NancyJohnson

I'm forbidden to open it, but it's the NXTa 5 String. Spent an hour over at the Bass Centre catching up with Barry and Chris.

...but I can't open it until December 1st. ☹️

Ha-haaaar!

Question for the OP. Given the outlay for the new parts, wouldn't it just have been better to save some pennies and just buy something new that's closer to what you're trying to achieve here?

The Hipshot KickAss is a nice thing, whether or not it adds anything to the tone or not (*subjective) is questionable, but it does feel nicer than BBoT and isn't likely to rip a hole in your wrist if you're a pick player and play close to the bridge. Dunlop Straploks are a given!

'Changing the mics.' I had the recent reissue on shuffle about a week ago, it seemed virtually every track had Moggie going, 'Okaaaay, this is off the <insert album title here> album...'

I read comments on various feeds and regularly read about how albums helped people through during difficult times, but honestly putting on Aerosmith Rocks wasn't ever going to get me over the loss of my parents. Can't honestly say that any album/gig has changed my life, but as @ezbassand@Bassassin infer, certain experiences have mixed up things musically for me. Could list you a dozen albums that I realised were important (well, to me at least) - those first albums by Motley Crue, Van Halen, Japan, Living Colour, Jane's Addiction, Sugar and hell, I'll even throw in Ghosts Of Princes In Towers by Rich Kids here (yes folks, I'm that old) - but none of these made me want to go and live on a kibbutz, take vast quantities of drugs or become become a missionary.

Just an update. Visiting the Bass Centre and picking up an NS Design NXTa 5-string double bass on Friday. I can't actually have it until December 1st, but prices are going up, so get it now.

It's even less live than Kiss Alive!

Hart Guitars & Bass. Everything. You can close the thread now.

Run away.

From a more vintage/traditional perspecyive, I'd take a solid or flat opaque finish every day of the week; not a fan of bursts or natural finishes. My old Aria P is yellow>red>black while the bass is a killer, I don't like the finish one bit (probably the reason so much of it is missing now). The only burst finish I am partial to are whatever Gibson call the two-colour one below - I've seen similar of Thunderbirds - oddly I think it would look good on a StingRay, but not so much on a Precision/Jazz.

Well, credit to you for pitching in and soldiering through it. When you've been in this game for as long as I have, you're going to amass stories that start, 'There was one time when I...'.

Reading this, the ensemble seemed even more nutso than reading the original post. Flute, two different keyboards, a swap of guitarists and (this one made me laugh loudly), a ukulele-banjo. This begs the question, but what material were you actually playing?

Fish gags aside, this whole set-up seems to be bothering me immensely and I can't put my finger on why. Right now, we have no idea how loud the band will be playing, but given pretty much every gig I've done where we've only had a rudimentary vocal PA and we're expected to find our own balance, the drums will just swamp everything out, simply because that's what drums do. The expectation of hearing anything from the other side of the room (keys/guitar/vocals) when you're next to a drummer is best described as 'quite low'. I think 'So you'll hear them' needs to be replaced with 'in the remote possibility that you'll hear anything'.

While I'm not a huge Fender fan, I think it may have been Jimmy Bain's 50s Precision (or perhaps it was a Telecaster Bass) that this has it's roots in; the longer separation between headstock and cloverleaf looks so much nicer.

Nope, not in the slightest! I've often wondered why they looked taller; it's a far nicer look than 'short-stem' ones. Thanks muchly!

Can someone give me a definitive here. When you look at the machines on certain (older) Fender basses, the stems on some look way longer than on others (the clover leafs seem to tower over the headstock). Are these different by design or is it some kind of optical illusion?

I'm wondering whether the OP will be using a StingRay.

Mmm. Pie.

Deciphering this, there's going to be a drummer, bass player and trumpet player in one area (A), a keyboard player and a guitarist in another area (B) and two singers wandering around an area between the two groups (C), one of which will singing acoustically, the other singing through a small amp that's also being shared with the keyboard and guitarist in area (B). Area (C) will also be full of people at tables, eating. I'm not going to sugarcoat things here, but everything you've posted indicates this has all the necessary elements for this to be an unmitigated disaster on so many levels. Please report back after the event. Let us know how the fish supper was.

What dig you do? 😂

What did you do?

I was just looking through some old holiday photos, here's me, pre-pandemic, Chichen Itza, Mexico. When we booked, the guy we booked through said, 'We plan to get there about an hour before sunset. The place will be closed.' We were like, 'Yeah, OK.' On arrival, our little busload of eight people were all there was in there. It was magical being in the place when it was so empty.

Here you go. This is something that I recorded a couple of days ago. The guitar is an Epiphone Pantomatic, P90 in the bridge position and passed through the Vintage side (A). The bass was my Spector Euro LT through the Hi-Gain side - I find the Spector is a bit toppy, so tend to nudge the bass up a notch to phatten it up. It's a very rough mix and the bass is high within this to demonstrate what the pedal gives. Just as an aside, I habitually mix the guitar to the left and the bass to the right; always wanted the reverb on the guitar to just be on the right side and only worked out how to do this last week! mix.mp3