radiophonic

Lemon oil on the rosewood board. Don't leave it in the car overnight. Always transport it in at least a gig bag. Put it on a stand. All the dings my Stingray has are due to me not doing the latter in the first couple of years I had it. There is some blackening to the pole pieces on the pickup on my Stingray, which I assume is oxidation of something other than Iron.

@LegateNaarifin Nice. This kind of stuff is useful. Even your clean sound has some grit to it in the harmonics (presumably from the LeBass?). I've never used a board preamp and my amp has headroom for miles. I'm currently stacking a Pork Loin into a Rat for two levels of gain, but your preamp approach to the low gain grit might be less of a jump from my totally clean sound. Not sure I can afford a 2Notes though, or the footprint for that matter.

I knock them for the reasons stated. Wrongly pricing strings for an entire year seems pretty basic! When challenged they drop the price, so they are even aware of it. Not stocking TC pedals in the store, even though you can buy them online seems bizarre . Maybe Flashbacks and PolyTune's just sell themselves so they don't need to bother? Unfortunately they have no real local competition. I've never had any issues with online sales from Andertons or GAK. I used to live in Cardiff and always found Cranes helpful too. They even had a room where you could crank up an amp or try pedals under realistic conditions. I paid a bit extra for an MXR Envelope Filter from them because I got to try it loud there and then. Ditto Cookes in Norwich. On the subject of stock, I'm not sure stores do stock what sells given the slow turnover I've seen here. I'm guessing they have to hold an agreed minimum stock for major brands like Fender and maybe don't have a choice if they want to stock them at all.

@chris_b Not treating your customers like mugs or insulting them? Showing some expertise? Just trying to make a sale with knowledge and interest rather than assuming you deserve it? Not telling the customer what they want without listening to their actual needs? Those things cost nothing. I'd rather shop locally, but I'm not going to be treated like a mug in the process.

It'd be really useful if people described how they use their boards and the logic of the signal path. There's so much variety and so little overlap between boards, that I often have a really hard time imagining what combinations of pedals are being used and what kind of noise can be achieved.

@EBS_freak It's possible they were just that rude to everyone of course! I say 'were' because I assume they went out of business.

If you'd visited Carlboro music in Norwich in 1989, I'm sure they'd have treated you like a GOD (provided you could shred of course).

I struggle to think what kind of punter a lot shops do take seriously and even what a guitar shop is for these days. I took the condescension and poor service for granted when I was a kid, on account of looking insufficiently like a member of Guns N Roses, but at this point I've been playing 30+ years and have actual disposable income and play every week in two bands. I buy gear. I don't want to repeatedly put the boot into PMT, but they seem to be utterly clueless. If you are demoing a pedal, at least have some knowledge of what the controls do - Strymon El Capistan - dunno, dunno, dunno - it's 300 quid so find out! Provide an amp and bass that can give some idea of what the pedal will sound like (MXR Bass Distortion through a practice amp and dead strings? No thanks). Get the bass guy to help with bass sales, not the trainee who gleefully tells you he knows nothing about bass gear. Read a bit.They had never even heard of Darkglass as recently as last year (blank look). I know there are more guitarists than bassists, but show some imagination and stock more than entry level Ibanez, twenty different Jazz basses and a couple of Musicman. How about not cramming them in the corner at the back of the shop too? With online trading rules guaranteeing returns, there's almost no point going into a physical store unless the store can add value. Chain shops like this have huge economies of scale (although apparently not enough scale to make stocking TC pedals viable. Really?). If they bothered to keep up with where the market is - what players are talking about and what gear people are excited about, shared some of that enthusiasm and stopped pretending that it's still 1989 and the only true music is classic rock, I'd seriously consider being a customer again. Rant over. I should drink less coffee.

PMT in Nottingham has had 4 and 5 string sets of EB Super Slinky Bass priced the same for the last year at least. Every time I went in there I got them to price check against other stores and every time they admitted it was a mistake in the database. I assume a lot of suckers are paying 5 quid over the odds for 4 string sets. I'm getting mine on-line now. Slinkys shouldn't cost more than D'Addario Pro Steels, that's for sure.

