NancyJohnson

It's a monstrosity. And I owned one.

You've said you've owned them for 15 years, so they were seven years old when you got them. How do you know what the previous owner did? Maybe they changed one of the pickups, maybe both, maybe neither. The things that jump out for me is the heat-shrink on the red bass (the '57) pickup; I wouldn't think that Fender would issue a bass with that flaw, unless it was part of the spec, but hey ho. Also the basses are effectively copies/reissues of two different periods, so perhaps the blue one (the '62) comes with the earthing/shielding plate and the red (the '57) doesn't.

You know, funny, sarcastic, tongue-in-cheek, or whatever that passes for, the thing that leaves me stone cold is the grammar, spelling and abbreviation. You' ll? pidgeon? That irritating space before the fullstop after the word music? The inverted commas (and space therein) when he/she uses the word deputising. If you're going to be an asshat, at least get the freaking text right.

This just popped into my inbox: https://www.gumtree.com/p/for-sale/hamer-scarab-bass-1985/1291412241?utm_source=savedsearches&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=GT.TRIGGER.SA&utm_content=none&utm_source=savedsearches&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=GT.TRIGGER.SA&utm_content=none

Are the Yewtree suspects edited out?

'Don't kill me, kill that dude over there.'

Or this:

Lest we forget this monstrosity:

Sorry, just to get sensible, try a little of the stain somewhere where you'll be able to determine the end colour. In a control cavity or neck pocket. Once you're happy, apply in a well ventilated location. Don't apply more than you need, work it in with a soft cloth allow it to set up for a bit then wipe away any excess. Let it dry, lightly sand or wirewool the body to get rid of any areas where the grain will raise. Repeat the stain until you're happy. Apply something over the top...a clear coat of some kind (others here will tell you the best ones), rub down and repeat. Avoid putting the guitar anywhere it'll come into contact with foam rubber as it'll cause the finish to burn/tarnish after there's been extended contact.

Unless you're from the planet Zargoid.

When Neephid was doing his Gibson Ripper Rescue, he installed a Varitone on that. If I can throw in my 2cents here, I own a guitar with a six position Varitone on it. It is an interesting thing; way more so than a straight tone knob. Generally, I'll just leave it #1 position (Open/Bypass), but the other five settings give a tremendous amount of variety. Interestingly, some outboard effects that sound terrible in position #1 sound fantastic in different positions, so it can open up for a bit of experimentation. I love #6...it just squeezes the output and the guitar sounds like shortwave radio. Great for introductions. P Position 1: Bypass, Position 2: 5db at 1950hz, Position 3: 12db at 1100hz, Position 4: 16db at 620hz, Position 5: 18.5db at 360hz, Position 6: 21db at 120hz.

Yummy.

I think the Flying V, Explorer, Moderne and Futura were all designed in the 1950s, which says a lot for the design team working then, compared to the one working now. (TH I'm not certain whether Gibson have a design team anymore.) I've seen photos of Explorers with the split V headstock and it works on that model too. I'd seriously consider a Futura at some stage. I never go out live on guitar, so it would just be a vanity purchase. Lovely though. Really lovely.

Man alive. It's so ugly it's beautiful. Message ends.

The Cheap Trick setting did cause me fire up eBay to see whether there was a B12A on sale anywhere.

Wang Chung. Blimey. They sound a lot like Hall and Oates.

Wear gloves.

My wife: 'Are there any photos of you?' *Edit. Just spotted my receding hairline poking out out from behind someone's head at the Yolanda showpiece.

I'm up for videos...

All paid. #excited.

I should point out that until recently the supply here is clean, but everyone I know in the street is experiencing these short blips, so the UPS was a way around this.

About a year ago my old PC carked it and I bought a HP Pavilion mini-tower thing. I set everything up, my chosen playback softwares (Winamp and Spotify) installed my DAW and an Audiobox USB interface, speakers (M-Audio BX5). I noticed almost immediately that when I played back audio, either through the onboard soundcard or the Audiobox USB I was getting a pre and post-roll whistling sound (the Audiobox connected via a USB cable, speakers plugged into that). If you watch/listen to the following, this will make sense: The sound didn't manifest itself on recordings, so that was a blessing. The issue was posted to the HP Support forums (https://h30434.www3.hp.com/t5/Desktop-Audio/High-pitched-tone-whistle-from-studio-monitors-and/td-p/5975715), but despite a lengthy amount of trying to fix things it never went away. Anyhow, fast foward to the now. Over the last couple of weeks we've had some power issues locally; the power fluctuations were very short and not long enough to throw the cooker or microwave time off, but long enough for the PC to go down, which irritatingly caused some lost work, so I bought and installed an APC UPS. I fired up the PC this morning and now I've got a ground loop rumble coming from speakers, so clearly the UPS is causing an issue. I've installed a thing in-line with USB cable that's supposed to filter out the grounding noise, but while the noise dissipates and becomes barely discernable at first, it just builds until you can hear it behind what's playing (the sound is almost like someone drumming their fingers on a box! Just for good measure, when I use the roller on the mouse, I can also hear that too! I'm at a loss. Anyone had anything similar? Or can help?

I while away the odd half hour trawling You Tube for AliBaba/DHGate unboxing videos...I'm wondering, has anyone here taken a punt and ordered anything? I do seem to remember someone posting that they were considering a custom build order, but can't remember what. A friend of mine ordered a Chickenbacker a long while ago. It played OK (after some tweaking) and from a distance it didn't look to shabby, but close up, well, you knew instantly is wasn't the real thing.

Honestly, I do understand that anything outside of a simple signal chain is very much a personal choice and believe me I have tried pretty much every outboard effect during this 40-odd year sojourn, but (BUT!) my experience of what compression gives me personally is a hefty zero. I saw nothing in what the old EH Black Finger did (or was supposed to be doing) to give me a boner and think, 'Wow, let's do that again.' Sure it's more than feasible that in a live/studio context an engineer will apply something so I sit better in the mix FoH, I understand this, but for any other application I've never thought a compressor was a go-to unit on a board and nor will I again. Each to their own. I've had dozens of people come up to me and comment on how much they like how I sound and believe me, that's dozens more than people who come and ask me whether I use a compressor. Perhaps I'm just lucky, perhaps all that monetary investment and technique has paid dividends and I do actually sound great sans compression.

I'm sure this all makes perfect sense and I appreciate your sterling efforts, but despite my near (evil) genius IQ and Mensa membership, you lost me at I will.