Happy Jack

Nope - you talk to OBBM instead. Explain what you're trying to achieve, and he'll make up the cabling/lead that you need.

[quote name='ras52' timestamp='1428934637' post='2746081'] I'd rather not have left music college! [/quote] Because you'd have had to move to Truro?

Have you ever walked half a mile carrying a 5-string Jazz, a Mesa Boogie head, and an SVT 810?

I currently play in four different bands. Each has a completely different style, and I play a completely different bass in each.[list] [*]5-string fretted [*]4-string fretted [*]4-string fretless [*]Double bass (but sometimes bass ukelele) [/list] "Standard" does not compute.

[b]Attending:[/b] [color=#282828][font=helvetica, arial, sans-serif]TheGreek[/font][/color] [color=#282828][font=helvetica, arial, sans-serif]Grangur[/font][/color] [color=#282828][font=helvetica, arial, sans-serif]Lozz196[/font][/color] [color=#282828][font=helvetica, arial, sans-serif]Sibob [/font][/color] [color=#282828][font=helvetica, arial, sans-serif]Seashell[/font][/color] [color=#282828][font=helvetica, arial, sans-serif]Bassface2k10[/font][/color] [color=#282828][font=helvetica, arial, sans-serif]Ratman(?)[/font][/color] [color=#282828][font=helvetica, arial, sans-serif]Bottle[/font][/color] [color=#282828][font=helvetica, arial, sans-serif]Happy Jack[/font][/color]

How you find bands is so much a function of who you are and where you are that no one here will actually be able to help much without knowing either of those things about you. If you picked up a bass in 1974 and have been playing pub gigs in London for 40 years then that's one thing. If you left music college last year and now live in Truro, well that's quite another thang.

Will music be involved at all?

Pah! You can get the Squier version of the same guitar for less than three grand ...

[URL=http://s1128.photobucket.com/user/h4ppyjack/media/Just%20Stuff/Sundry/fusereplacement.jpg.html][IMG]http://i1128.photobucket.com/albums/m496/h4ppyjack/Just%20Stuff/Sundry/fusereplacement.jpg[/IMG][/URL]

[quote name='JTUK' timestamp='1428665040' post='2743526'] ... but since I can make a case for needing them, that isn't GAS. [/quote] Bwahahahahahahahahaha!!! I'm making a note of that line. I may be using it ...

Do both?

I thought I had GAS but it turned out to be photo-chemical smog.

[quote name='tom1946' timestamp='1428472479' post='2741513'] I think you've said this before young man and my reply is the same. I have a condition that no amount of exercise or books is going to fix so a light bass is the only way that I can carry on playing. I appreciate you are all trying to help but for reasons that I'm not going into on a public forum what you suggest won't hack it for me. thanks and no offence meant [/quote] [/Evangelical]

All agreed and understood, but why buy a diamond ring when most people will be fooled by cubic zirconium? Why wear a silk tie when polyester looks just as good? If you do what you do in order to satisfy / impress / fool other people, then that's one thing. If you do what you do because you are you and you know the difference it makes, then that's a very different thing. I like nice cars but I don't like wasting money, so I buy pre-loved high-mileage BMW 5-series. I know plenty of people who will happily spend £50k on (more or less) the same car that cost me £5k. They don't see that as "wasting money" ... that's [u][b]my [/b][/u]view. Those of them who know what it has cost me to amass my collection of basses find my behaviour simply extraordinary. That's [u][b]their [/b][/u]view. Incidentally, it has cost me less to amass that collection than people like that spend on a single car. Which of course they sell after three years. There is no value judgment here. That's the whole point. People do what people do.

Glad to hear that you have your GAS sorted, but what about your back? Sounds to me like you would benefit from doing something about your back problem rather than simply buying a lighter bass. Just saying ...

Hmmmm ... perhaps if I added a rectifier ... [URL=http://s1128.photobucket.com/user/h4ppyjack/media/Just%20Stuff/Sundry/Valve_zps329a2c58.jpg.html][IMG]http://i1128.photobucket.com/albums/m496/h4ppyjack/Just%20Stuff/Sundry/Valve_zps329a2c58.jpg[/IMG][/URL]

[quote name='discreet' timestamp='1428415633' post='2741061'] That's good to know because I like the look of 'em! Any further comments, Jack? [/quote] Hmmmm ... tricky. Those four photos show me playing roughly £10k-worth of basses, so we're into pretty rarified atmosphere. None of them were ever going to be less than excellent. There's no point in me banging on about build quality (all excellent) or choice of materials (all excellent) or ... etc. etc. etc. With the two Precisions, we're getting dangerously close to: "[i]So which of these two vanilla flavours did you prefer? And why?[/i]" They both felt exactly as a P should feel. The LaBella (not actually made by them, as I understand it) looks absolutely gorgeous, a brand-new and shiny version of my '66 Fender, but then I'm a sucker for CAR and I've never been that big on LPB or whatever that Lakin is. The LaBella was noticeably heavier, which of course I really don't like, but we're still talking in the region of 9-10lbs so hardly a real back-breaker. Mark tends to keep all his basses with a "medium" set-up. I prefer a high action because I like to dig in when I get excited ([i]trans. I'm a clumsy player[/i]) but since both the P's in these photos were the same that hardly makes a difference. Ultimately it came down to the sound. The LaBella was seriously in your face, sounding (to my ears) very harsh and trebly, the rounds being very raspy under the fingers, and the frets clanking at the slightest provocation; it was all just too damned bright, and bringing out a pick only made it much worse of course. The Lakin simply nailed the sound in my head. I still don't tend to like rounds on a P but the sound was more mellow, perhaps more 'vintage'. The tone pot also seemed to respond better, allowing a more nuanced roll-off. Reading that back it does sound precious verging on pretentious, but then I'm now dancing about architecture.

[quote name='Machines' timestamp='1428410349' post='2740994'] Great pics, I just happened to be there on the day as the others and recognised Bluejay . [/quote] It's alright Matt, you're amongst friends here ... Biggest surprise for me was playing the LaBella and the Lakin back-to-back. In the photos they're both Precisions, and a Precision is a Precision, right? Not a bit of it. I mean, not even slightly . I expected to love the LaBella (I really love LaBella FL strings and have them on several basses) but I really hated it. The Lakin on the other hand just effortlessly pushed all the right buttons. Mark reckoned that my bull-in-a-china-shop approach to playing* meant that I had a complete mis-match with the Aquilar pickups on the LaBella, and I reckon he was spot on with that. * [i]Mark was slightly more polite than this. But only slightly. [/i]

[color=#282828][font=helvetica, arial, sans-serif]"[i]The twisty-fanned-fretty wotsity thingummy[/i]" was in fact a [b]Torzal Twist[/b] by Little Guitar Works.[/font][/color] [color=#282828][font=helvetica, arial, sans-serif]As you'd expect with something so bizarre-looking, you can in fact play it without hesitation so long as you don't keep looking for it to be 'weird'. If you simply pick it up and play it as a bass, it works just fine.[/font][/color] [color=#282828][font=helvetica, arial, sans-serif]The ergonomic thang is definitely there and you can feel how it reduces the twisting in your fretting hand when you play it.[/font][/color]

Yesterday afternoon I was A/B-ing a Matamp GT100 head (old school, all valve, 100W) against a Demeter VTBP-201S preamp into a big (1000W) Digam Powersoft unit. Same bass, same cab, same fingers, everything set more-or-less flat. As you'd expect, both rigs sounded great. But the Matamp sounded indefinably better, it filled the room better with lush bass, my ears (and not just mine) felt better for it. Was it warm? Did it have heft? Dunno. But I know which rig I take to gigs ...

Yeh, noticed the load-in. You should have seen the drummer's traps case. A large open wooden box (no lid) which must have weighed 20lbs on its own! Manoeuvring that through the strange double-doorway thing must have been a nightmare.

I find myself wondering how much Fodera would have had to pay in advertising and PR to attract this amount of coverage, discussion, and controversy. So by making a 'special' version of one of their standard basses and putting a slightly silly pricetag on it, they've managed to hook a well-known bass mag plus the largest bass-related website outside America. And for no money at all. These guys aren't stupid, y'know. As to the high cost of their New York operation, their workshop is in the equivalent of a run-down part of London's Docklands. We're not talking Manhattan here, and the place itself is absolutely not glitz & glamour ... check out Bluejay's blog from last year. Compared to a cup of coffee, an entry-level Chinese-made bass, or a carbon-fibre bicycle, that Fodera pricetag is huge. Compared to a university education, a high-end car, or a flat in London, that Fodera pricetag is trivial. Which end of the telescope do you want to look through?