NancyJohnson

It's funny reading this thread...I commented 12 years ago. I don't own any of that kit anymore and (to a degree), I still sound pretty much the same.

Here we go, then. I've never owned one, but I've played a couple quite extensively and I've owned about a dozen regular IVs. Bare in mind this is a more of a no-frills Studio model rather than a five string IV. Personally, I don't really like them visually. You lose the traditional headstock design (with the raised frontage) and IMO the extra machine just looks odd, that said I always felt the Thunderbird wouldn't translate into a five string so I don't know what they could have done to improve the clumsiness of the (Studio 5) design. (My Lull has a reversed 1&4 configuration; B on top and E-G on the bottom; Gibson could have gone with the Reverse headstock and done a 4&1, which may have looked better.) Neck profile was somewhat chunkier than a regular IV (it's like comparing a wider Precision neck with a four string Jazz neck). Couldn't tell you what the wood was (probably mahogany) or what the neck contruction is/was. You lose the raised centre strip on the front of the body and the pickups, knobbage and bridge are simply loaded onto a slab body. Pickups are just standard 2000s TB ceramic HB soaps, no different from the standard IVs. While the bridge looks way more functional that the four string three-pointer, it looks pretty horrific; it's a huge slab of chromed brass/steel and I always felt they could have done something better/sleeker. I'll admit the chamfer around the body was a bit rounder and more comfortable to that of the regular IVs, so a little more easier on the right forearm. Balance was OK. It felt heavier than any of my Thunderbirds were. I would just say in closing, EVERYONE please stop comparing Epiphones with Gibsons. In every personal review I've seen, it seems that the glowing reports are more down to people being of the belief that they're getting a lot of bass for less £££, rather than the fact the Epiphone is simply a transitional model en-route to a Gibson or because they couldn't afford a Gibson. I can't stress any more that just because it looks similar to a Gibson Thunderbird, it isn't a Gibson Thunderbird, even if you put a Gibson truss-rod cover on it.

Have just awoken to hear the news that the Oxford vaccine is reporting a 70% success rate. Maybe its just the scepticism that lives in me, but I felt that with the rush by US businesses to bring a vaccine to market first was (in part) driven by share price and $$; just watching the CEO of Moderna on TV conjoured up images of dollar signs kerchinging in his eyes. Moving along, trust. We don't have a clue how these vaccines will work in the real world; what's the betting that Pfizer/Moderna will start knocking percentage points off their 90/95% claims? This will be in little notches, so as to defer the feeling of failure. Finally, the BBC website is writing up the Oxford vaccine as some kind of disappointment. Let's not forget the annual flu vaccine has a sub-50% success rate (although this is subjective; I've never had a flu jab and I've never had flu).

I've been taking in UFOs 'Strangers In The Night' superdeluxe. God, it's brilliant.

...in that delicious ten or fifteen minutes before you hit the stadium stage, what would the playlist be thundering from the PA prior to lights out? My wife posed this to me earlier and I profess I became somewhat giddy thinking about this and wished I was 25 years younger and playing a 5000 seater. I ummed and aahed a bit before saying, 'Girl band stuff.' For a guy who's played in punky bands for his entire life, I guess this was an eye-opener for me as well as my wife. So here goes. You've paid your money for a Lizard Sweets ticket, sat through a dreadful support band (or two): Pure Shores - All Saints, The Promise - Girls Aloud, Stop - Spice Girls, and finally, Up Town Top Rankin' - Althea & Donna (lights off about a minute from the end, keep it playing to build expectation), and we're off. Let's hear yours!

Today it's....The Bonzo Dog Band. I've always loved Gorilla. Dialled up an extensive Spotify playlist, and we're off. Brilliant.

I played Thunderbirds for about ten years, about a dozen went through Chez Johnson. Because I'm a strapping chap i never suffered this neck dive people keeping going on about; sure if I took both hands off the bass it would rotate on it's axis, but then every bass I've owned has done this. You play with both arms/hands on the instrument; if you're having difficulty controlling the balance of an instrument that weighs less than 9lbs, most of which is carried by your shoulder, you probably need more protein in your diet.

I'm listening to Howard Stern interviewing Wolfgang Van Halen. Strong stuff.

When I had my Hartke deal, I had three LH1000s. They went plenty loud enough, but man alive, they all suffered from the old angry hornet syndrome and they had a horrible aroma when they got warm.

Blimus! That was quick!

You do wonder with stuff like this whether it would be worth someone using this for a customising project. You'd struggle to get a finished MM style body at that price.

I thought it was either Amazingstoke or (as the graffiti read) Basingc*nt.

The main thing with 12-strings (believe me, I owned one) is trying to keep the octave strings under some type of control; I found that simply just plugging in and playing (irrespective of whether this was straight or through a a BDDI or something) was that the octaves would just ring and sound too shrill. Up the dusty end, the octave strings sounded like a mandolin playing over the fundamentals. I ended up plugging into a Rolls Crossover, routing the low end through a Sansamp BDDI and the high side through a Sansamp GT2; this just gave me the option of adding minimal dirt to the fundamentals and some proper guitary style distortion on the octaves. I could then run these outputs through a two channel power amp into two cabs, or combining through an ABY box into a mono amp (the latter was a bit hit and miss TBH).

Sorry wrong price. I was looking at something else. They're selling just under £1K.

There was a dealer selling on Reverb. $949. Link came through a Facebook group.

I'd heard there was one coming. Now a reality. https://www.schecterguitars.com/bass/dug-pinnick-dp-12-detail

Sparks for me today. Kimono, Propaganda, Indiscreet, Big Beat.

String choice over the years has ebbed and flowed; I can possibly track this like my favourite bands, but more or less the last couple of decades saw me using D'Addarios (with the odd dip into Dunlops) and Elixirs. Nearly two years ago I took delivery of a five string Mike Lull and it's still got the original D'Addario strings that were on it when it arrived. Granted I'm not gigging every week, but the bass has had a lot of use and absurdly, the strings still sound very fresh. This is confusing me as I used to change strings so frequently, pretty much as soon as they lost their zing and pop. How can this actually be? I'm sure there's a science at work here. A better built bass, a better set up bass, maketh strings sound better longer? These strings should sound awful by now and they don't!

I record two streams, one clean and one effected (yes, a DP-3X), then these stems go over to the producer. Down to him what he uses really; he will push the clean signal through either the BOD or Amplitude SVX VSTs. I reckon that's clean, through the BOD. It's funny calling it an album...this project has been ongoing for about three month and we've finished 18 songs and have another nine or ten either in post or awaiting vocals. The guitarist/producer is about ten miles from me and the singer about 100. Everything is being done remotely. The studio is a playground.

I used the Euro LT on this. https://fb.watch/1F48jJJKno/

I saw the NS Pulse video about an hour ago. Certainly not on the market for another Spector (unless they do a Spectorbird, but that said, I so like the five-string paddle headstock over the more scalloped ones:

The XTC - This Is Pop documentary is five star.

And she's from Basingstoke.

We've just finished up track #18. Shameless plug: