Stylon Pilson

I've just placed my order! S.P.

[quote name='EBS_freak' post='305617' date='Oct 13 2008, 04:56 PM']Tortoise Pickguard??[/quote] Seems a waste of a good tortoise, especially if you're going to cover it with a white pearloid covering anyway. S.P.

[quote name='Pissman' post='305616' date='Oct 13 2008, 04:55 PM']Just wondering how often strings should be changed, and how do you tell when they need it? I only realy play in my room, not in any serious band right now, so would restringing make a noticable difference to me? Thanks [/quote] It might be worth changing them once after about six months, so that you can appreciate the difference between new strings and old. And it might also be worth trying a few different gauges and types, so that you can get an idea of what works for you. But on the whole, I'd be tempted to say: don't bother. Save your money. S.P.

[quote name='tauzero' post='305468' date='Oct 13 2008, 01:32 PM'][url="http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=320310081381"]Item 320310081381[/url] - a rather interesting take on making a headless. From what I can see of it, it uses normal tuners in a novel fashion, rather more attractively than the Warwick Nobby Wossname. Seller also offers plans for sale for his travel guitar of the same family.[/quote] Heh, didn't even see those tuners there at first. Recessed to stop them being knocked accidentally - I'm impressed. My only concern would be that you might end up accidentally muting your D and G strings while trying to tune them. S.P.

[quote name='Toasted' post='305417' date='Oct 13 2008, 12:43 PM']. . . on the plus side: [url="http://www.josephpurcell.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/rawbody2.jpg"]http://www.josephpurcell.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/rawbody2.jpg[/url] Looks beautiful.[/quote] My first thought was: gingham. S.P.

[quote name='Jean-Luc Pickguard' post='304193' date='Oct 10 2008, 09:53 PM']By rear contour I think you mean not the entire back, but the "beergut" cutout is all black.[/quote] That's right. It's funny how different people interpret the phrase "rear contour", isn't it? Seemed unambiguous to me, but apparently I was wrong. [quote name='Jean-Luc Pickguard' post='304193' date='Oct 10 2008, 09:53 PM']Cheapo copies have this to disguise a body made from more than one laminate of wood or even ply though. Early mexican fenders I have seen also had this. Not sure if current ones do or what they were trying to hide - my guess is that laminates of more attractivly grained wood is stuck to the top & bottom of plainer wood, so it doesn't always mean it can't be a real fender.[/quote] Thanks. This is the kind of information that I was looking for. S.P.

[quote name='Ou7shined' post='303734' date='Oct 10 2008, 11:49 AM']Yes unfortunately I fear that might be the case. It's fairly safe to say though that it is probably not alder.[/quote] You're almost certainly right. Genuine Alder is generally found on the high end basses of this style. This one's probably just unknown Tone Wood, Solid Body or Basswood. S.P.

If a sunburst Fender Precision bass has black finish covering the entirety of the rear contour, does this indicate that the bass is actually made of plywood and hence not a genuine Fender? S.P.

Played The Cellar Bar at Bracknell last night. The drummer had to stay home, through no fault of his own, so we had to go ahead without him. It turned out pretty well, but we definitely missed him. Not a flawless performance on our part, but we engaged the crowd, and the sound man made us sound really good. If every gig could be as good as that, I'd be a happy man. We had a slight technical hitch early on in one of the songs in our encore, which resulted in our frontman's acoustic guitar being totally lost. Took us a few minutes to get it back online, and we restarted the song. Slightly awkward, but we had a forgiving audience. S.P.

It's kinda funky, but could there be a neck dive problem here? My Sinsonido is headless, and has good balance as a consequence. S.P.

I'd buy that if it was made of alder. S.P.

I usually play somewhere between the bridge and the 7th fret. S.P.

My first amp was a Stagg 20W combo with an 8" speaker. Used that for half a dozen pub gigs. No PA support. Admittedly I didn't have to compete with a drummer, so the overall volume was low. S.P.

[quote name='bass_ferret' post='290799' date='Sep 24 2008, 12:52 PM']Dizzie Gillespie?[/quote] That's different. His trumpet had mojo. S.P.

