NancyJohnson

I had a G3 donkey's years ago. Aside from some niggly issues with the electrics (intermittent cutting out), I have nothing but pleasant memories of it. It played well, balanced nicely, sounded growly. All good. I trawl eBay regularly and parts don't really seem to be that hard to obtain, but be patient and buy well. **Neeph is rescuing a Ripper BTW, not a Grabber...Rippers are a different beastie entirely; set neck, varitone control, two pickups, nasty three point bridge. Good luck with it if you buy it. P

I've played a couple in stores...really nice but couldn't get past how hideous the headstock design is.

[quote name='tonyxtiger' timestamp='1416128396' post='2607033'] Do it. [/quote] Bass Direct have a red one for 'only' £3K. I'd have to shift a couple of basses, but in truth I'd only go for the black model. I have an American mate who visits these shores on business a few times a year...that alone could save me a few ££s. Ack, we'll see. P

Nope! There's plenty of businesses that do parts - you could easily do a scratch build from one of these - but there's really nothing that offers the depth or off the shelf availability/customisation options of Warmoth over here.

[quote name='gary mac' timestamp='1415792222' post='2603759'] [url="https://flic.kr/p/q2J9zt"][/url] [url="https://flic.kr/p/pKn9PB"][/url] [/quote] I've never owned a G&L and profess that I've always been put off by the headstock...I didn't know until quite recently that the original headstocks were smooth babies like these. Now I'm getting a bit of GAS. P

If you do just one (other) thing, put a Mustang bridge on it...a Squier one will cost under £30. P

[quote name='Billy Apple' timestamp='1415397560' post='2600041'] Well, you should. We'll all be longtime dead soon enough. [/quote] I'm doing some hard thinking about this...very hard thinking. The thing is that I'm pretty happy with what I've got in the arsenal; I wouldn't be happy taking a Lull out to many of the sh*thole gigs I do with the Johnsons.

BRX: Thanks for doing the link. discreet: I really can't bear these guys rat-a-tat-tatting in these videos; I don't slap, I don't know how to or want to. On the bass front, the body and headstock are 20% larger...I'm probably 20% bigger than your average person, so it should look normal on me! P

...no, I haven't pulled the trigger. Just wanted to post this link to a You Tube video of Branden Campbell of Neon Trees doing a piece for the Chicago Music Exchange. (How do I post the video here?) I just find it very refreshing to watch a regular guy just play [i]simply [/i]so you can just hear the tone of the bass and amp combination; it's more honest than all these blokes who just showboat and slap like crazy men. P [url="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cdOe_wq7_oU#t=281"]https://www.youtube....Oe_wq7_oU#t=281[/url]

From my perspective, I have a main 1TB drive on the PC...the Beta Monkey loops take up 4.8GB of space, the other stuff (Loopology/ProTools stuff etc) takes up 13.8gb, so around 2% of my drive. When you create a session, you simply import the loop into the session, work with it and save the session...the original loop remains unchanged and (in my case) Audition creates a smallish session file (perhaps less than 5mb) that you can double click to reopen the session; this retains all the information pertaining to the song, including whatever you've done to manipulate the drum loops. To be honest, the thing that sucks drive space is the saving of guitar/bass takes you're never going to use...you record, make a mistake, delete it from the session. Audition saves every single take. P

With a drummer who simply didn't want to go into the studio, it was left to the rest of us to capture the songs on an aging Dell PC in the comfort of my spare bedroom. I use a bunch of drum loops - all WAVs - from Beta Monkey and Loopology and found the process quite fulfilling; OK on occasion you may listen to our back catalogue and hear the same drums/fills, but it's better than nothing, eh? My software is pretty old (Adobe Audition 3.0 - now free kids), but I know it backwards so see no reason to change it. I found that if you set the session tempo for each song and used loops at a [i]lower [/i]bpm to the session rate, the results were more than acceptable - the drums will fit the bar/tempo automatically. (You don't seem to be able to slow down a loop though...it goes all funny.) Obviously you need to work on putting in cymbals and other poop, but it was great getting the songs just how I/we wanted them. I finished this about half hour ago - it's just audio...no vocals: [media]http://www.nancyjohnson.co.uk/_2014%20Demos/11%20%28Scratch%29%202.mp3[/media] P

Yummy.

