Stub Mandrel

Certainly. Over the entrance to Broadcasting House are statues by Eric Gill, who had a particularly unpleasant history.

My experience (and I've got two a VM SS Jaguar and a Tele as well as a Fender MIJ bass) and some comparing side by side of 'identical' models is that Squiers generally don't scrimp on build quality but the retro ones are often less accurate in detail (e.g. six part bridge on the tele, different switch knob) and cut corners on pickups (e.g. the tele's bridge pickup was weedier than my garden - now a stacked Dimarzio Humbucker 😈 and I fitted better tuners) and things like not routing the strings through the body, possibly affecting sustain. I'm pretty happy with the jaguar as is, although I plan to try a ceramic to neodyminium magnet upgrade on the bridge pickup - it's reversible and only costs time and a about £2.50. You're also more likely to get things like a bit of extra wood spliced on to make up the width of the head or less well-figured grain on a Squier. 'Try before you buy' and be prepared to consider upgrading pickups and other hardware down the line.

It's very hard to say. It does make me sad, a brother of mine died very young and he loved 'Garold' Glitter's music. I recall being moved seeing Rolf Harris crying while singing (ironically) Two Little Boys on Crackerjack when the audience joined in. One of my steplads was massively into MJ as a teenager, now in his late 30s he's not sure how to feel about the music. 😞 Jimmy Page had a long and well documented relationship with a girl that started when she was 13 or 14. Outside rock, most people accept Wagner was an anti-semite whose music was much used to promote the Nazi's vision of 'Aryan' culture; but it doesn't stop his music being remarkable and widely performed. Churchill was a national hero, but also did some pretty foul things. We should also remember that no-one is perfect; where do you draw the line? Should you play music by someone who once bullied another kid in the school playground or smacked their children? Where do you draw the line? As a society we have to be mature about the difference between the deeds and doer. As things become historical we can enjoy the works but condemn the actions. That said, while things are still more or less contemporary we also have to realise some things might upset some audiences. Some people might get 'offended' by MJ music who just enjoy taking offence, but it might be genuinely quite upsetting to someone who has suffered abuse or be seen as 'flag waving' in support of MJ. I'd tend to err on the side of caution - there's lot's of other music to play while it's at the forefront of everyone's minds. But I wouldn't change radio channels just because Beat It came on.

Err... exactlerly my point, just as 'Sink the Pink' is clearly about snooker whatever smutty minds think 🙂

We Care A Lot About the Garbage Pail Kids They Never Lie 🙂

But how can you do a Billy Sheehan neck-bend with a stretchy strap!?

Most songs by AC/DC...

Is it two really short sets or one really long version to fill the night Jack? That's what I call prog 🙂

This reminds me I once had a jam with the guitarist from Impaler. I basically turned up the bass and daisy chained myself through a HM2 pedal and phaser. This was flat out through 150 watt stack in the living room of the house I was living in. We had a lot of fun and I was later described as a 'def' bass player. They had two guitarists one of whom did the bass, I should have pushed my luck as they might have let me join!

This gorgeous one arrived today! Really long leather tabs and very thick material too and only £3.99 from a UK seller!

You just need three matching guitars 😉

Argh! GAS attack... I'm already obsessed by the Masterbilt six-strings. Hopefully the pronunciation 'zee-nith' will be enough to pot me off.

Might bring my 'stack' then, just for the hell of it 🙂

And something funky I can play!

Silly question... Should I bring an amp? If so a big one or a little one? On the one hand I imagine its a PITA for everyone to be queuing up to plug in. On the other a hall with fifteen people all playing different things at max volume might not be a good idea either...

Interesting reading this, as I'm suffering a fair bit of 'imposter syndrome' at the moment! Personally, I don't think I'm particularly good. I certainly can't keep up with the sort of clips/examples that get held up as skilled bass playing. That said, the majority of the songs I hear on the radio are probably within my reach. I read another thread that said how your fingers turn into rubber in guitar shops - that's me! I do have a few skills. If I have a melody in my head I can usually play it, if I know a song already once I have sussed the key I can usually bodge some sort of basic accompaniment. I do take time learning new songs, but when I was in bands I learned some pretty complex (if not fast) basslines and was able to perform them to everyone's satisfaction and the very occasional compliment. I'd like to think there are two measures of your skill. One is How technically proficient are you? The other is how well does your playing fit in with your band? I guess I score low on the first, but I think I did well on the second - at least for my first and third bands; the second band got a bit fed up of my walking lines.

And I'm sure that when Ian Gillan sang 'I became a cunning linguist, a master of many tongues' he wasn't referring to his mastery of Mandarin, Swahili and Iroquois. 🙂

<falls on sword> Gah! I took square root not square. I blame microsoft calculator....

What would be cool would be a partial capo for the low string allowing you to select a drone note to suit. You could even set you 5-string bass up like a 5-string banjo! <edit> It looks like they used to exist! http://www.woodieshanger.com/shop/woodies-g-band-single-string-partial-capo/

Exposed cores can mess with intonation. Both sets of double ball end strings here are are full wrap at the nut end but go down to single wrap at the bridge end on the E and B. This can be compensated for by adjusting the intonation. If the single wrap end was fitted at the nut end, it would spoil the intonation between open and first fret. Just a thought has anyone, anywhere, ever fitted a new set of strings to a piano? I'm sure our piano's strings pre-date the invention of the keyboard...

That's interesting. All things being equal, the frequency is proportional to density per unit length (proportional to cross sectional area). Now the 135 might have less 'airspace' in it making it denser or more likely the construction also affects it in other ways. Looking at google, most sources only parrot that frequency is proportional to tension and density/unit. A few add that the material and temperature matter, and none mention construction (which must have some effect). Speed of propagation of waves is also affected by stiffness. Although changing cosntruction won't affect the young's modulus differences in the ratio between core diameter and wrap diameter (and wrap pretension) are likely to affect stiffness. Presumably the 135 is less stiff so it needs a bit more tension to compensate for this?

Funny, discussing my upcoming activities this morning my daughter said why not suggest a reggae song - everyone likes reggae and the basslines should be easy (she said that not me!) It reminded me how many years ago I saw Steel Pulse; all the way through the bass player drove it along with solid, straightforward rhythmic lines. Then a couple of songs from the end he got a solo and went right off the scale. So don't underestimate reggae bass players!

Going from 34" to 35" increases the tension by 2.9% (direct proportional relationship). Going from 135 to 145 increases the diameter by 7.5% so the mass per unit length (and therefore tension) increases by 3.6%. Going from 135 to 140 increases the diameter by 3.7%, so tension increases by 1.2%. So the (perhaps surprising) observation is that increasing standard scale length by 1" is equivalent to going up by nearer 2 than 1 string gauge in terms of tension. However, a 30" short-scale base is full 12% shorter than standard bass. Mine has a 95 instead of, say, a 105 standard set, only 5% less mass per unit length so net (very roughly) 7% less tension. Yet the bottom E doesn't sound crap or unbalanced. Tension can't be the whole story.

My B2 hasn't, but it got converted into a lefty and back again (including leg hook), got resprayed by my then guitarist and then I started adding things to it...

On the same planet as the biros and left socks? Makes me wonder if we should have a 'marmite' straplock thread? I've got one bass that came with the JD system (which I think puts a bit too much leverage on the buttons) I've got a set of Schaller clips which I used to use but removed the buttons from the guitar they were on. (I wonder if they are on the Maya?) Set of Stagg Schaller compatible still in the packet. To be honest, for some reason I don't like the idea of changing the buttons on a guitar...