NancyJohnson

60s Jazz basses aren't around any more either. But they are if you look hard enough.

Haven't we done this somewhere else?

I recently bought a pair of Aguilar SL112s. They're very smooth, very hi-fi; even full on, the tweeter just adds a bit of shizzle, very subtle. I haven't actually taken them out in anger yet (next Wednesday), but obviously I can run as in parallel or more likely run them daisychained to give me more headroom. A couple of years ago, I was lucky enough to win a Barefaced Big One at the SE Bass Bash. It a 15/6 and it's very aggressive by comparison to the Aguilars. I was a Hartke endorsee for a few years too, I'd say tonally the Barefaced is a country mile better than the Hydrive 115 that I owned. If I can offer up some advice, try and land a Big One. Yes, I know they're a 15/6 but they're in a package no dissimilar to a 2x12. They're amazing cabs. Where are you based? If you're local to me (Reading) you're welcome to come over and try it out. No loans, sorry.

Sorry to sound so obvious, but given the costs involved, wouldn't it be cheaper just to source a new bass? There's probably a very high chance that the existing oil and varnish/clearcoat is already deeply embedded into the grain and you're never going to be able to suck that out; any new colour wouldn't take the same as if the top was unfinished. It's never going to pop like the one on the bottom.

*I hadn't realised, but I just assumed that the embedded Spotify thing would just play everything start to finish. It's only 30 snippets (boo), but you can log onto Amazon, Spotify, Deezer, iTunes etc. and listen properly there. Thanks!

A combination or BDDI and dUg. Some of the tracks were recorded clean with a BOD plugin added in post; they sound fine, but if nothing it just reinforced my opinion that I'd prefer my desired tone metaphorically went to tape rather than having a producer decide what he wanted to make the bass sound like.

Spent a bit of the summer recording this and it's dropped onto digital streaming platforms today. A few of the tracks have also had radio play. It's punky, garagey, dubby, noisy stuff. Give it a spin.

I used a 12-string bass set and had a couple of sets of others. eBay.

I've always felt the need to be well rehearsed to be able to pull off a decent set, even if it's only 30-40 minutes, but given what the new project is doing over the old one, we really need to be more than well rehearsed; we're simply not just chugging along and playing together, we're effectively going to be looking at the backing content as being a digital fifth man and we need a drummer who's disciplined to be able to keep with the click. I do concur monitoring is essential, but as of yet, we haven't really investigated how we're going to do all this as we haven't gone outside the studio as of yet; right now we just need to bed in the musical elements in a live context. It may be the case of bringing in a fifth man, someone tech-savvy and non-musical, to just fire off the sampled stuff. I don't know. I'm wholly aware at how bad things can go using backing tracks. A couple of years back we played with a band who I can only describe in hindsight as having an horrific gig at the hands of the backing they were using. They were a five piece and every song they did involved the drummer picking up an iPod Mini, dialling in the track they were doing, hitting play, dropping the iPod and then trying to do a four count to start the song. They were definitely not on it. Keyboard and backing vocals were coming in early/late and to add to this, they had a guitarist who insisted on switching guitars virtually every song (which I reckon this was more a look at me, look at my gear vanity exercise more than anything else) and on the last song he clearly picked up the wrong one which was tuned down a half step, so we had guitars out of tune and backing coming in at the wrong time too.

Addressing these three points; 1) I think we'd certainly prefer for the added non-musical elements to form part of the live side (when we do it live). 2) Blame your soundman. 3) Possibly. I'd wager that a lot of the people watching are going to be new to the material, but if I'm playing My Life In A Dying Machine, almost certainly I want the sound of an iron lung's circulating pump supporting the rythym.

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 $$$.