NancyJohnson

Of the belief that a geetar through a bass rig is ok for low volume practice at home (with some kind of processing in front of the amp), but in a live context it just doesn't work. Believe me, I have tried. Several times. Doesn't really matter if someone goes, 'Well, <insert name here> did it.' Not limited to my current backline (Darkglass AO900, a pair of DG 1x12s, Barefaced Big One, plus a Fender Pugilist dirt pedal), I could put any combination of this up against my old 75w Line 6 Spider IV and the Line 6 will beat it 24/7. I do recall many years ago, plugging my old Gibson 335 into a huge Trace Elilot rig I was running with the expectation that this would leave my fellow band members lying on the floor with blood coming out of their ears, but the sad reality was that it just sounded ponky and didn't even cut through the mix even at quite low volumes. Someone with a more technical nuance will probably be able to answer as to why, but my feeling is bass cabinet design doesn't help in the slightest and the circuitry sweet-spot in bass amps design is for lower frequencies. Remember too that until quite recently there was an expectation for bass amps to run a lot cleaner than their guitar-based brethren.

I remember seeing one up in London a few times. Just hanging on the wall in one of the shops in Denmark Street. It was there for yonks. Couldn't even tell you what colour it was, but I do remember it had diagonal stripes on it, which on closer inspection turned out to be wide strips of electrical tape. The bassist in NWOBHM band Rock Goddess played one:

😄 Tickets are already on sale for next year's Christmas sing-along; I know it's a long way off, but it's a hugely entertaining evening. It appears that the seats we were in (2nd row, right in the middle, little kids in front of us, so clear view), now form part of a VIP experience now (VIP lounge, drink, foodstuffs), which is a tad disappointing (and over double the price), but it's the way of the world I suppose. One *VERY* entertaining element from last night, we had a group of people behind us who'd travelled down from Yorkshire for a few days. Every time something was announced, they'd literally be going to each other (and apply an ee'bah'gum accent here), 'Ooh, I bloody love this one, don't you love this one? Do you love this one, mum?' and then they'd all go, 'Ee, yes, I love this one.' One of their number sang along constantly, and while credit to him, he was riffing a bit and not necessarily singing the right words or tune. He just didn't care.

I saw the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra at the Albert last night.

I have an option on a (cheap) Jazz bass body and if I go for it, would consider trying to recreate a reverse-P, Mark Hoppus style thing, so questions. #1. Filling the bridge and (possibly) part of the control cavity rout. Has anyone used an epoxy based filler to good effect rather than routing out a bigger hole and trying to glue in a block of wood? #2. Does anyone know whether a Mark Hoppus scratchplate will fit over the old Jazz routs with little or no fettling?

Had a full clear out about 25 years ago, just because I fell out of love with playing following an overlong wilderness period. Didn't play for ages. If there's one positive outcome, it's that when you do start rebuilding - because we all will at some point under similar circumstances - it really focuses your mind on what you need to build a set up from the bottom up. Good luck to you @bubinga5

Shameless plug:

A noisy Bob Mould/Sugar playlist. On shuffle.

My best tone was when I recorded my white Thunderbird into a BDDI into a little Boss multitrack. Recorded in my kitchen. Perhaps it was just planetary alignment, who knows. Everything else is a close approximation of that ever since. I'm just happy I was able to capture it.

Sitting listening to the BBC's Stereo Underground. 'No Time to be 21' by The Adverts comes on. Wife goes, 'Is this Weezer?'. Inside I'm laughing, but at the same time I'm thinking, feck, Weezer sound just like this.

I remember when Lidl opened in our village, my original feeling was dismay; we'd lost a really nice '50s garage with some nice vintage cars on the forecourt, which was replaced by a featureless supermarket, which I vowed never to use. First Lidl experience was actually in Cyprus, well after our local one opened. Pretty suprised at quality/cleanliness/prices. Visited our one shortly thereafter, much the same. End of the day, milk is milk. Why go to Tesco/Sainsbury? Never been someone swayed by advertising (I don't watch much terrestrial/commercial TV); I'm strong enough in the head to make my own decisions and don't need Mr Bubbles to tell me Asda sausage rolls are the ones to buy.

No such thing as being done. Nope. There's always going to be something. Always. You'll see something that will be a slow burner, maybe it'll be something as simple as the Jazz you have looking better in a solid black and then one will come up for sale, you might have a few hundred £££ in the bank and you start doing the maths. That, my friend, is how it works. That's how I've ended up with a room full of kit. That's how nearly everyone on Basschat has a room full of kit. Nope, you're not done. You're just getting started. 😄

I bought two bits of kit this year, a second Darkglass 1x12 and a black Spector Euro-X. Nothing went out. All credit to my mate Gary, AKA @cetera of this parish, for coordinating the Spector builds; 'tis a thing of beauty. *Wee edit. I completely forgot that I sold on my Spector Euro LT to partially fund the Euro-X. So yes, there was an out.

