Munurmunuh

The building is total rubbish, we can all hear so much noise - but the thing that is unpleasant is the noise that is not just passing through walls and floors, but which seems to be coming from the building itself, because then it feels like its all around you. The isolation pads are, it seems, getting in the way of the fabric of the building amplifying and transmitting the rumble. It was something I could do to be neighbourly and now I've done it. The small ones under the speakers are firm enough to hold the heavy Castles safely, they don't seem precariously perched on them. So I'm happy and am going to stop thinking about it.

When I scrolled up after reading this, I was a bit surprised to find myself looking at a perfectly nice headstock 😋

This building is so flimsy, I'm surprised the lightbulb hasn't ripped the fitting from the ceiling

I would love more narrow spacing options for a 4 string, but I understand why manufacturers shy away from offering them - different size bridges and pickups cost £££. I found that when playing fingers, placing my right hand any closer to the bridge than the neck pickup requires too much stretching to be comfortable, so the nice thing about the picking technique I've settled on is that I can do it right down by the bridge. Nice to get that variety back.

Because my hand is not large (except my thumbs - my saviour on piano but totally useless on bass) I have to shift my hand to a new position every time I move string. For example, when playing the D string, the bottom knuckle of little finger gently nestles between the E and A string. Getting this second nature is slooow process, but the lack of easy flexibility means that I'm evolving a totally different style when playing with a pick rather than fingers, which is turning out to be an enjoyable thing: no unnecessary bouncing around the strings, not so many notes, but a more consistent tone. A bit more regal 👑

When I played the guitar, I had the ridge of my palm planted on the bridge, able to mute all six strings at once. When attempted to transfer this technique to bass, my hand simply wasn't big enough. Also, on the guitar, I could pick the six strings individually without moving the wrist, but on the bass to get from the top string to the bottom string I have to move my whole hand/wrist/forearm. Finally, even if I had been able transfer this technique, it was all about opening / closing / partially closing the resonance of all the strings at once - no good on bass, where I want one string totally open and the rest totally muted. So despite experience on guitar, once I used a pick on bass, I had to work out a totally fresh technique. Which meant a while of sounding *awful*

After I posted that I had this thought: aren't duff necks a standard issue for manufacturers? Wouldn't a large company like Yamaha know that, to be sure of being able to cover their warranty commitments safely, they'll need to have x spare necks for every 1,000 instruments produced, along with y preamps and z pickups? They seem a safety-first institution.

Is the neck different to the standard BB734 neck? Would Yamaha be able simply to replace it?

Some idiot bought not two pads, but two *pairs* of pads..... One pair is now happily in place, and I guess I'm taking the other pair to the Post Office on Monday. I've decided I can feel a difference, and if that's self-delusion, I'm happy with that

I woke up to an email from Memo at G&L telling me that it's now on its way (again) I'm guessing that a new neck will mean a new serial number, which is a shame because I really liked the original one: 2012012. Small things please etc etc

Sub_drop

Collection only from Abergele. I had to look up where that is. Greater Rhyl.

Like most advertising, it seeks to create insecurity and then offers a cure. Do you welcome parasites into your home?

Pinnaplasty isn't cheap

I've been listening to the 80s Megadeth albums a lot the last month, and Gar Samuelson is something else.

Stock still or bouncing around, bald is bald. Meanwhile, the template for stage presence is given here:

In this block we all (well, all but one) accept that hearing plenty of each other's noise is inevitable, but nonetheless interrupting the solid link between the speakers and my downstairs neighbours ceiling seems like a nice thing to do. Just because mitigation isn't eradication doesn't mean I shouldn't do it. I can feel with my feet the difference that the Gramma pad made in reducing rumble through the floor. As for my chips, they're quite soggy enough now, cheers

Thank you for the helpful suggestions, but for alleviation of the sense of guilt, throwing more money at something similar to that which is already doing a good job on the amp will achieve more than homemade solutions, even if sonically there's not much in it. Which is to say that I've got a pair for £26 in the post already

The smaller ones are exactly the same width as the speaker stands, and that coincidence feels like the nudge telling me that these are the ones for me.

Thing is, this is a terribly built building - the floors transmit so much sound. At the moment I'm listening to everything so quietly, scared that I've driving my very nice downstairs neighbour berserk. I can feel the drums in my feet coming through the floor as much as I'm hearing them. So the sound is pretty pathetic as it is. Pathetic in a different way, minus the guilt will be good. A few months ago I was listening mostly to Mozart string quartets and that was one thing. Last month its been nothing but Metallica and Megadeth and I can hear the fabric of the building singing along.

I bought my BB424 from that seller. It arrived stinking of fag smoke.

Has a link or photo been lost in the post?

I've a pair of ancient but still delightfully noisy Castle Durham speakers, bought when I cared less about neighbours' opinion of how much noise I was making. I've also a pair of metal speaker stands which I'm sure are doing an excessively good job of transmitting every last beat of Gar Samuelson's drumming to my poor neighbour's ceiling. I recently got a Gramma pad for my amp and can tell it's doing a good job of stopping my playing from being transmitted to the whole building. Would the similar foam isolation pads for studio monitors be suitable for sitting between my hifi speakers and the speaker stands? I've never seen such things in the flesh, only online. Not sure I've ever taken any notice of the speakers in studios either. Are they more compact than hifi speakers? I'm a bit confused by the pads putting the speakers at an angle, which I guess expresses how clueless I am on this subject.

I feel goaded into a voyage of profanity filter discovery: .... chocolate starfish pink torpedo nasty pasty silly billy Pie*s M*rg*n flipper Scunthorpe .... Quite pleased to have unearthed Pie*s M*rg*n

Do you happen to know the weight of the stock tuners on a BB424? I've just looked up the specs for the Licensed Ultralites: 56g (⅜" clover) / 57g (½" clover) I also looked up the price of licensed ultralites - £14 satin, £17 shiny