Cato

Led Zep 1 made quite the impression on me as a youngster. Good Times, Bad Times and Dazed and Confused in particular are among the first times I could really hear the bass and apreciate it's role in the music, especially as unlike a lot of the 80s Rock/Metal stuff I was listening to at the time, it wasn't just doubling the guitar part. At least not all the time

I spent a fair wedge putting Aguilar pickups, a Babicz bridge and Kiogon loom into a Squier VM Jazz. I did it not because I was trying to build a 'super jazz' on a budget, but purely because I fancied a go at modding. I had a lot of fun doing it and I was thoroughly pleased with the results.

I noticed many years ago that I was muting the e string without consciously thinking about it with the thumb of my left hand wrapped around the neck. I used to think that having the thumb round the top edge of the fretboard instead of on the back of the neck was just lazy, poor technique on my part until years later I saw a Stu Hamm instructional video where he demonstrated the exact same muting technique. So if it's good enough for Stu Hamm...

It's basically just a list of a fairly random selection of basses that someone else has compiled with a couple of snippets from a Pino interview crowbarred into it.

Is this the part where everybody takes offence because someone else said they were offended? Seems to be the way of the world these days...

My first thought was that they're harvesting email addresses. Especially with that 'tell all your friends and get them to email too' line. But then I have a nasty, suspicious nature.

I never set out to only have Fender skinny stringers but that seems to have been what's happened, with the slight twist that I don't tend to go for the vanilla 'classic' models. So I have a double humbucker 72 thinline tele reissue, a Baja tele and an HSS strat. Nearly bought a double humbucker Meteora a couple of years back too. On the bass front there's a bit more variation with Wasburn, Sire and Squier with just the one Fender - a Deluxe Precision Special. If I buy another bass it'll be a Stingray, so still Leo, but not Fender.

I reckon it's one of those entirely personal things where until you've tried it your'e not really going to know whether different gear for each band is going to work better for your particular situation or not.

I've got a Fender Hi Mass bridge on a Deluxe P. It's a nice unit, no sharp edges so great for palm muting and the saddles are locked into tracks on the base plate so you can't pull them sideways like you can on basic BBOT designs. It's a solid bit of kit and I prefer it to the standard BBOT, but if it makes a jot of difference to the tone of the instrument I can't hear it.

The only new thing I've bought in 2021 is more than a little bit niche. Ms Tedstone Glover is a PHD music student who's spent the last 5 years researching and trying to recreate the music of the Roman age. On the remote chance that anyone else is interested the album is available to buy on bandcamp but I think all the tracks are up on Youtube.

My main reaction is surprise that moving to full UK production results in such a relatively small price increase.

Generally speaking steel strung acoustic guitars are physically harder to play than electrics, they tend to have heavier gauge strings and higher string tension. I've always found it much easier to fret barre chords cleanly on electrics. Although as a longtime bass player I suspect fretting hand finger strength isn't going to be much of a hurdle for you. String gauge and type is all down to personal taste, although for a beginner you probably don't want to go any lighter than 10s, just because they'll be too easy to bend out of pitch when you're learning to fret chords.

I saw Jamiroquai a few times at Glastonbury in the early 90s. They were one of those bands who's albums I was never massively into but who's live show was just on another level. Every memeber of that line up was top notch even the didgeridoo player, with Zender's basslines being the engine that drove the whole performance along

With my active Deluxe Precision I always set EQ on the bass with the amp flat although I think that's as much down to convenience/laziness as anything else. The EQ on the bass is just closer to hand. I definitely wouldn't say the preamp on that bass is just for fine tuning, it's just not that subtle. As above though, no right or wrong answers here, just personal preference.

Don't want to speak too early but it looks like things are calming down in my little corner of Warwickshire. No queues at the Tesco forecourt in Stratford earlier this afernoon and none at the independent down the road from me, both still open. I suspect that the majority of those inclined to rush out and fill their tanks have now done so and the pumps haven't run dry. Fingers crossed anyway.

I suppose it depends how obsessive the person doing the tuning is. It's just about impossible to get any of my basses or guitars absolutely 'spot on' according to the tuner on my HX Stomp, they're always fractionally over or under the mark. The machineheads on the instruments just don't have the finesse to make to the tiny adjustments that would be needed to get them 100% on the money. Fortunately the Stomp also employs a traffic light system where the green light indicates 'close enough' and that's what I go by.

I imagine there will be a spot at some point in the room where the elements of the sound are in perfect balance. Everywhere else however.....

I have a similar thing with black basses with white pickguards. Doesn't mater if it's a vintage pre CBS precision in mint condition , it will still remind me of the Encores in the Argos catalogue when I was a kid.

Got to be the singer's dad. Anyone else and he'd be waddling down to Casualty to get the drumsticks extracted before the end of the song.

I can't escape the feeling that the combo is staring at me. It'll be an awesome little rig but probably not particularly lightweight, unless your Hartke 3500 weighs considerably less than my early 90s model.

That may be the first time I've heard church bells that weren’t jarringly out of tune with each other.

I'm disapointed but not suprised G&R were basically a one album wonder. Albeit that album was one of the defining rock albums of the 20th century so no small achievement. With the benefit of hindsight Use Your Illusion never really came close to those heights, and as for Chinese Democracy....least said soonest mended.

My guess would be that it was a joint project with a couple of students from her uni's media/perfomance arts departments. She does her experiment, they get to show off their skills putting together a glossy video, maybe there's a music production department that got involved as well. Costs are kept down. Everybody hands in a fairly impressive bit of coursework that ticks the right boxes for their respective studies and, as a bonus, gets to put creating a viral video on their CVs.

For the young 'uns (i think there's one or two BCers under 45)

What it mainly reminded me of was one of those Les Dawson piano skits. It's not just randomly bad, it feels like it's been meticulously arranged to be as jarring as possible. I'm not certain but I think some bits sound like they've been pitch 'corrected' to be further out of tune than they already were.