NancyJohnson

It smelt of cheese, old smoke, alcohol, sweat and other things. I couldn't shake the smell out of my nasal passages for days.

OK, history lesson. This isn't so much a story about converting to flats, more a case of starting out, then switching and by necessity, throwing a set of flats on one bass. When I first started out, my initial bass had flats on it; I broke the G-string and for whatever reason (probably not knowing any better), I bought a round wound G-string. The bass got sold (complete with three flats and a round wound G) and I bought a Columbus Jazz bass. This had a set of nylon wrapped strings (essentially rounds with a flat black wrap); I unwound the wrap and behold round wounds, which I continued to use until a couple of years ago. I was depping for a band that asked for flats tonally, so I bought a cheap set off Amazon (nasty) and then a set of Fenders (nice). I used them for about a month on one bass and then switched that back to rounds. Still have the flats, but doubtful they'll see action again. Just not me.

Porcupine Tree.

Used my Spector yesterday during a rare studio outing. Looked particularly nice.

From years of playing sh*tholes, do not be coerced into believing that playing certain venues (ie the St Moritz in Wardour Street) because it's 'good for the CV'. NOBODY CARES ASIDE FROM YOUR SINGER.

Jeepers, we're talking about a comment made to me about 45 years ago, when everything buzzed like a wasp nest or hummed like a vicar. I threw it in there and now we have people sucking on their pipes, going (assume Terry Thomas voice), 'Well, you know old boy, the bloody electricity this side of the pond cycles at a different rate of Hertz than in the colonies and that's where your comment falls down I'm afraid, old chap.' When all this was fields we just made sure we were were all in tune with each other and that did. No piano, no easy tuning method (pitch pipes, anyone?), no internet, no rack tuners, no mobile phones, no apps. It was just, 'Can you play an E?' we'd tune to that and we were off.' You'll note the title of the thread is 'Tuning without a tuner'. That's what I answered, OK I was incorrect. Meh.

There is obviously a bit of logic to what I posted and the second part of this reply. It was a long time ago when someone mentioned this to me. Personally, I prefer tuning to H# off the sound of my doorbell.

Wasn't there some method of tuning a G via a 60 cycle mains hum?

I'm in the studio on Sunday. I think I might take my LT.

I'd concur...the crowns are way nicer than blocks/dots. On the subject of inlays, the first run of Forte basses (NS & 4X) didn't have anything on the board and that worked beautifully.

I'm just listening to the first Duran Duran album. I got a cheap copy of the deluxe edition a while back and never listened to it until now. It's really not aged that well and it pretty wretched. Assuming they played everything on it, observations? Simon Le Bon can't sing for toffee and they probably would have sounded better without Nick Rhodes musical and background noise contribution.

Honestly, no. What with the day job, long hours, the house rebuilding, the laying flat because my back went, no, not really. It'll happen.

I've been on a bit of a Tears For Fears marathon today. I'm listening to the new album. I'll give it a listen in 5.1 after dinner.

Me neither. I do remember some bloke on alt.guitar.bass going on about lubricating his machineheads and he was wholeheartedly derided for even raising the question.

I had a 5HH, same/similar colour. Honestly wish I'd persisted with it rather than just trying to better my bass collection (I did move it along to fund my Thunderbird obsession).

I have a fairly expensive piece of (discontinued) upholstery fabric up on eBay at the moment; it has hundreds of watchers. It's amazing the messages I've been sent about it. Chancers and beggars, yes. Many offers for 30/40% of what it's advertised for. Many requests to sell a metre or two. Many people asking me what I'd take for it (when I reply saying I'll take the buy-it-now price, they get shirty). The best one was a woman begging me to reduce the price because she didn't have much money and she needed the fabric because their daughter's Cockapoo (Trixie) had defecated on their sofa it was somehow my duty to sell it cheap to her so she could get new seat cushions made. It's like a game. For every dumb offer I get, I feel like adding £10 on the BIN price.

I don't think I've seen anyone mention this here, so just a heads up. If you're looking for some drum loops and have a method of routing Spotify content through a hi-fi/bigger speakers, I can wholeheartedly recommend a quick search on 'Ultimate Drum Loops'. There's hundreds of full rock/pop song loops on there, varying tempos, of 2-5 minute lengths.

Moi aussi.

Chortle.

I haven't gigged for about two years now, last one I did I just took a bass, headstock tuner, strap, a Sansamp of some sort and cables. I used to take a lot of kit, but in truth it was unnecessary to do so. [Edit] Earplugs.

I've been using Elixirs pretty much exclusively for maybe 8-10 years. Expensive, yes. Longlasting, yes. Great? Yes. The only strings that have made me question my preferred string choice is the MarkBass LongEvo sets. They're finally available for £34/£39 (4/5) at Bass Direct. Lovely strings.

Two of the guys I was jamming with at the time now own a successful mastering business, I spoke to one of them about five or six years ago and we really had a good laugh about the amp on fire story. Well, one of us did.

I've got a Darkglass 1x12. Small, capable etc.etc.

I had an Orange Matamp in the late 70s. Bought it from an ex-hire place in Chalk Farm, it used to belong to Davey Johnstone, Elton John's guitarist. Carried it home on the train. It always smelt odd, like Scaletrix, and met it's demise when it caught fire at someones house, smoke, spitting sparks and a bit of flame. We yanked the power cable and put the fire out with Coca Cola. Sold it to a place on Denmark Street for £60.00 that I probably spent on records at Virgin right after. In hindsight, I should have got it fixed, these are worth thousands now.