NancyJohnson

Can you Photoshop my belly to make it smaller please.

I'll be following this. As I'll attest, the current project contains an awful lot of extraeneous content, but we've yet to go out live; none of this has even been played outside of a recording studio as of yet. We've looked at using a laptop or tablet and routing the content to front of house and a click to the drummer, but we really need to be on it like a car bonnet to make it work. Rehearsals start next week.

I wondered this too.

Ultimately, on the poweramp side, just do your diligence and read up as much as you can. Everyone will have differing opinions. Personally, I liked the Matrix because, claimed output wattage aside, it was lightweight (9lbs), it fitted into a short Gator rack and looked aesthetically pleasing. It's been a fantastic piece of kit (until now!), run for thousands of hours, so probably something has just worn out.

Right, here we go. I suppose this will show the pros and cons of this type of set up. I bought a GED2112 on release last and have run it (amongst other pre-amps) into a Matrix GT1000FX power amp and then onto a choice of enclosures - a Barefaced Big One or (more currently) a pair of Aguilar SL112s. (The Aguilars just give me the option to run the whole rig in either stereo/ dual-channel mode, mono/parallel or mono/bridged; daisy chaining the cabinets to effectively give me a 4ohm mono 2x12 set up.) Initially, I did the external jump lead patch thing on the GED (see elsewhere) so the unit would output in mono and also allowing me to just keep it simple by bridging the poweramp for more output power. The external patch which worked fine aside from the smallish issue that a couple of the knobs on the facia didn't do what they were supposed to, but irrespective, it sounded fine and it was easily reversible should the need require. About a week ago, I did the internal hack and switched the jumpers, which has been fine; the deep and drive channels combine to output in mono. I also did the bypass-jumper as well...this allows true bypass of the GED allowing you to use other other pre-stages in line. By some curious twist of fate, I turned my power amp on this morning and it's playing up. Damn! It's been blummin' bomb-proof for five years. Oh, pink torpedo!

Honestly though, ion a blind test nobody can tell the difference between the new Squier and a 60 year old Precision.

I'm down to six. I could lose two of those (one's up on the For Sale section), I've got an Epiphone Thunderbird that the original owner sprayed yellow, that's covered in stickers. I don't use it at all. That could go. Never have any regrets, but always think fondly of what you've owned. Always see every new bass purchase as an upgrade or improvement of past instruments. [Cheeky edit: the Thunderbird is now up on the For Sale section as well.]

Kill.Me.Now.

A bass one would be horrific. Man alive, it would just write itself and you can see it now; full of the usual suspects, the omission of loads who should be in there and a subtle nods to the likes of the previously unknown Blind Reggie Fingerblister who revolutionarily tuned to E/C/F#/H and played on a lone Sun Records b-side in 1957.

Stevie Nicks has always come over as being more concerned about her own agenda than the band's one. I know this is dredging up something from years back, but we were roadtripping through Nevada, we had this radio station on and they'd been promoting some live interview with Stevie Nicks. For one reason or another the interview got pushed back, then pushed back again, then again, until they finally got her on the phone for about five minutes at the end of the show. She came across as thoroughly unpleasant and rude, answering questions like a politician (so, not answering questions, just making disassociated comments to further whatever her agenda was that day), before cutting the interviewer off to sing Silver Springs over the phone. She's off with the faeries. Mad as cheese.

I haven't watched all of the programmes yet, but thanks for the spoiler. Really appreciate that. Did you know that Darth Vader is Luke Skywalker's dad? Anyhow, hands up, how many people read that list and haven't heard of half of them? No Mike Portnoy? Where's Peter Criss?

First off, I'll put on record that I adore their output from Rumours through to Tango In The Night. Yes, I know as as old punkster they should be abhorrent to me, but they're not. Guilty pleasures. That said, this is just another chapter in this bands backstory. They just just seem to be the acceptable face of sex, drugs, lawsuits in a band context. They all seem act like little kids and if the claims are true, I do have some sympathy for Buckingham. I feel that Mick and John lost their band decades ago, they're just pawns, and the comment from the latter saying he couldn't speak to Buckingham actually made me laugh out loud. It'll be interesting how this all pans out. Ultimately it's got nothing to do with music. It's all about $$$.

I love all my gear but for different reasons, but I'm down to six basses now and hope to reduce that further. I suppose the question here should be rephrased as you're bound to get people going, 'Oh, my Ritter,' or 'Oh, my Fodera,' comments of which are primarily made out of how much the instrument actually cost or how old it is, not because they're best. As Gary put it, personal choice has to come down to looks, feel etc. and we all know that tastes shift with time. Right now, and it really hurts me to say this given the money spent elsewhere, but my go to bass and the one I love the most is the mashed up ratty old Aria Pro II Primary bass. It cost me next to nothing, it owes me about £120 for a new pickup, bridge and pots. It plays dreamily and sounds gnarly. On the last gig I did with the old band I threw it across the stage and it just went, 'Is that the best you got?' The new recordings I've been doing are all on it. The only downside is that it's Precision-shaped and I'm really not a fan of Fenders.

