NancyJohnson

Yes, but bear in mind I'm only going to use this for recording and convenience as all my backline-related Tech 21 stuff is elsewhere. It seems quite happy handling bass - obviously you can blend wet/dry on each channel and you have a choice of (let's call it) vintage/modern pre-shape circuitry.

Warman pickups are great, Josi is a nice bloke and good to deal with. Alternatively, shop around for used. If you're like the majority of GAS-suffering bassists, if you buy cheapish you're always going to be wondering what something different will give you. I bought a used P/J EMG Geezer Butler set recently, no buyer's remorse, reasonably hot/high output; the solder-free looms make fitting very easy too.

What? That not everyone has one?

Ooh, no. I'm not a fan of Alanis Morrisette...when this started I hadn't looked at the video title, but thought it sounded familiar. Lasted maybe 30 seconds. Always been of the opinion that if you're going to do covers, you have to better them, you know, make them your own and exceed expectation. This does neither.

We sat out until about 1.00am last night, lovely temperature, clear star-lit night, Jupiter and Saturn ascending in the south east, firepit going, couple of bottles of red. Perfect. I have a decent Buena Vista Social Club (and associated artistes) playlist, including Ibrahim Ferrer, Ruben Gonzalez, O'Mara, Compay and we just had that going. It was like the planets aligned.

I needed/wanted a simple distortion pedal for home recording of guitars; just wanted to dispense with recording off an amp and wanted something a) dual channel and b) switchable. 9v PSU or battery. It's got two gain/dirt channels (A/B), both with a rudimentary tone control that just ramps up the treble a little (there's a switchable bass boost which works over both channels simultaneously that just adds a small amount of low end). Channel A is best described as more vintage/old school tonally, Channel B being more modern high gain; both channels be run individually or blended. It's blissfully simple - I don't need to run extra cables to the audio interface, just swap guitars and rotate the Blend knob to A or B. Bass is nice and gnarly (very BDDI) and at £75.00 this is ridiculously cheap. This is a belter of a pedal.

I've got two Lulls and in the last five or six years (since delivery), I've never felt the need to venture anywhere near the truss rod. These are the most stable basses I've ever owned and the JAX-T4 has the skinniest neck of any bass I've owned, as well. With all due respect to HJ, I'm of the belief that this kind of seasonal tweaking back and forth is just a slippery slope down, but then I don't live in an area where there's huge swings in seasonal humidity.

While we never took it that far, the guitarist in a project I doing last year suggested we 'do something microtonally, with a middle Eastern feel.' Thankfully (and largely down to the fact that he was struggling to find a left-handed instrument), we didn't explore it further, but that would have resulted in the double flat/sharp thing.

You're falling into the realms of the surface tension of the cores here and the effect on movement. There's probably an equation to support an argument about hex-core Vs round-core, but given that we're talking infinitesimally small amounts of flappyness. Bear in mind that the string winding will also be contributory as well (remember those DR Helbourg strings, that all had single wraps?).

Someone will be along shortly shouting pedantry or something, but I learnt from the outset that the root notes were E F F# G G# A Bb B C C# D Eb and this is what they always used to be called, but I guess renaming these may make certain musicians feel they have an air of superiority by referring to an F# as a Gb. If note-naming us so fluid, feasibly you could easily dispense with F & B; why not simply go E E# Gb G G# A A# Cb C C# D Eb.

So C#/G#/C#/F#, then. I'd try a set of 50-110. A half step down against the A/D/G strings should be fine, the E string might be a bit flappy.

Those washers are a major b*llache. I had similar failures on my old Waterstone TP12 and gave up trying to find replacements...it just wasn't worth the bother. Eventually I just found some similar nylon material - bread bag twisty things - and just made some myself.

