NancyJohnson

It's odd, these festivals. I'd never go to Glastonbury; to me it's a four day hellish version of Later... Likewise Download. Aah, I remember the old days, drive up, backstage parking, watching Motley Crue and Aerosmith from the side of the stage, proper bogs home and asleep in my own bed about 2.00am the next day. Now? Four days of bands with vocalists just clearing their throats. Nope. When all this was fields, the events that got my attention were just 12 hours. It's difficult to fully quantify but take the old Monsters of Rock things at Donington. 70,000 people, one stage and (usually) seven or eight great bands. Now it's all multiple stages, dozens of bands no one has heard of etc. The day long Donington has evolved, but the 1980s type event would now be supplanted as part of a tour itinerary (if this makes sense). It would be like Green Day just playing Wembley Stadium with a decent undercard, then this moving to the Manchester City stadium.

Here we go. The top-hat is unobtrusive, albeit non-reversible. W for the win.

Just another thing...I have a surplus PA speaker stand and just bought a pair of 35mm top-hat fixings. I've cut a core out of one of my Darkglass 1x12s, installed the top-hat and have stuck it on the stand. It goes up and down, it rotates. Neat job, lovely. Sweaty now.

I've used a ton of Tech 21 stuff...BDDI, VTBass, Geds, GT2, RPM. The only one I didn't get along with was the VT Bass, which I disliked as soon as I put it in my rack. The racked Ged had QC issues that were never fully resolved. I'm currently running an XB Driver, but it hasn't left the house yet.

Oooh, 19 pages in. I watched for about 15 minutes on the BBC, and that was it. Alanis Morissette. Honestly, I can't stand her. Never could. A voice like nails on a blackboard. There are phrasing and inflections in her voice that just make me want to listen even less. Next day I just read comment after comment about how wonderful her performance was and I'm thinking are these people insane? Is there something wrong with their hearing? Do they not actually like music? Thank you and goodnight.

It's a one-size-fits-all contraption manufactured by NS Design that connects to the EUB at the same point as the tripod mounting bolt, allowing you to 'wear' the bass and move around with it. It took a bit of time to get everything in the right place, but as a consequence it won't go on a stand. I was looking for a stand of some kind rather than leaving the instrument propped up in a corner.

Well, in an interesting twist in my search for a stand for my NXT5, there's been an odd twist. I'm not using (or plan to use) the supplied NSD stand; I'm fully paid up for the Framestrap. A few months ago I bought a Hercules GS4stand, possibly the smallest one they make, a GS402B: ... amazingly, the EUB sits comfortably on the two front legs and the swing arms swivel enough to add a bit more support. I've stuck some heavy duty felt pads on the legs to protect metal on wood damage, but frankly, jobs a good 'un. The bass is a couple of inches off the floor and pretty secure.

Just while we're on the subject of Living Colour, are many/any of you aware about the version of Stain with the alternative guitar solos? The original US CD (catalogue# EK52780) was issued in two versions, one of which was very limited and contained totally different guitar work on Ignorance Is Bliss, Leave It Alone and Bi. There's no discernable visible difference in the CDs, just the content thereon. You got lucky or you didn't. I was a huge fan of Living Colour from the outset and bought a copy of Stain when I was in America; there was a bit of a WTAF? moment when realisation struck that the versions were different. Interesting stuff.

Me too. I like Doug Wimbish, but just felt Living Colour were more, umm, colourful when Muzz was in the band. They just seemed a more happier/fun unit with Muzz; when Doug came in, things just got a bit darker and moodier.

Jim Marshall signed me a copy of the 'It goes up to to 11, dunnit?' poster. God know where that is now.

Many, many moons ago I did a stint on the Conklin stand at a guitar show when it was held in Docklands. Honestly no idea how it came about; drummer at the time had a Yamaha endorsement and he seemed to have this lucid connection (by association) with the UK importers of Hamer and Warwick (who were based in Ascot at the time). So we drive up. Get lost in Docklands, are followed, then pulled over and questioned by the police. We're late and arrive, I'm in the booth and told to play the seven-string. I notice that the bridge doesn't fit the body shape and was told to try and cover it up with my right hand while playing. I do 45-60 minutes and it's all over. I'm rewarded with an EBS Octaver pedal for my trouble and as I had a lanyard, I have blagging rights (so free Rotosound strings and I get to meet Jim Marshall). What a day.

Aah, in the decades I've been playing I've used everything from hotwired bell-wire through to my current @obbm Speakons. Never suffered damage, any (noticable) loss in sound, no explosions etc. Maybe I've just been lucky, or maybe we were too stupid to know better.

Try as many different cabs as possible until you hit paydirt. Easy!

I've been chasing transparency for sometime, favouring a rack set up paired with a Matrix power stage. Fantastic setup. Right now I'm using a Tech 21 XB Driver until GSS Baby Sumo. It's plenty loud.

I bought a little keyboard stand. We were just too loud as a band and the angled cab thing didn't help. It was more about elevating the cabs so you were in full battle with the cymbals.

I suppose while it's nice to know the DNA of an instrument, but once it's all bolted together and playable, does it really matter? Irrespective of the years, everything here is machine made and the parts are interchangeable.

Morning I pulled a John East preamp out of a bass recently (just wanted to try something different). I just want to make certain it's all working before reinstalling elsewhere. Assuming the green wire below goes the ground, anyone know where does the red one goes? I have contacted John about this, no answer yet. Thanks

(Shh. Unplugged version. 😁)

Fractory.com In the US, sendcutsend.

Out in the car yesterday, while on shuffle mode three tracks from our monster Spotify playlist came on back to back and each had fantastic acoustic guitar solos. Cockney Rebel - Come Up and See Me Gilbert O'Sullivan - Alone Again (Naturally) Rod Stewart - Maggie May Perfect.

First thing I thought was who the hell plays on the 24th fret? A few factors to consider. Strings, old/new? Action at 24th fret? Is the buyer playing the harmonic or the fretted note? Do the other strings intonate correctly up the dusty end? Neck on the wonk? It's feasible that the 24th fret could be in the wrong place, unlikely, but possible. It's also possible that if the action was a bit high at this point, simply depressing the string might throw out the tuning. Given the scale on these is (I believe) 34", you're looking at a fretted note at the 24th fret to be c.8.5" this high up the neck. If the frets are wide/jumbo and haven't been crowned correctly, given the shortness of the scale at this point, this could throw out the tuning/intonation a little. A little. Millimetres, or part thereof, will make a difference at that point, no significant but a difference.

Why does it take longer? Logistics. Thomann are a pan-European supplier with a level of instrumentation-supply that (for instance) Andertons or GuitarGuitar can only dream of. I can't honestly imagine how much kit get shipped here weekly, I'd imagine it's mind-boggling. They likely ship enough product to the UK to warrant everything going into containers rather than simply going out on an individual basis, so as @BigRedX has said, Thomann are likely have enough power to assign UK shipments leaving their facility on certain days of the week and coordinating with FedEx/UPS/whoever well in advance of that day to book freight slots to get it to this country.