NancyJohnson

A few of you know what I do musically. I play in a studio project called Lutz; in the main it's noisy postpunk with a lot of samples. This Public Service Broadcasting meets Shudder To Think. Recording is a bit odd. I go in, record lots of looped bass against little snippets of stuff, a few days later I get a cut and paste instrumental MP3, the next week I go in, rerecord the bass, then do another load of looped stuff. An repeat. Pete, our erstwhile guitarist/producer (currently furloughed), is just going through months and months of unfinished material, then sending it out to the main singer who is doing vocals on an iPhone. On an iPhone. Once he's happy, he's now sourcing video and posting on You Tube. Here you go:

Unless anyone has done these trips, they find it hard to comprehend the white-noise/radio static in the US. There's a lot of empty. We'd put the radio on and scan frequencies, stations would be there and gone a few minutes later. Small bubbles of activity. The Sweet Emotion game is a must, though. God knows how much revenue Aerosmith make from that song some 45 years after it was released. Pick up your hire car, find a random station and boom. I think one time we picked up a car in Boston and it was on the radio before we'd even left the Alamo parking lot.

Just to set the mood (and bear in mind this was 1997): Quite a few years back, me and my wife were on a three week 4,000 mile USA roadtrip, zig-zagging around the lower southwestern states. On the last day (after a very heavy night in Phoenix with some friends), we packed up, heading west, overnighting in Palm Springs, then onto LAX for the flight home. If you're reading this and have done the drive, you'll know it's mainly desert/mountains until the highway briefly passes through Blythe (petrol/lunch), then onto Palm Springs. We always listened to the radio on these trips; played the Sweet Emotion game, flipping through the frequencies. We're in the desert, not picking up anything really. Found a rock station and they're playing Overkill by some indie band, then Colin Hay comes in for the last verse or two. It's goosepimply good. I ask my wife to stop yabbing. The lady hosting the show says, 'Lazlo Bane from their album 11 Transistor.' I am smitten. My wife writes it down. I hit up a couple of CD shops in Palm Springs. Nothing. I wonder whether I got the name right. I'm not certain whether Lazlo Bane is a guy's name, or the band name. I get desparate. Beyond Palm Springs, we park up at a prearranged shopping mall in Montclair (which I later find out is where most of the LA based porn industry does its films); I buy first editions of the new Stephen King book, the new Kurt Vonnegut book, some banana coffee (yum) and happen across a small music store. They have a copy of 11 Transistor. Cue angels singing. I listen to this album about once every couple of weeks. It's deeply embedded in my psyche. It's not (for some reason) on Spotify/iTunes, but the rest of the catalogue that followed seems to be. So anyhoo, today it's Lazlo Bane.

Suggestions please. 3.5" width. Doesn't matter which manufacturer. Want something a bit agressive. Active preferred.

ABC in Addlestone was my local one. My late father bankrolled a few purchases for me. I did visit the Surbiton branch when I broke a string when we were recording at Crow.

Yup, saw them at Hammersmith supporting Rush and thought they were oustanding considering the sound was awful and I'd never heard a note by them beforehand,

@cetera @ClassicVibes While I've generally been a passive bass guy, I would never sell on a bass because of what's in the control cavity. I had a Bongo 5HH a while back, the pre was stupid hot and while it sounded fine, during rehearsals you'd just keep notching everything up and up so by the end of the session it would sound awful, but this was more about restraint than it being uncontrollable. That said, the Tone Pump Jnr in my Spector Legend was a POS and has been taken out. The DG pre in the LT is wonderful.

I'm doing cashflow reports today, so need a bit of Max Webster.

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/OPEN-TO-TRADES-Custom-4-String-35-scale-Fretless-Gold-Top-Electric-Bass-Guitar/383525064046?_trkparms=aid%3D1110006%26algo%3DHOMESPLICE.SIM%26ao%3D1%26asc%3D20190212102350%26meid%3D0dadac2bd39f45d5a01e3b3f091557b6%26pid%3D100012%26rk%3D1%26rkt%3D12%26sd%3D193431376522%26itm%3D383525064046%26pmt%3D1%26noa%3D0%26pg%3D2047675%26algv%3DSimplAMLv5PairwiseWeb&_trksid=p2047675.c100012.m1985

My old vocalist put me onto them...he saw them (I think at The Roundhouse?) shortly after the first album came out so that would have been 2013-ish. I remember hearing Signal 30 when I first listened to Inform Educate Entertain and I knew the song, so must have heard it at some point. It's all good though.

Brendan, if you look at Adam Fogo's conversion, he used an OLP 5-string as his donor instrument and turned that into a twelve and the spacing looked pretty comfortable to be honest. Incidentally, I own a Spector Euro LT (four string) and a Spector Legend (eight string), the eight srtring is actuallt narrower at the nut than the LT by about 3mm!

Seen them a handful of times, really stuns me that I know so little about them. I've never been so moved at a gig either, felt quite tearful at the end of the Hammersmith show when they were touring Every Valley and they assembled a collery choir at the end. Quite beautiful.

Today? It feels like a day for Public Service Broadcasting. I have a complete playlist on Spotify, so theat'll take care of the morning at least. I may try and listen to the Proms show this afternoon:

/I check eBay for Hamer basses daily and this one must has been up and sold in a very short time. I round the listing buried as a Worldwide listing seller and not a UK based one (even though the sale was London based). I would have honestly pulled the trigger on that one within seconds. No brainer. That said, god knows how many £££ it would take to bring it up to scratch.

A couple of months back a Hamer Quad Bass sold on eBay for £800. Did anyone here buy it? It was in a pretty sorry state. I'd just be interested in seeing whether it's being given the TLC it deserves.

The Tone Pump is/was a stock add on, the tone pots are just standard/normal potentiometers.

The volume pots are marked 500k, the tone pots are smaller in size, but unmarked. I'll have to find out how to measure them.

There's no caps in the cavity, so I've ordered some 0.047, along with some new cloth cable to join everything up. Gonna be a few days. Thanks for the schematic.

A few months back I acquired a Spector eight string bass, the active Tone Pump Junior circuit was just horrible, so I took it out and currently have it wired passive with both pickup going to the jack; more of a case of luck rather than judgment, it works fine, but I do have two dead tone pots that I'd like to reincorporate into the circuit. I'd like to rewire having both pickups having independent tone controls and then combine this signal before it hits the output jack socket. I've done the usual searches; I suppose this wiring is similar to a Les Paul, but without the switch. Possible?

Gotta get me one of these.

I prefer black guitars. All mine are black aside from the ones that are red, green, sunburst and natural. And a different shade of natural.

I bloody love this. You know, I love that many of the female/female-fronted bands from this period aren't over-sexualized; there just didn't seem to be this desire to cavort around almost naked. It is possible to be alluring with all your kit on.

Mark Philips Music? Was that the place? 🙄

To be fair, the guy who posted the video was/is also known as The China Guitar Sceptic and has a long history on You Tube buying Chibsons, Chickenbakers etc. and explaining every reason why you should just buy original product. The whole headstock decal issue is a major bugbear of mine (along with sellers quoting their precious bass is a 'lawsuit' model). I can understand why people do it, the allusion that an ugly-duckling cheaper/unbranded bass/guitar becomes a beautiful swan, but the traffic is almost exclusively one way; you never see anyone reshaping the headstock of their Lakland 44-64 and putting a Fender decal on it do you?