Norris

My Aria Pro-II SB-1000 was made in 1980 - the "batwing" headstock, before they had a battery indicator LED and before the jack socket was recessed. I bought it from Humbucker Music in Leicester in 1985 and played it as my only bass for the next 10 years

I'd just arrived at our gig on Sunday, loaded the kit into the pub in a wet gale, when my wife sent me this...

Yeah, I'd still sling my gear in the trunk (hey - get me with the Americanisation!) if I could

Wasn't Pat Badger a hand puppet on kids tv in the 90s? 😁

Cracking gig yesterday. It really rocked out for a Sunday 4pm-7pm slot. It is becoming one of my favourite gigs despite the dull trek to Melton Mowbray on a single carriageway stuck behind an old Landrover that couldn't handle the slightest hill at more than 35mph! Great to hear the words "awesome", "bass" and "player" in the same sentence plus loads of compliments on my sound - including from the landlord who is also a bass player. 😁 The usual Sire > GT-6B > Rumble Footwear were my Solovair boots Even the lager shandy tasted lovely

I've only ever had a toe nail come off, so... erm... not much use 🤷‍♂️😁

1. Buy a box of Maltesers 2. Eat Maltesers 3. Cut out the (black) bottom of the box 4. Dust off remaining chocolate 5. Run it through a paper laminator to make it shiny & sealed 6. Cut out rectangle to cover pickups plus an extra narrow flap all round to fold down 7. Score, fold flaps and stick corners 8. Use double sided tape to stick onto pickups You're welcome 😂

I was pleasantly surprised at how nice the Fender Rumble overdrive sounded, especially for a class D amp. There's a couple of heads in the for sale section too...

It looks like a multi-position tone switch, similar to that fitted into an Aria SB-1000

That's still pretty cheap, if you don't mind me saying 😀

Kudos for gingham Vans! 😂

New venue for us tonight, a sports and social club. We set up and with about 10 minutes until we were due to start it looked pretty bleak It did perk up a bit as more people arrived. We also started messing about musically (while keeping it tight) which made it a lot more fun for us. The audience also fed off the happy vibe and we ended up having a great night. Oh and the main musical silliness was putting quick "zips" up the fretboard into inappropriate places 😁 Drummer in the middle of his Moby Dick solo Slight downside were the cheese and onion cobs - not enough cheese, too much onion. Sire P7-5 > Boss GT-6B > Fender Rumble v3 500 combo Black bass, black shirt and jeans, so black DMs to match Nice bit at the end: the landlord told us we needed to charge more money. Apparently he pays some other bands a lot more than us and says we are much better. So a substantial pay rise for bookings next year 🤷‍♂️

I was thinking it's a bit quiet because we only have 3 in January. Hope your 5 are really good ones!

The term is used far too loosely and freely imo. A proper luthier should have had years of apprenticeship, training and experience. I've made guitars from scratch but wouldn't call myself anything but a hobbyist

Tonight's gig was brought to you by max-strength paracetamol and sudafed. I guess I must have picked up something from the great unwashed crowd at one of our gigs around NYE. I felt a bit dodgy last Thursday night and by Friday morning felt too bad for work! The cold/virus/manflu has waxed and wained over the last week, ending with an invasion of my sinuses this morning that woke me at 5am in pain. Any sane bass player would have pulled the gig. Not me! We only have a couple this month, so I dosed myself up with (legal) drugs and went for it. Not so much jigging about as normal, a bit "heady" bending down to set up and pack down, but otherwise quite an enjoyable gig. Nice pub, decent crowd, hot & sweaty. Hopefully it might have fried off a few of the unwelcome guests infesting me at the moment. I forgot to take any photos. Usual rig with just the Sire P7-5 this time for some P-bass loveliness. Solovair boots are getting to be quite comfortable now. Let's hope I wake up feeling a bit better after some of Dr Jim Beam's post-gig medicine...

If you're struggling with the whole concept of recording and like to read books then this is quite a good one Guerilla Home Recording: How to Get Great Sound from Any Studio - (No Matter How Weird or Cheap Your Gear Is) (Hal Leonard Music Pro Guides) https://amzn.eu/d/9beaxjr As others have suggested Reaper is a great product, but you may need to watch a few videos to learn how to fly it The Focusrite Scarlett is a great interface for the money but is really just that - an interface that lets you get your analogue signal into the computer. What you do with the signal is down to your other software i.e. such as Reaper, Ableton, etc.

