NancyJohnson

I'd certainly say Gary's Spectorbird is a beautiful thing, but if there's one that I just adore it's this. The LEDs are insane and I don't even like Fenderesque basses.

Here's my band's Soundcloud page. Some of this is about a year old, but there's some newer material filtering through now. Our guitarist/producer was involved in a motorbike accident that broke his arm in two places and shattered his collarbone, so he's been a bit poorly. Anyhow, this is where we're at. We'll be adding more in the next few weeks.

Years ago The Tube did an Irish special, I think they went north and south of the border. They featured two bands Cruella de Ville (playing Gypsy Girl) and The Bankrobbers (playing Jenny). How neither of these bands went on to have long and illustrious careers is beyond me.

Well, just in case it's of any help in the future, I bought the Hipshot BT2 from Jose, the holes match up with the Schaller, so it was a straight off/on. Five minutes. The Schaller ferrule won't accommodate the shaft of the Hipshot (radius too narrow), so you need to fit the Hipshot one. All in all, very pleased. Took a couple of minutes to set up the drop.

@Ting Is that you Wai? I recognise the Sandberg. Say hey to Amelie.

While there may be some here that would argue for strings being fit for purpose (ie short scale ones for short scale basses, long scale for longer scale basses), honestly it makes no difference at all whether you're using long scale strings on a short scale bass; the only issue you may have is whether the machine head post is able to comfortably accept an untapered string that's just been cut to length.

@lemonstar If you love the Brian Setzer stuff, I would wholeheartedly recommend the Christmas Extravaganza edition with the Live DVD. It's a joy. We'd been promising ourselves a last minute type of trip to the west coast to catch one of his Christmas shows; it was destined to be this year, but (luckily for us at least as we hadn't booked), he pulled out of the tour with severe tinnitus. Here's hoping a recovery of sorts and maybe 2020 will be the year.

It's OK, Trev, I know there's a plate under the riveted one!

Weird resurrection stuff. It's funny how, after such a strong start, things went downhill so quickly. Guitarist and erstwhile producer involved in a low speed motorbike accident a few months ago, shattering his collarbone and arm broken in two places. Prior to this we'd tracked a load of bits, but everything went south while he got straight, so it was somewhat of a lumpy mid-section. Fast forward to November 2019 and he can finally throw on a guitar, so we're back on it again. He's busily cutting and pasting and I'm staggered with how good these results are, most of which I have little or no memory of actually tracking as much as ten months ago. So as 2019 draws to a close, I can only say, hell, 2020 has got to be better, eh?

The existing Schallers are in pretty good shape...if you want to hit me up etc. I think a D-tuner is just something I could throw on there and rarely use, but (like compressors), it would be nice to try one.

My wife is asking me what I want for Christmas and I suppose I'm at the stage in life where if I want anything I just buy it, so pickings are short, really. That said, was thinking though about throwing a D-Tuner into the mix. I have an old Aria Primary Bass that has a set of clover-leaf Schaller BMF F-Series machines, effectively these: Schaller don't seem to make a D-tuner any more, but Hipshot make the BT2: The mounting holes look similar, so I'm assuming installation would be easy enough. I'm wondering whether anyone has mixed things up and installed a Hipshot with Schallers? If so, do the clover leafs line up properly in general use or look odd? Also, could the clover-leaf/peg be swapped over from the Schaller to the Hipshot to match the patina of the Schallers (rather than having a shiny new one up against three old ratty ones)? Thanks

I have a top five, I mean, doesn't everyone? I just fancied it. It's like comfort eating.

Queen - Sheer Heart Attack. It's one of my favourite albums and makes me think I'm 15 again.

Two of my band (Lutz), play in a ukelele band called The Mighty Lemons. Not my thing at all, but I do kind of understand their obsession. Our studio space seems to be filling with them, but luckily they're all left handed ones. As an aside, my wife bought me a cheapie one for Christmas from Lidl a few years ago; I doubt it cost more than £20 tops. I wouldn't bother with buying another (better?) one...can't see the fuss.

Never too old to join/form a band. Personally, I'm happyish at the moment; ongoing studio project (Lutz), occasional depping (Rocket66), my own studio thing (Amphibious Vehicles). I did try out with some blokes a few days back and they were terrible, which kind of reinforces the question of whether I even want to do a proper band again. That's the question, not that you think you're too old!

Ooh, you're just setting her up for a bunch of curvy body, long neck and wooden head style gags here.

I love the St Vincent.

The sadness of this video is the championing of gear destruction just because it doesn't compare to more expensive stuff, thus going under the sledgehammer. It's 2019 folks, pretty much everything manufactured nowadays is generally going to be fittish for purpose; let's face it, while it's probably unlikely many Line6 Spider combos will be gracing big stages, but for bedroom, rehearsal or pub gig stuff, it's going to be fine and compared to what we all probably had access to when we first started out, these modelling amps are like something out of Tomorrows World. It really just sickens me that these asshats are just making a (small) name for themselves by subjecting usable gear to destruction, when it could be donated to a kid.

This was like watching Jeremy Clarkson. The Spider IV was under £200 new, it just opens up a huge variety of sounds and it records well. It's never been out of my house. I think the laughable element of these kind of reviews is that the guy is probably making a comparison against head/cab combinations that cost ten or twenty times the price of the Spider, so honestly, what does this guy expect?

As this thread took a little modelling amp swerve, I'll just throw in my 2 cents. I don't play much guitar, but I do own a combo - a Line 6 Spider IV - that I use for home recording; to my ears it sounds fine for demos...DI'd or cranked on the landing with a microphone in front of it. Whilst yes, I know that Line 6 stuff is sneered at and that this probably hasn't been withing a mile of a valve, a guitarist who's used it for recording at mine just loves the thing and compares it favourably with this Orange head and 4x12 and doesn't have an issue getting usable tones out of it. Moving along, small valve amps. I'm watching a small valve combo on eBay at the moment (no, I'm not saying what), that ticks all my boxes. It's a bit of a one trick pony, visually it's a bit retro, but I'll see where the auction goes over the next few days.

They (to date) have done six or seven albums, there was a bit of a hiatus period while they all seemed to be doing other work. Sadly, much a case of diminishing returns though; first album was brilliant pop/punk, the second had a couple of terrible tracks, and so on.

American Hi-Fi, first album. I think this was one of the first albums I downloaded on Napster (don't get your panties in a twist, I've bought it). It's a very strong debut...haven't listened to it in yonks.

Please tell me it wasn't being sold by the purveyor of instruments for people with big hands.