Are people actually shallow enough nowadays to go to <insert supermarket chain here> because <insert celebrity name here> is fronting their Christmas advertising campaign? Call me Mr Grumpypants, but while I love the element of warm and fuzzy that this time of year brings, I can pick up everything we need from Lidl, which is about 500m from the bed where I'm typing this. Don't worry about how much coin changed hands to acquire the services of Bublé either; Asda are bankrolled by Walmart and a couple of billionaires from Lancashire. They're probably not short of a few quid and metaphorically had Bubbles fee down the back of the sofa. If we have any US members reading, what's the celeb-fronted advertising like for Walmart, Albertsons or Target like at this time of year?

I watched three of these this evening; Les Claypool, Melissa Auf der Maur and Krist Novoselic. They're barely 22 minutes each, so an easy enough watch; while I understand the format is more about what these people are doing away from music rather than the playing element, it was an entertaining enough hour or so, given the bass-centric subject matter. I'd say the Les Claypool one was by far the best of the three that I watched. Of the other two, you wouldn't have known Krist Novoselic was in one of the biggest bands in the last 30 years and of Melissa Auf der Maur - who hadn't played in ten years or so - I did ask myself why they actually chose her (she could just have easily have been any another middle-aged women with an interest in her local arts/music scene). Geddy seems to be everywhere at the moment. As I've posted elsewhere, he seems a nice, agreeable bloke with some interesting pursuits (music, wine, collecting etc.) and he an Alex seem to be involved with some interesting stuff, but this show falls well short of what it could actually have been. Rather than 20 minutes, I could happily have sat through 45-60 minutes of Les Claypool. If there is a positive, at least the makers didn't go to the standard fallback position of hitting up Flea.

I'd say most of our day to day Spotify listening is off a huge 115 hour(!) playlist, although this will move to our 'Christmas Crooners' list (29 hours) shortly. There's dozens and dozens of playlists that I've set up for individual artistes, but there's always going to be stuff I have that's not on Spotify (viz. the full XTC or Jellyfish catalogue), so the NAS is utilised there.

As covered elsewhere, dumped regular hifi many moons ago and went the Sonos route; audio is being delivered from Spotify and FLAC files on a NAS. I have no issue spaffing £10+ a month on a premium subscription considering I'd spend £100+ a month on CDs in the past. (Honestly getting tired of the rhetoric about Spotify revenue to artistes, the real money has come from touring and merchandise for decades now. I don't expect to be paid in perpetuity for contract work I did 20 years ago, so why should music be any different?)

Insofar as predjudices go, surely this is just another way of saying that you just have preferences for what actually appeals to you personally? I prefer a black bass, although I own two non-black ones. Don't particularly like the look of a maple fingerboard. I'm drawn to Thunderbird and NR Thunderbird shapes/designs and in general I prefer twin pickup basses. Unfussed about hardware colour thereon (anything works with black). Headstockwise, I'm not a fan of the Fender shapes, my Lulls have reverse headstocks, the Hamers have the machines at the top. I think the Spector paddle-headstock would work with anything, which is why I'm probably so in love (still) with the Euro-X.

Dunlops on everything. Everything. Message ends.

A mate of mine has an Integra, with the paddle headstock. It's a lovely thing. I've got a 45 year old Primary/Precision which is a wonderful thing.

Getting back on track... When I think of my musical journey, much in the same way that Eddie Van Halen outshone DLR, there are the same handful of bass players in my book that are/were arguably bigger than the frontman of the band they're actually playing in. Nikki Sixx, Mick Karn, Geddy Lee, Steve Priest, (perhaps to a lesser extent) Gene Simmons, Overend Watts, Pete Way.

I bought a Boss BR600 about 12 years ago. Like anything, you needed to read the manual. My old, old band tracked about 20 full songs on it. Great fun, perfectly adequate for what we wanted to do, also a fairly decent field recorder.

Last night Kiss played their last ever show. That said, I will draw your attention to the final paragraph of my post from 18 months ago. If only I was a betting man.

Vintage kit or kit with provenance is a weird area for me (and possibly a lot of people), this bass being point of fact. Perhaps it's about bragging rights, but at £27K, it's not going to make you play any better and tonally (subjective) I'd say with some confidence that a Harley Benton that came off the production line yesterday wouldn't sound that much different, either. It's probably OK if you're Sting or something, where you have people to watch your gear 24/7, but can you imagine the loss risk of taking it out for a gig at the Rose & Crown on a Friday night?

Well, it's that time of year again. Not unsurprisingly my top artist is Momma (again), I bloody love them. In #2 it's New Zealand poppunk band The Beths and at #3 it's The Alkaline Trio. The ones I am surprised about are #4 and #5. As evidenced by my entries on the What are you listening to now? thread, it's Supertramp and 10cc. Blimus!