chris_b

Rehearsing with a guitarist last week and the Schaller strap lock on his Strat worked lose. It's obviously a feature!!

A very small and insignificant financial penalty compared to all the money Fender stole off it's online customers over that 5 year period.

Overwater are exceptional instruments. I would love to own one of their 5 string Jazz basses. My problem is their weight. These days I can't carry a 10+lb bass for 2 sets anymore.

All those big stadium anthem songs are interesting to play in my opinion.

You beat me to it!!

I bought a D'Addario clip-on tuner and it broke in the first month. I'd be interested to know which is the best clip-on tuner for low B's.

There is a saying, buy your second bass first. Many people get a cheaper bass as a starter, and upgrade to a better bass quite quickly. If you jump straight to that second bass you'll probably find it's easier to play and will sound better, which should inspire you to improve as a player. Well that's the theory! Then again, you will definitely find better deals in the classifieds.

I thought we were talking about new amps, but the used marketplace is a very interesting place to be.

How is that even a question? Mesa will make their own business decisions. They know their marketplace and they have been running a successful company, with pretty high prices, for 50 years. A few years ago I remember walking around their shop in Denmark Street and almost every guitar combo was over £2k. You can dislike their pricing policy but comparisons are futile. If only Aston Martin reduced their prices I could buy one, instead of the old Volvo I could afford! 25 years ago Mesa certainly did assign and enforce retail prices, well in the UK and at the Bass Centre, they did. Grant complained about them, a lot. Then again, people can pay just as much for their cabs and significantly more for their basses. Many big valve amps are north of £2K so the headlining, feature packed D class amps could be said to be on the more reasonable side of that comparison. But still, owning certain gear can be an expensive decision. You decide which marketplace is for you and then normal buying decisions apply. But if you're a Ford Focus guy why worry about the cost of a Range Rover?

What's the problem? One bass has a higher output than the other. Adjust the amp and, assuming you can make both basses sound good at their respective volumes, you're ready to go.

If you think £600 is a "tad pricey", did you try any of the Sires?

In Mesa's opinion they make high quality products and price accordingly. They are not in the high production volume market so comparisons in that area are pretty pointless. Why does anyone on BC think they know the costs involved to distribute products around the world and maintain a global support network and a sales infrastructure? 25 years ago a 400+ was £1449. Now that was expensive! In fact my annual bonus, and then some. Mesa earned their money and much respect from me when they took the amp back for repair about 5 times and then asked the shop to exchange it. Not what I expected of the amp but more than I expected from the company.

What a great feel and tone. . . . . . . and a fantastic line at 3:18.

Wikipedia is a good source of info.

If you are using old strings then you'll be sounding more like Louis Johnson. Not a bad thing. Slap can be any tone. As long as you are EQing a good full range sound then slap and finger-style will work on the same bass. Your "zingy" slap tone is pretty simple, take the bass out and add all the top you can. New lightweight strings will also help, but that set up is going to compromise you finger-style sound.

All the "slap" players I've seen have switched between slap and finger style on the same bass. After Louis Johnson slapping all the early Johnson Brothers on a Sting Ray with flats, I'd say slap is a technique not a set up or a sound thing.

We don't let others decide which bass we're going to play but we'll trust total strangers with our and the band's sound. That's always a lottery so bring your own sound man.

A few years ago I looked at a cab someone was selling. They kept it in an unheated garage and it smelt musty. I didn't buy it. Damp or condensation for any gear is not a good thing.

IMO if something doesn't sound bad, it must be sounding OK. There have been a lot of threads on the pros and cons of mixing cabs and the bottom line in all those discussions is, if it sounds good then it is good. I'd gig this combination until you can make a decision one way or the other.

I carry and transport all my gear so the soft Roqsolid covers are good enough for me. IMO the Barefaced covers are probably better but that's what you pay extra for.

You're judging them totally out of context. Cream and the Jeff Beck Group started Rock. Hey, no surprise it didn't sound like Rock when they did it, but Deep Purple and Led Zepplin stood on their shoulders as have all subsequent generations. No Jeff Beck, no shredding. You don't have to like what has gone before but you should understand where the pieces drop into place.

I think Bill Wyman took the pragmatic approach. Obviously Keith Richards never played any bass parts that Bill couldn't handle, as he toured all those songs for years, but how was Bill going to win a "discussion" about egos, pride and bass lines with Keith Richards? I think Bill understood the futility of any such conversation and just stayed in the background, collecting the cheques.

Beautiful player. Very melodic and interesting lines.

How can we generate so many comments about a logo on a prototype. So the Sadowsky name is missing. That's what prototypes do. On the other hand, that's why prototypes are usually kept behind closed doors and products and companies are launched when all that stuff is complete. If the Metro Express sounds better than the 800 euro competition than it should be a success in that market. But marketing department wisdom seems to indicate that budget lines work better when placed in their own companies. My experience is that the Japanese Metro line actually does compete with the NYC basses. Of course there are many differences but with the same pickups and preamp the Metro competes strongly for sound and tone. I have played an NYC which, surprisingly, did not sound as good as my Metro. I can't help thinking that Pete Stephens got it right when he backed out of the deal to sell Wal to another company, and "gave" it to Paul Herman. We'll have to see what Warwick make of their Sadowsky lines. These changes can go well or not, we'll have to see. For me, while I was interested in the Japanese Metro Express, but without Sadowsky hardware and electrics, I won't be taking an interest in the Chinese version, at any price.

Just before assembly, we used to put drawing pins in the felt of the hammers in our school piano. The music teacher would play 4 bars at the start of the hymn sounding like she was in a honky tonk bar.