DirkThrust

[quote name='Absolute-beginner' post='129513' date='Jan 28 2008, 07:22 PM']Yup, thats me...have owned a bass for years, not a very good one, but finally, i picked it up. I sound rubbish, but ill get there! Ha Absolute beginner[/quote] We all sound rubbish to start with. The main thing is to start, and welcome to the forum.

Welcome to the forum Big Dave. You are indeed big. You'll be staying in one of the nicest parts of the country. Brighton is a great place. The main shop there is The Guitar, Amp and keyboard centre but I doubt you'll find anything in there that you wouldn't find in the states. Probably the best shop in the south is The Gallery in Camden which is another good area to visit, but be prepared to forfeit both kidneys when you see our prices :-)

Welcome to the forum. I used to have a Gibson Ripper in the early eighties. I don't have particularly fond memories of it but that could have been because I was such a sh*te player. No change there then :-) These days I've gone over to the dark side so it's gotta be a Fender for me.

Who's Larry Taylor?

Pete tabbed out an immensely complicated song for me (AWB Let's go round again) in a record time. A great guy and very helpful.

I've also got the CD version of the bass trainer. It's a great practise aid and as perry says CDRs are so cheap, I just burn whatever I want to learn onto one. The big downside of the CD version though is that it eats batteries. I only get about 3 hours playing time out of a set of high capacity re-chargables and having to constantly take the batteries out and re-charge them is a real pain.

I would very much appreciate that. It's quite a tricky one and I've got to learn it for next Wednesday. The bass is absolutely critical on it as it drives the whole song along.

Does anyone have the tab for this or know a site I can find it? Thanks

[quote name='TheRev' post='125358' date='Jan 22 2008, 11:50 AM']It would seem so. I'm 35 and despite years of playing and local scene experience, no indie type band wants to touch you with a barge pole. It's pretty much why I decided to start playing upright - the jazz boys don't care how old you are![/quote] Yeah but why would you want to play all that miserable Indie music? I've done it before and after my thirtieth birthday and getting a gig is like pulling teeth.

Great stuff. That looks like a really interesting cab to build. Oh dear. I feel a large sheet of plywood coming on and my Wife becoming a Fitzmaurice widow once again while I disappear into the garage for days on end

I'll be looking forward to the next installment. I've built an Omni10 and a pair of Omni10.5s so it's all horribly familiar :-) No, not really, I quite enjoyed it, and it's very satisfying to self build cabs that kick the botty of anything that's commercially available.

[quote name='jono b' post='121149' date='Jan 15 2008, 10:12 PM']I'm thinking about buying a cabinet I've seen, it's an Ampeg 2X15 but its a bit of a state. Structurally its fine but the covering is a bit wrecked. Does anyone know how much it would cost to have it done properly and where I could get it done, or how easy it would be to do it myself and what I'd need to do it.[/quote] I don't know about getting it done but I've covered a cabinet myself. I used carpet which is available from Blue Aran or CPC though the Blue Aran stuff is supposedly better quality. To stick it down I used carpet glue available from B&Q for about 3 quid a can. It's a relatively easy job but you'll need to remove all the hardware from the cab ie handles, corners etc. I haven't used vinyl covering but it can't be too difficult. About the same level of difficulty as carpet but you would probably need to sand the cab to make a nice smooth surface as any lumps and bumps will show through more than with carpet. The third alternative is to use cabinet paint. Available from Blue Aran (called Tuff Cab) but again you will need to remove all the hardware and really sand the cab down well to give a smooth surface. For advice on working on cabs have a look at the Bill Fitzmaurice website or the DIY section on FinnBass

[quote name='andy67' post='121016' date='Jan 15 2008, 06:12 PM']the amp sounded awful! I was hoping to use my 2 b410hlf as a suedo 8x10 but didn't work! so next buy will have to be a proper 8x10, hence ashdown or ampeg![/quote] I don't understand why 2 Ampeg 4x10s sound sh*te. That should sound awesome and I would say if the problem is your amp then getting an 8x10 is not going to solve it. Why don't you persevere with the 2 ampegs?

[quote name='Machines' post='119580' date='Jan 13 2008, 04:48 PM']Usual ones really. I find simplicity in the signal chain reduces the likeliness for failures, and makes them easier to isolate if there are any.[/quote] Absolutely. Passive bass direct into amp hasn't let me down yet. One daft thing I've done was when I decided to check all my leads over before a gig and I managed to rewire one of my speakons out of phase with the other. Anyone who has ever experienced two cabs out of phase with each other will know how horrible that sounds. Luckily there was someone smarter than me present who figured it out Another time I left a pint of beer on a shelf where I thought it would be safe. How stupid is that? Rule one is never have drinks above electrics. Unfortuately thanks to Mr Ashdown it vibrated off and landed on the multi-way mains adaptor supplying all our amps. All we knew was that everything went dead. We were in semi darkness. I started fumbling about behind my cabs to trace the mains back and put my hand in a pool of liquid. Thankfully the fault was that the Pub's RCCD had tripped out. I like to buy a pint for the electrician who installed that. Otherwise I'd have been fried

[quote name='Chopthebass' post='117385' date='Jan 9 2008, 08:27 PM']Not sure if this is real or not, but entertaining questions & answers!![/quote] Yeah I do get the feeling he's not entirely serious This is turning into a long running saga, but he's getting his point over if nothing else.

I think whether or not you have the covers on or off depends on personal taste and what suits your playing style. I like having the pickup cover on because I find it comfortable to rest my thumb on and I like the greater tension of the strings when playing behind the pickup. I also really like the look of a vintage Fender with both covers but I'm sure just as many people hate that look. In the 1950s and 1960s when these basses were conceived, I would think that having chrome covers hiding the functional bits was very much in keeping with the fashion of the time. Look at American cars of that period. The vintage Ps had those foam mutes under the cover, presumably to give it more of a double bass-like thud, but obviously modern sounds and playing styles are different and most people like to have more sustain. Listen to James Jamerson for a good example of a P bass with mutes. The Jazz bass had seperate mutes for each string, fitted in front of the bridge. You don't often see them fitted these days but you can often see the mounting holes on old Jazzes. But most of all, Fenders sound so much better with the covers fitted!!

ROFL But it's entertaining bullocks

Haha I detect a healthy disdain for this relicing bo**ocks.

[quote name='SJA' post='113333' date='Jan 4 2008, 02:12 AM']reminiscent of an oven-ready chicken.[/quote] I knew they reminded me of something. I just couldn't quite put my finger on it