The main problem with AI right now is the blind trust that people place in a technology that is still in its infancy. I've been using AI related to software development for quite some time now and I don't trust it at all. It is far too quick to "hallucinate" (i.e. make stuff up) and to assert that it is correct until you give it evidence that it is wrong. A good example of this is to ask ChatGPT (version 4o) how many "r"s there are in the word "strawberry" - it will insist there are only 2 until you tell it to actually count them! It's still a great tool for doing a lot of grunt work, but you need to keep a close eye on it and don't blindly trust what it comes up with

Heating the old frets will soften any glue that may have been used, and also releases natural oils from the fretboard wood, helping to avoid tearout

Pickups tend to either work or not. There's not usually any middle ground. The first thing to check is the jack socket. Give it a squirt of electrical contact cleaner and then insert/remove a jack plug several times. Similarly rotate each knob fully both ways many times. Those are places where you can get a dodgy contact, especially if the bass hasn't been used for a while The circuitry is very simple

As a coda to my update I now have some photos forwarded to me. So here is the lesser spotted Norris in DJ and DMs The organiser decided to do the countdown to midnight, so we missed out on doing Auld Lang Syne. It's a shame because I rather enjoy playing it - we do a straight/reggae/punk version with a big rallentando at the end. Oh well, maybe next year 😃 Oh, and he also cocked up the countdown 😬. No excuse when everyone's mobile phone has the correct time these days! He's still a lovely chap though - we've known him since the 80s

I can't help there as I'm all fingers 😂

This. Keep the relative tuning consistent If you're new to 5-string give yourself a chance and immerse yourself in the experience. Don't touch your old 4-string basses for now. Keep to the E-G strings at first and just get used to having the B string there, until you can confidently hit the correct string. It will take a while. You will hit the wrong string a lot. You may well end up changing your plucking technique, especially if you tend to anchor your thumb. Eventually it will come and you will feel comfortable playing it. It will probably take months. But hey, bass playing is a journey not a destination 😃

Just got in from our NYE gig. It was ok-ish. An Oscars theme night (🤷‍♂️) meant sweating my balls off in dinner jacket and bow tie. Doing 30 minutes on/off seemed even more tiring than the 2 hour set from last night. The night really seemed to drag. The crowd were quite hard work until they were sufficiently lubricated too. It didn't help that the stage in this village hall is about 5 feet high and very large: excellent for am-dram productions, but can disconnect the band from the crowd. I was playing the Sterling again and was initially struggling to get a nice sound. As the first set went on it got progressively worse, sounding weak, farty and distorted. Yep, the battery had run out! Luckily changing it took a couple of seconds thanks to the battery holder, and out came a "GP Cell" brand battery! Rookie error - I'd not changed it since I bought the bass, and who in their right mind would use anything but a Duracell?! Later on, my amp started distorting quite badly on certain notes, and after a song or two of a horrible sinking feeling I eventually realised it was actually the tiny plastic "Oscar" I'd been awarded, and placed on top of my Fender Rumble - phew! Anyway, ker-ching! Happy New Year. We all agreed we'd actually rather earn less and have a good night rocking out a pub next time! I forgot to take any photos, so instead here's my mini Oscar next to a rather nice bottle of Cuban rum

Just back from our New Year's Eve Eve gig. It was a sold out ticket-only event in a village hall that holds 130, organised by the woman that used to own the village pub and who still owns a catering company. Nice little stage, not too high. However the venue has the typical village hall reverberation due to all the hard surfaces. The Sterling Sub Ray5 was lovely and clear through my Rumble (Retrovibe Stinger preamp) though. Slightly slow start, but didn't take long to pack the dance floor. We ended the night with a 2 hour set to keep the party going. Boy was it hot! I have the day off work tomorrow to rest up for NYE. That's an "Oscar" theme night, so it's going to be even hotter in the dinner suit and bow tie. Good money though - kerching!