NancyJohnson

[quote name='tonybassplayer' post='268314' date='Aug 23 2008, 09:02 AM']I just have to say that I think you're all naughty boys ( and girls ) on this website. Before I joined I was more than happy with my Yamaha TRB playing through my budget conscious Behringer amp and twin cab set up but now now !!! My first acquisition ( after following all the debates about the relative merits of MIJ, MIA etc ) was a Geddy Lee Jazz ( lovely to play and sounds great ) Then I just had to give these much talked about Wizard Thumper pickups a try so I bought an ebay special Squire Precision, bought the Wizards and fit them and yes, they do dramatically, alter the sound !! Now I spend all my time researching the relative merits of the Mark Bass amps and cabs as I have become obsessed with ditching the Behringer stuff for some light weight, cool looking loud gear !! Going to make the purchase soon. Now ( and this has just started ) I have got really in to following the custom built threads and I have fallen in love with some of the bass's I see being built and have convinced myself that I now desperately need one !! When will it all end ?? or does it ??[/quote] Just like an extended 12" disco remix of [i]Le Freak[/i] by Chic it will end, but goes on and on and on and on.. P

Can I tell you a little Paul Gilbert story? Years ago, mid-nineties maybe, I went to a Billy Sheehan clinic that was being held at a Hall in Fleet, Hampshire with a mate of mine - he was a huge Mr Big fan, me a big Dave Lee Roth fan, so we had common cause. So we're in the bar having a pre-clinic drinky and were in earshot of of a quite obnoxious guy who was Sheehan's manager. Every other word was [i]f2ck[/i] or [i]Gilbert[/i]. Gilbert was on his way out of Mr Big, as [i]he was drunken f2cking ass who couldn't even tune his guitar because that goddamn f2cker is out of his head most of the time[/i]. I was squealing with laughter until I heard him say Mr Big are going to fire Gilbert and [i]get that little prick who did that Mothers Head CD[/i] - Richie Kotzen - to play for them. Kotzen was my hero. I think I shrank several inches. Ruined my evening. Bastard. P

Anyone using one of these? More to the point anyone using one of these and can let me have an MP3 of the unit in action recording a noisy band. I just want to get a field recorder for recording jams,,,this is top of the pile at the moment. Cheers P

Has to be black or black pearly. Have a look at the photo here (I know, it's a DJ5). Beautiful. P

Gbase.com is great for the pictures alone. A 1975 T-bird here: <drool> [url="http://www.gbase.com/Stores/Gear/GearDetails.aspx?Item=1871876"]Linky[/url] </drool> Matching headstock as well. Dreamy. P

[quote name='Shaggy' post='265329' date='Aug 19 2008, 11:26 AM']Again, not trying to hijack this thread, but what was your impressions of the bass otherwise? Seem to have a warmer, woodier sound than a Kramer. Lovely basses! I'd liked to have met your luthier - I also play the lute (badly)[/quote] You know the weirdest thing about the TB is understandably my overriding memory of how heavy it was. It looked beautiful and was incredibly stable, never went out of tune, infinite sustain (which was good, but when you're playing a lot of notes each bar, sustain doesn't come into it!). The pickups weren't very adjustable; there were allen bolts through the back of the body, but they pretty much did nothing other than anchor the pickups/body/neck together. The original bridge was pretty chunky/clunky and I put a BadAss on when the guy changed the fingerboard. Prior to the bridge change, the bass had through-the-body-stringing. The holes never quite matched up, so if you had a tendancy (like most poor musicians) to boil up your strings, it was terrible trying to re-string it with used strings. I have no recordings or anything that I know of. Sure I remember it sounded OK at the time, but nothing special. I've mentioned here a few times that I've always been looking for a Rickenbacker type clank and I never got anywhere close to that. Soundwise I would say (from memory) that I sounded more like a phat version of Peter Swivel (of US 70s metaller Starz) rather than say, Mick Karn. Given the choice, would I get another one? Yes, but only for the novelty of having one. There are dozens and dozens of better basses for the money. If I did try and find one, I would probably go for one of the later models - perhaps serial numbers 400 or above - Travis Bean altered the body shape slightly - the wings were wider and they just looked aesthetically nicer - or if one came up, maybe one of the dozen new prototypes that were made about five years ago, which are [i]incredibly[/i] saucy. If you're looking for a Bean, there's the Travis Bean resource site - google it. There's classifieds, a forum etc. There's also tone of photos! Hope this helps. P

