Stub Mandrel

Have you ever had one of your basses go flat mid song? I have, fortunately when practising, my mid 80s five-string active bass goes flat over a less than 30 seconds, when it goes. It's quite extraordinarily dramatic and not what I would expect, but it does happen. Having a switch over (which is not difficult for anyone with the ability to design a decent preamp) is an insurance policy, not a lifestyle choice. MInd you, I have never really understood what advantage having a pre-amp in the bass has over having one in a pedal (or even a decent one in your amp). Sonically the only possible different so a slightly greater signal-to-noise ratio that can just as easily be achieved with a decent cable...

This year I will give everyone a PP3, four AAs and eight AAAs, which I think is more than a tad generous.

Instead of a pitch shifter, a tempo shifter that makes it sound like I can play twice as fast 🤣

One of my brother's mates got him a custom action figure made for his birthday. It's definitely more accurate than Lemmy's:

I have two in the door pocket of my car, just in case. But in my view the schoolboy error is designing an active bass that won't switch to passive.

I like playing along to the radio. I don't mean trying to be not perfect, but seeing ho fast I can pick up the key and style, and how well I can anticipate the changes especially in unfamiliar songs. I couldn't do this for toffee twenty odd years ago, but much better now - has helped give me the confidence to improvise/jam in a rock idiom which has already proven useful (nothing impresses a guitarist more than when you can play along without asking for the chords 🙂 they are easily pleased).

Schaller are American. It's likely that they are designed to be used with 1/8" Imperial size Allen keys rather than 3mm. OOps... no they are German! They say " Simply screw it on with an Allen key (size 3mm/ 1/8"). " Looks like they use a 1/8" socket in the hope it will be OK with 3mm and it isn't...

I have an inverter drive on one of my lathes. It uses high voltage, high capacity capacitors. The instructions make it clear that you should switch it on for fifteen minute once a year to condition the capacitors if it is generally unused. This is because electrolytic capacitors literally use an electrolytically deposited film which is maintained by use and can degrade over time. What's happened here is that the caps have partially repaired but not completely. The take away is that all electronic equipment benefits from occasional use.

This is very true. If I start repeating a mistake I either stop or slow down.

You end up with the side dots in what, to me, are the wrong places. Plus unlined necks look nicer 🙂

You need a bradawl. Or file a point on an old beat up small crosshead. Actually better than a drill for small holes as the screw has more to grip, and less likely to wander if drilling a pugged hole where the plug may be much harder/softer than the surrounding material. (Often, I use my pillar drill - I put a sheet on the table to prevent scratches).

+1 on the Rumbles in terms of weight, performance and cost. They sound good, if lacking a strong character.

More seriously we are exhorted to put compressors before distortion/overdrive pedals. This can help make sure the effect is balanced as you go up the neck as such effects tend to fade out otherwise. But the cost is you lose a lot of the subtlety of changing tone you get as notes attack and fade that guitarists revel in.

And your point is? 🤣

I get fed up with sellers who list 'samples' as a con to get listed at the top of the 'lowest price inc. P&P list'. This may be genuine of course, if they are making the scratchplates themselves and sending offcuts

I've made a few comments about over-ornateness of many Alembics, but I think to be fair I should be more specific as there's really only one feature that puts me right off, and ironically here's a peach of an example: I really don't want a dual function bass/pickle fork.

If a Squier is out of reach, I don't think you can go far wrong with either of those.

Fonky. IMHO it would be great if music shops provided backing tracks (or even just drum tracks) for when you try out a bass. At the very least it might stop some of the slapmeisters in their tracks 🙂

AC/DC All of them (except Angus) sacked 2017. Re-hired 2020.

For me Hold Out Your Hand makes the cut 🙂

No love for Fish out of Water?

Launderette and roast chicken noted...

All the best pedals are brown.

Even my mate who was Yes's greatest fan warned me that Tales from Topo should only be approached with care, once you had acclimatised to their other albums (this was back in the 80s...)

I have the Murder Ballads, cheerful soul our Nick.