Dan Dare

Has to be commando for the spontaneity it lends my playing.

Given the amount of kit people are trying to sell at the moment, I wouldn't buy new. Plenty of good used stuff about.

I find the Lindy plug board effective for removing noise at home. I got it for the hi-fi, but take it out to gigs, too.

I like it when someone who is good at it does it. That doesn't include me. I'm crap at slap.

It's a good time to buy and a bad time to sell at present. If you can hang onto the ones you're thinking of off-loading, you'll get more for them once the world has returned to something resembling normality. It's a particularly bad time to trade in right now. Shops aren't shifting much and won't want to take things into stock unless they can buy them for next to nothing. You can't blame them. They have a living to make, wages and bills to pay, etc, etc. If you must sell now, do it privately.

I had a 2x15 Bassman cab of similar vintage. The drivers were pretty useless and looked cheap. There was a glued seam on the cones - it looked as if they had been made by bending a piece of straight card to shape. I blew one up, so replaced both with Peavey Black Widows (which were then considered pretty nice and certainly not cheap). Turned it into a very fine cab (by the standards of the day). Shame it was so big and heavy. I needed a Volvo estate to cart it around.

You can see the man himself explaining what he did here - Guy Pratt Lockdown Licks Ep 3 'Earth Song' - YouTube

I spent around £100. As I said, I may have been lucky.

It seems we have many different experiences of couriers, online retailers et al. I have bought from Bax and been satisfied with the service. Ditto Hermes. It's very much dependent on the individual(s) you deal with at any large organisation. If the people who process your order are conscientious and competent, you will have a good experience. If not, you won't. It's not possible to generalise.

I've wondered about doing that, too. I've only been able to find plate amps for subs. The idea of using a powered PA speaker amp module sounds interesting. I found a company called KJF Audio in Warwickshire that sells Hypex plate amps, but they seem to be aimed more at the hi-fi market. They're at Full range drivers, DIY speaker kits and DIY audio components (kjfaudio.com).

Interesting that Chapman chose laminated bamboo. I've always understood that bamboo, whilst very strong (weight for weight, it is pretty much equivalent to steel), has natural flexibility/compliance and can withstand repeated bending stresses and recover quickly. That's why it was traditionally used for fishing rods. It has also been used to make violin bow sticks, which again must be light, flexible and recover swiftly from flexing. Rigidity doesn't strike one as being one of its main qualities, although I expect laminating can be used to achieve that. It would require many layers of lamination to make something the size of a bass or a Stick because bamboo is hollow, with thin walls. That would likely make building guitars and basses from it very expensive.

Have to say I agree with this sentiment. One should try to learn a piece as faithfully as possible (taking ability, etc into account - I struggle to recreate the playing of plenty of musicians because they're just better than me). If you want to change or simplify something, be honest if the reason you are doing so is because you cannot play it as it was originally. There's no shame in that.

Were the Gibson and Martin equipped with magnetic or piezo pickups? Piezos pick up the vibration and convert it into a minute electrical signal. Therefore the resonance of the instrument will affect the amplified sound. Magnetics sense the movement of a string in a magnetic field. The resonance of the instrument has little to no effect on that. I have a 1975 Martin D35. It has the Martin piezo bridge pickup installed. Fabulous guitar, but difficult to amplify because it is so resonant and powerful acoustically that controlling overtones and feedback is a real issue. I get better plugged in results with my cheap Yamaha, because it has a neutral and much less characterful sound acoustically. "Stadium gig volume" is a product of the PA system, not the instrument.

I take it his family are the Woodentops.

Hear hear. My job is to nail it down and provide a solid foundation for the music, not to show off.

The various isolation pads that are available would certainly work, but you may find the bass end softens if you decouple your speakers from the stands (and consequently the floor) by adding something like a foam pad between them. You'll have to decide how you strike the compromise between preventing the neighbours from being disturbed and enjoying listening to your music.

Squeal, boy. Squeal like a pig.

Keep an eye out for a used SX. They're pretty decent.

Probably for the same reason Vera Lynn and Tommy Steele aren't.

The problem with loud bass sounds is often structure borne rather than air borne noise/vibration. It travels through floors, joists, etc into the walls and annoys those living adjacent and there isn't a lot you can do about it. Maybe move into a detached property?

I'm sure the money helped console him for the fact that he was "wasting his abilities". Seriously, landing the gig in a major act will give anyone financial independence and enable them to pursue stuff that satisfies their soul when said headline act isn't playing or after they leave. Anyone with sense would trade a few years of their life to be set up for the rest of it. Most of us spend (spent in my case) 45 or so years earning a living doing something not remotely connected to music or the things we really care about.

I loved Denmark Street, too. However, I've mixed feelings about it becoming a "heritage" area, which is the way it looks to be going. That will probably mean it's becoming full of corporate shops (nobody else can afford the rents and business rates) trying to trade on the area's "history" and charging tourist-level prices. The original spirit of it - small, interesting, independent shops, bars, music venues, etc - has pretty much departed, sadly. Is it worth trying to re-create a pale imitation of it or keep it on life-support?

Agreed. I have had the same bass for 30 odd years and have only recently got a couple of additional ones (and I only got those because I can afford them in my dotage - I can't say I need them).

One thing to be aware of if you're thinking of using an outside storage space is damp and especially condensation if the temperature is likely to get low in the space. Will it be heated?

The above is good advice. I've looked again at your photo at the top and noticed something related. Your thumb is opposite your second finger and quite a distance around the curve of the neck - virtually central. The first finger is hooked quite a long way back towards the nut from it. I thought it looked uncomfortable, so have just tried it and found it was. It created quite a lot of tension in my hand and limited my ability to stretch with my third and fourth fingers. That may just be me, of course (we're all made differently), but I'd suggest aiming to have your thumb opposite the first finger, or opposite the gap between first and second at most. I'd also recommend bringing the thumb back around the neck towards the E string side a little. Try to place it so you can see your thumbnail when you look down at it and try not to arch it back (that again introduces tension into the hand). Have it straight or even bend the thumb joint slightly, but not to the extent of wrapping it around the fingerboard, obviously. The photos you see of "ideal/correct" technique - thumb behind the neck, etc - may not suit you. The general rule is, if it hurts/is uncomfortable, it's not right for you.