meterman

I would love to be my own tech, but my bipolar lithium medication causes hand tremors, and so I’d be too scared / clumsy to use a soldering iron, or use nut files, etc. Also I don’t own any tools, other than a few truss rod allen keys. I would love it if I could find a tech anywhere near me, but if there are any they’re very secretive about it! I haven’t found one in four years and none of the local musicians I know have anyone to go to either.

I’ll get this out of the way quick as I can to avoid derailing the thread any further, but yes - stone buildings and lime mortar are an essential pairing. I apprenticed in masonry repair and traditional lime repointing so I’m well aware of the need to use it, even though it’s not my favourite to work with. Once I got a 5p size blob of lime mortar stuck to my kneecap inside my trousers (still not sure how that happened) and it burned the top of my skin off. One night I knocked the scab off while getting into bed, and during the night the open skin must have got infected. Next morning I was in hospital with sepsis, and my leg looked like it had been inflated to double its size. So yeah, lime with stone buildings = essential, but be super careful when using it. Just remembered re: moisture in buildings, one of my old studios in the late 90’s used to be in a converted factory. It always smelled a little bit musty when you went in there, but there was no obvious signs of damp anywhere. When I gave up the lease and did the tear down, I remember one piece of rack mount gear, a reverb unit, had completely corroded on all the metal parts that were hidden from view. Then I noticed a few of the other pieces of gear in the same rack had gone the same way. A couple were saveable but a couple didn’t last much longer. Sometimes you can’t tell where the moisture is getting in from unless you tear the place apart. I just gave up my lease and set up elsewhere. Lesson learned though. Keep checking all RCA contacts and exposed metal parts, just in case 👍

I think we’re going to try and get an insurance claim to get at least some remedial work done on the roof, no guarantees though. The ground floor under the roofed area is concreted and that’s angled to a small central drain, the rest is just a hard dirt floor. The fountain is a bit of a mystery. Nobody seems to know the source of it, and there’s a run off in case of overflow, but that goes to the street drain. I’m restoring some of the collapsed interior walls as and when I can, but it’s tiring, dirty graft, and doing it takes me away from financially more lucrative studio time. I don’t think I’ll be able to do much with it in my lifetime, but at least I can store the winter wood delivery in there 👍

No photos, but it’s basically a stone built 20 foot x 80 foot rectangle. One half has a pitched roof and a 1st floor. The roof has a number of holes which let rain in, which is infrequent here but still inconvenient. The half without the roof is completely open to the elements. The roofed half is open from floor to ceiling on the inside of the structure. There are structural beams which show it wasn’t always like this, there would have been doors or a wall, and windows, but it would require new beams, roof repairs, re-timbering the 1st floor, totally replacing the electrics.... it’s a lot of work and it would soak up a lot of money. Also there’s a fountain about 10 feet away from it, so there may be hidden water somewhere near, if not running underneath it. The floor is usually dry though.

One of the things I hadn’t considered before we moved to the south of France was how dry and warm it is, compared with the places I’d lived in the UK. Downside is the high temperatures do affect the tunings of stringed instruments and drums from day to day. But retuning instruments during recording sessions isn’t really an issue. For hi-fi, I don’t know, we’ve only been here four years. But the house is kept ventilated so it should be okay. I know for certain that I wouldn’t leave anything of value in my barn, it’s really damp, from floor to ceiling, even though it’s of the same construction as the house and it has plenty of ventilation. I had initially thought it would make a great recording studio but went off the idea after our first year here. I’d be running dehumidifiers 24/7 all year round, and the electricity bills would bankrupt me 😂

In some festivals it’s common too. I remember Bestival, Isle Of Wight, Glastonbury and a couple of others offering bands non-paying slots for “exposure”. They’d get local bands in to make the numbers up or fill gaps in the schedule. IOW used to (might still) have a big tent that only featured local artists, who played for free, in exchange for Access All Areas passes for the whole 3 days. I did those a couple of times when the gig was on Friday night and you could sell your wristband for £100 for the Saturday and Sunday on FB marketplace in advance. Shït festival though. It’s like being part of a Carling Black Label marketing event. With hen do’s and stag do’s 🤮

Somewhere in Covent Garden springs to mind, was it called the Rock Garden? I remember in the late 80's our label at the time getting a promo mailout from them saying we could play in their actual central London șhïthole if we bought £35 worth of tickets and could guarantee a 150 punters on the night. I think the label replied but with the caveat that a champagne and 7 course meal rider would be provided otherwise the venue would have to pay them £5000 or something daft like that. Still waiting to hear back from them 🤔

Forgot to mention, the return on the uke bass was free, and that wasn’t even B-stock. Thomann are pretty good for returns. Bax have been similar in my experience. 👍

I got a B stock Squier Telecaster from Thomann the other week. The red Fender decal was still on the pickguard, as was the protective film. The only signs of use were on the back of the guitar, where it looked like someone’s jacket zip had left a couple of tiny marks. I didn’t even spot them until I’d had it for a couple of days. They’re so fine that they might well buff out, but in all honesty I’ll probably leave them. You don’t see them unless you look for them. My Squier Jazz was also a B stock, but that was spotless, it looked box fresh. I guess it varies from instrument to instrument, but you can email them for details ahead of purchase, if I remember rightly? **EDIT** I had to return a ukulele bass to Thomann the other week and it was really straightforward. They emailed me the returns shipping label to put on the box, and all I had to do was hand it over at the nearest post office. The refund was in my account 5 or 6 days later. I am in Europe though, I don’t know how easy it might be from the UK, if you’re based there?

