NancyJohnson

I was given a set last year. Nasty. I suppose if you're being given them for nothing, they're going to be brilliant, but nah.

I always think the red-headed girl looks a lot like my mate Beatrice.

Bit of a thread resurrection here. I've had the LongEvos on a Hamer Cruise bass for a while; pandemic/no band has meant that the bass hasn't been out of the house, but it's had some play-time at home - I don't know how long they've been on, well over a year, but lightish use. Joined something new recently, had a couple of four hour rehearsal sessions - took the Lull to the first one (Elixir Nanowebs) and the aforementioned Hamer on the second (LongEvo) - by way of observation the LongEvos were a little like running through treacle. They felt a bit sticky (for want of a better description) if that makes sense...I tend to do a lot of work at the nut end and slide up to dusty end for embellishments, but they were quite hard going. The Elixirs are almost self-lubricating by comparison. There's no evidence of the coating coming off, but they just felt a bit like they'd been on for years. In their defence, they sounded fine. Might be a case of this being a real world process - maybe the coating has just deteriorated a bit.

This is the same bass:

Much cop? Are you high @Highfox?

My #1 is perfect. If it wasn't, I wouldn't have bought it now, would I?

The singer in my old band argued that drums and bass were pretty much expendable and interchangeable on his whim. While we'd argue we were a band, a musical unit ('Apes, stronger, together')...hell, we had an online calendar where we'd post dates we weren't available, but he'd just book gigs for these dates anyway. I remember he moaned at me because I pulled out of a gig because my father in law died that day. The guy was besotted with the guitarist (who couldn't stand him) and if the guitarist said he wasn't available, well that was okay. [I'll chuck in an edit here. Things came to a head shortly after my father-in-law passed away and the furore surrounding that. We had a band meeting via WhatsApp and I asked nicely that if one of our number were unavailable for a particular date, we should politely decline it. I was just looking at the archived WhatsApp conversation a few minutes ago. Christ, what a knob the singer was.] Oh, and he was a c*nt.

PC, USB to a Focusrite Scarlet 2i2, to powered monitors. See my thread elsewhere about cabling. The PC needs to be on as the Scarlet needs to be powered (you can't jack in an external power source). Finally, Cakewalk (in its current form) is alive and well. It's 100% free and available from bandlab.com.

Autographs. Odd thing to ask people to sign something. A few times. Merch table after gigs. We did a couple of radio shows and the hosts liked to get things signed. CDs in paper sleeves. Band flew to Italy once and a bloke air-side at Heathrow asked if we were a band and asked us to sign a baggage slip of some sort, which he promised to sell on eBay for a fortune when we were famous (good luck with that chief).

I've run so many different combinations of enclosures, I've lost track of things. Each have their own merits. The most impactful thing was when I won the Barefaced Big One (15/6) at one of the bashes a few years back. Before this, I'd run a variety of set ups (SWR, Trace Eliot tri-amp, Ashdown 4x10/2x10/1x15 (mix and match dependent on the room), I was a Hartke endorsee - various 10"/15" cabs); the evening I won the Barefaced I gigged with it in a smallish club in Basingstoke and the result was astounding really. Whereas the Hartke kit was kind of loud and aggressive, the Big One just kind of dialled that aggression back a bit, giving me scooped-mids plus wobble/whump/oomph as well. While I'm also running a Darkglass 1x12 (which I will double up this year), for me a 15/6 is the ideal combination. As I've posted previously, tone is subjective and what I look for isn't everyone's cup of tea. People will argue that the frequency range of say a certain brand of 12" speakers will match or better that of a 15", but we're all in the situation where we simply aren't able to chuck £££ at swapping over speakers on a whim.

I was a big fan of the DR Hellborg strings (if not the longevity), so the Dogal strings piqued my interest. I did contact them a while back to purchase a set (maybe a year or two ago), but the whole purchase process was a bit vague/backward/convoluted - you ask them for what you want, they cut a Paypal money demand (not an invoice) and send it back to you. Reluctant to discuss price. They based a couple of KM inland across the water from Venice (they were in Venice when I made the initial enquiry). They're pretty pricey; about 75€ a set, plus tax and shipping.

I think because in general my desired tone is zingy with a bit of dirt, I don't have any anxiety about changing strings.

Not my thing at all, but with the prices of used Mark Hoppus basses on the up, it could be an option to turn it into something similar, replace the BBOT.

Cheap Trick.

Wowza! Channeling my inner Jim Lea.

I love the Lignum stuff...guitars, housebuilding, construction. When they reroofed the old building on the island, it was stunning. All brilliant. Concerning the bass, this is the Lignum build video. Strings on that are tapered rounds, god knows who make them. Piano strings maybe?

Seeing the Vigier that's just closed in the For Sale section got me thinking. A guy I know had one, a Passion model - god knows where it is now, he's in Australia at the moment, might be with him, might be in storage over here somewhere - I really liked the look of it, the set up was horrific. Action must have been at least a centimetre on the octave, possibly higher. I offered to have a look at it, but he declined, despite saying how much he liked my rattly old Thunderbirds. He really used to struggle up the dusty end. Same story a mate in Milan. Yamoto sapphire blue Gibson Thunderbird. Beautiful looker, nasty front bow, strings not changed in years, my hands just felt dirty after a 45 minute set. I played it in Milan when we gigged there. Zero interest in getting it playing better. Even offered to get the strings off and boil them at the venue. Nope. And in closing, guy I worked with years ago had a Rickenbacker; I think it was a 4003. Mahoosive front bow on the neck, played like a donkey.

"...and you can't take them back because they're all covered in spit." Steve Martin 1979.

When I was a kid, 1/2" was the same as 8/16" and 4/8". The issue seems to be that they're going off shaft diameters rather than the bushings.

We seem obsessed with what to buy our basses as a treat; things we can screw in, glue on, or replace. We're all guilty of it and we are all under the allusion these additions are all for betterment.

On the face of it, anything that Fender make which isn't badged Precision, Jazz, Mustang or Jaguar tends to disappear after a year or two; they seem unwilling to play the long game with anything that falls outside these models and hey, it's easier to simply rebadge your existing models as Original/Ultra/US/Player Plus and slap new colurs on them rather than come up with something new, so I wouldn't hold your breath for a six string. I was just having a look online at their discontinued bass models. The Dimension. Coronado. Bronco. Performer. Urge. Zone. Bass V. Bass VI. Prophecy. Starcaster. Telecaster.