[quote name='bnt' post='290312' date='Sep 23 2008, 08:42 PM']If you were using Audacity on Linux[/quote] I am. Ubuntu. I installed the SC4 and Hard Limiter with [code]sudo apt-get install swh-plugins[/code] S.P.

[quote name='bnt' post='289217' date='Sep 22 2008, 03:10 PM']Does your Audacity installation include a plugin called [b]SC4[/b]? This is a more flexible compressor with an attack time that goes down to 1.5ms.[/quote] SC4 and Hard Limiter are working beautifully for me. I did consider trying a different DAW, but to be honest I can't be bothered with the hassle of learning how to use it. S.P.

With the exception of electric guitars and electric basses, what other musical instruments have significant stylistic variation within the species? You never hear a trumpet player complaining about the fact that all trumpets look the same. S.P.

[quote name='lowhand_mike' post='289773' date='Sep 23 2008, 11:27 AM']i don't mind being told i am off or what ever though telling someone who sings that they can't just feels that bit more personal, i can practice and get better but if your vocals are dropping off then thats really hard to improve on, you can't just tune up you voice.[/quote] Not true. With practise, he can improve. S.P.

[quote name='lowhand_mike' post='289750' date='Sep 23 2008, 11:03 AM']i have suggested we get a small tape setup to record some practices so we can hear back what it sounds like in the hope that he can hear what he sounds like but will that be enough[/quote] This is definitely a good place to start. The only potential downfall is when he listens to the recording, turns to you, and then says "I sound terrible! Why did none of you gits tell me?!?" S.P.

[quote name='charic' post='289253' date='Sep 22 2008, 03:50 PM']If it clipped on the actual recording its going to always distort. If thats the case theres not alot you can do im afraid[/quote] Nope, no clipping on the recording. The drums got up to about -3dB on the recording, but everything else was down at about -15dB. Thanks for all the plugin recommendations, guys - they sound very promising. I'll give them a try. S.P.

Morning all, I've been recording my band using a Zoom H2 set on "low" microphone sensitivity. I then import the files into Audacity and split them into individual songs. They're quite quiet, so I amplify them to get rid of wasted headroom. For Saturday night's performance, I'm finding that an amplification of about 15dB gets the waveform looking nice and fat, but not too fat. The only problem is that on some of the songs, the drummer ends the song very vigorously, so if I try to amplify the songs by more than about 3dB, the drums clip. I need to apply some serious compression to those drum passages. Audacity's "compressor" plugin isn't working it for me, because the peak volume comes instantaneously, and the plugin has a minimum attack of 0.1 seconds. The "leveller" doesn't seem to do much at all, even on its strongest setting, probably because it's designed to operate on longer sections of music. I feel that the solution is going to have to be to use the "envelope" tool to manually quieten the drums, but I wonder if there's a better way. Or do you think I should just say "sod the drums" and, for the sake of a few smacks of the snare drum, let them clip? Thanks, S.P.

[quote name='EBS_freak' post='284904' date='Sep 16 2008, 12:01 PM']Question. Who buys Bose? Answer. The same person who would buy B&O[/quote] Heh, I once bought a B&O telephone (I think it was the Beocom 1600). The sound quality was absolutely atrocious. I learned my lesson. [url="http://www.intellexual.net/bose.html"]Here's a lengthy and well-reasoned article on Bose[/url]. If you're interested in skipping to the bit about the demonstration room, [url="http://www.intellexual.net/bose.html#fair"]it's here[/url]. S.P.

[quote name='waynepunkdude' post='284862' date='Sep 16 2008, 11:23 AM']Have you ever been to a Bose shop with a cinema inside? I was given a very impressive demonstration. They may be over priced but there staff could teach guitar shops a thing or two about customer service, they gave me the full demonstration because i was interested even though they knew I had no intention of buying.[/quote] Perhaps its because they know that you'll then promptly run off and tell all your friends how good Bose is. And the myth continues to perpetuate itself. The reason why the demonstration is so impressive is that they have complete control over the setup. Good luck trying to replicate that demonstration in your own living room. Additionally, did you trace the wires back to check that the speakers were actually plugged into the Bose amplifier? I've heard rumours that they run it all back into a control room which is hidden from public view. S.P.