NancyJohnson

We're talking what we actually buy. Sure, I buy through Amazon and sell through eBay occasionally (to be honest, I spend more on council tax and utilities than anything else). I have Microsoft Windows running on a seven-year-old PC. I don't wear jeans and I don't frequent any fast food places.

I watched the tariff press conference last night, the Orange One is just throwing (probably grossly exaggerated) billion dollar numbers out there and there's little or no live fact checking. Maybe this is quite a naïve comment, but one thing that struck me (before I genuinely glazed over) was that he was moaning about countries not wanting to import America's beef and chicken (because, why would we want their steroid injected meaty products?). (I think) he mentioned beef imports/exports between Australia and the US, commenting about Australia's reluctance about importing US beef. It did strike me that there could be some kind of levelling out here; rather than exporting beef from the US to Australia (and vice versa), just stop doing it. Australians, you keep your beef, Americans, your keep yours. Wife chipped in and mentioned how much American stuff we actually buy. I think the only US produce we have in house is Skippy peanut butter and a vast quantity of bourbon.

While a lot of people may define defeatism as something that John Myung might record, insofar as a body of work goes, there's a post-hardcore/alternative band called Shudder To Think where, despite every song being less than four minutes, there's a ton of stuff going on; bizzaro key changes, timing changes, guitars all over the place with a falsetto vocal capping it off. Because things don't come across as being particularly cohesive, it's difficult to simply noodle along to if you have a bass to hand.

Yeah, yeah. Guitar stuff. I'm just looking for advice on anyone that has a standalone guitar cab, 1x12 (or smaller). It's only going to be used at home and for home recording...I have a Fender Pugilist distortion (which works great on bass as well when going direct into an interface) and a Harley Benton GPA-100. Don't want to spend a fortune, so used is probably the way to go. I'm not entirely certain whether an existing (bass) cabinet would be fit for purpose (I have a pair of Darkglass 1x12s). It seems the better deals are for loaded cabs (and to be honest, without a bit of investigation, I wouldn't really know what to load it with). Advice, please!

In the good old days it was more, 'Can you email me a track?' or 'Have you got any audio up anywhere?' The 2025 spin on this is obvs a blanket invite to send audio out without doing the footwork.

A new one for me. Email dropped earlier (via Bandmix) letting me know that I had been selected for a digital audition with a guy 30+ years younger than me. Clearly digital auditions are the 2025 alternative of standing in a room for two hours with three strangers. Anyhoo, intrigued, I viewed the guys Bandmix profile, and once again another bloke bigging himself up; age difference aside, I simply couldn't work with anyone that uses the expression, 'midweek meat up'. Sigh.

I prefer sand in the Vaseline. 🙄

There used to be a time when shipping stuff in from Japan was worth the time and effort. Great exchange rates etc. I can say with some certainty that fully landed in the UK (so bass+shipping) was under £700; somehow or another I didn't pay any import duty on it.

The colour of those Thunderbirds was more ivory than white. This was mine. I bought it in from Japan.

So like Ticketmaster's Dynamic Pricing, then?

If a restaurant in a big city sold single baked beans on a cocktail stick for £2.00 each, some epicurean would be saying they were divine. Again it's all subjective and there's this correlation between price paid and justification. Charge £500 for a bottle of red wine vinegar and there'd be people queuing up to drink it, all saying it tastes delicious. I'm reminded of this:

If anyone on the Facebook massive is following this thread (and the mutual lovefest with me and John), seriously now folks, fire up Spotify (or whatever) and go listen to Heights...their Phantasia on the High Processions (etc) is a fantastic thing. Likewise, check out the two Rhoda May EPs on the same platform (347 and 589). Awesome band.

Me too. ☹️

I recall being at The Wilde Theatre for one thing where Al and another guy were handling sound, but can't actually remember if you were playing (jikes, sorry). It was an all day thing, but memory blurs...we saw My Never Time and a truncated set by the truly fantastic Rhoda May, after this we kept going to the bar. I saw you at the Cellar Bar, can't remember if this was with Tesseract ..Jay did two sets? Trust your recovery is going well (as usual mine!).

I'm sure I pointed a camera at Heights at one point.

Keith Richards and the X-Pensive Winos - Live in Boston 1993. God, it's a belter.

There's a similar thought to a different builder, here. I'm uncertain how many luthiers Jaydee employ(ed). When Mike Lull died a few years ago, his son Spencer took over the business; my understanding is that Lull had outsourced elements of the builds when demand exceeded the limits of the workshop. Spencer changed things by bringing work back in house and by stripping back the models they offered (focus is now on Precision/Jazz type models). He seems considerably more hands on from a socials perspective, too. From what I've seen and read, quality seems to be as good, if not better, than previously. Perhaps all it takes is new blood to take over. They know the legacy of the brand and want to invest in that.

