Marvin

That's fortuitous timing. I was going through my cables a few days ago and my Fender guitar cable doesn't work at all. Cheers for the heads up

It's a great list...of bass players who were active in 2021 and nobody knew.

Thank you for your help. In the end it was my old audio interface causing the problem. As they're quite cheap, I bought the Behringer UCA202 that you mentioned @RhythmJunky and it works a treat.

He's probably got a high boredom threshold 😁

I'm not going to watch ep3. McCartney just said bass can be a bit boring in ep2. So I'm done with it, I'm done with it all!! 😎

My brother has always maintained that the best Foo Fighter's album is...The Best of The Foo Fighters. Regards music, he's right on this one occasion. I like Grohl, his sheer enthusiasm for music is great, but regards the Foos, they're ok, I couldn't listen to a whole album.

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Bass-Guitar-Strings-Fender-Stainless-9050ML-FLATWOUND-50-100-/274841132586?mkcid=16&mkevt=1&_trksid=p2349624.m46890.l49286&mkrid=710-127635-2958-0

I literally stumbled across an interview with Peter Jackson regards his making of this, and it really does explain the film's length and other things. I think it gives the film a lot of perspective. If you watch that with Ringo talking to Jimmy Kimmel it really puts a different spin on it. I'm half way through part 2. I'm liking it, maybe not loving it, but there is something important in all of it. In many ways The Beatles were just like millions of other bands, the writing, the boredom, the pranks, all that. What's different is to see how the most influential band went through the motions. I'll watch all of it. It's fascinating to see how McCartney plays his bass, it looks like it picks really hard, and all that strumming. Don't Let Me Down is one of my favourite Beatles/ all time songs, love the song, love the bass playing, I just find it mind boggling that it was never on the album! Billy Preston though, he really made the songs he played on...and just like bands do, he drops in to say hello and gets invited to sit in and play. It's an important piece of film for The Beatles story.

Is the DAC to the desk for monitoring? This is why it's quite frustrating. The interface is the selected input, there's sound going in as you get the input level bars going up and down as you play...but no sound to the person you're 'calling'. I'm inclined yo think it's the interface.

Tried on Mac and 2 different Windows machines, no joy at all. I've got a signal going in. When you open up the audio settings in Skype there's sound going to Skype as the bars move. However, nothing can be heard the other end by the person I'm calling. Yet I can hear them with the headphones from the audio interface. 🤔

I've got sound going into the computer as it works on a DAW on its own. However, when I close the DAW and try on Skype I get nothing. I get a faint bit of guitar if I put the input at maximum on the interface, but I'm also getting a massive amount of hiss/white noise. Real head scrater

My son may have to have guitar lessons using Skype (or similar) soon, as his guitar tutor is moving and he'd like to stay with the same tutor. He's had Skype lessons before but just used the laptop mic, which isn't the best. Ideally I'd want him to be able to route his guitar into the laptop, use a proper mic not the laptop one and use headphones to hear himself and his tutor. I've got an old non USB mixer and a very old USB interface that might do the job (I'd need a mic). I've used it before on my Mac and GarageBand, but not for anything like online lessons. (pic below). Would this gear work? Would it be better to buy a different USB interface, one that you can plug in the guitar and mic? Would a USB mixer be a better solution? Do I need a DAW to make all this work for online lessons? As you might be able to see I'm not knowledgeable in anything like this, so any advice or pointers would be great. Cheers

Ive just watched the PG rig rundown, with Dallas Schoo, of The Edge's set up...the sheer amount that goes on 'off stage'! It's mind boggling. There is a lot of getting the sound "absolutely right", before it goes to the desk. I can't see that someone so 'particular' about his own sound would allow anyone else in the band have a that'll do approach. PG also did a rig rundown on GnR. There are no bass cabs on their stage, they all use IEM. However, off stage Duff has a 115 and a 410 cab mic'd. That signal, along with 3 or 4 other signals from different sources are sent to the desk and blended. From what I remember I think there are guitar cabs mic'd in, near soundproofed, boxes off stage as well. These big bands may use IEM, but it's not as simple as DI the bass to the desk and that's it. They have a sound, and a lot of them seem very particular about recreating that sound by using A LOT of gear

He can talk about politics all he wants, it's his massive hypocrisy that disgusts many people.

