Stub Mandrel

Featuring guest death-metal vocalist - Alvin the Chipmunk...

LOL! I read the first three pages and then posted... ah well, great minds etc.!

Anything by Dio. The sheer crushing brilliance of Ronnie, including his theatricality and ability to mesmerize an audience collapsing into utter cheese on video. It's the contrast between the music and the imagery that makes them so bad. And what the hell does a pervert in the park have to do with an anthem of hope and joy?

I never had a problem with a small Antex iron, since the 70s, I just used to fit a bigger bit and be patient when required. These days I have an Antex rework station with thermostatic hot air gun and low voltage temperature controlled 40W iron the size of my old 15W one. It's the dogs, but will set you back the price of a decent bass (or two if they are Hardly Bent-Ones). https://uk.farnell.com/antex/760rwk-uk/rework-station-60w-230v-uk-plug/dp/2422171

That's the benefit of hindsight, at the time it was neither clichéd, nor 80's rock. Well if it was, it was ahead of it's time in '79...

Glad you followed my advice on 'how to organise a pedal board'. 🙂

Clapton. Once he was brilliant. He lost his way with drugs and mental health issues. That racist rant can be, perhaps, forgiven but not forgotten. Not for being in a different context, but because he was screwed up. The worst aspect being that it was a kick in the teeth for all the people whose shoulders he had stood on, and others who were (and some who still are) his friends. It was certainly a nadir for a life that's had some ups and downs. But I'm willing to believe that wasn't the 'real' Clapton. It was sensibly, if not fully, explored in that recent documentary. I don't think his views were as deeply rooted as, say, Wagner's anti-semitism, but that doesn't stop me appreciating Wagner's music - it does help give it a context. But for Clapton, that rant doesn't seem to make any sense in the context of his life and music. Ironically when Clapton got his stinky poo back together, he had completely lost his edge, musically, at least as a songwriter. He can still achieve brilliance as a soloist, but like Mark Knopfler he's wholeheartedly embraced the middle of the musical road for his own output. And if we are all going to have any chance of living in harmony, we have to remember to 'hate the sin, not the sinner' and accept that people can change and redeem themselves {all said in a religion-neutral way].

Magnificent band, but I've only just realised that Demis Roussos is one of US

Sounds nice and rich.

If you're standing in front of a combo next to a drum kit your wrist may get more volume than your ears.

It's Lidl... so they tell you in the instruction booklet. A-weighting only. +/- 1.5dB @ 1kHz 'standard source'. And they give the A-weighting and tolerance in octave steps from 31.5Hz to 8Khz. It's +/- 1.5dB from 125Hz to 1Khz.

I picked up a sound meter at Lidl for £9.99. It claims to be accurate to +/- 1.5dB. Has the features you would expect including min/max and hold. The microphone appears to be 'unidirectionalish'. If its as reliable as most of their electronics it should have a number of practical uses, from checking on stage sound levels to comparing amps and speakers to tuning bass ports, especially tasks where comparisons are more important than absolute accuracy. May be off the shelves soon but I don't expect it to sell out rapidly...

Love me like a reptile....

This is what my £77 Harley Benton p-bass kit build sounds like. Fitted with Fender flatwounds. Through an Orange Crush 25 and recorded on my phone.

Troy's videos are great, always easy to see what he's doing and pretty much straight although sometimes he adds little bits one the end 🙂

IIRC they started being branded Arbor series a year or three after I got that one.

My first bass - Hohner, about 1986? My Brother still has it.

"Oops, we couldn’t find that track. "

Well that's a bit of country I can appreciate, but I do feel sorry for the bass player and dummer...

Was able to pay my tanglewood a few days ago. It's almost as loud as an acoustic 6-string but is a pure acoustic(until i put a pickup in it). It needs a setup though, nut cut deeper, truss rod, possibly drop bridge <1mm.

Ha... the challenge here is to make my freshly minted song a valid entry. So the poster is advertising a Shadow Play, but ripping off Rory Gallagher woudl be cheating. However, in this warped tale an unexpected incident casts a dark shadow over the village green... Actualy as the poster is promoting 'composers' any piece composed by anyone is probably eligible if it meets the dates... 😆

You can improve youe ear with practice just like anything else, When I started out I struggled to tell what key something was in. After a few years I took singing lessons and the tutor said my relative pitch was fantastic (although I don't have perfect pitch). These days I can get in key withon 2 or 3 notes, but I struggle to work fast passages out by ear. Generally i find a tab and then work through fininding any errors..

I came across an exercise which was playing a riff in eighth notes, then every so often speeding up to sxiteenths for a bar, keeping time. It was a really good exercise and helped me step up a notch in my playing.