chriswareham

If you want a really simple and easy to use SysEx application, then Elekton's C6 is great: https://www.elektron.se/gb/download-support-analog-drive Versions available for macOS or Windows.

You can return an item within fourteen days of receiving it without needing to state a reason and without it needing to be faulty. It's the Consumer Contracts Regulations, which replaced the distance selling rules in 2014. If an item is bought sight unseen, by ordering over the phone, mail order or online, then with very few exceptions it's covered by the new regulations.

Name starts with an "A". Based in Guildford. I've been shopping there since I was an almost penniless student more years ago than I care to remember, and they were a tiny shop on a back street. Last time I'll order from them though.

A while ago I ordered a MIDI controller keyboard online from a well known UK vendor. It was on back order, and finally arrived last Tuesday. Cut to a couple of days later, and I finally had time to test it out only to find that one of the keys refuses to trigger unless I apply a lot of force to it - by which I mean I basically have to press the thing as hard as the hulk probably would. The rest of the keys trigger as I'd expect, with a degree of force commensurate to the velocity I'm trying to produce. I immediately contacted customer service, and had a response on Friday asking for a video showing the problem before they'd accept a return. Now am I wrong, or do the distance selling laws not suggest that I shoudn't have to jump through fecking hoops to demonstrate a problem with an item I order online? I've ordered several thousands of pounds worth of items through this company in the last year alone, and regardless of that I don't have a smart phone, so videoing a demonstration of the problem is a major ball ache. I appreciate that a lot of people use the distance selling laws as part of a "try before you buy", where they can get a go on a bit of kit and then send it back if they decide it's just not for them and the vendor then has to try to resell the item as "B stock". At the same time, I've had a brand new bass guitar turn up in the last year from the same vendor in a completely unplayable state that would have required an expensive setup. I only continue to use this vendor as they seem to be the only place that ever have stock from one particular manufacturer. Personally, I consider it a reasonable part of the change from bricks and mortar local music shops to buying sight unseen online - the vendor has lower overheads, but if they're too fecking useless to check an item out before shipping it out then that's on them. Anyway, rant over. Tomorrow I actually have to drive through the place where unusually for this kind of vendor they do have one bricks and mortar store. I'm visiting family not far away from there (albeit two hours from where I live), and I'm factoring in time to visit them with the defective item. It just boils my piss that they won't otherwise accept a return without a video of the problem.

Newtone are Peter Hook's source of strings for his Shergold six string basses, and I'm sure I read somewhere that Eastwood sourced the strings for their recreation of the Shergold from Newtone.

It's got the traditional "hairpin" truss rods, which are essentially a pair of thin truss rods that aren't very strong. I think the idea was that you could have different tension on the bass and treble sides of the neck to compensate for differences in string tension. I've also seen claims that they could be used to cure a twisted neck, but I doubt it. For the last couple of years RIC have started using conventional truss rods, which are stronger and easier to adjust. With the hairpin ones you have to remove the string tension and clamp the neck while adjusting them, a lot of guitar setup people don't know this and can potentially damage the neck by adjusting them like they would a normal truss rod. It makes for a lengthy setup process as well - slacken or remove strings, clamp the neck, adjust truss rods, unclamp neck and tension strings, only to find you need to do the whole process again.

From what I understand, the author insisted that the book be "warts and all", which Peter's sisters initially agreed to. The book covers the descent into heavy drug use that destroyed Peter's long term relationship, which then spiralled into violence and incarceration at a prison psych ward. Peter's sisters seem to have had second thoughts on reading this in the draft manuscript, but I've not heard anything to contradict the veracity of what was written in the book. The description of Peter's final hours is quite harrowing as well. Overall, the book could have benefitted from some better editing - the author is clearly a music journalist unused to longer form writing - but it struck me as honest and informative. Saw them about eight times from the mid 90s onwards, and barring one show they were fantastic. The last Type O show I saw was on the disastrous tour where Peter was clearly very, very unwell. He only agreed to continue because the cancellation fees would have bankrupted them, and he almost died the night of the Birmingham show only to try and play the London one shortly after. I then saw him at the Carnivore concert in London, and despite being in poor physical shape he seemed much more like the Peter Steele of old. I was a few feet from him, his humour was back and he seemed to genuinely happy to be playing to hard core fans at a small venue. It was a shock to hear of his passing not that long afterwards. The later albums always had stand out tracks, but as you say they lacked the tongue in cheek humour of the earlier albums.

My favourite find of the year was Virgin in Veil, a Finnish band. One for fans of the punkier end of goth like Rozz Williams era Christian Death or Southern Death Cult:

I love everything about the Warwick Star bass ... except the headstock. I think it's a great shape for their solid bodies, but find it a bit out of place on a more traditional looking semi-acoustic.

I could only find them in the gold or red finish.

I'm done. Unless the current owner of a Hohner headless bass I sold earlier this year gets bored with it. I bought it from someone on here, then endured continual taunts from bandmates about how "naff and eighties" it looks. To my eternal shame I gave in to the taunts and sold it, despite it being the most comfortable bass I've ever played (it took a while to get used to looking down and my lizard brain getting confused by how close my hand was to the end of the neck though). I regretted selling it the moment it was sold, and put a note in the case saying I'd happily buy it back. The current owner has said I'll get first refusal if he gets bored with it, so fingers crossed.