Haven't most of us owned something that we sold cheap only see the prices go nutso? My old Travis Bean (sigh), that frankly terrible '79 Precision, all those Gibson Thunderbirds. Mass produced bass amps have little or no appreciating resale value unless they're old valve things like Matamps. I doubt any of the current production line Fenders/Gibson/MusicMan/Ibanez etc basses will be loss-making or worth anything long term. My belief is the money is in investing in short runs and decently built kit. I own a couple of Hamer basses, I bought one very cheap and am being hassled by two Americans who are in this odd bidding war, currently at $4k. My Mike Lull basses (one likely going up for sale shortly) were both built by Mike before he died, are certainly carrying ticket prices equivalent or higher than what I paid. Again, I'm getting enquiries on a Lull build from the US offering c.£6k. I suppose you have to realise one swallow does not a summer make; just because there's someone out there that'll pay over the odds for something doesn't necessarily make it a collector's market.

I've been using Elixir Nanowebs for yonks - Nickels and Steels (whatever is cheaper at the time of purchase). To be honest - and while using adjectives to describe a sound here - the differences are marginal. I'd say that a new set of steels may come over as slightly more brighter/zingy than a new set of nickels BUT if you were to randomly mix the steels and nickels, I doubt you'd really be able to tell the difference. The main thing is that the strings settle in and once they have, they don't really wear out like conventional strings and that's the main thing. I've never had strings last so long (I would replace D'Addarios monthly). I've had nickels on one of my Hamer's since October '23, still good. I put a set of 45-130 nickels on a Lull (sitting down?) in June '21, and they've still excellent. Steels on a Spector in July '24, still great.

A Growler means something completely different in these parts and I don't see any photographic representation! 😄

With hindsight, I'd say the most important thing with gear is just find a bass that [you] love the shape of, something that makes you actually want to pick it up and play, something that makes the hairs stand up on the back of your neck when you pop the latches on the case. This is one hundred percent the most important thing. 2nd bit of advice would be to take on board that they all, more or less, fundamentally sound the same out of the box. In general it doesn't matter what pickups you have installed. The sound is only really affected once you apply other elements (amps/cabs, stomps etc) and how you actually play the thing. We're just slaves to guitar and amplifier makers and the remoras that are making pickups/pre-amps.

I'm sorry, but no. Forget the actual bass or guitar that you're using for a minute, here. To get 'the Pink Floyd bass sound' (whatever that actually is), what is your signal chain? And, Roger Waters or Guy Pratt? My point is (and always has been) that, by and large, the clean tone of the vast majority of basses is more or less the same. In a effort to reinforce this, we did a blind test a few years back with over a dozen basses and the scores for identification were extremely low. Members here couldn't hear/tell the difference between Jazz or Precision or Rickenbackers or whatever. A Precision Bass alone will simply not give you 'the Pink Floyd bass sound' any more than it will deliver 'the Phil Lynott, Bruce Foxton, Steve Harris (etc) tone' without certain characteristics in the signal path. It's just a tool to facilitate it. Any bass will do it.

To be honest, I woke up too early and grumpy pants this morning . Then I scanned this thread. I'm also missing the Chelsea game this afternoon as I'm going for lunch with my brother in law.

Nope, but Mr Curmudgeonly is 😄

Just scanning through the posts here and the whole subject of chasing tone. Same old, same old. Never ages. OP: "I've been listening to a lot of <insert band here> and want to get a <insert bass here> or something that sounds like it." Replies: "Oh, he played a <insert bass here> and also a <insert bass here>. I had a <insert bass here> and put in a <insert pickup here> and it sounded <insert superlative here>. <Insert random photo here.>". Lads, we really need to stop chasing this ridiculous dream of tone perfection, because unless you have (very) deep pockets, you'll always be on the hunt and it will never end. I'll say it again and again; tone is subjective, your gold standard is someone else's iron pyrite. There's this allusion that sounding like Pino/Geddy/Jaco/whoever needs to be facilitated with the purchase of a triple-priced Custom Shop Signature model, but it won't. There's too many factors/nuances that go towards what they sound like from string choice, processing, signal chain, to the air that hits your ears. Go and watch some Rig Rundowns on You Tube. A good analogy here: I remember how sad I felt when, some 40+ years ago, I found that a lot of Geddy Lee's stuff was recorded on a (then) still relatively new Fender Jazz bass. I'd been duped because I was of the belief that it was a Rickenbacker all along.