Doctor J

I haven't played the Kestrel or Kingfisher but I used to own a PRS EB which, from what I've seen, I think those two are quite influenced by. You see a lot of comments by the uninformed suggesting PRS do not know how to make a great bass and, being quite blunt, it's utter shite. The PRS was one of the best thought out and most comfortable basses I've ever played. Their SE stuff tends to be excellent for the money so I'd have great confidence in them being rather good indeed.

Currently in the midst of a legal-bill fuelled cull but, for a time, the World was a glorious place

That colour is amazing, I love it!

The bass is a Mexican Jazz deluxe with a 3-band EQ. Make of that what you will. You might be able to get an idea of how he's EQ'ing it from the knobs. The third is a stack bass & treble cut /boost and the last is mid cut/boost

To the user, they operate as standard, the top ones all turn the same way to tighten and vice-versa, same for the bottom ones. Frequently you see them strung on each tuner the same way, so you need to turn clockwise to tighten for one, anti-clockwise for the next, etc. Madness. Some pennies drop forever without ever hitting the bottom.

Nice! Bonus points for it being strung correctly, it’s amazing how many of them you see with the headstock all arseways.

Fender seem fixated on jumbling up miscellaneous parts from 60+ year old designs and giving it a name. What was the last truly innovative thing they did?

Slightly deranged sounding. I like it.

When I was working in a studio in Dublin in the mid-2000’s, I was recording a band whose guitarist had just bought a brand new Les Paul Standard that very day. I had him play while we mic’d up his amp and, every now and then, a chord would sound badly out of tune. He retuned and played and the same thing, every now and then out of tune. After going through the song chords, whenever he played G, it sounded horrible. We checked tuning again, then went through the E string fret by fret. E - in tune F - in tune F# - in tune G - badly sharp G# - in tune A - in tune I felt sick for the guy, he had spent IR£2,500 at the time on his dream guitar and it was junk. I believe the shop exchanged it for him. I have a Tokai 335, an ES130, and have yet to encounter a “real” 335 which comes close. Gibson, to me, are the epitome of a brand trading on former glories and great designs made by great people several generations ago and the current company are just the owners of some copyrights with nothing in common with the spirit of innovation or quality which made the brand name what it is. Just like the big F, the designs they own are incredible, but there are other companies doing much better jobs of manufacturing them.

This came out a while ago http://bravewords.com/news/gibson-to-sell-memphis-guitar-factory Juszkiewicz seems to be utterly inept and behind some truly baffling decisions, such as enforcing the robo-tuning crap on many models, and is trying to put a "we meant to do this" spin as the cold sea creeps over the bow. How he has remained CEO for so long will probably only be explained in a long documentary in a decade's time.

Beautiful. It looks great with the black scratchplate.

That picture deserves lots of entries. I tried to record something earlier but it was a shittake.

That’s really nice

Don’t let it get to you. If you had bought an Alembic that would have come with plastic knobs too.

I picked up this Warwick earlier this year. I am out of shape on fretless but getting better again

When you say "clunk", what does that mean. Is it a metal-on-metal sound or an electronic noise? Do you hear it if you play without being plugged in? If it's only when plugged in, have you got the preamp turned up full?

Thanks. The SS1 is something special, a really nice one.

Started on 4, moved to 6, then 5, then mainly 4, now somewhere between 4 and 5 while thinking about 6 again

Probably need to experience what it's like to sell for a change

I've got a Streamer Stage 1 and a Streamer JM, they are very different beasts. I like the Streamer shape a lot, it's exceedingly comfortable, even if some of the contours aren't to everyone's tastes. As mentioned already, the only difference between the FNA and Streamer JM is the body shape. Both are bolt-on with the same electronics.

Misery loves company, they say, though I won't say I'm happy but, rather, find solace to be among those who have spluttered into action this month. I've got little done, just haven't had the focus so far... dunno, just can't seem to get my arse in gear for whatever reason. I have a couple of days off work, though, and I'll try to get this song down. The ideas are there, just getting them recorded so they sound similar in the real world is proving troublesome.

Melon Collie and the Finite Sadness Tonight, Tonight Zero Bullet With Butterfly Wings An Ode To No One Love Galapogos Muzzle Where Boys Fear To Tread Bodies Thirty-Three 1979 Thru The Eyes Of Ruby X.Y.U. Farewell And Goodnight

Had something of a productive weekend, building a pair of gigging strats. Decided to strip back to just what I need, so one pickup, one volume, no faffing around. Necks are Warmoth - one with quartersawn maple and ebony fretboard, the other is maple with a rosewood fretboard - bodies are poplar from GFS. Gotoh hardware on both. Seymour Duncan JB in the yellow one, DiMarzio Fred in the green one, both tuned down to A

Free for all, do what you want

Following on from Dad's Blog idea - documenting your songwriting process - in the voting thread, here's what I'm working on. For those who don't want to know, don't read the bleedin' spoiler [spoiler]Looking at the pic, it almost looks like yer man is controlling the tornado Magneto-style, with his outstretched arms. For all you Metal fans, you'll know Manowar had a ballad called "Master Of The Wind" on their fantastic [i]Triumph Of Steel[/i] album - and if you don't, leave the hall. Well, I'm probably going to borrow that title, but I'm hearing a slinky funk kind of thing in my head which I've been mentally bouncing around on the drives to and from work for the last couple of days. I've got a couple of interacting guitar riffs in mind, very stripped down, which I'll work into verses. I see it getting bigger in the choruses with some envelope filter shenanigans. I've got the first couple of lines of the chorus vocal in my head too, unfortunately they're falsetto. I can't sing anyway but I'm really not sure I can get anything listenable in a falsetto style but, sure, I'll give it a go. As mentioned, Nile Rodgers vs Prince in a fist fight, think Prince's "Kiss" vocals with some Nile type guitar stuff, some Bootsy bass and you'll get where I think I'm heading with this. I want to really have something, lyrically, which ties into the picture, so given the dude controlling the wind but this kind of stripped down funk I'm aiming for, he isn't going to be a bad guy bent on destruction, he just wants to impress his lady friend, so this is going to be more of a forces-of-nature-manipulating chat-up line. Honestly, that's what I see in the picture I always have to hear something in my head first and then work it out with real instruments, I'm useless at just plucking stuff out on a guitar or bass. Tonight, I'll try to work out the guitar riffs and general chord movements and build up the song structure in ProTools. I have a pretty good idea of where I'm going to go with the drums too, so I'll try to map that out. If I can get that done tonight I'll be a happy Doctor J. End communication.[/spoiler]