Not normally one to show off a new acquisition, but I thought this was unusual enough to make an exception. About ten years ago I owned an Aria semi-acoustic bass that seems to defy all my Googling to find out much about it. It was apparently a "Tab 66" model according to the receipt I still have, but unfortunately it was stolen from the storage locker I had at a rehearsal studio in Walthamstow. I looked into claiming it on my insurance, but factoring in the excess and potential hit I'd take on my renewal I didn't bother. Cut to this year, and I decided I need another semi-acoustic because ... well, they look as cool as f*ck and the other one I own is very fragile. Since I needed it to be my main bass, I ideally wanted a standard 34" scale and that seems to be a bit of a rarity with semi-acoustics. I eventually got the options down to an Epiphone Jack Casady or another Aria, the Tab Classic. As an incurable goth, it had to be in a black finish, so that was the Jack Casady out of the equation. So this is my new bass: The black model seemed to be permanently out of stock in the UK, so I took a chance on buying it online from a German outfit whose name starts with a "Z". It was shipped super quick, although the post Brexit import tax kerfuffle slowed it down a bit when it reached the UK. Still worked out cheaper then buying the red model from anywhere in the UK that had them in stock. As I've come to expect from buying online, the setup on arrival was completely unplayable. The neck was like a banana, action 10mm at the twelfth fret, and bridge jacked up to the point the bolts where about to pop out of their sockets. A nerve wracking session of truss rod tweaks and bridge adjustments later, and it now plays beautifully. It has the rich, woody sound I associate with a semi-acoustic and is perfectly balanced when played standing with no neck dive. The label inside the body only mentions Japan, but I assume it's actually a Chinese made instrument. The body and neck is Maple, while the fretboard is a laminate made by Knoll that feels like Rosewood. The quality is outstanding, the only thing I can fault it on is slightly sharp fret ends which a couple of strokes with a safe edge file sorted out and were probably down to shrinkage in the wood rather than a quality control issue.

Ooh, that Gretsch is a thing of beauty. Always had a soft spot for semi-acoustic basses with their "piano string" like tone, and I own two. The first is a short scale that was cobbled together from parts by a former employee of Eko who bought all their guitar components when they went bust. He used to make a few instruments every so often and sell them at places like Macaris in London, and this one was the twenty first birthday present from my parents: The second (and getting back on topic), was a purchase this year. It's a long scale Aria Pro II Tab Classic that replaces a Tab 66 that was stolen from the supposedly secure storage locker I had at a rehearsal studio:

Best: An Acoustic Control Corporation 136 combo, purchased from a fellow BassChatter. Replaces an ACC 140 head that I used to own, as it's the same head combined with a 15" speaker. Worst: A Rickenbacker 4003. The neck on my battered Hondo Rick copy broke at the heel (it was a bolt on with most of the heel routed out to fit the neck pickup). Since I play in a Joy Division tribute act I needed a suitable replacement quickly, and this 4003 popped up locally on Gumtree at a reasonable price. Having now played it live several times, I find that the neck flexes leading to intonation issues (perhaps the more recent ones with a proper truss rod are better).

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A Greco with neck through construction is the best *ahem* Rickenbacker *ahem* bass that I've ever played, and I've owned somewhere in the region of ten copies as well as the real Rick pictured on this thread. One of two Czech made Jolana D-Bass guitars that I've owned was even nicer to play, but it had its own sound thanks to a Precision style split pickup in the neck position and a Jazz style pick up in the bridge position. The two Jolanas were wildly different in terms of neck shape, so I think they were handmade, whereas the Japanese copies I've owned or played have all felt very consistent.

In my case it's not knobs, but the pickup selector switch on a Rickenbacker 4003 or reasonably accurate copy. How many times have I inadvertently flicked that fecker down so that I'm only on the bridge pickup? Too many times, that's how many.

Six Boss DS-1 distortion pedals in series.

Another beautiful meditation on the bittersweet nature of love:

Nine Inch Nails - Closer The Macc Lads - Do you Love Me?

The single truss rod came out first on the Al Cisneros model bass a few years ago. I think it was then put into limited run models made over the next couple of years, which may account for this niche 4001C64S having one. So if the serial number indicates it being made in 2020 or so, it could be genuine. The cavities under the scratchplate looks the typical mixed bag of clean areas and then that bodgery with presumably a Forstner bit between the control cavity and neck pickup cavity. My genuine Rick 4003 has marker pen writing near the controls as well, so that may be factory.

I'm surprised to hear that Parcel2Go have a depot - I thought they were just a website that sell other companies courier services, presumably run on a shoestring to maximise profits and hence no customer service whatsoever.

I've got one of their smallish powered monitors (their Sub Zero brand). It's used on stage to monitor a drum machine after too many bad experiences with no drums in the venue's own monitors. No frills device, solidly made and clear sounding. They're also my go too for guitar cases, both padded and rigid ones. The cheapest ones are so-so, but the ones they describe as "premium" are still very affordable and excellent quality. Been tempted by that semi-acoustic pictured above, but it's kind of spoiled for me by the headstock which doesn't seem to suit the body. Oh, and I thought all semi-acoustic basses sounded "woody", perhaps with an overtone of piano like sustain with new roundwound strings on.

I couldn't bring myself to part with the eight or ninety quid they want for one of those splitter boxes, so I built one for about ten quid in parts (aluminium pedal case and three decent quality jack sockets).