Interesting. I can recall Kevin saying that in general EGC's benefited from heavier strings (resonance) and It'd kind of assumed he was taking a high-mass approach. I guess for basses it's less of an issue since the amount of metal is already very large. I'd sure be tempted if I could afford one!

@Citizen3rased Love the EGC P-Bass. What's the neck profile like? I always imagined 'chunky'.

Coincidentally, I was in fact desperate for a pee. If you look at the b/w photo earlier in the thread, you will see that someone had thoughtfully blockaded the door to the Gents with a table!

Wish I could stand still whilst playing! I've never been cool.

Isn't the problem with headstocks, the lawsuit issue? There are only a few practical ways of arranging the machine heads and resonance deadspot issues if you get the amount of wood beyond the nut wrong. Meanwhile Fender's lawyers are waiting to pounce. Personally, I've always liked the Travis Bean 'open T' design. Probably doesn't work with wood though.

Looks like somebody filmed some of our set on Saturday. Be gentle, folks, the monitors are for show purposes only. No actual sound is coming out of them!

Another really good one under adverse circumstances. Mixed bill again and quite a rowdy audience. Everyone is watching my fingers during this intro on account of there not being any monitors. An older folkie couple came up and chatted afterwards, saying they'd seen us a few times and made the trip especially. Looks like my hunch about our target audience might be correct.

I've had a listen to the Pedals and Effects demo of the Malekko Scrutator and I think I've found what I'm looking for. The expression control of the filter sweep looks very useful and the basic crushed sound is just what I'm after. Time to start saving!

First gig of 2018. We shlepped down to Birmingham for an 'originals only' night at a folk-club. I wasn't too hopeful. The usual mix of singer-songwriters, us and one other band (who most of the audience seemed to be there for). The promoter then swapped the running order so we had to headline to a crowd who had literally no idea what we sounded like and by the time we went on (very late and with no soundcheck) I was practically asleep. Despite all of this (and some awful level and feedback problems during the first two songs), we totally slayed and the crowd loved it. One of the loudest and most enthusiastic responses we've ever had. Apparently we totally rock. I just wish they could have heard us bring our A game. I'm starting to think that this type of audience - older, folkies - might be worth targeting. I'd assumed the thrash metal aspect of what we do wold be off-putting but apparently if you do it on a cajon and a violin, it's fine!

I long ago learned to avoid 'jam sessions' led by a guitarist, because you will spend the whole evening in 12 bar hell and I avoid R&B bands for exactly the same reason. Not all guitarists are like this of course and I'm pretty lucky at the moment being in two bands with players who just as happy to be lead by whoever has the strongest idea. I'm too old and grumpy for second class treatment and would just as soon not play. I did my season in purgatory (R&B/Soul covers band) a few years ago and 'never again'. They did try to rehearse without me once though. The sax player later said that he didn't know what the bass really did, but without it the entire band fell apart.

Just to confuse matters further, I'm in band with players who learned the German notation system. So B is H and Bb is B. This caused considerable confusion when presented with the changes shorthanded as chord names! I live in a world of 'do we mean your B or mine?'

I've been on a massive Nerve / John Davis tip recently and consequently have been thinking about bit-crushers and LPFs. I think what I'm after is a Frantabit, but these don't seem to be readily available (even Iron Ether don't appear to have any at present). I know Earthquaker make some crazy stuff, but I'm not convinced that the Bit Commander does quite the same things as the Frantabit. I did wonder about the little Mooer as a 'toe in the water' but I'm not sold on the sound. What other realistic (i.e. available) alternatives are there? Expression pedal control would be a definite plus

I've never liked the Jazz nut width. It's not the nut itself that's the problem, it's the fact that the string spacing at the bridge doesn't appear to compensate for the narrow nut width, so there is an appreciable feeling of 'flare' as you move up the neck. I have smallish hands - and I'm small for a bass player - but I find my Stingray (1.625" I think) is far more comfortable for that reason at least. If the Jazz neck remained narrow, I think I'd be way more into it.

Anyone tried the MXR? I'm quite interested because I'm after something that will allow an expression pedal to control the decay time and I'm surprised at how few choices there are (i.e TC, Strymon most of the Earthquaker pedals, Keeley, Neunaber don't have it). Boss do , but I wasn't keen on the RV6 when I had it.