NHM

Seems odd an old couple selling their son's bass. It's usually the other way round. I didn't see the programme, so it might have been explained. I wonder if they considered giving it to a local young bass player to help get him/her up the ladder, Today it's all about what stuff is worth and getting a quick buck. A quick grand whilst getting turned over on telly wouldn't buy me the same pleasure as helping out a youngster.

The neck on my '71 MM looks like Ikay's (above), just a tad darker.

I'm very happy with my B3n, it has now replaced my pedal board for gigs as it is so much easier to manage and cart around. I use the same clean/compressed patch for 95% of songs, plus one funk and one tremolo so it couldn't be easier to use live, with the rhythm pedal added to each patch so it is available for practicing. And the unit is small enough to fit in the pocket of the gig bag and tucks away in a corner or sits on the amp for pub gigs when there's not much space on the floor.

last year I bought a new bass from a reputable shop, it was clearly new, with tags etc. When I later checked the serial number it turned out to be made in 2011. I wasn't bothered by this as it played beautifully (might it be better for having sat in a box for six years?) , but I was surprised that stock might sit around for so long.

A really enjoyable hour spent in front of the fire. The two second clip of the enormous speaker cab that it took four blokes to carry - 'a picture speaks a thousand words' I think someone once said... .

yup, oysters still big business in Whitstable. It is thought the Old Neptune was originally a premises for boat-building so your ancestors would no doubt know it well...

Playing at the Old Neptune in Whitstable on Sunday - if you don't know it, it's a beautiful old Sheps building on the beach. Not the biggest gig I've played but possibly the most picturesque and certainly the one closest to the sea. Hoping there isn't a tidal surge that day.

Mrs M, who is an Alexander Technique teacher, says 'plant your feet securely to create a stable platform'. She says less printable things about my bass playing which are probably unique to me (so not worth passing on here), but the foot advice works well and seems generic - and I don't tire and my concentration isn't too bad over a two setter. I'm nearly 63 and it's only the (rare) consecutive nighter that's a killer, but then that's always been the case...

the bit that is always missing is 'what strings is the bass fitted with?'. Unless you know this, you've no idea how to compare the amp in your mind. Product videos - inc. Andertons and Mr Whisperer - never mention the strings, so how can you assess the sound of a guitar / pedal / amp / speaker without this critical bit of info?

yup, LEDs are ideal for rock n roll, lots of advantages, but are less effective if you want something verging on the naturalistic - for reasons already stated... It is incredible to think you can run a whole lighting rig off a 13A supply, with watts to spare, when you go down the LED route. In the old days of tungsten, all you could get out of 13A was 6 x 500W spots at any one time, barely enough to light a pub-sized stage, and each one in a single colour with no beam movement.

you don't need much welly from uplights as they hit bits that other light don't reach...

we don't get much call for saltires round these parts, but I've done a few 'sunbeams through the window' with them in my time.

there's plenty of Cajon bags if you look on Amazon...

a cajon bag?

LEDs don't have the smooth fade out that incandescent did/do. Patt 750s were terrific lights, double mirrors for a really concentrated beam although hard to balance one against another. crossfade to reply over 7s

the trouble with 103 and 117 is that gel only worked well in 'old fashioned' lamps such as 23s, 123s or Sils - for the younger reader, the days when lanterns weighted a ton, got very hot, consumed loads of £££ of electricity and - their best selling point by far - had tungsten or halogen lamps that simulated 'mini-suns' and thus bore some resemblance to the quality of light we live our lives within. For all the faults of the old technology, and for all the benefits of discharge and more recently LED, let's face it modern low-energy light sources are crap at colour rendering. The ability to render colour well is the most important parameter for any stage lighting instrument, whether you are lighting drama, dance or music. There's a law* that says the crapper the colour rendering, the better all the other parameters of the lighting unit are likely to be, and visa versa. Unfortunately economics have dictated that cheap to make, cheap to run LED lights have pushed traditional lights into the skip. There's a generation growing up that will never have seen a performance subtly lit by incandescent lamps, and they're all the culturally-poorer for it. Unless garish coloured scenes are actually what people want, but if they've been exposed to nothing else .... I'm old enough to remember putting a 'surprise pink' (36?) in a follow spot to light Shakin' Stevens, and young enough to have lit displays with fibre optics and leds. As a result I know that progress doesn't necessarily benefit aesthetics where there's money to be made. Rant over! Fade to black. *I just made up that law (I don't count candles!).

depending on the diameter of your PA stand, a theatre lighting 'hook clamp' might do the trick. the standard size fits scaff (2"?) but there's also a small size available.

Thanks for all the advice. I like the idea of running FOH from one channel of the power amp and monitors from the other. If the FOH speakers had a different impedance from the monitors, would it harm the amp? Is a stereo amp basically two separate mono amps in the same box?

The reason people use back and side lighting is because it is more atmospheric. Front lighting tends to kill a 'modelled' look - think how flash-lit photos flatten pictures: front lighting has a similar effect. Also, there are the practicalities to think of - lighting from the front tends to mean lights placed on stands where the public are, which means hot things with mains power going in a space where you can't control safety and drinks/liquids prevail. Having said that, all side and back means you can't see faces very clearly and unless your band is wild and wacky you probably want to be able to engage with the audience through your illuminated faces for seeing expression during songs and chit-chat between numbers. Not many bands want the lead singer either half-face in red and half-face in blue, or (even worse) the face/ eyes in shadow. So, what to do? Well, footlights are a good solution - they complement side and back lighting really well by adding atmosphere whilst lighting the front of the face. Also, they are near you rather than in the audience so are much safer. If you are 'big time' and have a followspot for the lead singer, then these provide the perfect solution for 'second status' lighting - eg guitars and bass. Also, footlights are brilliant on equipment that sparkles, eg drums, mic stands, so they give the whole stage a classy look. Also, if you can get some sidelighting downstage of your mic line - say lightweight gear screwed on the top of the PA, as long as the light gets into both of the singers eye sockets, then it is job done.

I knew there'd be a catch! Thanks for your advice.

Hi there As well as playing the low notes I also set up the PA for our band (well, I own it and I'm not sure I trust the others to do it). I run a pair of 200W 8 ohm speakers for FoH and a pair of 80W 8 ohm Monitors, using two stereo power amps. We use the rig in mono. I'm trying to reduce the amount of gear I take out to gigs, so have come up with this idea: just using one power amp, and running the FoH speakers in series from the left channel and the monitor speakers in series from the right. This would have the advantage of increasing the umph of each set of speakers as the load would now be 4 Ohm. The power amp can drive 200W @ 4 ohm so the FoH would be very efficient; I would back off the other channel's output to about 40% so as not to overload the monitors. Is this a crazy idea?

If you wear a glove to pluck, why not sew a pup into the palm - then you can learn to move up and down the neck to always be on the 'sweet spot', and subtle shifts in intensity will be possible too. Shouldn't be too difficult to master.

Just swapped the GHS PFs for LaBella 760s on the Musicmaster. It's transformed the bass. Didn't realise a different string/brand could make such an improvement on what I though was good already

I thought I had all the kit sussed - how can a poxy cover unsettle the equilibrium! As you say, I've learned that true perfection is always just out of reach.