Shaggy

No 2 son gets bass gear (just learning now) No 1 son gets Rick 12-string & ’66 Vox 6-string The 2 flamenco guitars, 4 mandolins, 3 violins, 2 lutes & 1 banjo, I guess will have to form part of my funeral pyre in the Viking long-ship I will have constructed for the purpose The wife will be chuffed to have some room at last though.

Bought an Ampeg SVP-pro/SVT 300-pro amp off Matthew yesterday; smashing guy who obviously knows and looks after his gear, smooth deal, definitely do business again. (Just a shame he's a Gog...... )

[quote name='SteveK' post='219557' date='Jun 15 2008, 11:37 PM']I thought me ears were burnin'[/quote] H Steve! As I recall, the follow-up (or soon after) was "Don't kill it Carol", with the bassist doing some vocoder stuff on the intro -was that you?

Got this on a "pic-disc" vinyl 45! Classic

Try the DI tonight! After 30 years of lugging unfeasibly large and heavy rigs about I only very recently became a convert to DI – bought a Retrospec Juice box (all valve) on the forum a few months back. Fantastic clean, articulate sound, with headroom only limited by the PA, plus the PA projects the bass into the audience much better than a backline only can. My band’s PA is OK, but last gig I had the chance to plug into a 5kW / £10K system and it was the first time I really heard the true sound of my bass. However, soon found that unless your stage monitors are very good (which our solitary one isn’t) you still need some sort of backline to (1) let all the band hear the bass properly and (2) keep that live bass energy driving the music. First time DI-ing I used a totally inadequate combo as a monitor and no-one except the audience could hear a thing, now use a lightweight 4x10 cab and digital head. The only other drawback is that 90% of the time I want that totally clean bass, but for the 10% when a bit of overdrive is needed I guess I’ll have to break the habit of a lifetime and use a pedal. Re the band, well it depends how well you get on with the other two guys; good band-mates should be treasured. If the drummer’s such a pain replace him with a drum machine if you can’t get another – makes small pub gigs a cinch and gives you the option of getting another guitarist or keyboards in. Relegate your old set to the “subs” bench and write a whole new set list – a new project breathes new life into your bass playing, and after a while you come back to the old songs with fresh ways of approaching them. If you’re a “pub” band then try learning a “club” list, and vice-versa, and try playing different venues to the usual. Rambled on enough – got a long lunch break to kill!

[quote name='thisnameistaken' post='212034' date='Jun 3 2008, 08:01 PM']or boutique gazillion-string basses made out of sections of The True Cross and polished by beeswax-breasted virgins.[/quote] Damn, just bought one of those....... How much would you spend on a car? How much does that car depreciate compared to a bass? How much more pleasure do you get from playing your bass? I've always bought (1) the best bass gear and (2) the best coffee I could afford, even if that was once a Columbus Jazz copy and Co-op instant. Mind you, the "budget" bass gear is so very, very much better than it used to be - just bought a second-hand Squier MB-4 for my son for £50, and in terms of sound and playability it's only marginally inferior to my MusicMan. I'm still after a Wal, mind......

Had one of the original '70's heads many moons ago - recall it as being a bit of a dog, but I was totally clueless about valves. Swapped it for a bike. The new ones look cool, and good reviews.

Always used rechargables, mainly as my MMhas always drained batteries fast - never had a problem with them.

Bought a Mesa cab off Gary, great, laid back guy to do business with; - delivered the cab to my folks house in Cambridge! Knows his gear too.

[quote name='Deep Thought' post='194231' date='May 7 2008, 10:10 PM']How many of you are happy with tthe stuff you're playing, and how many are doing it because it's the only gig you can get? Do you feel that you should play the stuff you love or nothing, or is it a case of you'll play anything as long as you're playing? Here's my situation-after 15 years of not playing I got a band together with some folks at work and we're gigging fairly sporadically at present, but working on getting sorted so we're doing it more regularly. We play mainly covers, some classic rock, some modern chart stuff, and a bit of blues/r'n'b, some of it written by me. Some of the stuff we play is by bands I don't really like, but I find I enjoy playing it. I do draw the line at some stuff however, and I'm probably the one in the band most likely to flatly refuse to play something. I have mates who if they heard the stuff I'm playing would be scathing in the extreme-I was brought up on punk and a lot of guys I know still haven't got away from that ethos, and would be disgusted if they knew I was playing stuff by Pink. Personally I say stuff 'em, it's so nice to be playing again in a band that's going down well on the whole, that I couldn't give a stuff what they think. One said to me in an Email that he 'couldn't do crowd-pleasing' ie. he played what the hell he liked and if people didn't like it that was their look-out. I'd very much like to be in a blues/r'n'b band playing stuff I really like all the time, but that's just not a practical proposition at present, so I'll stick with the covers, because the alternative is not playing at all. What do you guys feel about this? Whatever it takes, or maintain your artistic integrity at all costs? This isn't a request for advice BTW, I'm quite happy with my current situation, but I'm curious as to how others view this kind of thing.[/quote] +1 I could have written that entire post myself, down to the background in punk, non-playing gap, and current material (yes, including Pink!!! U & ur hand has a great slappable bass-line…….) I play bass purely for the buzz of playing live and the brotherhood of being in a band, I certainly wouldn’t bother otherwise. “Integrity” has never really been an issue, especially as the music that’s the most fun and/or challenging to play very often isn’t the music that I’m into or would listen to (disco, & 80’s funk for instance) Having said that, I’m not sure I’d wear a Womble suit for anyone! Or be in a Kajagoogoo tribute band. Or….

[quote name='mxm' post='189135' date='Apr 30 2008, 07:17 PM']Hi, I used to use an allegedly ex-Motorhead 1978 JMP100 guitar head[/quote] Blimey, was there anything left of it? That's like buying a used car that's been driven at top speed ten times round the earth by the Stig!

As used by JJ Burnel early on in the Stranglers, I think.

[quote name='Crazykiwi' post='188699' date='Apr 30 2008, 11:02 AM']Is the pickup selector on yours wired so that it gets a single coil from each humbucker?[/quote] When in combined mode you mean? (and a “pan” control would have been great) Not sure about that - it’s an early one with phase and bright switches only. I found it sounded amazingly similar to a mates’ ’75 Jazz, especially on combined p/u’s, playing through his SVT which admittedly adds its own colouration. Likewise on bridge p/u only the Sabre is effectively a Stingray, although apparently the voicing on the EQ is supposed to be different, and inevitably the big magnets in the neck p/u will slightly dampen string vibration and therefore affect tone. The cutlass 2 is the graphite neck Sabre, right?

Until I found BW/BT/BC I had a max of 2 basses and was quite happy! Having said that, I do use and enjoy them all, and try to suit the bass to the genre (NB; Jazz + Stingray = 1 Sabre :brow: )