That kit with the custom finish is going to be really difficult to shift on, if all the local police, music shops, FB groups, Crack Converters, etc, have been notified already. I hope they get it back ASAP.

Throw acid, ecstasy and smack into the mix and it sounds exactly like my old band 😂 https://www.discogs.com/release/2771606-The-Prescriptions-Psychedelicatessen We’re all almost tee-total boring middle aged gits these days although some of us do have a penchant for hot milky drinks. And we eat biscuits. Not sure if those are classed as performance enhancing, though?

The necks on the 1st run of Jagstangs are said to be some of the best that Fender ever put on a 6-stringer, especially the 24” scale ones. Very nice score 👍

I use a secondhand 1990's TEAC amp with some secondhand Technics speakers. Easy set up, sounds really good for my needs and the lot cost me 40 euros. You can go higher spec and spend tons of cash but it depends how far you want to go with it all? Can have a laptop, a CD player, and a turntable all hooked up and ready to go. Have used the same setup to listen back to mixes, as I'm familiar enough with the amp + speakers combo to check for balance or phase issues. Worth thinking about, for sure. 👍

Can confirm the Squier Sonic Precisions are excellent for the money. Mine cost £100 secondhand. The only changes I made was to swap the neck from my Squier Jazz bass because I prefer darker fretboards, and put some La Bella flats on it. Oh, and a tugbar cause I use them. For £150 all in, I’ve got a super lightweight, excellent sounding Precision. Don’t need to upgrade the tuners or the bridge or the pickups, it’s fine as it is. Probably one of the best bass buys I’ve ever had.

Blimey!

I don't know, I think it was the sweaters that really did his head in. I reckon if he'd gone to a reputable gentleman's outfitters and got properly attired he might not have ended up so radged. If I'd had to wear any of those I'd have been livid.

Tackhead? He wasn't doing too much freaky dusty-end stuff when I saw him playing with them. Them Spectors though. Crazy money for horrible looking basses 😂

The production of "There's A Riot Goin' On" have been fairly well documented. Shocking to read about, but still "Family Affair" is a brilliant record, despite the production (like Sly) being all over the place. There's also "Revolver" by The Beatles. Marijuana and LSD get indirectly name checked ("Doctor Robert", "Got To Get You Into My Life, "Tomorrow Never Knows", etc). I'm not the biggest Beatles fan but that is an amazing album. Don't do drugs though, kids, or I'll leather yer 😂

Me and a mate started a list each one night down the pub. I got as far as 114-ish guitars and basses and he had a much more conservative 80-something. But this was over a 40 year period and neither of us ever kept receipts, photos, logbooks, etc. At the moment I've got two basses and 14 guitars and he's got one bass and 5 guitars. Stuff just ebbs and flows. Nothing really settles.

I don’t think so, except some amazing records have been made when the artists have been completely out of it. “Family Affair” by Sly & The Family Stone would be one example. Around the late 80’s / early 90’s I was in a six-piece band where four of the band were dealers. It was absolute chaos, all the time, every day or night there was a fresh disaster or an amazing lucky escape. When people talk about the Happy Mondays or Flowered Up, well it was like that except without the big record company budgets. We’re all still alive but in various states of disrepair. Drugs never ever made us personally better players, or writers. Similarly my bipolar medication now has a negative impact on how I play and sing, my voice is a pitchy rasp compared to when I was a kid, and was a soloist in a choir. And my hands shake now because of the lithium, which definitely affects my playing. But, you learn to get by. I don’t touch recreational drugs at all and don’t romanticise them or recommend them.

Couldn't say one way or the other about the bass but I love that period of Fairport Convention. The pic is from the "Liege And Lief" era, or thereabouts isn't it?

The Farfisa and Acetone simulations aren't bad, it's only really the Vox that I struggled with when I bought it. A period of experimentation led to an acceptable compromise. These are a couple of hundred quid and will fit in a backpack, I'm more than happy to accept the differences between the combo organs for the price. I paid £1600 for my first Hammond (a C3 with a Leslie 147) and once I'd struggled to heave it upstairs to my 1st floor flat, I couldn't take it out on gigs. So glad things like the YC exist. I might have bought one if they'd been available back then.

A volume pedal for swells is essential with the YC. And you're correct, the distortion on the YC isn't anywhere near a real Hammond. Not even Nords get this right, despite the price of them. For a time I had a Hammond XB-1 as my live Hammond, and the distortion varied from key to key, whether you were doing swells or not. I make do with a Nord 5D-61 now, which I run through either one valve guitar amp, or two in stereo if I'm recording it. The natural drive of the amps, although good, is not quite the same but close enough to record with I'm lucky enough to sometimes have the use of a 1967 Hammond M102 plus Leslie 145, as an old boy in the nearest town lets me bring my portable recording rig over to record with it. He used it for years in a cabaret band but when you hear it in action it's instant late 60's. "Whiter Shade Of Pale" was done with an M102, as far as I know. Same with some Spencer Davis Group and Small Faces records. A lot of the UK groups used the smaller Hammonds. I had an M102 myself and depending on the Leslie setup, the tone is there 👍

It does put some folks off, but I think it's a cool feature 👍

I've had 40-100 Fender strings on Mustangs before and the silks cleared the nut, it wasn't an issue 👍