leftybassman392

Lyrics you say? I've often wondered what all that pointless yodelling was between the guitar solos.

Surprised nobody's mentioned this yet:

Almost Famous and This Is Spinal Tap spring to mind straight away, but there's plenty to choose from.

... which is about as funny and insightful as the the one that goes: How do you confuse a bass player? Hand him a guitar.

Sorry, I can't take this seriously. A couple of days ago there was a 'Is music getting worse?' thread (which come to think of it actually was done as a poll). I'm putting this thread in the same category.

Crikey! Is it that time of year again already? Dear OP: Short answer: No. Long answer: No. You're getting old. Even longer answer: No. You're getting old, and you're asking the wrong question.

I did P.A. hire for a number of years, which could include backline if necessary. I mostly found people were respectful of the gear, even when the band members were spotty yoofs with - shall we say - more enthusiasm than talent. It may have helped that I always ran the desk myself and invariably made the point upfront that abuse of the equipment would not go down well. As for lending gear to somebody for use sight unseen, I'd have needed to know them personally and watched them play with their own or somebody else's gear before I'd even consider it.

I tend to take the view that if I'm selling something then by definition I'm asking somebody to part with their hard-earned. Getting dumb questions from numpties along the way is par for the course IMHO. The only time I got a bit shirty was when an american would-be buyer of my 35-year-old Wal Custom kept wanting me to lower the price because it looked as if it had been used, and insisted that he was doing me a favour making the stupid offer he was. That apart, I just deal with it. TBH I always find it hard to understand the rants we sometimes get on here on this type of subject.

Have you ever tried it in fourths? I've never owned a 6-string bass - never mind a 7 - but they're normally tuned in fourths I believe...? If so, that would actually make your tuning a bit unusual for a bass would it not? I found it fascinating. In fact I'm going to retune one of my guitars in fourths and leave it that way for a while just to remind myself how it goes.

I experimented with permanently tuning one of my guitars in fourths across the board a few years ago. Chords need a complete rethink (more logical once you get your head around them though), but the melodic side works brilliantly - for me at least - once you learn to make the adjustment at the 2nd string/3rd string crossover. Knowing what I know now, if I were learning from scratch over again I'd do it that way. Just ask any 7-string bass player (paging @Bilbo).

...and will shortly be handed the keys to the realm...

I'm in! Hang on while I ditch this cross thingy and fetch my Rickenfaker...

Not if you're paying attention they don't. Sellers are entitled to assume people making offers for their stuff actually want to buy it. Buyers are entitled to assume stuff appearing for sale is actually for sale. Both are entitled to assume whoever's at the other end has thought the matter through by the time it comes to do the transaction, and that if they were going to change their mind they'd have done so already. Inebriation may explain screw-ups but it doesn't excuse them. While I'm here, why on earth anybody in their right mind would go on a site like eBay when they're drunk is not something I understand. Once, maybe. After that you should have learned the lesson.

This. I don't do much trading these days but I've bought and sold hundreds of items on both BC and eBay over the years. Feeling it's ok to renege on a deal just because other people do it or because the host doesn't enforce the rules sets an unwelcome precedent IMHO. It may be common on eBay; pray it doesn't become common on Basschat. Thin end of the wedge and all that...

TBF I'm a bit dissapointed that several BC members seem to be seriously advocating pulling out of a contract you've committed yourself to. If it was another BC member you'd stiffed (might yet be for all anybody knows) I'll bet it would be a different story. 'Man up, pay up and deal with it' would be my advice.

I'm not a fan of this kind of thing for a variety of reasons (notwithstanding @lurksalot's astute observation on the history of artistic endeavour and its benefaction), but on the whole it could be worse. I mean, you could get saddled with the music whether you want it or not...

That's a great vid. Thanks for posting. Something I find interesting is that runs seem to be done across the instrument with very little movement along the strings. I assume it's to do with string pitches being a tone apart rather than a fourth.

It's a US company. Found it by chance while surfing around YouTube and wondered if anybody had seen one up close. It's been around a few years apparently so I'm a bit surprised I haven't noticed it before. Superficially it seems to cover very similar ground to the Chapman Stick, but I'm not so sure. First off it sounds quite different IMHO. Secondly the playing technique looks different; it's more of a guitar/piano hybrid, whereas the Stick is essentially a modified guitar.

Anybody seen one up close?

Another point that might be worth making: the PJB design philosophy is a very specific 'hifi' sound. Partnering it with anything else will change that sound. Doesn't need to be a problem of course, but perhaps worth bearing in mind.

40 you say? Old you say? Oh, and welcome. This could well be the most boring bunch of old bunch of farts on the entire planet. Still, could be worse... we could all be young and opinionated.

Interesting. It's not a title I'm familiar with, but the ideas (if not all the names) in the synopsis seem pretty familiar. Thanks for posting. While I'm here, there's a fairly good youtube vid that covers this information (actually there's a few, but this one is about as down-to-earth as the subject allows):