WinterMute

I was already playing bass, with a pretty generic tone, when I heard Geddy Lee on Permanent Waves and then Moving Pictures, that tone set the standard for me and I've played variations of that bright, distorted sound for 45 years. Lee's aggressive playing style also influenced my own very hard-hitting finger-style, which compliments the sound very well. I blame Geddy, however, I don't play Ricky's or Jazz basses, so it's not all a carbon copy.

Alan continues to make some of the best sounding and looking basses on the planet (I may be a touch biased). Don't 4 string necks look skinny next to 5 and 6 stringers? Lovely bases, congrats.

20th Anniversary SR5 and it's less auspicious cousin.

No point in naming an animal if it won't come when you call. Cats have their own names and they'll never tell. That said, Pixel is my favoured name for small felines, after The Cat Who Walks Through Walls.

Isn't this just the natural expansion and contraction of the copper as temperature changes?

Yes, the balance XLR outputs are line level.

I was so impressed with Alan's willingness to chat endlessly about ideas and alternatives, completely happy to alter his existing designs to accommodate whatever mad ideas I might have had. My Krell fretless has a mahogany central block and ash wings, an idea that came from my MM 20th Anniversary SR5, Alan just said "sure" and got on with it. The quality of his work is second to none.

You can dislike something and acknowledge that it's good work I think, but there is an inherent polarisation of any subjective call these days, everything has to be black or white, the "you're either with us or against us" crowd, Liverpool v Everton, City V United... That footballification of everything leaves no room for nuance. Can't stand Country and Western, but those boys can play and write a tune, really don't like the Beatles, whilst recognising their significance as songwriters and the quality of McCartneys bass work (and Ringo's drumming for that matter), can't listen to most Jazz, or classical. The limitation is in me, not them, I fully admit. That said, Morrisey can do one, any day of the week, muppet.

The new SVT models are killer and the new cab IRs are much more characterful, much like the best of the 3rd party captures that you can find on the cloud. The GED2112 models are cracking too, I had the pre-amp for a while, really captures the tone well. Looks like a very good update all round but I do wonder at the significant DSP overheads of these new models, even in a unit with processing to burn.

I had an Aeron, changed it for a Humanscale Freedom Headrest in black leather, very comfortable, looks great and the armrest fold flat to the seat so it's great in the studio when playing bass. https://uk.humanscale.com/products/seating/freedom-headrest-executive-chair They're not cheap new, but I paid £250 for mine off eBay from an office clearance.

Mine are in the loft, I so rarely travel with a bass these days it really doesn't inconvenience me to go get one or two for a trip. Apart from the Thumb's flight case which is too big to go through the hatch, so it lives behind the sofa in the studio, I hear it chuckling occasionally.

There's an interesting theory about young intelligence verses old intelligence, the former is a fluid, changeable and learning form and the latter is a crystallised, change resistant and learns slowly if at all. The theory posits that the longer you can remain in the fluid form by learning and challenging yourself, the better your mind and health will be in old age. Given the number of old musicians I know who are still inquisitive and keen to learn I think this is close to the truth.

Hopefully not, but sometimes it happens. Discussion from opposing viewpoints in good faith is not a bad thing, provided the arguments are engaged with honestly. We can agree to disagree about almost anything, given good faith, bigotry and more especially fascism does not operate in good faith.

Old people can't change their minds? My 85 year old mother, a lifelong unquestioning Tory voter, will never vote for them again after seeing the mess they've made of the county. Being old is no excuse, neither is being young or uneducated or poor or rich, Bigotry is born in ignorance and grows in darkness, it poisons young and old alike. Drag it into the light and kill it.

Not everyone whose planning on voting Reform is a racist bigot, but all the racist bigots will likely vote Reform. I don't care if it is cuddly Uncle Albert, if he's a racist bigot who is incapable of changing his mind, he can f*ck off.