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Being forced to take piano lessons, which I really hated, for just over a year pretty much killed off any interest I had in music from about the age of 9. Before that I have vague memories of thinking Guns & Roses were good. Although I never got into them subsequently. So I actually avoided music up until I was about 15. Then I got into the Lightning Seeds and started looking for more bands. I got into the Wannadies, Presidents of the USA and then Foo Fighters. At which point I just went mental for almost any contemporary rock and metal music. This was about the time that grunge was still en-vogue and nu-metal was starting to take off so it was a good time for it. So Everclear, Tura Satana / My Ruin, Marilyn Manson, Queen Adreena, At the Drive In, Deftones, Slipknot, RATM and most of anything else that would have been on the Radio 1 Rock Show with Mary Anne Hobbs, the MTV Rock Show with Julia Valet or the VH1 Rock Show with Tommy Vance from like 1996 to 2003. Having joined a covers band a couple of years back has really opened up what I listen to and enjoy, but mostly I still listen to the above, plus a few newer bands of a similar ilk that I've discovered over the years. Mainly though I've always been a sucker for something fast and heavy, with decent hooks and a strong rhythm.

Would it not be air even for a boat? Since that fact that air is lighter than water is what keeps ships afloat.

This! Great bass line. It sounds like it's improvised as there's not really much of a pattern to what he's playing.

I have to confess I think that water one looks pretty good. If it was £120 I'd strongly consider buying it, but even if I won the lottery I wouldn't spend £120k on one just on principle!

Thanks for the reply. I try not to mess around with anything that would plug into 240V! How long is longer than I might think though? Are we talking in hours or days?

Means nothing to me I'm afraid. I've heard the name but never been tempted by it! I'm afraid as I'm getting older I have a much lower tolerance for horrific depictions of awful violence. I just can't watch films even with blood and killing any more. Sincerely, A. Biggtart

Chortling at him positioning his finger with his other hand whilst demonstrating a song in a guitar shop!

I have to say @oZZma , I much preferred your previous profile pic to this pencil thing!

Interesting. I've been getting something similar, but not as bad, more often recently. My fretting hand and forearm becomes numb. Especially around the ring and little fingers. Particularly when playing Sweet Home Alabama for some reason. No idea why as it's not exactly hard work to play. I've tried different ways to hold the neck when playing it but that doesn't seem to make much difference. I'll try putting my wedding ring on my picking hand at the next gig and see if that makes any difference. Cheers!

Roughly how long would a capacitor in an amp store charge for? Do you have to do anything in particular to help them lose charge or just unplug the thing and wait?

This was part of the reason why one of the bands I'm in lost their drummer. The drummer demanded to play with a click and it caused constant problems. Especially on songs which started with 4 bars of guitar riff. Which unfortunately is quite a few of them! It sounded rubbish him counting with his sticks or hats/cymbals all through and the guitarist hated it as he found it hard to jump straight in at the exact tempo. It kind of killed the vibe and made everything more awkward. Other players doing different songs may well have better results of course! As always there's no right answer and it depends how it fits your situation. I think it's good for recording so you can set everything up in the DAW and keep it all consistent, but for live performances I would be worried about it negatively affecting the dynamics or flow of the song.

Is that genuine? I was a big fan of the Lightning Seeds in my formative years and I (obviously mistakenly) thought Prince sang "lightning seeds" in that song.

All things pass, but don't forget that you just "lived the dream" for a whole 13 months! From what you said you acquired a load of awesome bass gear, improved your skills no end, made new friends, spent a gap year out of the rat race and got to a point where people know what you're about and want to ask you back. I type this sat in the same office for the past 14.5 years bored off my cake. I'm massively jealous. I hear you that you had to go through a bad time to get you to that point, but wow. You've done something amazing out of that adversity and you'll always have what you gained in the past 13 months of your life that no one can take away from you. There's no sham in needing to eat. If you take that same motivation you had in joining bands, replying to ads, etc., along with the contacts you've made and skills you've learned, into the next 13 months then you never know where you may end up a year from now. You could make a few bob teaching, being a sound guy at a local venue or theatre and still bring in the odd £50 playing bass at the weekend. So what if that means doing deliveries or working behind a supermarket checkout somewhere? The reality is you will still get to do what you love, but you just have to do something else as well to pay for it. It doesn't make you any less of a musician. Good luck mate and be proud of what you've done. Superb posting!

I think a band from the early noughties called Pretty Girls Make Graves were apparently named after a Smiths song. I don't know anything about the Smiths though so I might be wrong!

Ha! I'd agree with all of those! In fact I'm printing it off.

When I take my fretting hand away on an open string I'm usually shaking it to get the blood flowing back into it because it's starting to cramp up. I don't see the problem with doing it just to pose though. You could argue that getting annoyed with it because it might make people think you aren't doing something sufficiently complicated is equally being a poser by trying to con people into thinking you're doing something more exciting than you actually are. Then again that's not a problem for me, as people often compliment me on my bass playing by telling me how difficult I made it look!

Thanks very much for that. At first I thought that white stuff around many of the solder joints was dust but having tried to wipe it I think it may be like some sort of lacquer off the circuit board has come loose. Or maybe melted during soldering?

Thanks all! I have managed to get the thing out by removing the jack socket nuts and some careful wiggling! I've only ever rolled my own pedals before so I hadn't seen those types of jack sockets that fastened onto the board before. Now I just need to find a way to force this potentiometer shaft back into the plastic bit!

Interesting. I never considered that. I'll have a look. You can't even wiggle the PCB even a little bit at any of the corners. So something is sticking it in there pretty fast. Unfortunately you can't really see anything under the board other than just the 3PDT switch.

I'm not sure if it will, but here goes!

Can anyone assist me in cracking open a defective guitar pedal? My mate has a Moen tremolo pedal that keeps cutting out. I stupidly offered to have a look at it for him but I'm having problems getting into it properly. I can remove the base plate but the circuit board seems fastened somehow. The 3PDT switch is soldered to the board so I loosened the nut around that, the pots and the flip switch on the top of it thinking that would do it but the board was still stuck in there fast. Unfortunately when trying to take the knobs off the potentiometers, one brought the stem of the pot out with it. Now I could easily repair or replace that if I could get to it somehow, but I can't remove the PCB to do it. There's a small circle cut out of the middle of the board which looks to have a tiny screw in there (much smaller than any screwdriver I have). I suppose that must be the way to remove the board but before I mess with that and potentially compound error upon error, has anyone got any experience with these things and how to get into them? If I do manage it am I likely to be able to fasten it back up again? Thanks for any assistance. I promise I've learned my lesson about trying to be helpful!

Oh no we don't!

Haha! Next time, man. You probably play classier joints than we do!

Played a pub gig at a regular spot last night. They demanded an extra song after the encore so we chanced our arm on "Walk Like an Egyptian", which we had not played live before and only got right for the first time at our last practice about three weeks ago. It was probably the best number we did and there were a couple of people stood on top of the bar doing the dance for it!

Definitely this and this. Sounds cynical but to stay sane you almost have to look at it as a transaction in a sense. Weigh up the pros and cons of do you want to be playing something that's not exactly what you want, but is at least getting you out there and you're learning and meeting new people. Is the perfect thing worth the hassle of getting people together or just not working at the moment? Definitely don't limit yourself and the more you do, the more doors can open.