With regard to Achtung Baby, Clayton's contribution seemed to be nil, apart from being incredibly negative when he heard the demos

ITV, a few years ago, aired a documentary to mark the 25th(?) anniversary of the release of Achtung Baby. Throughout the film they played several of the demos, that the Edge and Bono had made, for the album to present to Clayton and Mullins. The bass parts were already there, and are the lines you hear on the album. Solid and reliable he is, but it made me wonder what is it he does other than be solid. How much does he bring to the writing process to get that writing royalty cut he gets? I don't find what he does interesting. Others might say the same about the bassists I like, Mike Mills, McCartney, Jimi Goodwin (Doves). To me these players seem more musical and more interested in music, they have 'something'. Clayton strikes as someone who just wanted to be a rock star. I don't like U2, but that's not the reason I don't find Clayton interesting. I'm not a fan of Rolling Stones, but I find Keith Richards and Ronnie Wood musically very interesting. Competent, but beyond that I don't see someone who is of interest musically

I've never had the money to be loyal to a particular brand 🙂 I tend to buy the gear, at a certain price point, that will give me what I need in terms of playability, sound and to some degree aesthetic if possible. I do though, try to buy brands that hopefully have a good reputation and/or decent after sales network if something goes wrong. There are brands that if they go wrong you may as well bin as the parts or repair options are non-existent. That said, I do own a Sire v7 and I'm not sure how you get the onboard preamp sorted if it goes belly up. If I had the budget for higher end gear I'd have to try it first, I think. I don't know where I'd start to be honest.

P bass tone up all the way. J bass, which can be active but I switch to passive, tone up all the way and balance pot in the middle.

On YouTube is Tom Petty - Somewhere You Feel Free: The Making of Wildflowers I watched it this afternoon, it's about 90mins. Although I thoroughly enjoyed it, it is a little somber at times. His band clearly miss him a lot. They were, I feel, the very definition of a band. The clubhouse is...well, who wouldn't want somewhere like that? And when you listen to Mike Campbell sit there and talk a little about it....

Currently this.

I think I've only bought 2 albums this year, both new releases though. Richie Kotzen and Adrian Smith's Smith/Kotzen album is a great collection of songs, definitely one of my favourites at the moment. My favourite of the year though is Eliza Shaddad's album The Woman You Want. I saw her support Turin Brakes a few years ago and she was brilliant. I'm really pleased that In The Morning is on the album, just a fantastic song.

The last time (several years ago now) I ordered strings from Amazon I ended up with a phone case for a Samsung S7. Customer service was as much help as a chocolate fireguard. I very rarely buy from Amazon, partly because for the things I buy online they're naff. For fishing gear Amazon is abysmal, there are much better retailers that I use. As for next day delivery, the times I have used Amazon that's been very hit and miss, many items have been 3-4 days. And to be honest, when did we become so impatient? Someone on social media posted the following 'In Communist countries everybody buys from the state, in capitalist countries everybody buys from Amazon. Not too far from the truth.

Ask Billy Sheehan 😁 In all seriousness, although it may not style you're looking for I imagine there's some videoes out there where he could give some important pointers.

Thank you. I shall keep passing on the suggestions...and having a laugh with him with the ones that may be inappropriate

I've used Flats for the last 6 years, maybe more, on both my basses. I've only changed strings 3 times. Once on my P bass because one of the strings had become damaged, it'd started to rattle so I could only think the core had started to go downhill. On my Jazz bass, I changed my flats to rounds a couple of months ago...then changed them back again after 10 days because I really didn't like the sound of the rounds. So a total of 3 times in 6 years