Dan Dare

He play in the right order, but not necessarily the right notes.

Yep. I have a Trigger's Broom K&M mic stand that is almost 50 years old.

"Maybe you're looking to stand out from the crowd". Yes, but in a good way.

The Gotoh 203 has the two extra holes. It's a good quality BBOT replacement, made from chromed brass and at least as good as the Fender. The one above is not a Gotoh, which has a curved edge to the base plate.

I'm a K&M fan. I also have a couple of Quiklok mixer stands, which are solid and have lasted for years. If their bass/guitar stands are as well built, they'd be worth a look.

I'd ask Watford Valves for suggestions. They recommended a lower output ECC83 to me for a preamp which solved a similar issue to yours.

Whilst you can get lighter P bodies - swamp ash, poplar, etc - a P bass neck weighs what it weighs and there's little potential to lighten it. Those beefy tuners add to the tendency for neck dive, which tends to be more pronounced on a lighter instrument, because the neck makes up a greater proportion of its total weight. You can reduce that by using lightweight Gotoh or Hipshot replacements, but they're not cheap. I'd agree with those above who suggest a P pickup on a different style of instrument. Either that or try a strap at least 4" wide. I have a Pinegrove wide strap on mine, which is very comfortable. The Levy is nice and good value, too.

Gigs? Drive. I own the PA, too, so no choice. Rehearsals? Drive. Drummer lives 20 miles away (I'm in the sticks) and has converted his garage into a studio/rehearsal space, so even though I only take basses and use the rig he has there, there's no public transport option.

I'm very similar - violin and piano - although I didn't learn the piano for long. The office downstairs from our flat complained about the noise of my practicing and as my father worked for the company that owned the building, the piano went and I switched to the violin (which I could practice in a room in the attic so the sound didn't reach the ground floor). Very useful in that it taught me to read in both clefs and also to use the fourth finger (pinky). Why so many don't use it is beyond me. Just makes things so much easier.

Love the guitar p/u, too.

So-called rust erasers are fine grit grinding stones/pads (I have one - not this model - for kitchen knives, etc). Personally, I wouldn't bother. Pole pieces are quite soft metal and I wouldn't be keen to use this on them unless the corrosion was particularly severe. A little surface rust doesn't affect the ability of the pole pieces to do their job and if you remove it, you just expose fresh metal, which will promptly start to rust.

And plenty of it. Those were the days. Sigh...

You can never have too many cabs.

I don't recall suggesting "pointing and making it obvious to everyone else". Putting on a good show comes before everything, including music and of course, ego.

Hmmm. One has to draw the line somewhere 😁

I enjoy giving the old tonsils an occasional run out, but only do it if it's needed.

I wasn't thinking of yelling "You plonker" and glaring. More a raised eyebrow kind of deal. Only half of them felt differently to me and it wasn't a matter of life or death, fortunately. The keys player always gives them a note if needed (say where there is no intro to lead them into it), so that hasn't happened yet, touch wood.

Interesting conversation in the band the other day (no rows or fallings-out, but differing opinions). Thought I'd ask you lot. What should the policy be if someone makes a mistake whilst playing? It's inevitable that mistakes happen from time to time - the question is how to cope with/minimise them. In this case, our singer started another verse, rather than a chorus. I went with her, but a couple of the guys tried to stick to the arrangement. We rescued the situation, but had a discussion afterwards about what to do if it happened again. My thinking is that if one of the musicians makes a clam, the band should plough on and let them realise and correct (with a few pointed looks, etc to make them aware). Very few people in an audience are going to think "That bass player dropped a clanger" or "That guitar player got it wrong". Most aren't likely to be musicians and, crucially, the main focus is on the singer. However, if the singer makes a mistake and the band doesn't go with it and leaves him/her high and dry, people will think "the entire band screwed up". It makes sense to me that one should adapt on the fly in order to escape the situation gracefully and as unnoticeably as possible. Others felt the arrangement should be adhered to no matter what. What are your thoughts?

Of course not. We're all stupid, apart from you. As for your being "being uncaring and being some kind of tool that wants to put people in their place", you said it.

Do you not see the inconsistencies in your position? You express sympathy for "those poor sods re-mortgaging from 2% to around 6% over the coming months", yet argue against pay rises for them. I am quite happy with my income. I have the good fortune to own my home outright, have a couple of pensions and a decent amount in savings and investments. I am able to survive comfortably. I am not certainly calling for increases for "middle managers, senior IT staff and the like" and never did. You state you "fully support pay rises for those on lower tier paybands" and then say that "a few % payrise is not going to touch the sides on a tripling of mortgage debt". The logical conclusion to that is that those low-paid public service workers need substantial increases. And yet you oppose that, from memory of the previous exchange on here. I too would rather we had a system that is closer to that in France (although they are not without their problems). The consequences of Brexit make that highly unlikely, sadly. So where do we go? People who are lower paid have to survive and they need substantially more income in order to do so. How do you suggest we square that circle? "Insults"? Care to elaborate? Either I'm unaware when I'm insulting people or you are extraordinarily sensitive.

My word. Have you been seething about that for all this time? Where your argument falls down, of course, is that those we were discussing - rail, public service workers and similar - have not had a pay rise for at least 4 years. So it can't be pay rises (theirs, at any rate) that have caused the present spike in inflation, can it? I get it. You, like me, are a middle income earner. You wish to preserve the distance between you and those at the bottom of the heap. Fine, but just be frank about it.

Really? Can't say I remember. How is what I say above (that we have to recognise that money is tight for many and accept that we are likely to get less for what we wish to sell) relevant to that? If anything, I am agreeing that inflation/the reduction in the purchasing power of money is forcing many - whether buyers or sellers - to cut their coat according to their cloth.

This. The market decides, as always. If you don't get a bite on something at the price you're asking, you can either keep it or ask for less. The market is, of course, completely dependant on the state of the economy, but we have to operate in the world we live in, rather than the one we'd like to live in.

I wouldn't go that far. Whilst it's true that some bands do advertise, many do not and recruit through friends, contacts, etc. Chris's point about putting oneself about is very valid. It's especially true if one has lost touch with the scene (as the OP has) due to family/work commitments and so on. Where you live has a bearing on how easy/hard it is, too. I retired and moved out of London early last year. I was quite well connected in the Smoke and never found a problem getting gigs. I had periods of playing for a living and periods of combining playing with a day job over 40 or so years. Out here in the sticks, it's a very different story. It's taken me a year or so to find something decent and I had to answer quite a few ad's, go to auditions (many of which were as the OP describes), put myself about (go to jams, sessions and so on), etc because nobody knew me where I live now. I finally met a couple of guys who had been part of an established band which had split. They were looking to re-form with new personnel to replace those who had left. Once I was on board, we had to find a couple more members. We're up and running now, but it took time and effort. That's the point most are emphasising above. You'll be very fortunate to just be able to drop into something good in two or three tries. Persistence is the name of the game.

I like Chromes on my J and PJ, but use LBs on my P bass. The higher tension means you can run a slightly lower action, so playability compared to my other instruments isn't an issue. Not that I ever play anything fast/tricky on them...