Doctor J

No, I always want to try new things, I think part of the fun of bass playing is trying so many different and wonderful instruments. I play drums and guitar too so even if I'm temporarily happy on bass there's always something else. Have you seen the G&L Invader for £350 in the FS section? GAS.

Set all your EQ, on the bass and the amp, flat and see if it makes a big difference, then take it from there.

Maybe Andy's been keeping quiet about those royalty cheques which kept arriving in his letterbox

Nice. Replace the scratchplate.

[quote name='Len_derby' post='1194105' date='Apr 9 2011, 10:13 PM']Could it possibly have something to do with cultural snobbism? Compare basses with sports cars and (to a lesser extent) motorbikes. The Japanese make excellent versions of both sports cars and bikes. But for fashion/conciousness/desirability they almost always lose out to the flashy European makes.[/quote] This. It's not just Yamaha.

That sounds reasonable. I bought a bass off the steaming pile of sh*te that is Music123 many years ago and, immediately after I paid for it, the Ship To address changed somehow. I called them up, changed it to the right address and, sure enough, they went and shipped it to the wrong address anyway. I called them up, told them they had shipped it to the wrong address and they assured me they would stop it being delivered. Of course they didn't. So, after it was delivered, I called them again, they told me they'd get it back. Apparently the guy said he didn't want to give it back. This dragged on until, after many phone calls and much stress over the course of two months, they finally agreed to send me a new bass to the real address where I actually live. Ordered in November, delivered in February - the most useless and unhelpful shower of tits I've ever had the misfortune to deal with.

Short haired people should look to alternatives to headbanging.

I saw a tape by Ronnie Scott's Quintet called Never Pat A Burning Dog on sale for £1. How could I go wrong? First tune, called Contemplation, still gets me every time, love it. Moved on from there.

I started my last band and decided to play guitar simply because I didn't want to be in a band with a real guitarist ever again. We searched for a real bassist for about three years and ended up with a guitarist playing bass Now I've been asked to sub for another band for a while... on guitar For me, playing bass is always #1 Guitar #2 Drums #3 Drums are the only acoustic instrument I play. Electricity rules!!!

Cheers gents, this is one of the all maple neck and body jobbies, no paduak in sight, so I'll breathe that dust in without a care Ah I have to put the bell-brass frets back in, steel would clash with the gold hardware.

I've come into possession of a 91 Streamer Stage1 NT which needs a refret. Never refretted a wenge board before, do I need to treat wenge any differently from rosewood? And, yes, I've ordered brass frets, I'm not a criminal

Nice. It's going to be a long weekend, but not in the good way

Sony have been putting out 5 CD packs under the title Original Album Classics priced the same as a single CD which covers a lot of this era. I'm working my way through them, discovering the likes of Kansas, Spirit, Mountain, Little Feat, Argent and more - some amazing tunes and really wonderful bass playing.

Aren't ERBs of 7 strings or more being called "fretted piano"?

I've never gone to see a cover band, specifically, though I have for originals. The only people I know who've made an effort to see a specific cover band are friends and family of said band.

Criteria? Which 65 basses do we get money to advertise on a regular basis?

The Godin Shifter is a fairly tasteful looking instrument, it must be said.

[quote name='watchman' post='1182069' date='Mar 30 2011, 12:30 PM']Not a Spector expert, but in most active basses there either is or is not a switch to bypass the preamp and go passive. Without such a switch, there's not a hope that you'll get anything if the battery is dead. Even with a switch, I would hesitate to guarantee that it'll route the signal passively - the bass would need to be wird for what in effects pedal terms would be called true bypass. Carry a spare battery [/quote] The fool proof test is to engage the bypass switch (if there is one) with the battery removed. If it will truly run in passive mode, you will still get output. If there isn't a bypass switch at all, then forget it.

You'd find big differences even if you were to compare just Fenders throughout the years. I've had an ESP J4, a couple of Fender J4s and a Sadowsky J4 over the years. While they all were J basses in theory they didn't really feel or sound anything like each other in practice and I sold all but the ESP. By the same token, I've got a Bacchus J5 and a Hotwire J5 and, again, while they're unmistakably rooted in the classic Jazz template, they feel and sound remarkably different. It takes more than just a basic body shape and two J pickups for the instrument to feel the same.

I thank fussy people like you who leave the mildly blemished bargains for people like me

[quote name='ern500evo' post='1180959' date='Mar 29 2011, 04:04 PM']Cool, so if i went for actives would i nedd another battery in the bass?[/quote] No, you should be able to power them both off a single 9v.

Search for Badass II rather than Badass 11

You can keep the tonepump, you just need to make sure the EMGs are linked to the battery too.