NancyJohnson

I've seen a lot of official footage that sounded quite thin and restrained, if this makes sense, but this was probably one of the best sounding gigs I've ever been to. We were about 15-20 feet from the stage. I appreciate it's simply not possible to have six people onstage and create the vocals, so I'm fairly convinced they're using backing tracks for the BVs, there was one error during Head Over Heels (I think), that they recovered from well enough. Both guitars we're going through Kempers. Curt Smith was playing several lovely Duesenberg basses.

Saw Tears For Fears at Waddesdon Manor last night. Paid the golden circle ticket price...not rammed, private bar area, clean bogs etc. They honestly exceeded expectation, very good show, the new album material sits very comfortably with the old stuff. I guess the only (minor) downside was Curt Smith's voice giving out a bit towards the end, but it was great to see Roland Orzabal just stepping up and singing with him.

About 20 years ago I visited a Guitar Center in Las Vegas, to this day it's the only time where a salesman didn't have a problem opening boxes to just show me stuff. He knew full well I wasn't going to be buying anything, but his mindset seemed to be more global than local (if I didn't buy there, I'd buy from home). Interestingly, my mate was with me, a drummist. I could hear him playing one of our songs from deep in bowels of the store; I started playing with him and then a guitarist joined in. The shop went quiet. We stopped a few minutes later and a little ripple of applause went round the store. Nice memory.

"So what would you like to do with your custom configured BITE bass?" Change the shape of that absolute munter of a headstock for starters.

Ok...this post might get long and I will ramble (it's late, I'm tired and I've had a couple of glasses of a very nice red). I have two Lulls, a JAX-T4 and an NRT5; both oversized Thunderbird bodies (reverse/non-reverse), both have a pair of Lull Thunderbird pickups in them. (These were supposedly reverse engineered by Mike Lull from Gibson's 1950/60s lap-steel units.) Concerning tonality - and this is a point I've posted about previously and will continue to reiterate time and time again - while for me these basses deliver what I want, they do not sound significantly different from any of my other basses. (Other basses sport a variety of pickups; Warman, Delano, EMG, 80s DiMarzios, Bartolini.) From a design/visual perspective, the Lull pickups look right and work well with the overall aesthetic of the instrument(s) and the chrome hardware. That's it. It wouldn't unduly bother me if these basses were carrying P/J/MM/any other pickup. Remember that pickups are just one element in the entire signal chain; fresh strings make a difference, different amps/cabs/outboard kit makes a difference, even with the same settings a different person playing the instrument can make it sound different ('It's all in the hands.'). Going back to the OP, over the years, I've been fortunate enough to have owned about a dozen Thunderbirds; I was more in love with the shape (still am) than what pickups were in it. The shape was simply the epitome of cool and just throwing one over my left shoulder made my 50+ year old body feel like I was 20 again. It was like magic. Nobody in the circle of bands we gigged with played one and just popping open the case would make other bass players just go, 'F*cking hell, Paul that's lovely.' For these guys it seemed to be an aspirational bass to own (despite the rarity thing at the time, they weren't that popular and by consequence they really weren't that expensive - I was picking them up for £800-900 a pop, hence my ability to hoover up a load of them). I'm going to contradict myself here (a little) by saying out of all of these, only one seemed to excel, it just played better and went through several different sets of pots/caps before I was 100% happy with it, it just had something a bit extra going on. It was just a bit hotter, grittier (although this was in part down to the super-low action rattling off the frets). That said, all the others sounded more or less the same as each other and were distinctly underwhelming when you just pushed them (unaffected) into the front of an amp. I think from the perspective of musical instruments the whole original/copy thing is a subject for a whole different level of discussion. Despite not owning a single Gibson at the moment, I'll continue to vehemently defend my purchase choices over the past twenty-odd years. While the '60s models were the originals, I feel that Gibson is much like Ford; of the belief that every new iteration of product is (questionably) for the betterment of the design and functionality; it would be hard to deny the basses Gibson have mass-produced from the early 90s (when production restarted) have much in common with the 60s models, aside from looking similar and, like Epiphone now, are just copy/facsimiles of the original run(s). I really can't grasp what people really want from pickups to be honest. For me, I just don't care, it's more of a visual aesthetic. I put a Delano in my Precision because I liked that it looked different. I stuck EMGs in one of my Hamers because they were a good deal/cheap. I've put P90s, humbuckers and Strat pickups in basses to see what would happen (not much difference from pickups 'designed for bass' to be honest; end of the day they're just magnets with copper windings). I've screwed loads of different pickups into various old bodies, because they were just in my box of parts and the basses just made an acceptable noise. Time for bed.

