Obrienp

Agree; the way China operates locks the recipients into their debt and their orbit. Often it comprises of a mix of aid and loans, or an offset agreement in return for access to natural resources, making the recipient country reliant on China. Very often they are countries that the West has little interest in (no natural resources, unsympathetic regime, just wealthy enough not to qualify for aid but with poor credit ratings). Once in China’s orbit, it is going to be very difficult to get them back. WRT your second point, I am seeing memes on Facebook sponsored by Reform with the message: “ Don’t forget to pay your taxes this year: other countries are relying on you”. The thing that is really upsetting, is that people I know, who are decent folks, are sharing this shiz, including the drummer in one of my bands!

I think there might need to be a separate “arguing about VAT” thread, while the rest of us worry ourselves sick about what Trump is doing to the world order. Last time round Trump betrayed the Kurds, who had been a staunch ally against ISIS and the other factions in Iraq. It looks like he is shaping up to do the same to Ukraine and the rest of us in Europe. He is a treacherous bar-steward, with no morals, or principles and very little intellectual capacity (or is he just too lazy to concentrate and inform himself). Informed view (of non-lackies) is that he is actually a very poor negotiator (despite having had a book ghost-written about it for him to put his name on), with a string of failed businesses behind him. This seems to have been born out by recent concessions to Putin before negotiations even started. His only interest in this is the glory of Trump, as far as I can see. He wants to say he sorted the war, like he said he would. He really doesn’t care about the principles involved, or the sacrifices he will force on the Ukrainians, or the long term consequences of capitulating to the world’s bullies (after all he is one). Yes, Europe is going to have to step up, right at the time when the money pond has been drained and other demands are at their highest. Pretty well every country in the democratic world has the same domestic issues of aging population, over stretched health services, housing crises, lack of confidence in conventional politicians, rising populism, suppression of the free press, rising immigration, etc, etc. Having said that, a number of European countries already spend more on defence than the NATO target of 2.5% of GDP. They tend to be the ex-communist block countries nearest to Russia. Their expenditure may not look that impressive next to the USA’s in monetary terms but as a percentage of GDP it is admirable. Western European countries such as the UK need to pull their weight but if you were a politician would you favour spending on weapons over the NHS?

I bought a replacement stereo jack socket for my Maruszczyk, which I don’t think counts as a fail, as the original was on the blink. I was about to fail big time by buying another cab but the band I intended to use it with has suffered a huge wobble in the last few days. The wobble almost provoked me into throwing in the towel but I decided to see if we can still ride it out. Time will tell if I am going to need that cab. At the moment, I’m not about to spend a big chunk of cash on something I might not need, so I’m still on the wagon.

The fan comes on pretty quick with the Gnome. I haven’t tried using it in an acoustic situation, so I couldn’t comment on how intrusive it would be. I don’t find I notice it when using it for solo practice. The Gnome is a very aggressive little amp and you have to play with the EQ a lot to get it neutral, which means that it can sound a bit unpleasant with a FRFR type cabinet, until you sort the EQ. On the other hand, I find it livens up my Barefaced Two10, which has a vintage voicing. I currently have the iPro (280 watt) version but I had the base 200 watt version before and the same applied. I can’t speak for the 600 watt version. There’s also the TCE Bam 200 in the cheap, compact amp category. I have no idea what that is like but as it and the Gnome can be found pretty cheap used, they might be worth a punt.

I’m with you on that. I have the fretless version. The neck is just so well finished and comfortable for a relatively cheap bass. No hum either, which is good for mass produced stuff. I can understand the OP’s “problem”. WRT the knob; they look a bit parts bin to me. No luck on fleaBay, or NorthWest Guitars?

What you thought is probably nearer the mark for a lot of them.

It’s American speak for Directors : Chief, as in Chief Technical Officer, Chief Executive, etc. it’s widely adopted in the UK now. You rarely hear of a Managing Director, Technical Director, etc, in a Tech, or IT company.

Interesting. My experience is that you really need to call them to get reasonable communication. I bought a Nordstrand Acinonyx from them a few years back because they were marginally cheaper than Bass Direct. It was probably a year between ordering and receipt of the bass but a lot of this was down to Nordstrand. There were a few false alarms, when they thought the bass was going to arrive and then didn’t. It did arrive eventually but I didn’t get the impression that Bass Gallery were trying to expedite delivery. Similar experience to @attackbass: I was amazed when it arrived to find it was just in the inner Nordstrand box with no extra padding. How it survived the courier, I don’t know! I don’t think I have ever received a guitar, or bit of kit, from an online sale that wasn’t double boxed.

Yep but it’s not German VAT @18%, it’s UK @20%. Presumably Thomann remits that to HMRC on your behalf, having collected it at point of sale. This is why the price seems to go up marginally when you enter your UK delivery address, when buying from Thomann. However, the point is most countries globally do what the EU does, so I don’t think this can be counted as a tariff, or trade barrier unique to the EU.

Most countries do that as far as I am aware. It’s the basis of duty free sales. The goods are not being bought in country. If you buy privately, some companies cover the import duty and other sales taxes in your country: e.g. if you buy gear from Thomann, they deal with all of that for you.

