EliasMooseblaster

Beers on Monday? The Monday Night Crew*? *or "Crúé" depending on your leanings toward glam-metal...

Thanks - I suspected it might have been a mad dash to see what parts a local guitar shop might have had knocking around to get the guitar into working order in time for that evening's gig! Now you mention it, I do know a guitarist who has an alarmingly intimate level of knowledge about SRV's gear and setup, so perhaps I should pick his brains next time I see him.

Ludicrously optimistic prices aside, anyone know what the story is behind the left-handed trem? Did SRV prefer to have it dangling from the top of the bridge, or was it just a frantic bodged repair while on tour that he just got used to?

It's good to know I won't be the only person on this forum harping on about how damn good they are!

I've definitely seen Pride marketed as a pale, got a feeling Doom Bar might be as well if you look closely at the back of the bottle...perhaps this is a good reason for me to buy another bottle! But yes, I agree wholeheartedly re the balance of beers across the bar. The insidious effect even seems to be creeping into our christmas and winter beers, which I normally look forward to for their ominous blackness - but no, yesterday I tried Wychwood's Brewdolph, a "golden christmas ale." It was nice enough, and I tip my hat to their terrible pun, but since when has christmas been a time for golden ales?

I've been worried about this myself. Whilst I'm obviously grateful that the "craft beer" movement has presented a more acceptable (even fashionable) face of "proper" beer than CAMRA types like myself could present, I do worry that their hop fetish risks driving out some of the more reliable styles. Everything's IPA, Pale Ale, American Pale, or some other variation on pale*, it seems; where you do find a black beer, it's ridiculously strong, or often a "black IPA"** . But no, none of these newer "craft" breweries seem to make a bitter. There are some more traditional new contenders in my neck of the woods, though - Sambrook's and Twickenham spring to mind - who make some very dependable bitters and more traditional pale ales (even if they don't always name them as such!) * notice how even London Pride and Sharp's Doom Bar are now being marketed as pale ales ** a bit like bass distortion: often difficult to get right, and admittedly very nice when it's done well, but with the potential to be quite horrible

If I could have the equivalent for dark milds, stouts and porters, that would be grand.

Hmm...good question. I don't know of any, but @Billy Apple and some of our other resident Spector enthusiasts might be able to help...

If you're after a broad selection (the usual suspects, plus a few more exotic pieces), I'd head straight to Wunjo, on Denmark Street (near Tottenham Court Road). They have a dedicated bass shop in one of the basements, and the staff are welcoming and helpful. If you're after something fancy and/or rare, try the Bass Gallery in Camden - I forget the name of the road, but it's a stone's throw from Camden Road overground station, and not much further from Camden Town tube.

I have run into a similar problem, despite being content to use rounds similar to the ones the bass came with. It seems the only way to get strings with suitable size ball-ends, in a single set, is to badger your local guitar shop to order some from Hagstrom directly. The shop I bought my HB-8 from didn't have much luck getting through to them, so in the end I bit the bullet and bought a D'Addario 8-string set (or they might have been Rotosound...it's been a while). The ball-ends on the octave strings don't fit the ferrules, as you already know. I've just put up with them sitting proud. But in the long run, it probably wouldn't be a bad investment to widen the holes and fit some larger ferrules. Whatever that adjustment costs, I'm sure you'll make it back from the savings on buying pre-packed sets instead of custom combinations.

Ages ago, I remember an article in a guitar magazine suggesting that best results could be achieved by grouping my effects into the following broad order (Bass) Guitar -> "Dynamic Effects" - volumes/boosts, wahs, compressors "Distortion Effects" - self-explanatory "Modulators" - chorus, flangers, phasers, etc -> Amp I'm not a great example myself, as I play the majority of sets without stepping on any pedals; on the occasions I do, it's a Tube Screamer or a Big Muff. But it looks like your own setup follows the above rule-of-thumb... Dynamic: compressor and octaver probably fit in this category - the synth is the one I'm less sure about - and the tuner doesn't change the sound so it's moot Distortion: Muff. I just wanted to write "Muff" again, really. Modulators: your Boss Chorus -> Sansamp, which is basically an external preamp anyway. So ultimately, in some hypothetical scenario where I tripped over your board and had to reconnect everything before you got back from the bar, I'd probably end up patching it the same way!