Pretty much all this. Bear in mind the original Thunderbirds had lap-steel pickups in them; Gibson had a surplus, the lap-steel market dissolved and in the spirit of not throwing stuff out, they stuck them in Thunderbirds, so they're not specifically designed for bass. I think this extended to the '70s bicentennial models too. Perhaps your post should just have read; "I'm looking to build a P-bass with a single <insert desired pickup manufacturer here> Thunderbird-style pickup in the sweet spot. Any advice?" I've chased tone since most people here were in short-pants, so I know what it's like to be driven by a desire to do this sort of thing, but honestly, what are you expecting of this pickup? If you're just looking for something that just looks the part then go for it, but if you're of the belief that installing a vintage part or throwing £££ at something that purports to be a Thunderbird replacement will somehow transport you to 60s Gibson tone heaven, then forget it. You'd be better off buying a Sansamp BDDI to control how you sound. Lest we forget, about 30 bassists here couldn't tell a Precision bass from a Thunderbird from a Rickenbacker in a blind shootout.

Attendees / Gear list 1. MacDaddy - Custom Shukers / Rob Allen Mouse / Peavey Vypyr VIP III 2. Binky Bass - Binky 10 string, USA Conklin 8 string, ACG 9 string, 3 x ACG 6 strings, Reiver 7 string (geeeetar), GR Bass Dual 1400 & GR Bass AT410+, Helix LT, Pinegrove straps, Richter straps etc. 3. Cetera - Spector (USA NS2 & NS2X, Euro Classic, Euro LX (w/Haz),Euro 'Rachel Bolan', Pulse II ) Wal Mk1 'Geddy Lee', Fender FSR PJ with East pre, Hamer Impact, Pedulla Buzz 4 fretless and maybe Jackson TBird, GK400RB, GK Legacy 800 & Tech21 VT500 Heads, Genz Benz Neox212 cab. 4. Frank Blank - Jabba short scale fretted, ACG SS Recurve, Ibanez SRC6, QSC K12.2, HX Stomp. 5. Merton - various ACGs, Zoots, Conway Instruments basses, Glockenklang Blue Rock, Barefaced Two10/One10 6. Eude - ACG Finn SC Classic 6 string, ACG RetroB 5, ACG TKO Modern 4, ACG ChubstRR Mikro 6 string, 2 X ACG Mule 4 strings (on loan from ACG), GK Legacy 500, 1 or 2 Barefaced One10 Cabs, Dod 250(r) modded with @Sibob 7. Stingray5 - MusicMan Stingray5, Tune TWB6, Tune SWV4-BB, Boss GT-6B, Eden EC15 combo OR Trace Elliot GP12SMX combo. 8. NancyJohnson - NS Design NXT5a EUB, Lull JAXT4, Darkglass A/O900, Darkglass 112 cab, Tech 21 dUg. For sale stuff: NancyJohnson - If not already sold, Ibanez Roadster (see the for sale page for details).

Really ought to just wire it through the volume into the output socket to be honest; I rarely touch the tone knob once I'm happy and in general happy is when it's fully open. I think the cap os a 0.047 - orange drop thing. I bought a couple of spares when I wired the thing up...it might be quicker to find the spares than taking the scratchplate off!

I've always felt a bit underwhelmed by a single P-pickup, personal thing as I know millions don't have a problem. The Aria has a Delano in it. I put fresh strings on it yesterday and it came alive a bit, but it's still woolly and ponky; with the tone fully open it (obviously) lacks the brightness and tonal character of having a second pickup in a bridge position.

