prowla

I have to say in that test, I didn't identify my own vintage Rickenbacker (though actually I rarely played it through an amp and I think the horseshoe magnet may need re-magnetising), but I thought the other Ric might be it; I could say that there are some considerations which the test didn't cover and so I'd be wary of taking the results standalone: The riff @cetera was playing was restricted to the first 7 frets; a characteristic of a Ric is how its sound changes as you go up the neck (because of the Bass/neck pickup). The amp settings were the same, so a more powerful or active bass might have a more impressive sound. I don't know if the tone settings were flat, but that might not be what the various owners/afficionados might choose and so migh mask the "tells" of the various instruments. I do agree and often say the instrument is the bass + the amp(s) + the speakers + the rest of the signal chain (+ the venue). But the thing is though that you can optimise the signal chain to accentuate the features of the instrument; the most obvious example of that is splitting the pickups to different channels (Rick-O-Sound, Billy Sheehan, etc.), so that you can tune each idependently. So, I don't agree that any bass will do. Some other considerations: You can't ignore who is playing the instrument: Geddy Lee said that he bought a Ric thinking he'd sound like Chris Squire and found out he didn't. You can tune in to a particular instrument, for example Chris Squire said the Ric folks made a copy of his RM1999, but it sounded nothing like it. Geddy Lee used a Ric and a Jazz on Moving Pictures; the distorted sound on the lower 7 frets is remarkably similar, but if I play songs on a Ric and a Jazz I can catch the nuances. I have two 2010 Ric 4003 basses and they sound different. I was in a music store and heard a glorious double bass sound from the next room; I went there to check it out and was totally surprised to see it was someone playing a Ric through a Markbass amp (which is what i have). I once put a Seymour Duncan pickup on a Ric and could not get the Ric sound; I've had different pickups on Precisions and they do not sound the same. I went to a guitar show on the weekend and played one bass there which had been custom built with a MM pickup (with series/parallel/single-coil) and a Precision one, plus active/passive; I would say that each option sounded distinctly different and certainly not just more or less the same. As to Pink Floyd, I'd say the bass has a pretty nondescript sound.

The bully plays the victim.

My Status collection (the Frankenstein is now complete). I would like a headless 5-string at some point...

Is Mr Grumpy in the house today? 🙂

So, how can I sound like Geddy then? 🙂

I'm guessing China will show its hand pretty soon. And Trump won't be able to do diddley-squat. The previously on-side countries will be forced to do more trade with China and the US's influence will be diminished. Far from making America great again, it could well achieve the exact opposite. Every action has an equal and opposite reaction...

Biden and Obama were no friends of the UK, but at least they didn't actively try to trash things at the global level. My opinion is that Trump has already done probably irreversible damage to the USofA brand, bizzarely by attacking supposedly friendly countries, whilst probably only Russia and Israel would endorse his actions and China sits by eating the popcorn.

Maybe annexing Canada is his route to getting a US passport. 🙂

Ah - the irony... https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c201z4lv5xxo Elon Musk's electric carmaker Tesla has warned it and other US exporters could be harmed by countries retaliating to Donald Trump's trade tariffs.

Well, up until recent weeks I'd viewed him as an entrepreneur and innovator. The facade appears to have slipped and now he comes across more as a wrecker and supremacist.

There is good cause for the bridge (& strings) being earthed. However, strap buttons are standalone and so don't need it. A downside of the bridge (and strings) being earthed is that if anything live touches you whilst playing, you're the route to Gnd. That happened to me on stage once - the singer's mic was live, he put his arm around me, there was a bang, and the venue's lights went out! (I spent the next band practice checking & rewiring all of the extension leads: some had loose connections and there was even one with a plug at each end which plugged live into a socket on another piece of kit.) I suppose if the bridge hadn't been earthed then nothing would've happened.

I watched this movie a couple of months ago. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_War_(film)

They were only following orders...

That is a joke, right? (Hopefully.)

Was it the guy with the Shafty Ric copy fo sale too?

Yep - that vintage pedal which didn't sound the greatest back in the day is now a treasured collector's piece.

I wonder when it will sink in with Trump that he's being played... https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cg70y3ydmdno

Cor - I haven't logged in to eBay for a while. Weird choice of pictures.

I would like a Rail - nearly picked one up at an event a few years back, but I hesitated and when I went back it was gone. Re. Earthing: as noted, the jack is on the moving bit; I'd guess that the knurled locking screw at the top of the pickup assembly transfers the connection down the rail and to the bridge? (I'd assume that both rails are grounded.)

Yep. Building the skills base isn't an overnight job and could be generational. Ironically immigration can provide a short-term fix for this, but it can then quickly become the established norm, and so the indigenous skilled staff never materialises. It's a bit like the plans to build loads of houses here, where there aren't enough appropriately skilled workers to do the jobs, or nursing, where there are apparently lots of qualified Filipinos ready to step in. You can't just snap your fingers and say "Make it so!". Another side of it, which you allude to there is that the nasty, polluting work has been offshored/exported, so bringing it back would impact climate figures.

I wonder how an export-led economy will work if the other countries have 25% tariffs on the goods.

Yep - Trump's policies don't quite seem joined up - a curious blend of protectionism coupled with imperialist expansionism. (My suspicion is that he's said to Putin: you can have Ukraine and the rest of the former USSR if I can have Canada and Greenland.)

"Offline!"