chriswareham

I love lizard skin (fake stuff, I wouldn't want the real thing), and even have one arm tattooed in a snake skin pattern. I could totally see me rocking a bass with this finish. There is the rather lovely Duesenberg snake skin finished bass, but that's way out of my price range ...

"New" Music? They been around for over twenty years. Glad to see Radio 1 still has it's finger as far as ever from the pulse of modern music.

USB is 5 volts. How are they going to prevent their charger potentially destroying standards compliant devices?

I find that the kind of high frequencies from ride cymbals causes a "spike" in my tinnitus. I now where ear plugs that are more heavy duty and reusable compared to the single use yellow foam ones. They definitely help. A friend also has the two part goo for making moulded ear plugs, I'll find out where he got it from because it was a fraction of the price of the branded kits.

I like that, reminds me of the equally impractical Vox teardrop basses that I also have a soft spot for. Actually, I think Eko were responsible for Vox guitars when production moved from the UK.

Anyone know what Acoustic Control Corporation did to make their solid state amps sound so good compared to other SS models of the day? I think mine runs internally at 70v which suggests limitations similar to the early tranny amps, but it's very loud, with lots of bottom end and not much noise.

Theo Argiriadis http://www.tube-electronics.co.uk/. He modified and overhauled my Sound City amp, and is currently converting my Acoustic 140 to UK mains voltage. He can be a bit choosy about the work he takes on, depending on how much custom kit he's building at the time, but is a genius.

Even if you don't like his music, you have to admire his talent. This was a guy who had a studio engineer on a retainer for the frequent bursts of creativity he had, when he'd want to record regardless of the time of day or night. There are allegedly hours of complete recordings that he's accumulated over the years but which have never been heard outside of Paisley Park. He genuinely lived for and through music.

My first was a pointy headstock, Korean made Aria. Neck was too narrow at the nut, and really deep, making it awkward to play. The headstock snapped off and I binned it. I still have my second bass, a short scale semi acoustic made from Eko parts by Brandoni, and bought from Macaris in Charing Cross Road as my 21st birthday present from my parents. Lovely neck and huge "piano" like tone from the body and dual humbuckers. Love it, and had it completely restored by the Gallery a few years ago. They did such an amazing job that I'm in no way ashamed to say I had to quickly leave the shop as I welled up with tears of happiness!

I'd love to know what else he's got lurking in storage. Let me know if you don't mind me tagging along if you do pay him a visit, I'm not far from your neck of the woods over in Enfield Town.

Thought I'd already posted a "defence" of Carlsbro combos in this thread, but can't seem to find it. My first amp was a Cobra 90, and it was great - bought it from a friend who got an excellent tone from it with his active bass. Didn't sound quite as good with my passive bass, but with a 15" speaker and decent EQ it was perfect for pub gigs. A band I liked even did a gig at the Birmingham NEC with one - Taru from Sunshot - and she had a great bass sound.

With my current band, I have a Darkglass B3K switched on almost all the time for a nasty, Lemmy kind of sound. The exceptions are two songs, our slow one which I use no effects on, and a track called Hail Hydra that has an EH Clone Theory chorus on it: [media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VDtY1Ev2-Kg[/media]

Hi Alex, what's this I hear about you making a cab with an 18" speaker in it? If it's true I might have to place my wallet under lock and key :-) I love the middly "thunk" I get from an 18" and would love to hear what you can do with a speaker that diameter.

Let's see: cat scratched SWR cabs with battered Acoustic head that's wider than the cabs, dog chewed Vox cabs with non-matching grille cloth and a tatty Sound City head that's also wider than the cabs. Then there's the Ampeg fridge with half thextolex missing. I think it's fair to say aesthetics aren't important to me when it comes to backline!

Uploading at unsociable times of the day can help. Many broadband packages offer only a theoretical maximum download and upload rate - the contention is the important thing,as you are usually sharing a fixed capacity with other users in your immediate vicinity. At busy times of day, you can struggle to get anywhere near the rates you might expect.

Before Peter Hook started doing his current band I did toy with the idea of putting together a Joy Division tribute. The experience of doing the Cure tribute put me off though - it was an interesting technical exercise to play not only the songs of someone else but using the same technique, but very unsatisfying. I felt I had to be so aware of not only what I was playing, but how I was playing it, that it made me anxious. Probably something made worse by my Asperger's, but it does make me wonder how much people do the tribute thing for the enjoyment or just purely because it at least pays for itself.

Brilliant! SXSW sounds like the festivals in Germany, Wave Gothik Treffen in particular. Takes over the whle city with many venues and a huge line up. Always makes me laugh when people bang on about Glastonbury, which is an exercise in hubris and masochism by comparison.

I did a Cure tribute briefly. Gigs were via an agency and seemed well paid (not sure how well but as a first timer my cut was decent and I'm sure the main guy got more). I noticed that the venues we played only had tribute bands doing live music, with no support acts, and were often civic kinds of places that were either fully or partially seated and otherwise hosted plays or comedians. Ticket prices ranged from £15 to £30, which seemed quite high for a tribute to a band that still play albeit irregularly and can probably be seen for £20 to £30.

Male: David Eugene Edwards of 16 Horsepower and Wovenhand, Ian Curtis, Marc Almond, Carl McCoy Female: Skin of Skunk Anansie, Diamanda Galas, the lead singer from The Savages.

Check out the eBay Weird and Wonderful forum on Basschat, as someone has posted about a Gumtree advert for several sets of unused late 1960s Fender strings. They'll be as dull as watching golf[*] since they will be well oxidised by now, and the seller wants £250 for them! [*] sorry, personal prejudice

I was going to suggest that EB-2 copy was a Shaftesbury until I read the description, since I'm sure I've seen a Rose Morris catalogue with both Gibson and Rick inspired semi-acoustic basses. Could be the output of the same factory I guess. As to the silly claim of some kind of racial slur in this threads name, how long has Jazzyvee been a member of Basschat (a considerable while it seems) so why raise this now? If you've read this thread in any depth, then it's clear we love the "Japcrap" it's named for and it is an ironic, possibly even self-deprecating title. For the record, I work for a Japanese firm and most of my colleagues are either Japanese, Indian or Thai. I've been on the receiving end of racial abuse for my own complicated ethnic background, and I'm pretty sure this thread would not offend a Japanese person.

Martin is making a new scratch plate and truss rod cover for my latest acquisition, and being an Enfield denizen I was quite taken by the brand name for some of his guitars. Glad my GAS is in check at the moment!

Wow Karlfer, that's a great looking faker! The bridge is a great compromise between that of the original, er, inspiration and something a lot more practical. Same kind of shape but no chance of tail lift :-)