NancyJohnson

I watched about half of it and gave up. Wife endured the whole thing. I just found it horribly slow. After four hours of viewing, I feel everything they needed to get over could have been done in half the time. Just considering the opening hour or two, it's no wonder that the Twickenham sessions were so unproductive; they seem to have been surrounded by so many people, so many cigar-smoking non-musical people, with differing agendas that weren't conducive to creating music. Why was it necessary for Harrison to have Hare-Krishnas in there? (At this point, my wife asked me what it would have been like if this had happened in bands I'd been in.) It's clear Lennon and Ono were besotted with each other, but realistically the key moment for me was when McCartney made the 'When people watch this in 50 years...' comment along with the quote alluding to lack of managerial direction (it was something about him referring to leaving the girls at home). Nah.

I have an old Trabant. I'm thinking of putting a new engine in it, maybe some fuel injected thing. New wheels. I have interior from a BMW that'll fit. Might reshape the roof as it doesn't look like a Porsche. Not happy with the brown colour either, so I'll paint it as well. Might put a Ferrari decal on it, too. Money well spent.

I'm really not a fan of doing covers, but we are pushing some content up to streaming services shortly. We've recorded 'That's When I Reach For My Revolver' (Mission of Burma) and are considering 'Game of Pricks,' (Guided By Voices).

I'm listening to the Charlie Sexton Sextet. I've been a huge fan of Charlie since the first album (Pictures For Pleasure), but I love the Sextet album. 5/5.

I have East units in my Lulls and the Hamer Cruisebass and they always seem to be tight! I'm sure it'll be ok. 😃 Unlikely to be until next year.

I'm thinking about going with an East Uni-Pre 5 in this. This will give me a pair of stacked tone controls (active bass/treble and mid/sweep), plus separate volume/blend knobs and a passive tone control knob (which will be redundant tbh but will fill one of the holes). I've ordered some Crimson guitar polish, which should shine things up a bit, then I'm done with the finish. I'm wondering how best to clean up the machine head leafs. Regular polish not shining them up.

Happy with that. I was thinking about putting a John East unit in this, but my wife would pull my nut sack over my head if I spent 200 British phands on one at this juncture. I'm not a big fan of passive tone controls (I tend to play with everything open and for a while used a P-bass with the pickup just wired through a volume control into the jack output).

Irrespective of who sued who or the plaintiffs previous (racist) history, allegedly the defendant did communicate with the plaintiffs lawyer saying, 'You can sue me if you want.'. (Or whatever the Germanic expression is for this.) All said and done this is more a case about making an example of the seller and sending out a warning to other sellers of bootlegged material, much like the people fined $$$ for downloading from Napster 20 years ago. In addition to this, loads of people are weighing in that Clapton stole everything he knows from black music/delta blues, so that makes him, by association, a very bad man. Honestly, we really need to let this argument drop, it's getting very tiring. (Years ago, some earnest teen musician told me everything I was playing had it's roots in black music. Interesting concept considering I was playing three chord punk stuff and my only exposure to black music was probably The Stylistics and The Three Degrees on TOTP.)

Brief pre-Chrimbo update. It's not bolted together or anything, but this is where I'm at It's had several coats of spray clear coat, there's been an odd reaction in a couple of spots; just above the neck pickup the clear has just gone pitted, no idea why. I need to work out a cheapish way of polishing/buffing it up a bit. Right now, while I'm not exactly losing the will to live with it, I just want to get it put back together, but I'm a patient man. I honestly feel I can live with it as is. Concerning electrics, dunno. For the moment I'm going with Warman pickups - the J-unit I got from Josi was DOA, so he's sorting that. For now, pickups>toggle switch>volume control> output. That'll just get it working.

I've known Josi for years...top bloke. If you're looking for great budget pickups, Warman are brilliant.

I wrote a Christmas song a few years ago. Belter. Honestly. https://soundcloud.app.goo.gl/cevwo

Machine heads don't line up properly.

The scratch plate doesn't look a good fit either...too much space between it and the body chamfer.

I had a 78/79 Precision and that decal is virtually identical. If is was just a Standard Precision from 1997 the Fender logo should be silver with a black surround, serial number under it and the words Precision Bass would much smaller. The string tree is in the wrong place, too (should be closer to the A-machine head). Maybe it's my screen but the finish on that looks too 'rich' for a Fender. Hell, what do I know. I think as time goes on, it's just going to become harder and harder to identify what's what. All these reissues, Squiers with Fender decals, Custom Shop decals, general swappage of hardware, custom builds with Fender decals, people putting different necks on. Too many people with access to sandpaper. There's probably thousands of people playing what they believe are vintage Fenders/Gibsons which came off a Chinese production line a couple of years ago.