[quote name='Shaggy' post='265202' date='Aug 19 2008, 08:34 AM']Damn, feel your pain on that one – I’ve been looking for a fretless one (in fact any one) for around twenty years![/quote] Not trying to hijack the thread, but this [i]was [/i]fretless for a while. The original board hadn't adhered properly to the aluminium in a couple of spots, so I had an ebony board put on (and a BadAss bridge) by a luthier based in Kingston (he was a British Airways engineer and made baroque instruments in his spare time. Let's just say he knew glue!). It was later refretted by Dick Knight. It was a beauty, would be worth a small fortune now. P

A Travis Bean 2000 series bass #222. I lost interest in the bass and part-exchanged it for an Ibanez Roadster. Read that last sentence again. Part-exchanged. I gave up my TB and gave cash to acquire an Ibanez Roadster! I still think about that TB once or twice a day. P

I'm getting a tad irritated with my old Precision. It's currently referred to as that 'Piece of sh*t'. When it's replacement arrives I'll probably start waxing lyrical about it and calling it Lurlene or something. P

Had a very quick perusal if the Ishibashi site this morning and for all you T-Bird fans out there, Gibson have issued a new Nikki Sixx 'Black Cherry' signature edition. There's three models up...all look a little different from each other finish-wise...everything else looks the same. Red XX markers on the neck, different scratchplates to the usual Thunderbirds (with the same XX insignia and a signature). Needless to say, nothing on the Gibson site for us to drool over (I fail to see how, in this day and age, a company like Gibson can issue a new model and not even update theis sh*tty site). Anyhow: [url="http://tinyurl.com/6av6rm"]LINK[/url] if you're interested. P

[quote name='Delberthot' post='255274' date='Aug 5 2008, 12:08 PM']I believe that the green one is made in the same factory as the Waterstone Tom Petersson bass as it is very close in most respects.[/quote] I had some dealings with Bob Singer at Waterstone a couple of years ago (when I was trying top help with UK distribution). We discussed the Tennessee basses - he was quite flattered that his TP12 model was being copied and confirmed 100% that the Tennessee basses were not coming out of his Korean manufacturing plant. The plant could barely keep up with demand for Waterstone let alone any other maker. P

[quote name='cheddatom' post='156759' date='Mar 13 2008, 03:57 PM']Due to some circumstances out of our control, me and my guitarist could possibly start playing as a duet, with me on drums, and I have suggested him on baritone guitar. He's never played one before, and they're quite hard to find! So: What baritones are there? I swear I saw an Epiphone LP one on Ebay a while ago, and it was really cheap! Where can we find a baritone to actually play in a music shop? (stoke, brum, manchester are our limits) Are the strings on a baritone really thick, like bass strings? Or will it not be much different to heavy guage guitar strings? Ta [/quote] Danelectro used to make one or two very funky/retro baritones. Unless anyone has mentioned it, wasn't there a Fender Jaguar baritone. That was a stonkingly attractive guitar. P

