...plus the crowd bought every CD we'd brought with us), as do Walthamstow's StowFest (literally a p!55-up in a brewery, as we played at Wild Card), and three good years on the trot at Dereham Blues Festival (including one late set played on a train platform, and the lesson learned that it was madness to try and play three sets at different locations in one day and drive back the same night). Maybe the difference is what you're used to normally: as our usual fare was short sets on multiple-band bills around Central London, these festivals seemed like a breath of fresh air by comparison - certainly one of the main plus points was that they had a ready-made crowd of punters who were up for some new music and a good time.

The more oblique point this raises is the idea of people going along "for the experience." To expand further: years ago, a good friend of mine went for the first time, and came back full of praise for the weekend. "Everyone should go at least once," she declared. I was, obviously, glad that she'd had a good time, but I countered by saying that I didn't see a great many artists on the lineup I'd have paid to see, so I'd probably pass if the lineup looked similar the following year. "It's not just about the music, though," she insisted, "it's the whole experience." Now, call me a pedant (and many people do), but if I were to go to lengths people go to in acquiring tickets for such a big music festival, I'd have thought that the music would be a pretty big component of that. Four days bumming around a city of tents and squinting at a leaflet to find an act you actually want to see doesn't sound like a "whole experience" I'm particularly keen to experience.

"Did you see that ludicrous display last night?"

A brief reminder that this is on tomorrow night, if any more BCers fancy it. I'll be playing the first set from 8, but I'm hoping to be there around 7 if anybody fancies a pint and a chinwag beforehand!

I doubt you're alone in that respect - it has been bastard cold the last few evenings

12 seconds. I tried. But Christ on a bike, that voice...I couldn't even get past him talking about the video game that was sponsoring him.

In a studio, maybe. Live, probably not. Even in a studio, it can depend on how anally retentive the producer/engineer wants to be. I've not worked with a vast number of them, but enough to have experienced both extremes: from an engineer who not only insisted that the guitarist and I tune our instruments from the same tuner, but also asked our drummer to re-tune his snare to suit the key of each song, down to the guy who didn't seem too bothered as long as both our tuners were set to A440, then popped a mic on the snare and shrugged, "sounds alright to me" - I hasten to add that both of them managed to give us very satisfactory end results! Of course, a studio is going to capture and refine the sound in a lot more detail than a live environment, and with all the EQ and compression applied to keep all the tracks sounding even concordant and even, any tuning discrepancies are likely to become more obvious. If the two pedal tuners on a live stage differ by a few cents, the difference is unlikely to be audible. (And if said live stage is, for example, the Later with Jools Holland studio, then surely no one's going to hear the bass anyway...?)

There was a run of Gibson EB3 ("SG-type") basses at one point in the '70s, on which they moved the mudbucker further back - not quite P-bass position, but not right under the neck like they normally are. Haven't heard one myself, but by all accounts they kept a lot of the characteristic "woof" while giving better definition due to the new position. (I do have an Epi EB-3 stock mudbucker knocking around if you're interested in getting hold of one cheaply...?)

I saw them in Hyde Park a few years ago and whilst it was a hell of a lineup that day (Motorhead, Soundgarden and Sabbath, all for the price of a pint as my friend was online when the ticketing website accidentally put the tickets up for something like a fiver), but Lemmy looked like he was on his last legs. Kudos to the man for doing his best to deliver, but I suspected it would be my last chance to see them.

The blighter's lucky I'm not in Norway! (Which does mean that very little blasting gets done these days...)

It's the ones like these that take you by surprise - they seemed to be healthy, or we got no insight into their private lives to suggest they were unwell. See also Scott Walker. I knew he was getting on a bit, but he seemed to be active and busy and working on new projects, so it rather came out of the blue.

That is a shame - didn't they make a few fretless Grabbers and Rippers back in the day? (Or did those tend to be aftermarket customisations by their owners?) You'd think it would be a market worth exploring - and they'd save on the cost of some fretwire...

Where do you play? Your fingers will meet less resistance if you strike the strings near the neck than if you strike near the bridge. If you're after an audibly overdriven tone, you may find it helps with this as well - playing nearer the bridge with a light touch is good for a tight, funky sound, but I've always found that playing nearer the neck makes the notes "sing" more. Plus, it's easier to give the string a good whack for that all-important fret clank - find some good video footage of John Entwistle's right hand and you'll see what I mean!

Casters. Sit on top, use the bass to push yourself along and you can basically punt your way to the gig.

I have often wondered whether they chose their name with a view specifically to raising some eyebrows when they tried to break into the American market...

Drumkits not propped up by a mountain of gaffer tape would also be an improvement on a lot of places I've rehearsed! Joking aside though, this does sound like a brave attempt to improve on the usual horror show. Given the only one I know of in my area is a single, mouldy room with a leaky roof and a floor largely held together by hazard tape, I might have to consider the trip down to Horley next time I need a space!