Owen

It was a toss up between a NAD and a Mission Cyrus One for me 36 years ago. The Mission is still going strong.

I cannot deny that I am yet to play a poor instrument from Yamaha.

That huge page of programming? No thanks, not for me. Load up great sounds other people have created? Yum yum, yes please.

There is very little advantageous we will be doing internationally for quite a few years.

I loved that case. I miss it a bit more than I miss my NS5.

Actually, it was because there were not any This is the case I used until I flogged my NS5 https://www.waterproof-cases.co.uk/product/explorer-cases-explorer-13513-case/

That is because you do not have access to Basschat Gold.

I resemble that remark. I did put five individual bridge saddles on it and drilled the headstock for another machine head first. I am a luthier!

That's the thing, isn't it. When I was growing up James Last was not at the very forefront of what I wanted to listen but now that I am old and can step back a bit I am hearing a HUGE band of what are obviously proper players doing it live and being well looked after. I am digging it. We might look at them and be envious of their threads and think "yeah, it is not originals and yadda yadda yadda" but they were travelling the world and earning proper money. I would sign up in a heartbeat. You can look at the people playing on Strictly and think "yeah, but it is all covers etc etc". They are the absolute cream of the crop. I had the pleasure of doing a few gigs with one of them a long time ago and he was the most sublime musician I have ever played with. Not only could he literally read THE most awkward parts I have ever had to deal with, but he did it sounding as if he had been playing that part for years, then soloed over it as if he had written then piece. I know he was sight reading cos they were new tunes. And his ability to accompany was telepathic. I would bet that a solid 60% of JL's players were there or therabouts and the other 40% were just normal monsters. I do feel sad about those drum fills in Black Night though

Lots of people play with French bows. Lots of people play with German bows. People play 124, people play 1234. People sit down to play, people stand up to play. People use really sticky rosin. People use violin rosin. People use gut strings. People use Spiro Weichs. The Double Bass is quite young in terms of pedagogy compared to Vln/Vla/cello. Do what works for you.

Hilarious!

In the last century I used to "teach" singing on a Performing Arts course. One end of year show was Fame and I got all the local players in to be a pit band with me. There are some good numbers in the show and some not so good numbers. There is a ballet scene in 3/4 which has some lame music on the piano. I leant over to the pianist and said "play me something nice in 3". He proceeded to play theme and variations on Favourite Things. Bear in mind that the cast were 18 year olds hearing something unexpected coming up from the pit while they were live on stage in front of an audience. He weighted it perfectly and played the most sublime coda as the lights dimmed for the end of the scene. It was as if we had rehearsed the timing down to the last detail. Everyone in the pit knew that there was something beautiful happening. No one else batted an eyelid. The band were cooking and the written parts were becoming more and more optional, just using them for the changes and the stabs, and by the time we got to "LA" we turned it into a beautiful groove and the 20 piece band were totally off-piste. No one played what was on the page (other than the skeleton), I was conducting and playing bass so basically my dynamics were everyone else's dynamics. We were breathing as one organism and it was sublime. Even the singer sounded superb - and she really was not. At the time I did not appreciate it for what it was. Of course, moments can be bad as well as good. We also did West Side Story and I conducted that. There was one number (I honestly cannot remember which) which was a really slow 3. In the band call I gave the option of beating it in 3 or 6. The band chose one of those and I wrote it down because the potential for disaster was epic. Come the first show half had remembered what we had arranged and half had not (to be fair, if I was playing I would have forgotten). We all played the first note together and then there was a hilarious half time/double time at the same time for 4 bars while my brain melted as I tried to work out what happened. The fact that our first child was 3 months old and I was pretty sleep deprived did not help. I had to stop and start again. Much later on we had established a music course in the college and we used the students as a pit band. We did West Side Story again so I tabbed it all out and we did it in a rock style. I would not recommend it, but it had a certain vibe and the students got an awful lot out of it. Obviously there were bits which needed support so we had a piano part on CD for quite a few of the numbers. Everyone in the pit was on cans and one student was running the CD player and the monitor mix. The number before the first half finale ran into the finale on the CD but there was a gap of about 5 seconds before the actual finale started. There was a significant rall at the end of the song before the finale and he turned the CD off because he thought it was over. Bear in mind this was at about 3 minutes and 23 seconds into the track so there is no way we could have queued it up again. After getting my head around what had happened I hissed at the girl behind the pit piano "give me a G". She looked surprised so I had to ask again. I then started singing "The Jets are going to have their way tonight" (or whatever it was) really loudly on my own and the whole cast joined in and did the whole number unaccompanied - moves and all. How we all laughed a few years later.

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This thread is making me miss that good exchange rate. Just as well that everything else about the present situation in the UK is so ace.

But the days when there was a decent exchange rate!!!!!!!

I always hate insuring. But i would have hated paying the £800 repair cost on the last bass I shipped even more. Make sure your packing fits their criteria. They will use ANY excuse to wriggle out of liability.

It was REALLY nice!

I am not sure where CITIES is at at the moment, but factor it in. Having customs tell me they might destroy the bass I was sending was not a great moment.