I've got some nice gear, but have always had this nagging thing about getting something really decent on the guitar front, maybe an old DC Les Paul Junior (or a Hamer Special), an Explorer (four-digit Hamer Standard or a Gibson), a Yamaha SG**** or maybe even one of Frank Diemel's Firestars (although these have pretty much doubled in price over the last couple of years). I trawl eBay, Gumtree and Reverb regularly and it seems pretty clear to me that there's always been guitars and basses on sale that are either have dubious provenance or are clearly not what they pertain to be. I just look at stuff and think, 'Oooooh, that just doesn't look right at all.' Unless you're an authority on a particular instrument or are able to do your diligence, there doesn't seem to be any go to source for verification of what an instrument actually is and the constant rejigging of designs (all the maker So what would you do? Buy new from an authorised dealer? Take a risk? Buy through a vintage dealer and accept the price hike for something genuine?

BEAD?

It's a long shot at being able to buy everything in one combines transaction, but I'm assuming that you don't want to switch from a StingRay 5? If it was me, I'd experiment a bit rather than buying another S5 and breaking it up. I'd check the profile of a Status MM5 neck first to ensure I was 100% happy with that, then probably try and create something Frankensteinesquely unique. If money is a consideration, I'd go the route of buying a Tony Levin OLP or a Sterling and getting the chambering done on that; any luthier worth his salt should be able to rip the body down (from behind) to your desired depth, chamber from the underside and then glue in a new laminate on the back so the aesthetics aren't changed visually from the front and refinish. I suppose then, the hurdles you're going to have to get over thereafter would be body balance, what it would sound like tonally, whether it would resonate, whether the control cavitiy would be deep enough to contain the electronics, and so on. Alternatively, just dispense with the low-B and buy a Thunderbird. Seems that's what everyone is doing nowadays!

I'm somewhat of a @Tech21NYC slut. Pretty much any if their stomps or racked gear will do the trick. Racked RBI and GED2112 have been great, but I didn't get on with the VTBASS one (tonally just didn't work for me). Of the stomps, BDDI (which is essentially an RBI in different clothes) and the recent dUg. Even the Sansamp GT2 worked. If Tech21 would do the dUg in a 19" rack version my life woukd be complete. Interestingly, the old Bass POD I ran for a while was fantastic. I know it picked up flack from these purists who would say it sounds nothing like the amps it's supposed to be modelling from, but it was a very versatile piece of kit, great for live and recording.

Wife gone to bed, screwdrivers close to hand. I just did mods on both jumpers...easy peasy. Unit functions fine (each channel operates independently, but it outputs in mono) and as the function button now operates as a bypass, I can plug my dUg in permanently. Just needed to do the ground lift on the GED and I'm set. I'm unsure which order at this juncture. dUg>GED or GED>dUg. I might want to throw a BDDI in as well...

@Tech21NYC You know the one thing I'd have loved with the GED would have been a bypass button. It's not a gripe! I can live with that hack of using a patch cable and the 50/50 button to run it in mono, but am wondering, does flipping the internal jumper do exactly the same thing?

Reeeeeeead all abaht it! Reeeeeeead all abaht it! Rush in another 40th Anniversary reissue fever! etc. I can't believe (it's not butter) it's actually 40 years since this came out. Man alive, I had my whole freaking life ahead of me. Needless to say, many versions coming from the Super Deluxe (CD/Vinyl/Bluray 5.1) to a stripped back digital version. I would have chewed your arm off for the additional content back then, but I'll admit my interest was already really starting to wane at that point and I wasn't even out of my teens then. [subtle edit: I'd recently discovered Japan...there was more than enough in those first two albums to turn my head from Canadian Progressive to Catford punkyfunk.] Now? I'll just have a cursory listen on Spotify as and when it drops. https://www.bassplayer.com/artists/rush-celebrates-the-40th-anniversary-of-hemispheres-with-reissue

It's detailed elsewhere, but I started a band about eight years ago, we bought in a singer three years ago who pretty much took over and now that band is out there gigging without an original member still (I understand) playing material I wrote. Life's too short. Just leave. A band with a toxic environment is not a band to be in.

Life sucks, doesn't it? I've rolled out processes and project/finance models for the last 20+ years. (Currently out of contract folks, if anyone needs someone!) The work I do just gets done and I get paid for it; any contract of employment will generally include a clause that the intellectual rights for anything I create for the betterment of the business will be waived. Assume that I worked for Microsoft and I wrote a bit of code that made Windows work better, am I supposed to lay claim to this code and expect compensation in perpetuity? I'm sorry, but no. Look at the case of Carolyn Davidson, the woman who designed the Nike swoosh logo. She was paid about $40 for the design, a design that is used as the logo for a business that's now worth about a billion times more than that fee. She waived her intellectual rights as soon as she took their money. That Nike went out of their way some 30 years later to recompense in shares is another matter entirely.

I see your point, however the emphasis of my comment was about being rewarded for product you delivered potentially decades before, not about licensing a song for use elsewhere. At the same time, if I create a piece of fantastic finance modelling software for my employer, then sadly that belongs to my employer and not me. If they chose to resurrect that at some future date, I won't get paid for it.