Stub Mandrel

2 hours ago, TheGreek said:

I know somebody who owned an alu necked bass - complained that his hands stank of metal for hours after every time he played it.

The problem is all the aluminium necks or bodies I've seen are polished alloy which tends to feel horrible.

Anodised aluminium feels lovely, but doesn't have the same look.

Whoever invented self-adhesive plectrum dispensers deserves a long, slow and painful termination.

My brother bought his wife a lovely Ibanez Talman semi-acoutsic with a gorgeous figured top (basically everything a Fender American Acoustasonic Telecaster should be except it looks fantastic, not sh1te like the Fenders).

First thing she did was fit a crappy pick dispenser on the front 😱

Meths and white spirit are what I use, stickness that responds to one of these rarely comes off with the other.

Why not turn up wearing fake JH moustaches and see if he sues...

26 minutes ago, Unknown_User said:

The bass player in the band on after us used what looked like a cello bow to play one song.  First time I've seen that technique before!

Have you considered a dog or cat?

11 minutes ago, subaudio said:

 Big plus one for this, with good quality phone mics these days and very affordable Zoom recorders and cameras, to me every band should do this, plus, sometimes, a mistake can yeild really interesting new note choices that would be lost without a recording.

The guitarist brought in his laptop a focusrite box a a couple of mics. I've got similar. If you have a laptop already you can get a recording setup with a pair of small condensor mikes for very modest outlay.

Mike placement is key - as far away from teh sound spources as possible (assuming you are in a small practice room with sound deadening walls).

10 hours ago, Meddle said:

11 hours ago, Chownybass said:

If that’s what you want to call it. 

My point was that anything on aliexpress is not ours  

 

Its a shame that I've spotted clones of both your hollow basses and David's Vantage/RV4 designs on there. Either the original factories simply keep building them or the designs get passed around: 

I don't know much about the bass market but I do know a lot about the background to importing tools and machine tools.

In China (not sure about India) they are very efficient at resource use. Any QC fails are often sold at the back door or passed on to a 'family member'. If you are lucky they then get repaired (I've had speed controllers which had failed reflow soldering and been manually resoldered by someone in boxing gloves with plumbers solder, but they worked) or just tidied up a bit. They then get sold to Ali Baba, Aliexpress, eBay etc. and people see they look to all intents identical to the 'real thing'.

Down the road, the buyers complain of poor quality Chinese products and lack of spares/seller support...

My advice is always buy imports off a seller who has the size to hold spares, undertake quality control and give you customer service if anything is wrong. This does cost more but you are actually paying for something worth having.

We also shared started record the sessions and shared the best version of each song afterwards to practice against at home. Helps nail endings!

+1 for making sure everyone is learning the same version - we shared you-tube links to solve this.

I got a ridiculously cheap but well made TC Electronic 'forcefield'.

It's effect seems to be that of the legendary 'better knob' for many songs.

There are songs where no compression is better.

Wish I'd never sold my Arion compressor back in the 90s.

On 15/05/2019 at 11:23, stewblack said:

Any Basschatters travelling from Manchester to the west country? 

I thought you were downsizing... and you just bought a chownybackker!

I could bring it to you when I collect the westone if he can get it to Burton.

I'd love a TE amp and would consider it myself if it wasn't totally fugly.

I've got a Squier VM SS Jaguar bass and it is superb to play and look at (candy apple red!) but I had to mod the J pickup with extra neodymium magnets to get a decent sound from them.

OTOH I have a 1980s Fender Performer and the range and quality of sounds from it is outstanding.

On 14/05/2019 at 11:10, Ant1972 said:

Btw, what are everyone's thoughts on short scale bass Vs regular for a beginner?

Having rediscovered short scale basses, they are far too good to waste on beginners.