So. My old Aria just sounds a little dull compared to everything else. East don't seem to have the P-retro in stock (ever!), so just looking for something to liven things up. Suggestions? I'm not worried about inserting a battery box, but if the unit has an internal battery, then all the better.

Absolutely 100% this ^^^ There clearly are instances in early Fenders where Leo didn't get it right. I can understand it from a design perspective; it just keeps everything smooth at the headstock end, but it is a major ball-ache to take the neck off, tweak, put the neck back on, set up, swear a bit, and repeat.

Back in the good old days when people lacked the ability to spell things properly, didn't know better but still wondered why their precious eBay sale wasn't even getting watchers, there used to be a website called chubbyfingers.com (or something) that allowed you to type in a search term (ie Squier) and the site would go off and search for near misses on eBay (returning Squire, Sqiure, Square etc.). I can remember typing in 'Gibson' and the site returning a number of goofy spellings where someone's chubby finger had simply picked up spurious characters during the creation of the advert. I'm a huge fan of several authors and regularly picked up ARCs, proofs and first editions where sellers hadn't even bothered to spell the author's name correctly.

Search my posts. Don't believe any nonsense about steroids, heat, acupuncture etc. If the issue is with the A1 pulley, the only thing that will correct things PERMANENTLY is surgery. How do I know? Here's me after surgery number one of five:

Prior to my dUg purchase, I was running this into two channels. Close. The BDDI was always on...I tended to let the GT2 handle the top end tone/dirt.

Which also makes things nightmarish when you're used to recording with (for instance) MIDI drums or live loops, especially if you're making use of cut and paste techniques.

All the drummers I know don't have the space to set up even the smallest four piece kit in their home environment, so the only time they play is when they're in a room with people. They don't practice.

My rack unit failed outside of the warranty period (see thread elsewhere); it still worked (in as much as it made a sound, but did not emulate properly), so it went off for repair, came back the same (the Tech21 appointed workshop clearly had zero idea of what it was supposed to do). As a sucker for Tech21 kit, I went back for more. Bought a dUg and shortly after it became available, a (BDDI-sized) GED2112-DI. Happy with both. It's odd, you can dial in GED-style tone-emulation from the dUg, but the Chunk button just elevates things. The GED-DI is great, just different. In closing, if anyone is considering a GED2112-DI, here's one bit of advice; pop an 18v power supply in your cart. It sounds way better than a 9v one.

There's plenty of threads/posts about Elixir strings...the search facility is your friend! I'd go Elixir (or Markbass coated) every time; I've never really liked Rotosound strings...they were pretty much all you could get when I started playing and they were generally inconsistent qualitywise, so that put me off for good. I'm not really one of these guys who are like a string sommelier, I'll play anything, but on my basses I just prefer to know what I'm putting on them.

Isn't he dead? Keep up at the back.

I think Messrs Meddows-Taylor and May might actually have been better if they'd been fronted by an actual iPad. They honestly need to stop, it's destroying whatever's left of their legacy.

I'm going to leave it to you to search Spotify, but have spent the morning listening to indie pop/rock; a combination of The Beths (from Auckland, New Zealand) and Momma (Los Angeles). Momma are easy, if you like Veruca Salt or The Breeders, there's your new fix. The Beths are just plain fun, they are just a collision of lots of different bands (Snail Mail, Bully, Vedera come to mind, especially Vedera).

Reading this thread prompted me into deep thought about the musicians that went through my old band. The ins and outs read like one of Pete Frame's Rock Family Trees, I'm sure this isn't uncommon. They're still operating albeit without a single original member, going through four different drummers (one sacked), four different guitarists (one who left, came back and left again - no sackings), three different singers (one sacked) and four different bass players (three of which came and left since I left - none sacked). I had to sack the drummer. Nice guy but rubbish. Gear falling apart, always late (timing a problem too). We played The Half Moon in Putney and he missed the soundcheck. We got the headliner's drummer to sit in (she knew our stuff, just sat down and asked what we wanted, 'Something fast, 4/4, play what you want.') Soon-to-be-fired drummer arrived mid-soundcheck while she was playing with us and said to my mate, 'Oh, this isn't good, they're way better with her playing.'