Beedster

That was great advice BRX, many thanks. My main issue over and above the tech is a somewhat restricted budget, which is pretty much the cash I pulled in by selling my PJB Bighead and Beat Buddy recently (around £400), which limits the functionality to a degree. DrumBrute is still looking like the best option at present?

Or pretty much any bass strung with flats played with a pick

Lucky you’re tall Jack

They are amazing on fretless

People search for words such as 'project' or 'parts only' on exactly that basis, and sometimes forget to search for the same item in good working order! I get it, fixing up a bass (or anything really) can be great fun/therapy, and there's real sense of achievement when a no-hope mongrel is transformed into a closet classic. The flip side is that there's also a lot of people searching for gear they can buy cheap and move on at a profit, keep an eye on this same bass under 'rare', 'vintage' 'relic' etc in about a week

Reason I posted this is that, to my mind, not only is Clapton’s vocal delivery bland as hell, but Robertson’s guitar playing sounds so much more alive (overdubs acknowledged). And this was 45 years ago

Clapton had also largely broken up by the end of the 60’s

Ouch

Post of the day

Lengthy jail terms for murder, at least the two surviving members would have done

Springsteen has also done some of his better music in the second half of his career. I think there's a fine line between edgy, best and out there however. Neil Young perhaps still has an edge, Springsteen perhaps great music but not edgy, Tom Waits has just gone out there Clapton's an odd one, up against the blues guitarists that he 'borrowed' heavily from, would people have described Muddy Waters, BB King etc as mediocre or no longer relevant when they were at the same stage of life as Clapton? I know what I think

And of course, 6-screw holes makes for far better tone than 5

You can have this for free TRBboy but I think it might be closer to 17mm spacing? It's a decent bridge

Story of my music life mate

Which is of course the key point here. I imagine in about 18 months time she'll be cancelled when her mutterings about Clapton are scrutinised in the context of the emergent 'Ageing Rock Stars Feelings Matter' movement

Bridges are funny things, nearly everyone I know who understands engineering tells me that all of the alleged improvements over the basic BBOT design and materials should make very little if any difference to tone, sustain in the grand scheme of things (all other things being equal in terms of structural integrity and dimensions). But I agonise over bridges, whilst my cognitive/executive brain tells me I shouldn't, my emotional brain appears to believe firmly that the magic bullet of tone is the bridge. Call it cognitive dissonance or a placebo effect, but I'd buy the Gotoh. Unless I could find something more expensive

Failure to anticipate the likely consequences of your actions is no defence

This

Yep

It's a fair perspective, but can I add another. Having worked professionally with both pro football players (at three Premiership clubs) and pro cyclists (world champion and Olympic level), when it comes to stress, burnout and mental health, the latter have it easy, trust me. Most of us can run around a field kicking, hitting or throwing a ball, but most of us can't ride a bike up an Alp, so we tend to make assumptions about the relative stresses of each on those bases. But burnout, albeit underpinned by biological processes, is largely psychological in origin. Very few pro cyclists will experience it in their careers, whilst many team sports players - soccer, hockey, cricket - will. Irrespective of the rights and wrongs at societal level, the media and business pressure on pro team sport athletes is a league above that on pro endurance athletes. So Southgate, rightly or wrongly in terms of how things should be, is correct in terms of how things are. And yes, the cause of this is in many respects the hysteria you mention. But it's not just sport, it's music (burnout is common among successful and aspiring performers in all genres of music from rap to orchestral), and many other areas in which the media can build or shatter a person within seconds.

From Eric Clapton towards thorny issues around racism then via Bob Mould and Eric Cantona to the sad demise of Scottish Association Football. A glorious Basschat diversionary manoeuvre well executed