Bridges on and off on various basses over the years. Honestly I can't say I've noticed any big swings in tone or increased sustain, but what I do like is to have my basses intonating properly along with individual string height adjustment. P

I played in Hackney years ago. A fight broke out at the bar and within seconds the whole place kicked off. I had two guys beating the poop out of each other. The landlord jumped the bar ans was swinging a pool cue, shouting 'Not in myyyyy puuuuuuub!', at the top of his lungs. All the fighters exited and it carried on out in the street. I hate to make this sound like a horrible cliché, but honestly, we never missed a note.

Just wanted to share this. Started life as a cheap Squier Bronco Badtz Maru bass. To be honest, I bought it for two reasons, I wanted a cheap shortscale and I liked the scratchplate. OK, so let's see. I broke the top of the original headstock trying to rout bigger holes for better machines, so sourced a 70s Mustang neck/machines from the US - on arrival it was clear the truss rod was maxxed out (so sold on here as a project for someone). The body sat in the spare bedroom for a while. Obtained a Squier Mustang neck/machines from the US, which was peachy. Changed the stock (strat) pickup for an unused hotrails unit and last week, in an attempt to resolve intonation issues from the original bridge, I fitted a full on Mustang unit with through body stringing. Dunlop Straploks and DR Neons (the Neons because these were the only spare strings I had). Despite the quantity/quality of the more premium basses I own, it's quite nice really. As Norm Abram would say, 'This has been a fun project.' P

Ive always thought Paul Stanley of Kiss did a great job. I don't profess to being much of a fan nowadays but he always seemed in the pocket and yhat it was Ace Frehley who had the real ability.

[quote name='Bassjon' timestamp='1413217999' post='2575973'] Hmm, Nancy Johnson you can't be that big of a fan....the singer is called Rivers Cuomo, not Miles! [/quote] Do you know that's not the first time I've done that!

I saw an interview in AP with Code Orange Kids (as they were then) a year or so back, so I had a listen. I honestly couldn't believe a nice bunch of kids could create something like that. P

I like the two EB2 styled basses that link off that page. £153? Crazy.

I liked Buddy Holly, but come on, who wouldn't like it? The singles have, by and large, been ok, it's just everything else! There's so much fill on all the albums. It doesn't help either when the artist disowns some of their output. In a recent interview for Alternative Press, they pretty much said that the last three or four albums were awful. Well I'm sorry, a lot of people bought those (me!). If they're crap, you should know it at the time and don't release them. Anyhow, that's me done.

Just to steal something from another thread, the purple sparkly job on the right. That's what Gibson need to do on a Thunderbird. I'd be tempted to get my old '97 refinished like that. Lovely. P

[quote name='Chiliwailer' timestamp='1409169221' post='2537122'] Just for you Pete here is my friends new pink FU4 next to my purple FB4...shocking pair indeed [/quote] The purple sparkly is nice. Gibson should do that finish on a Thunderbird. P

I've been following this band since Blue...20 years of just buying CDs and reissues, Miles Cuomo solo efforts, official bootlegs and video and you know, it's taken until this afternoon for me to actually realise that I don't really like them that much, if at all. Well, maybe a few songs, but then I could say that about Dream Theater. Oh, I've tried, don't get me wrong; I'm sure there's an [i]all killer, no filla[/i] greatest hits playlist to be had from what they've released to date (including the new one), but they leave me stone cold. For the last hour or so, I've just kept asking myself 'Why?' and 'Why did I persist for so long?' Bleurgh. Message ends. P