I put the PJ set in my Hamer. I was a bit underwhelmed with the pots, so pulled the trigger on a John East Uni-Pre3. Belter.

Chris. You're missing my point. While you personally may feel the desire to make your gear create a variety of different sounds, there's an awful lot of people that know how they want to sound and have little interest in making a bass sound different. My signature tone (if I can call it that), is broadly a bit if Ged, a bit if dUg, a bit if Jean-Jacques. Suits what I do. I rarely stray from that and it's not a millstone.

But if the tone in your head is what's required for whatever you're doing (or is your desired tone), why is this a millstone? I'm sure the kit that many players use will produce more than their signature tonality, but can you even begin to imagine what Rush would sound like if Geddy Lee had decided to channel Aston Barrett?

I love these threads. Like a lot of us here, I have a lot of gear, most of which lives in cases at the moment. Expensive stuff/cheap stuff. The most important things in my armoury are a Tech21 dUg and a Tech21 GED-2112 DI and my hands. That's it. Doesn't matter what I plug into these, they shape my tone, I can dial in whatever I want with these. Even my EUB sounds a little like Geddy Lee.

As mentioned elsewhere, I've owned an NXT5 for just under two weeks. From barely being able to get a proper note out of it, I'm beginning to feel more capable now. Never really played with my fingers, so speed/blisters is currently an issue. I will not be taking lessons or watching tutorials; I know enough to get me by, so it's more a case of adapting to play what I do know. These things need side dots or LEDs as standard...bought a sheet of adhesive stars to give me something of a guide.

I'd always maintain that pickups are just one small facit in the entire signal chain and to be honest, for me, it doesn't seem to matter what pickups are in, the main thing is that you learn to adapt your gear so you dial in more or less the same tone irrespective of the bass used. On to the pickups. I've got a Delano (with the bug pole pieces) in an old beater/project P-bass...not that it matters, but it's not a Fender. I was actually more drawn to the visual aesthetic rather than any claims laid about it tonally. I'll admit I was a tad confused about the claims Delano make about the pickup matching thing; the standalone P-pickup not being matched to the equivalent P-unit in the P/J sets. Pickups are pickups. One man's meat etc. From a direct to the desk/recording perspective, tonally it's OK, nothing to write home about (any more than any other pickup). It sounds as good as anything else when you add VSTs to it (go to Spotify and listen to 'Lutz' - Light 'em All Up' that's definitely the same bass). Live, again, depends on what you're running it through (I'd use a variety of Sansamps to get to where I wanted to be tonally); it was easily to dial in something gnarly. In closing, it's neither good or bad; it does what it's supposed to do. Don't expect it to revolutionise anything in particular, it likely does as much as a £20 Warman unit.

I used to like a lighter set, never gone as light as 30-90, though. Yikes. I doubt they'd do the job for me sonically. I was always a bit worrysome about the necks on my Thunderbirds; they were extremely skinny, temperamental and I liked my action nice and rattly; if I strayed outside of 40-95/40-100 gauges, bending notes would start being an issue and I'd experience a bit of front-bow. My Amazon purchases seem to allude to me shifting to a heavier gauge since I waved a cheery adiós to the Gibsons, now favouring 45-105s.

I was just going through some old emails - on 23/9/21 I got this reply from B&M following an enquiry I emailed them: Hi Paul, Thank you for your enquiry and interest in Spector Basses. Spector had actually planned to release a Euro 4X this year but unfortunately due to production complications and material shortages they have had to postpone this for the foreseeable future. Sadly there is no date for them at the moment and to be truthful it seems unlikely that we would see them next year either. I am sorry we were not able to give you better news. Many thanks and best regards, Pete Peter Hoggett Barnes and Mullins Ltd etc. I know it's only 40 basses (so far), but this kind of response hurts, especially now. It's no wonder people lack faith in many things. Years ago, I bought a Honda CRV; during the purchase process we visited a Honda dealer, the salesman denied all knowledge of any facelift model (which despite us doing our homework, seeing the new model and knowing when it was coming out) and seemed horribly ignorant of the cars Honda were selling as well. This email from B&M just reeks of the Honda model.

Better get something sold, then.

I've applied a couple of coats of spray lacquer and to be honest the results are way better than the Crimson stuff. I was patient, but man alive, the results were unimpressive. I'll give it a day to go off, flatten it, apply a couple of coats, repeat.