Stub Mandrel

OK you win Pedant of the Year 2025. Congratulations! You win a place on my ignore list.

On topic ... Harley Benton kit (my covid project) with a Squier neck off here that already had a dodgy decal. No plan to sell it, only gigged once. Suppose I'm hoping someone will complement its sound or look so I can say 'well actually...'

Sorry... "could care less" so 24% of respondents care about this issue? Horrible American mangling of the phrase "couldn't care less".

Terry Williams said he was very pleased when he rewatched it.

6' 8" apparently!

Two gigs this weekend. Still not 100% but improved enough today I think I'll be OK. One on Barry Island. I only went to the original Beir Keller once, to see Nik Turner's All-Stars. I remember at the end everyone ran to the bar for a last beer... leaving me standing alone with Nik, and we had a brief chat. It's been resurrected after 40 years! They have private parking for load in! Edmondes, I've only seen from the outside but Facebook suggests it is very dancy.

Looking at the advice, if it was me, I would find the cash as it seems an opportunity to 'try out' double bass with minimal risk. It looks like, with care, you can just tune up and try it. Obviously a setup would be advantageous but beyond that it would be decide whether to stick with and possibly improve it, or to get a better instrument. My only advice would be that it seems easy to dislodge the soundpost when changing strings. It's a far better starting point than the one in this thread:

Intimidate the riff-raff, that's the way to do it 😁

I bet Devoroast would be a bit different.

Spoke to my brother earlier. His band closed out the local free festival, Cadstock... daily attendance is about 4,000.

Maybe <gasp> he didn't switch in the pre-shape!

That was the first thing I noticed about his Live Aid sound, a bit throatier than a nasal 'funk' sound, but definitely not scooped.

My first electric guitar came with flatwound strings fitted. Stuck with them for a little while, but they were like hen's teeth even in the late 70s. Nowadays the province of serious jazz guitarists.

My Embassy, with friends 🙂

Absolutely. If I were to buy a Musicman, it would be a candy apple red Bongo regardless of price considerations.

It's no different to me saying that I find the more ornate Alembic basses ugly. I'd never want to buy one, but that doesn't stop me having a view.

In trad jazz, the number of soloists is inversely proportional to the musicianship. If everyone gets a solo, in every song, you can be pretty sure the mediocrity rating is off the scale.

They connect to a shock coil. If you slap, you get zapped. 😁

First Bass Owned: Hohner jazz copy ~1985, pre-arbor series. 'Go To' Bass: Flea Jazz. The one I use if I need to be in my comfort zone. 'Your bass': I don’t use it much nowadays, but the best sounding bass I have has always been my Hohner B2.

I used to use my fretless for a few songs at every gig way back when. I rarely use it now, but once took it to a bluesfire gig and ended up playing a whole set using it. As Dad says, you can play most stuff perfectly well on fretless.

Back in the late 80s, my first band was Drastic Action. Our vocalist/guitarist left all the lead work to the keys, except for Show Me the Way and like a Hurricane where I got to go completely off-piste. I used to play a mix of the vocal line (with flourish) and then scales based stuff over each chord untill it got silly. I recall I typically had an HM2, a Mini-Phaser, a chorus pedal and god knows what else all mashing my sound.

Following. That's a great looking, tasteful instrument and no doubt it sounds and plays as well as it looks. An excellent tribute.

More.