See also Black Sabbath / Heaven & Hell - if I recall correctly, Iommi and Butler occasionally hooked up with Ronnie James Dio and Vinne Appice for some gigs which focused on the albums they recorded with Sabbath. But because the "Black Sabbath" name was in use by another lineup (can't remember if they'd buried the hatchet with Ozzy by that point, or if it was another singer), they reformed under "Heaven & Hell" moniker (after the first album they'd made together). Not sure whether they drew on other material besides Heaven & Hell, Mob Rules and Dehumanizer to pad out the set. Interestingly, Sabbath's recent round of gigs and festivals seem to have stuck to material from the first five albums, and 13, ignoring the dozen or so albums made in between. Don't know whether that was down to any personal preferences or...well, can you imagine Ozzy trying to sing Dio's lines?

Good grief...so are they playing 7-string guitars themselves, or are they on baritones? (ADGCEA is a standard bari tuning, which could easily be dropped another semitone). Either way that would leave them playing the same Ab that's on your E string...that's going to be pretty murky another octave down.

Nice! I remember seeing Virgil and the Accelerators opening for Joanne Shaw Taylor...god, it must have quite a while ago now, as the latter had only just released her first album. But I remember them being good!

+1 on the Sandberg front. I feel like I'm well-covered for Precision and P/J tones with my Schecter and my Brandoni kit-build...but if I ever found them lacking, I'd probably go back to eyeing up some of those tasty-looking VM4s. God help me, even as I type this there's a little voice at the back of my mind saying, "yeah, but you don't have one with a reverse P-pickup, do you?"

I know that feeling; I had a similarly strong impulse when I tried a US Std Precision five or six years ago. Sometimes, it's surprising how such an "ordinary"-looking design can sound and feel so right. But of course, that price tag is a consideration, and probably the same one that stopped me buying the aforementioned Precision - much as I liked it, I knew I already had a good quality P/J variation sitting at home. It's definitely worth shopping around to see what else is knocking around for a similar price. Schecter's Model T comes quite highly recommended (not just by me), and there are various second-hand Sandbergs available on here with similar pickup configs. If nothing else, it hopefully gives you a reason to venture out and have some fun trying a few different basses!

The Beach Boys. Well alright, not the original lineup, but if you fast-forward to a lot of the SMiLE-era recordings, several of the songs feature an upright bass and either a Precision or a Bass VI. It's particulalry noticeable on Good Vibrations, where the upright plays root notes during the verse, while Carole Kaye (I think?) plays some nicely palm-muted arpeggios up the dusty end of a Precision.

I know myself well enough to be aware that I'll feel "hangry" if I have to go hungry. It's always good to know in advance whether I'm going to have to feed myself - and as I don't often play functions, I tend to be left to my own devices in that respect. I think the most awkward position I've found myself in was when the food was promised in place of a fee. Not a function, but a gig where all the bands involved were friends of each other, and the band organising it had very proudly announced that the venue would pay the bands for providing an evening's entertainment. Which was just as well, because as the date drew nearer, I had just enough money left to pay the rent for the month and get myself and my gear to the venue. As the last few days ticked away, the offer of money had been revised down to "the musicians can eat for free" - apparently this place had a very good Indian buffet. If they hadn't all been friends, I would have insisted that I couldn't do this without being paid; at least with this new arrangement, there was the promise of a decent meal. Perhaps if I could even line my guitar case with samosas and naan bread to keep me going for a couple of days afterwards. Somehow, in the couple of days between this disappointment and the soundcheck, the other band's spectacularly inept negotiating skills had brought our recompense down yet further. If we wanted anything from the buffet, they told me, we had to pay like everybody else. Or, in other words, we were getting literally nothing for playing this gig. The temptation to walk was palpable - overwhelming, even. It would have left the band I was playing for with no bassist, and the event in question with no bass amp, but I was livid. Not to mention quite hangry. But I didn't. I had enough change in my back pocket to get a sugary drink from a nearby shop and keep myself going, without causing a scene or swearing at anyone. (And even after all that, they somehow talked me into operating the f***ing mixing desk after nobody else could work out how to use it...)

