Jackroadkill

Every bass ever made: The Good-For-Metal Bass

I drank a bottle of Buttercup Syryp just before going on stage once and tripped balls all night.

If I had a mic I'd drop it.

Whoever made that is obviously not running from the grammar fuzz, but is petrified of the punctuation rozzers.

I agree with @neepheid; that's top flight sheethoosery right there.

Oh man, so many.... One was when our singer (who is still one of my very best friends) stumbled up to me just as we were due onstage and slurred "Is there a better mic stand? This one isn't going to hold me up"; things went downhill from there. When I forgot the verse riff to the latest song we'd written, leaving the rest of the band to try and cover for me whilst I pretended it was just drones of feedback. The time we played a festival in the widdling rain, which flooded the stage and blew up the monitors. When I got carried away and jumped on a table, kicking drinks all over the unhappy drinkers who were sat at it, finding out later that they were the parents of the young lady whose 18th birthday we were playing. Those are just some that spring to mind. There are others, unfortunately!

Mate, I'd come and see that!

I'm doing my best to avoid that and use the method you suggest; it's odd, because I'd swear that I use the pad of my finger rather than the very tip, but it's the tip that's complaining. I think I'll just have to try and play for a shorter time and do it more often for a while, and see what happens. I mean, if all else fails I can use a pick, but I want to play with my fingers as much as I can. Thanks all, JRK

I'm new to bass (and BC, too) and have found the advice and help available on the forum to be invaluable. The advice given above is great; I bought a very nice Mexican Precision at a very reasonable price indeed from a BC member a few weeks back - bargains can be had in the classifieds section on a daily basis.

Excellent - I'll see if I can dig it out.

I've never played with anything other than roundswound strings, so it could be. Are they known for being harder on the fingers than flats?

I hadn't thought about it that way; it doesn't feel like I'm overdoing it when I pluck the strings, but after an hour or so of the string sliding over the end of the fingertip it's definitely starting to get sore, and on a couple of occasions has resulted in a small blister. I assumed this was due to friction that I'm not used to, but after reading what you said above, maybe I need to refine my technique. This is just my right hand index finger. If I'm playing something fast I will use the middle finger to take up some of the work, but it doesn't get enough use to cause any problems. Neither is there any problem on the fingers of my left hand, but they've had years of guitar playing, so maybe the skin is thick enough that any nickel sensitivity is reduced. Ow, that doesn't sound nice at all. Thankfully mine don't do anything as unpleasant as that, I just get the world's smallest carpet burn on my fingertip.

That's great - real world experience is worth a hundred YouTube "reviews"! Thanks very much for taking the time to respond in detail.

Not as far as I'm aware; I've played guitar for years (badly!) and used nickelwound strings without issue.

Thanks Douglas, that's great. I'll try that method. I know that playing is the only way to develop those calluses, I suppose, but the how is what's been beating me so far. I think I may have to for certain songs, as much as I'd prefer to use my fingers. I'm not Robert Tujillo yet!

How do you find it in general?

No, I'm quite old-school in that respect. Occasionally I will if dealing with sharp edges on fabrication work, but that's about it.

Hi all, this is a new thing for me - I'm having trouble with the skin on my right index finger and am not sure what to do about it (or whether I just need to be patient). I'm new to the bass and I keep burning the tip of the finger when plucking the strings. This then hardens off nicely, but after ten days or so falls off, leaving a soft and very sensitive layer of skin thus exposed to the strings. I'd hoped that this would have developed into a permanent callus by now, but seemingly it hasn't. The tips of my fretting hand are perfectly happy and have maintained the calluses they got from playing guitar, and my hands are used to manual labour (I'm a part-time farm labourer). So, my questions are: 1) what am I doing wrong; and 2) what can I do about it, if anything. Any advice is very welcome. Thanks, JRK

After some thought I'm down to a shortlist of two, the Laney Digbeth and the Tech 21 VTDI . Thanks very much for your input, everyone, it's much appreciated.

I've modded guitars for plenty of reasons, but since picking up the bass all I've done is add a genuine Fender thumb rest to one of them, so I'm not sure that really counts as much of a mod. I thought I might upgrade the capacitors but the sound I've got is pretty good so I've talked myself out of that idea.

Yeah, it would seem that way:

Same here (well, it was a Telecaster) and I was very pleased with the result. It's surprising how good a finish you can get with nitro from a rattlecan when you do the prep properly, isn't it?

There's nothing wrong at all with budget instruments, Thomas. If you enjoy what they do for you they're better than an expensive instrument that doesn't light your fire.

I leave mine at the foot of the speaker cabinet; I only use a tuner and an Ampeg Scrambler overdrive, so I leave them out of the way. If I have them at my feet I always feel like I'm going to fall over them. When playing guitar I have a bigger board with PSU, switcher and seven pedals on it and I have to have it under my mic because I spend half the set tapdancing on the bloody thing.

I'll take the Junkyard relic 51 Precision, the Orange Terror Bass 1000w head and the Little Bear fuzz, please.