Doctor J

Sexy ist verboten now.

Also worth noting, Abigail Ybarra, she of Fender myths, legends and healthy asking price bump, was working for Jackson at that time and could have wound both our pickups 😉

They're very good guitars. The headstock puts people off, yes, but the build quality is excellent. I have a Predator from the same era. Love it.

Definitely! Maybe? 😉

Why do you care what anyone thinks? Do you enjoy playing bass, does it move you? If so, continue to enjoy it. Just the feel of low frequencies rattling my rib cage takes me to my happy place. I get lost in the enjoyment of the subtleties of our wonderful instrument. If others don't get it, it's their loss. Or, in another way, it's not you, it's them. 🙂

I bought it, listened to it three times and cannot remember a single thing off Torn Arteries and will probably never listen to it again, which is a shame because I thought Surgical Steel was really good. Mastodon was ok but nothing incredible, Helloween was ok but nothing incredible. Ascension Codes by Cynic, which came out last week, is one of the few releases which has really captivated me. It's a very interesting piece of work. It has been a fairly weak year for the heavy stuff, in my opinion.

The virtual amp trade is a slippery slope. No matter how many you have, you'll always want more.

Shims are fine if done correctly.

What are vintage characteristics in the sound?

Work on your tone and the volume balance of the instruments. If the derrière drops out of it when the guitar starts playing lead, then the guitar is providing the derrière. The bass needs to be the derrière. I'm a big fan of the power trio kind of sound, but if you don't get the instrument tones right, you get the derrière drop you describe. It can be done well, though, and it's a great sound when you get it right. If you're scooping out mids, don't. The guitar is probably providing much of the mid sound of your band and, when they stop playing rhythm, your overall sound is missing those mids. Spend some time between you and the drummer, just playing without the guitar. Listen to how much the bass and drums are filling out the sound when there is no guitar. Chances are you need a tone you're not going to like in isolation. If you use pedals to try to fill the sound during leads, you just get this lumpy old sound which goes up and down in volume. The bass needs to fill out the sound all the time in order for you to have a consistent sound regardless of what the guitar does. The guitarist might have to take some of their low end and low mid out, too, in order for the bass to be the component which provides those frequencies. You and the guitarist need to sort out your frequencies to compliment each other, even though you might not like the sound of them when you play by yourself. The guitar needs to sit on top of the foundation laid by the bass rather than being the meat of the sound. Listen to some power trios to hear what I mean. The bass needs to be big all the time, it's the only way it works. The likes of Free and Bad Company are a great example. Or this

That's foxy. I like it. I always use a strap so knee be damned. If it was a vier banger I'd be very tempted.

For me, it's when he's sitting at the piano plucking Let It Be out of the air and Mal is there, yapping to him. Mal, please. Something big is going down. Stop! 😂

I dunno. Myself and my good lady decided to make a Beatles playlist of our favourite songs for car journeys and the like. We ended up with 120 songs. That's not bad 😂

Imagine being the lads who called a premature end to The Beatles last ever live performance, even though they didn't know it at the time. Just waking up one morning, years later, reflecting on it and thinking "Bugger".

It's not the complete history unless there's two hours of footage of walking into guitar shops throughout the last 40 years and hearing relentless and merciless clicketty-clacketty coming from the bass section.

I was just going to say the opposite 🙂 The finish on these things isn't exactly robust. The ones which have been played regularly tend to show it. The biogunk which comes from our fingers and sweaty hands can do terrible things to the old finishes. The red in in the 3TS finish tends to fade when exposed to light over time too. The ones which look nice and clean have usually not seen so much action. It doesn't mean they're dogs, by any stretch, but pre-poly instruments tend to show they've been played fairly quickly, even if they've been lovingly cared for.

I think it's more that he's not listening to the band at all. If he was listening to the music, he most likely wouldn't be missing bars as it would be obvious where he is within the framework of the song. If anything, don't go louder to hear yourself, go quieter until he realises he needs to come down to meet the volume of the rest of the band. He needs to learn to listen to other instruments. What is the rhythm guitarist doing when he drops bars? He's in the same boat as you.

Double post

Thanks, I'm thinking of turning pro.

You raged against the loud teens?

Classic Stingray sound means different things to different people. A 2-band EQ version of any of them will get you as close as you need to classic Stingray territory. You don't need to go old, the rest will be achieved with your fingers, EQ settings and choice of strings.

Congrats, Skank, a top tune in a very strong month!

Not on this planet, not yet.