That’s the story as I understand it. I think the original was fretless and you can get the Bass Centre version fretless for a hundred quid more LoL! I thought about the Bass Centre Wyman bass but it does look weird and it’s quite a wide nut (41mm).

Kinda.

This is why I have about half a dozen music theory books and the same number of scale compendiums. I have yet to find an explanation that I can understand. As for the circle of fifths….. Fortunately, I have got to a place where I know enough theory and have enough practical experience, to be able to come up with reasonable bass lines on the fly. They may not be the most original but they work. BTW, I rarely use the minor pentatonic on its own but it can be unavoidable, if playing rock and blues based on riffs. I do like the advice, attributed to Victor Wooten, that you can only ever be one semitone out and the groove is more important than the notes.

I could probably sum it up as very little. I have books and charts of different types of scale in each key ranging from major through Dorian, Phrygian, Lydian, mixolydian, etc, pentatonic major and minor, etc. I then have theory books that talk about modes of each scale and say things like the Dorian mode is like starting the major scale from the 2nd degree of the scale, which is clearly different to the C Dorian scale on my charts because that starts on the root and has flatted 3 and 7, whereas the C major scale has no flats or sharps, wherever you start playing it from. I don’t find this particularly helpful, or useful.

Er, not really but thanks for trying.

Yeah, I understand that (I originally got there through experimentation) but is that modes, or scales?

I was very interested to see this thread. @Sean mentioned the difficulty I have with modes in general. Very interesting but how the hell do you use them? I am still waiting for a good explanation beyond the sort of throw away comments that usually accompany tutorials like “commonly used in Latin music, or used in Jazz”. It seems to be a largely academic exercise. I am sure that for some people the penny drops eventually but it hasn’t for me. It’s seems a bit akin to learning maths: maths teachers are universally bad at explaining the why. It just seems to be something you get, or something you don’t. Personally I only discovered the usefulness of some maths concepts when I started coding software, long after I left school. This is the way I feel about modes but the light bulb moment hasn’t occurred for me.

This reminds a little bit of the 70s. There was pop music that filled the charts and there was the “underground” scene, largely dominated by bands. If you were cool, you advocated the most obscure bands possible (like John Peel). Occasionally some decent bands crossed into the charts but it was fairly rare. It was mostly teeny bopper stuff. Admittedly there were more bands involved, even in the charts but a lot of it was very manufactured. Singles buyers were in their early teens and singles got played on the radio. Real music existed on LPs and appealed to an older teen/young adult market. Now we are looking back on the chart music of the 70s and deciding that actually some of the bands like Sweet and the Bay City Rollers weren’t that bad after all. Remember ABBA was pretty uncool to start off with, after all they won Eurovision! Now they are the greatest thing since sliced bread and their song writing was pretty good (in retrospect). There are lots of bands around now making good original music, it’s just we don’t hear about them much on mainstream media. Also they may not look that pretty, which seems to be a number one requirement for success in the mainstream (with a few exceptions). The money has disappeared from the recording market, so it is very hard for serious musicians to make a living plowing their own furrow. We can thank the streaming services for that: music has become devalued. Somewhere along the way we forgot to teach current generations critical thinking, so they absorb the stuff they see online without challenging it: politics, fake news, influencers and unfortunately music.

You missed your chance. There were two up for sale here on BC but @richardd has withdrawn them.

You are joking, right?

@Russ wasn’t there a fiasco with a so called Trump university as well? He defrauded a bunch of students and the thing went bust. If I recall correctly, he paid up on a few law suits as a result. A complete and utter shyster. How was he ever selected for The Apprentice in the US?

@neepheid, sorry if someone else already suggested this but why not get the original pickup rewound? Might be cheaper than a replacement and you can specify exactly how you want it to sound. There must be a tech somewhere near you who can do that. As a guide, my local luthier charged me £40 a couple of years ago to rewind and convert to separate coil leads (for the single/parallel/series switching) on a MM style pickup, which had been (badly) resin potted. He also potted it properly in wax.

I must be a gear abstinence incel! My wallet has been safe by dint of the fact that all Barefaced, LFSys and similarly desirable lightweight cabs posted for sale on BC have been located hundreds of miles away and the sellers won’t post/courier, or they just want a bit too much for my budget. I would probably fall off the abstinence wagon pretty quickly, if a LFSys Monaco or Monza came up within easy driving distance (or post available). I missed out on a Monaco last year because I was on holiday abroad when it came up but it was snapped up by a friend, so all good.

You can play around with statistics quite a lot and get answers that put things in a different perspective. Germany is the second largest donor to Ukraine after the US in absolute terms and that aid is a higher percentage of GDP than the US. In fact, in GDP terms the US’ aid to Ukraine is way down the league table. The Baltic countries give a much higher percentage of their GDP to Ukraine. Ditto their expenditure on defence exceeds the NATO target in GDP terms. The UK is a bit of a laggard. Especially when you realise that the official defence expenditure figures include pensions and other welfare payments to retired service people. Well deserved, of course, and probably should be more generous but even if we attain the magic 2.5% of GDP, that won’t all be spent on defence capabilities.