9 hours ago, Ant1972 said:

Unfortunately the shipment was missing the tuner (so I can't tune the guitar)

Google 'tune bass harmonics'

On 16/05/2019 at 21:43, Ricky 4000 said:

Your "R" is more like a cartoon "R".

Expect to be sued by Toys 'R' Us...

Just now, Meddle said:

You guys commission shadow builders to produce them to your designs, specs and price points, right? David doesn't fly to China to personally break out the chisels and spokeshaves.

In a global economy what's the difference between guys in a factory in China/India making it for you and guys in a factory in Englandmaking it for you (except price)?

9 hours ago, oldslapper said:

Only if Taxidermy becomes popular again 🥴

Get stuffed 😉

Rare set of unused flatwound strings. Genuine new old stock from before the time everyone realised flatties sound ... <no signal> 👿

5 hours ago, ambient said:

anacrusis

Thank you for teaching me a new word.

Now know what my dumpty-dumpty-dums are really called.

8 minutes ago, oZZma said:

I'm almost 42. This is pathetic, isn't it?

No.

It's bloody fantastic that you can share these feelings.  

My advice is, don't get to hung up on what you have to achieve, just treat music as an end in itself.

If there's someone you get a chance to play with, but they are a bit over-confident or like different music, don't worry about it. Don't treat it as a chore, playing what they like is an opportunity for you to make THEIR life better.

Don't force things, but don'y get too hung up on what you play.

I signed up for a 'weekend warrior' sort of thing where I've been thrown together with a random bunch of guys of varying experience from 'I used to sing but I've taken up guitar eighteen months ago' to 'I'm in two bands'), two about my age (mid-late 50s) two a bit older. We have had seven practice sessions (OK we booked the rehearsal room for an extra last night). the gig, with four other similar bands, is on Sunday.

I was nervous we would end up playing either old rock'n'roll numbers or lowest common denominator stuff.

In the end we are playing songs we all really like and having a storming time. One thing is we are all putting in the effort and the amazing thing is when we listen back to recordings we are surprisingly good!

The point is, I used to be in bands up until 23(!) years ago and have been really miserable about my music going nowhere, so my brothers (who both play) really told me to get some targets like learning some new stuff right through rather than just noodling riffs. This thing has given me a combination of the comradeship of being thrown together with four other random but surprisingly like-minded guys and the reason to get my act together. I was impressed by how fast and how many songs I learnt (we changed the list a fair bit in the first week or two) and how my playing has come on. I found some of the songs really hard to learn and technically challenging - now I can't see what the problem was!

The only downside is wondering what life will be like when it ends - except the one guitar player and me both love the same sort of music and could end up starting a band.

So my suggestion is consider something similar. The best thing is that once other people are relying on you, motivation isn't an issue but teh payback is just how rewarding it is.

On 11/05/2019 at 22:46, Stub Mandrel said:

Just added a Behringer Ultra Tremelo for 'Boulevard of Broken Dreams' but I've a feeling it will be hard to synch the 'drum machine' to it. If I punch in a rhythm he will punch me back... 🙂

We did some 'A B testing' last night and decided playing staccato eights sounds better defined.

To finish the set I need a really f'd up sound already got HM2, Flange and Chorus so going to use the tremelo on that as well for maximum noise death.

I took my fretless to a rehearsal and managed to play everything on it. Once or twice I got cocky and tried to do a big position shift without looking...

Decided not to use it for Sunday, although back when I was gigging regularly I used to use it on a few songs each night.

8 minutes ago, BreadBin said:

Drowning out my nextdoor neighbours punk with music by Noisia, I find this childishly amusing.

When I lived in a maisonette the son of the couple who lived above visited and played the Chilli Peppers rather loud.

As soon as the track finished, I played it back to him considerably louder.

That worked 🙂

2 hours ago, Woodinblack said:

and depending on the speed you are playing maybe that is a better way of playing it.

I really doubt it...

I've installed guitar pro but it's a bit tricky and I don't have the time to get to know it at the moment.