Painy

Personally I just like the idea of turning up at a session and winding up the producer but pulling out a Fender Dimension and a Music Man Cutlass.

I've used one of the Caline PSUs from eBay for about a year now and it's been pretty good and fairly quiet until a couple of weeks ago when I started getting a really loud hum. I think it may actually be a fault with the power pack itself but seeing as I've just down-scaled my board to just tuner/compressor/overdrive/octaver/clean boost recently, I'm probably just gonna get one of the Harley Benton Junior units to replace it.

[quote name='ribbetingfrog' timestamp='1469348465' post='3097486'] I use http://www.karaoke-version.co.uk/ Not sure if it is exactly what you are after. They are decent covers, when you buy a track you can download it as much as you want and can keep or leave out any of the instruments each time. [/quote] Another one here using this. We use it for keyboard parts when playing live and just add a click track.

This is what happens when you accidentally leave your guitar unattended when your odd uncle Cyril is visiting for the weekend and brings his pet beaver along with him.

The guy who did this clearly has some artistic talent. It's just a shame that this misguided creation has resulted in a silver dragon with with buck teeth. It looks like when it laughs it'll sound like "hyuk hyuk hyuk"! As for if it's cool, I'd ask if all of the following associated things are cool: Dungeons & Dragons. Poor dentistry. Platform boots on men. Cod-pieces in general. Big spiky shoulder pads. The ability to lick one's own naval/eyebrows. Kiss. On the whole I'd say probably not.

There was a Squier VM P5 on eBay recently that was relisted several times for a fair chunk over the new price. Eventually the seller gave up and relisted as an auction starting at 99p. Sold for £180 in the end which is probably about right but given its the kind of price range bass that inexperienced youngsters will often be looking at, someone could easily have been ripped off.

That's rather a lot of money for something that looks like it was moulded out of old Mini Babybel wax.

Sell it to me for five pounds! Oh alright, I can throw in a Hiwatt 'Hurricane' 10W combo to sweeten the deal as long as you pay for postage. No?..... Maybe just keep it and get it fixed then

Kasim Sulton anyone?

You could also try plucking a small fraction closer to the neck than usual so there's less string 'tension' (actually more compliance before anyone says anything - I know!). Glad it's getting there though.

[quote name='Bassman68' timestamp='1469018945' post='3095107'] A healthy dose of compression & 'digging in' with a low action, to my ears? [/quote] Yup, this. It's basically subtle fret rattle with compression keeping it all tight and punchy. Edit: Bright new strings too - no 'gunk'!

This video explains a lot of the differences. However my Squier vintage modified precision 5 string is my first choice gigging bass. Not because I'm worried about damage/loss/theft of my more expensive basses but because it's the one I find nicest and most comfortable to play. I'd say my Squier is a very playable and usable instrument as standard but is even better as a platform for upgrades and modification to make it into an excellent instrument. If Fender made a Mexican precision 5 string it might have saved me the effort of the upgrades that I'm in the process of carrying out but as its only available as an American Standard (costing around 6 times as much as the Squier) I'll happily put in the work. http://youtu.be/qaUOaaOyhHE

I've got a photo somewhere on an old phone of a Nissan Pickup with the plate B16 NOB that I saw in a Sainsbury's car park. My favorite though was a wealthy dentist who lived on the same road as me a few years back. He bought his wife a shiny new red 911 Carrera but then bought an old banger from an auction (seem to remember it was an old Cortina but could be wrong) just so he could get the registration transferred over to the Porsche. It was BOL 10X.

Could you not stick a patch over it and tell everyone it's a Donald Trump themed speaker cabinet?

Ha, just kidding... my number one gigging bass right now is a Squier

Just picked up this little beauty for a cool £189000. Do I win?

For those not familiar and as bonzodog says, the modern player jazz has dual humbuckers already. On the later models these were coil tap-able by means of a 4 way rotary selector switch (I have one in a 5 string) which gives the options of HH/HS/SH/SS, plus the standard VVT controls. I find the neck pickup solo'd in humbucker mode gets much closer to a precision sound than a standard jazz single coil. In fact whilst it's not exact played on its own, it's probably still close enough to pass for a P fairly convincingly when it's in the mix.

In the past I've used a volume swell pedal where you can set the amount of volume cut when the pedal is tilted fully back. That way when I plugged in the hotter bass I just pushed the pedal back fully for fixed amount of volume cut to keep it level with the other bass.

[quote name='charic' timestamp='1468397079' post='3090595'] Like ashdown? [/quote]

[quote name='Barking Spiders' timestamp='1468337378' post='3090254'] what about F# Bflat 9 at the 8th fret? [/quote] I was about to say it's lucky for him that there are only those 5 chords that it's set up to play in the whole of music but I forgot about that one. Drat!

In case anyone missed this elsewhere.

You could always use the extra hole to install a dummy toggle switch like Lee Sklar's 'producer switch'.

http://youtu.be/ZxW5KFZ-9CM

The low B is actually fairly decent on mine. Tension is as good as most of the far more expensive fivers I've owned to be honest so playability-wise it's very good. If I'm being hyper-critical then it doesn't have perhaps quite as much punch and definition tonally as the other strings but to be fair it's nothing you'd hear in the mix anyway. I just move my plucking position a tiny fraction towards the bridge on the B and it evens right out. Mine has actually become my number one despite the German built Warwick now living under my bed!

[quote name='JPJ' timestamp='1467831873' post='3086633'] Not British and no longer in production but the Aguilar AG500SC takes some beating in the simple but devastatingly beautiful sound stakes. [/quote] I have the AG500 - which has a second channel compared to the SC (single channel) version so mine is not quite the simple amp you're describing - but I do concur that they sound fantastic. I'd add another +1 for the SC version.