Is it just me, or is Gibson's entire guitar range essentially just the same pickup configuration mounted on a different slab? I've had this conversation over on Guitarchat, where there seems to be some consensus that LPs somehow sound different from SGs with the same pickups, but nobody challenged the idea that nearly all their guitars are basically a neck humbucker and bridge humbucker with a 3-way switch. Very little variation, apart from the occasional triple-humbucker novelty. At least if you're collecting Fenders, the electronics are different between a Strat, Tele, Jag, Jazzmaster, etc. Apart from looks, why would I bother buying a Flying V if it's electronically the same as an SG? It seems a little ironic that there's more obvious variation in their bass pickup configurations (see T-birds, "SG" basses, Rippers - and surely the Grabber's sliding pickup was ahead of its time?). Such a shame that their refusal to build more five-strings just makes them look like dinosaurs who refuse to accept that fives are actually quite commonplace these days. The more recent EB designs seemed like a step in the right direction, and if Mike Lull can stick a low B on a Thunderbird shape, what's stopping Gibson? Monkey Steve (see above) can't be the only potential customer this has cost them!

In the past, a couple of duff straps have been cause for some premature white hairs... The worst occasion - at least psychologically - was my Thunderbird. I hadn't even owned the thing that long; bought it second hand but it was in immaculate condition. The band had been in the studio for about 12 hours (engineer being slightly anally retentive when it came to mic placements, etc), and so I was already pretty exhausted by the time we had the "keeper" from the various drum takes and were ready to record the bassline. Said engineer had tried me through various different amps, and wasn't satisfied until I was plugged into a very powerful H&K valve amp running into a 6x10 fridge, running at a level which made my internal organs vibrate uncomfortably. We were finally ready to go for a take, and as I sleepily took my hands off the bass to adjust my headphones... ...the strap slipped, and the bass bounced across the studio floor. My first coherent thought, in between blind panic and assorted obscenities, was the notorious reputation of Gibson headstocks. This was the most expensive instrument I'd ever owned up to this point, and the thought that it could have been rendered unusable by a duff strap pin was impossible to dispel. I must have stared at the end of the neck for a good few seconds as I reassured myself that actually, the head was still attached and undamaged. There are two big dents on the body, but I'll live with those. (The bass has sported a locking strap ever since.) The other strap was the shoulder strap on a gig bag. I had a Vintage SG copy inside said bag, and as I got off the Tube one morning, the strap gave up the ghost completely, and the guitar belly-flopped onto the concrete platform. One knackered pickup selector, big dents taken out of the volume knobs, and a broken top E...I guess it could have been a lot worse.

I think Bobby's Jazz already has quite enough fins on it...

If memory serves, I've only had an amp fail on me once in a gig setting. Thankfully it started playing up during the soundcheck, which I guess is the best time to discover a fault if there's going to be one! To be fair, the old horse had been schlepped across London on various forms of public transport over the years and so I'm amazed it lasted as long as it did without suffering more serious damage. Eventually it enjoyed a new lease of life when I disconnected the faulty head and connected the speaker to a separate amp. But since I stopped being such a cheapskate and bought myself a nicer cab, this one's been gathering dust. (Any electricians fancy restoring an old Laney SS combo? I think one of the output transistors has gone, but I don't think I trust myself to make the repair!) Ironically, after worrying about the general perception of "SS = sturdy and reliable" and "valve = potentially fragile", I've yet to have any problems with either of my valve heads. But then, there's no chance of me trying to move a CTM-100 and 2x12 cab on the Tube, which has probably helped...

I vote for a tenor uke and a wah-wah pedal. If any punters come up and talk to you, you can have some fun trying to BS your way through an explanation of how you use the wah to shape the uke's tone to sound more bass-heavy.

What a patronising helmet. More power to you on a mature and sensible response; was there a palpable temptation to respond with, "yes, similarly your voice sounds OK, but your social skills need a lot of work..."?

Now that's destiny if ever I heard it!