Doctor J

There's no reason for an active bass not to work with distortion. Every EMG equipped bass and guitar is active and lots of bands who use distortion use those pickups. I run distortion on passive basses, basses with passive pickups and an onboard preamp and basses with active pickups and an onboard preamp, I can't recall every having an issue getting good distortion. Your distortion effects are active too, don't forget. If you're one of those people who boosts the bejesus out of the low end on a Stingray type, then that might be your problem, possibly overloading the input stage of the effect and adding additional clipping where it is designed to be. Don't boost needlessly and perhaps turn the volume down or lower the pickup away from the strings to about the output level of a passive bass you like which works with the effect.

Now, you say it's impossible to play at the first fret, but blame the nut. Do the strings choke when played open or do they buzz when you play the first fret. If they choke on the first fret when played open, have a look at how the E and A strings are sitting on the string posts. There is supposed to be a decent break angle of the string over the nut which means the string actually rises slightly as it leaves the nut. If the strings approach the nut quite straight, if the strings are sitting high on the tuning posts, they will choke on the first fret. Loosen the strings and push the windings down towards the headstock, then tune up, making sure they don't just lift again. It would be very, very rare for an instrument arrive with a nut cut too low. They usually leave them way too high. If they are ok when played open but buzz at the first fret, it's likely the truss rod is too tight, causing the neck to arch back slightly. The easy way to check is to sit the bass on your lap as if you were playing it and hold the E string down at the first and last fret. There should be a very small - business card width - gap between the bottom of the string and the top of the frets at around the 8th and 9th frets. If there is no clearance there at all, loosening the truss rod slightly should cure that. Take pictures and post if you're not sure.

Factory setups are a waste of time. The temperature and humidity of wherever it was made and setup is likely entirely different from where you are, meaning it will go all out of shape by the time it gets to you. I'm guessing it was out of tune, too? Learn how to do a setup. It's very, very easy. There are countless resources on youtube which show how easy it is. If you can change a lightbulb, you can set up a bass. The neck will usually need a gentle tweak twice a year, anyway. Save yourself time and money for the rest of your life and do it yourself.

Fret it. Play it. It's a mass-produced tool for making music, it's not the Mona Lisa.

And one with Flotsam and Jetsam, three with Voivod, two with Echobrain, his own Newsted stuff, plus lots of guest appearances with the likes of Sepultura... Jason has been around.

Same here, was abroad for the first two weeks and haven't had a chance to get anything done.

Bandcamp. As someone who has music on it and who buys music from it, I love it. It's also the best platform to get paid for original music, in my experience.

You can also hear him with Kyuss, Masters of Reality, Mondo Generator, Vista Chino, Dwarves, Stöner and more. Not a small body of work by any means.

Roger Patterson - one recorded album and a handful of demos Doug Keyser - two albums, an EP and some demos

That's good stuff, nice one.

Ideally, you want to present your band with the best first impression possible. If you think what venues and promoters should hear is different to what potential fans should hear, maybe you need two different recordings. For original doom stuff, a lot of your gigs will come by talking to other bands, keep that in mind. Find some other bands you like the sound of and talk to them and also whoever recorded them, ask their advice. Personally, I'm of the mind that clean recordings can easily be made heavy and dirty but a dirty recording can only ever be dirty, sometimes at the expense of heaviness.

Every major label CEO who didn't recognise the sea-change in music consumption which mp3 and Napster pointed towards and let the delivery of their catalogues (and payment thereof) be controlled by third parties.

Never underestimate the amount of money Fender, Gibson, etc spend on marketing, especially making sure their instruments are seen in the hands of popular artists.

Well, he was a herion addict at the time.

The amount of bands referred to as "Thrash" who don't, and never have, played thrash, would make even Jonathan Davis wallow in an unending realm of self-pity. For real.

How is your amp EQ'd? Are you using both pickups together or just one? If one, which one? I've used various J basses for rock over the last 30+ years and never had an issue. If you've scooped the bejesus out of the mid frequencies, on what is already a design which naturally isn't mid-biased, then it's easy to be in the position you're in.

Steve Jones playing on the Megadeth version won't have helped Lydon warm to it either.

Give me 38mm or give me death!

With a dice, it only goes up to 6.

Everything is cyclical but, hopefully, not in this case.

They're not supposed to lean either way.

He put out an album called Gravelands about 20 years ago. It's actually very listenable.

Filling and matching would be a pain. Perhaps transparency would work?

I don't mind them but generally lean towards not having them. When they're used to facilitate cheap and crap manufacturing processes, often on quite expensive instruments though, that's unforgivable