There's a Dawson branch in Reading, not a prime location, but easy to find, plenty of parking. Odd place though, channelling my inner Swiss Tony, buying an instrument at Dawsons isn't like making love to a beautiful woman, it was a bit like buying a bike at Halfords. I suppose an apt Americanism here is that they're a Mom'n'Pop instrument store. On the handful of times I went there I got the feeling that they didn't seem to particularly specialise in one thing - way too much floor space set over for pianos - and the clientele seemed to be monied/clueless dads standing over teen sons playing Smells Like Teen Spirit while salespeople circled like vultures, possibly sniffing a commission. It was a soulless shopping experience. Considering they were a reasonably big chain, by comparison it's amazing to see how Andertons monetized their brand out of a relatively small out of town centre retail outlet (probably half the size of Dawsons in Reading), a single warehousing facility in Guildford and an engaging You Tube channel. I hope that Lee and Co. realise they are doing things right and that an unnecessary move to a bigger premises will probably be the ruination of them. The real sadness is that there was a great little independent guitar shop in Market Place, Reading; knowledgeable staff, in-store tech/set-up guy, great stock etc. that shut soon after Dawsons opened as they couldn't compete. I suppose the owners of that place are having a little chuckle to themselves. Again.

Why not just speak to Spencer? He's very accommodating.

There's this assumption that drop-C# is all about the lowest string in the set (be it dropping from E or tuning up from a B); assuming that you're in standard tunings (C#/F#/B/E), you're going to have all sorts of tension issues either way. My input here would be (as it's only an audition) buy a cheap five string set and stick the low strings on, tune to BEAD and play off the second fret; if nothing this will give you a bit of an extended range, much like a drop-D tuner on a regular bass tuned EADG or the following: Assuming you get the gig, it might be useful to investigate custom string gauges to suit. Assuming you're playing using a fairly lightish stock set of strings (so a 5-string set may be 40/60/80/100/120), it's safe to assume that tuning up or down five steps accounts for c.0.02" in string diameter - if you're looking at a tuning roughly halfway between a low B and an E, you might be able to get away with a balanced set of 50-110. As mentioned here DR Strings DDTs or even a cheapie set of D'Addarios of the same gauge (£18) would do and you will probably get away without having to tweak truss rods or anything else.. It's all trial and error, as with regular strings you might need to try a few options until you hit paydirt.

Go back to the main Basschat page, scroll down and there's a Marketplace area. Basses, amps and so on.

Matt black.

Much to my delight, the LUDO back catalogue has dropped into Spotify. If you do one thing today, have a listen the Skeletons On Parade and listen to how the song winds through Broadway musical, jazz, pop, pop punk and double bass drum metal brilliance in five very odd minutes. Otherwise, this:

Been lurking on this thread for the last couple of days, just taking things up a bit, I picked up a DI-2112 earlier in the year. If you know me, you'll know that @Tech21NYCkit has been a huge part of my pre-amp set up for more than ten years (I even owned a Landmark head for a while). I owned the GED rack pre-amp, which worked fine until it didn't (it went back to the UK distributor whose opinion was 'well, it's making some noise, so it must be working OK' but had little concept of what the correct noise should have been) and then I just bought the dUg Pinnick unit ('It's like the YYZ but in steroids!'), then pulled the trigger on the DI-2112 which, once I got the 18v PSU, has become my main shaping tool. I know I have bemoaned elsewhere that the dry signal from any bass is more or less the same (cough, subjective), the DI-2112 just brings anything I've got to life. I'm really looking forward to trying it with an EUB in a couple of months.

I love a mystery. Anything else? There's some stuff in the case - a 'thanks for your purchase thing, plus what looks like a card receipt. Anything on the back of the headstock or reverse of the bass? Headstock shape is distinctly Michael Kelly.

It's in the sales...best keep this to PMs.

Buy my Darkglass.

On the subject of the OP, a bit of both. I circulate in a fairly tight pool of musicians, maybe a dozen or so; we're all a certain standard - if one band folds, another one starts up, nobody is quiet for very long. I do find it difficult trying to work with other musicians, especially where you're going in as a bass-player to an existing band. Too much history. Pre-C19, I jammed with a three 'bands' and just found them all somewhat underwhelming - it was almost as if they were desperate be playing music, but they'd learnt everything from a book and that this what made the magic happen. No swing, very blinkered and unable to move outside of the confines of what they were doing. I was told by one guitarist that bass players should just stick to the root as there was no way you could play an E over a G or something. Too much baggage. If I had the go in me, I'd just try and start something new. Plenty of musician sites., I'd love to just get in a room with three or four like-minded strangers and just make some noise.

Ooh, I stand corrected: