Happy Jack

Leave the guy alone - he's got GAS! 😂

The most accurate answer is, it depends. Sorry. I leave the Junkyard set to 18C all year round, the constructions has a fair bit of bulk, and the space contains a large amount of bulky equipment. I think of it as a heat sink. Once the entire room and its contents are at 18C it is likely to be cheaper (and certainly quicker and easier) to keep it at that temperature than to let it cool/heat to outside temperature and then have to regain 18C when I want to use the space. It helps that it's a windowless space and the door is really very solid indeed. In truth, by far the costliest element of the whole thing was buying & installing a decent light industrial aircon unit. The purchase price for that massively outweighed the impact it has on our electricity bill! I could easily justify it though, since the Junkyard would be effectively unusable for at least three months of each year without it. Heating it only, no aircon, would be relatively WAY cheaper. Just buy an electric greenhouse heater and plug it in 24/7 during cold weather. Bin there, dun that.

Powersoft. That is all. 🙂

This (above) is the THIRD time I've done this. This (below) is the FIRST time:

Go in on the tube with your folding bass and Line 6 Helix Pod thingy. I doubt there's anything anyone can do about your emissions, though ... 😉

That's just a still from Close Encounters ...

Where can I find him? 😉

That would be great - thanks!

In the (entirely hypothetical) case of wanting to press a vinyl EP with four tracks on it, what should we be thinking about, where should we go for the pressing, do we need sleeve design, what sort of numbers are we looking at? We're starting from a position of complete ignorance (so don't worry about teaching us to suck eggs - you won't), and from a tiny budget.

Not sure I agree with you on this one. £5.5k for "a bass" allows the comparison with the now-famous £99 Harley Benton. But £5.5k for a genuinely uber-rare, unusual, iconic, high-quality instrument? That's different. Anyone who buys this instrument can rely on decades of Rickenbacker history that they won't suddenly launch a range of Made In Nigeria own-brand cheap copies, won't suddenly ramp up production into tens of thousands a year. It's a much overused expression, but this is genuinely an investment bass. Buy one of these and keep it pristine, sure it might go down in value but then again it might hold its own, and it might even appreciate over time. If demand oustrips supply by a sufficient extent then all sorts of strange things are possible. Just look at the price of old Wals, or of electricity in Texas during a freak blizzard.

Yessongs.

Strapps, at The Marquee (when it was on Wardour Street), 1976. The glory days of Marshall 8x12 stacks in a club slightly larger than a double garage. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strapps

Astonishing. I had a 2366B, tone to die for but it weighed 11 lbs. I gave up trying to play it standing up and used it as a lap bass. The weight on my right thigh cut off the circulation and gave me a dead leg!

I have a Gruv Gear Duo too ... it was on the Rick but I really didn't get on with it. The 'loop over the horn' system for the secondary strap is clumsy in operation and feels insecure, and the way the two straps work together creates a scissors effect on my neck. The Evostrap system is WAY better.

So that's on the bass but without me in the way. This shows the attachment at the horn, plus the fittings for the secondary strap (which is removable should you want to use the main part as a standard strap). The buckle at the front is obvious, rather less so is that the black button at the back is the 'wrong' side of a screw rivet. The view from below with the screw rivet far more obvious.

I take the Nadine mic signal direct to a Hi-Z input on the board (we use a Behringer XR18) which also supplies the phantom power, and that keeps the signal almost 100% organic ... literally the sound of my DB with no added 'artefacts' from the process. Meanwhile the PZ goes off to my Acoustic Image Clarus II - my main stage amp for DB - and then I take a DI signal from the Clarus to the board. So I retain the on-stage sound that I'm used to at the volume level I want, while @Silvia Bluejay can mix both signals in FoH and relatively safe from feedback. Obviously all this is as yet untried at a live gig, and I don't mind admitting that I am seriously tempted by the new Radial PZ-Pro. With my rockabilly band I double the DB with a Precision, hence my choice of the Clarus II, but the PZ-Pro is not only 2-channel (each with full EQ etc.) but one channel has an additional XLR input to allow you to mix PZ and mic inputs from a single bass while on stage. I don't really need this facility at gigs where Silvie is running the sound for us - though it's a very cool thing to be able to do - but if 2021 sees a load of outdoor mini-festival gigs then the temptation may become irresistible ...

I think @Bassassin needs to see this one - just don't be having a mouthful of tea when you open the link Jon.

It took me a second to work out what you meant! That Rick is one of the few >10lb basses I own, so I prefer to use a twin-shoulder strap design. What you can see there are the two straps coming down from my shoulders to the upper horn, what's not in sight is the other end of the strap passing down my back and attaching to the rear end of the bass in the usual fashion. I get my straps from a really helpful bunch of people in Brazil: https://www.facebook.com/Evostraps

Yup, that's right ... New Double Bass Mic Day. It's the Nadine from Ear Trumpet Labs, an outfit I've had my eye on for a couple of years. Very practical design, easily mounted without fixings and just as easily packed away again (or switched to a different DB), no special power supply needed - just 48V phantom. And it's cool, very cool, steam-punk cool. For me the biggest single advantage is being able to record rockabilly without having to keep the DB perfectly still and at a constant distance from an external mic. I can play and swing the bass around just as much as I would normally, and the mic remains perfectly positioned.

No gigs, but a steadily-increasing amount of faffing around in the studio leads inevitably to NMD = New Mic Day. I have a couple of cheap (£100) condensers but I reckoned it was time to push the boat out a bit, and I settled on the Lauten LA320: https://www.lautenaudio.com/la-320 Review? You want a review? OK. It's jolly nice.

I think you'll find that was the theme for Grand Prix coverage on the BBC ... cue Murray Walker ... "and the news from Imola is that the plucky three times World Champion is OUT!"

Less T M Stevens, more M D Phillips ...

It's now coming up FIVE months since we played our last gig and boy are we missing it. As The Final Lockdown grinds relentlessly onward, the Junkyard Dogs thought it might be time to (a) make a comment on the situation, and (b) remind ourselves of what 2020 was really like for a gigging band. So here we are, socially distanced and civically responsible, scattered across London, Middlesex and Berkshire, green-screened to Hell and back, and telling you that there is No Substitute For Live Gigs. (ps: If the music doesn't grab you, focus on the drummer's Lockdown hairstyle instead.)