[quote name='BigRedX' post='253176' date='Aug 2 2008, 10:25 AM']I've bought 4 basses form the US (and one from Japan) and had no problems. With USPS it will take 2-3 weeks door to door most of which time is spent in limbo between countries and waiting for the UK customs to inspect it. If the sender uses USPS the delivery here is done by Parcel Force and you [b]WILL[/b] have to pay customs and VAT on it. Customs duty is 3.5% of cost of the item(s) plus shipping but only applicable if it comes to over £7. VAT is 17.5% of cost, shipping and customs duty combined. Parcel Force will also charge you of around £15 for customs handling fee. Customs also use their own exchange rate which isn't normally quiet as good as the current quoted one. Also Parcel Force won't deliver until you have paid these charges. One of the basses I bought came FedEx. That took 3 days door to door and incurred no import duty or VAT. Normally FedEx bill you for import charges after delivery so just because your bass arrives and you haven't had to pay import to get it, don't assume your off the hook. However IME if you have them deliver to your work address (where you should already be VAT registered) this bill never arrives. I haven't been able to 100% verify this and also I don't know if the VAT simply ends up at the work accounts they pay it along with all the others with out realising that it was for me and not work related, but nothing I've had delivered to me at work from abroad by FedEx has had any VAT or duty to pay. YMMV as they say.[/quote] I'd concur with the getting it shipped to a work address. Two basses, not a bill in sight. Maybe I just got lucky...I don't know. Had one delivered to home and I had to pay £80.00 or thereabouts. Good hunting. P

[quote name='Mikey D' post='252583' date='Aug 1 2008, 11:22 AM']Or even better: [url="http://www.wlguitars.com"]Wes Lambe[/url] makes them, and for about a $1000 cheaper! Great instruments.[/quote] Cool, cheers for that link. I don't know which ones I like the look of more to be honest...maybe the Novax. I'll have a better look tonight! Haven't been able to find anything on the Novax site about tunings. P

[quote name='NancyJohnson' post='252488' date='Aug 1 2008, 08:56 AM']I'll be damned if I can remember the name of the company[/quote] It's Novax Guitars [url="http://www.novaxguitars.com/index.html"]Novax[/url] P

Played a Dingwall in the US a couple of years ago out of curiousity more than anything else. It felt [b]very[/b] comfortable from the outset...I didn't feel that the fret system hindered really. There's another luthier in the US who does these fanned fret hybrid guit-bass instruments...from memory they have a slightly extended scale length than a regular guitar (so maybe baritone length). The flagship model was an eight string...for your money you get three bass strings (one bass circuitry that can be routed through a bass amp) and five guitar strings. I'll be damned if I can remember the name of the company (I've got a link on my PC at home if anyone is interested). P

[quote name='cetera' post='241787' date='Jul 17 2008, 02:39 PM']Ah mate, you've discovered the 'secret' joys of the Tech21 Landmark! I LOVE this head..... it does every sound I want and especially excels in the grindy/gritty hi-mid classic rock sound.... As Ade says, I had the Landmark 300 and I sold it to him..... but only so I could buy the more powerful Landmark 600!! If you can hold a little while (crazy busy here at the mo) we can maybe get together and you can give my Landmark a trial run.....[/quote] Cool Gary Cheers - I guess if I went with the POD I'm likely to keep it on a kind of gritty sound anyhow...so maybe only one or two patches. I'm looking for that kind of (Ash) Burn Baby Burn kind of sound...dirty Thunderbird/Rickenbacker kind of thing (although I'll be getting the DJ5 soon enough). I have to say I get that tone already, but my Ashdown stuff is getting a little worn out. I got an e-mail from the UK distributors and the amp isn't available here at all. I'd like to go new, but we'll see. P

[quote name='ped' post='241360' date='Jul 16 2008, 11:09 PM']If you already have a guitar pod, how about a rack XT pro instead of the X3 - I can't see any reason to 'upgrade' except for the fact it does guitar too. I really don't know why they made it 3u!![/quote] I think the X3 appealed simply from the perspective that it was a one-unit-hopefully-does-all kind of thing. I own both a bass and guitar Pod. I hear what you say about the 3U thing. At least the Flightcase Warehouse do a 5U rack on wheels! P