Stub Mandrel

After a conversation yesterday I'm seriously considering sticking a generic class D module in my ancient Laney Pro-Bass together witha an SMPSU to lose a lot of weight and gain a lot of headroom.

Surely Flora is the Middle Age Spread?* *I'm allowed to laugh having fought MAS and won a sensible cholesterol level as a result...

To be honest was first and foremost an exercise in seeing if I could concentrate enough for two hours and play a random selection of songs accurately on my fretless. Plus, we are covering not duplicating and there are one or two songs where I think it fits. One is Crazy Little Thing Called Love where I also turned the tone right down (p-bass) and might even stuff some sponge in the ashtray just to max-out the original rock & roll feel. I only found myself short of dynamics on one song, so I just switched my compressor off 🙂

Did our rehearsal last night on fretless to see which songs sounded best on it. Saturday Night went fine but Stay With me was challenging - on the main riff I normally just 'pop' my middle finger to lazily go from e-string to d-string, but it doesn't work very well without frets, and I kept forgetting to move my fingertip across! Also had a discussion with our lead guitarist about a potential covers band 🙂 We have similar musical tastes and both want to learn songs quickly and get gigging, not be forever 'trying out new material'.

Just missing smiley, I fgured your list was trying to be as 'out there' as possible 🙂

Last couple of visits to Cardiff - PMT crammed to the gills, Cranes, a few doors away, almost deserted. From, the Street Cranes looks like a shop for 'serious' musicians - "please show your Grade 8 certificate to the attendant before approaching the instruments". But out the back, loads of nice guitars (not many basses) and knowledgeable friendly guys. OTOH, PMT sucks in all the wannabees and djent-merchants and has killed off most of the competition.

Allow me to correct that for you...

Just about any combination of the musicians on Stephen Still's first solo album?

Angus Young?

You want sacrilege? Squirt expanding polyurethane foam in the f-holes 😈

I found this neck in a skip 🙂 The eBay body blank belonged in one... it was almost as soft as balsa!

For something a bit different for sort of psychadelic jazz/folk: Dave Pegg or Jack Bruce Simon House or Jerry Goodman Cozy Powell or Billy Cobham Jorma Kaukonen or Leslie West

Check this out, found it on a 'what are you listening to thread'. Jump to 1:50 if need be!

I got snapped at the Midlands Bash. As you can see I am either of enormous size or that's a 24" scale bass...

Here's the K-2T - just bit of plywood with pickups screwed on the front! His MDF guitar is 40 years late!

Having a gig in the diary does focus the mind! This came up in conversation at the Bass chat; there are bands that never get past rehearsal. In contrast for the 'weekend warrior' event I'm doing we have to perform 5-8 songs. We have 9 and have dropped a few - and only done four rehearsals. We are all old enough and ugly enough to know you learn songs at home and use rehearsal to practice playing them together!

This is just to pile on the guilt about the Westone Thunder so I end up paying £2K for it... 😆

An ancient (30+ years) pair of 12" Mackenzies in a box made to similar dimensions to the 12x12 cab I already had. I think they are intended for guitar use and happy in an open back cab so probably pretty robust. I have tried to get Thiele Small parameters for them but they have no identifying model details. If I can find a nice cardboard tube of suitable diameter I will experiment with different port sizes. Actuially looking at the chart on my earlier thread they might be the 12-100 TC - they have big voice coils and twin cones.

After having them explained, I've just had one of my speakers wired up to a signal generator. Distressed to see the sound dropping like a stone below 69Hz. I removed a handle to create a port in the side... and it got slightly worse 😞

Start of the 90s we used to practice in a room in an old mansion that a band who lived there had converted into a practice room. There was an unloved and funny-shaped bass in the corner, gummed up with tobbaco smoke and dust. We agreed £80 as it was bass no-one wanted. It's now my treasured Fender Performer :-) Then last October, found the match for my Hohner B2, a Jack Custom V. Then the guy said tehre's a case too - a hard case and inside it a jack lead and Dunlop QR strap... all for £130, and it had a fresh battery in it!

Representing the Campaign for Real Sideburns... Why has Ritchie got bird poo all over his jacket? And that Rainbow must have given him ideas...

No, I mean a really Really REALLY weedy sound.

Amazing that a layer of varnish weighs 2lbs!

I found this thread:

The weak point with reviews by companies that sell things is that if they are in a position to review they have to sell them too... I sometimes review things (not instruments!) and my rule is if it doesn't make the grade I let them know why and don't write the review - why promote something not up to scratch?, In one case I didn't want to undermine a product that I know many people swear by but just wouldn't work well with me equipment, despite much help and advice from their techie).