Rosie C

Room for improvement though 😉 Though on a serious point, I think the most significant work on my bass was changing the tuners as that weight is right at the end of a 1 meter lever arm.

You'd be wanting Mercury on a string for that.

No, I don't think it changed the fundamental sound of the bass.

No, it came back sounding great.

I have a jazz bass that I was kinda attached to, and yes I had a massive route done under the scratchplate. Along with changing the tuners for alloy lightweight ones and changing the solid bridge for a 'bent metal plate' type - it knocked a pound or so of weight off and made it very playable. Whether it was the best option is debatable - I love the bass and I'm pleased I kept it, but I'd probably have been better selling it and buying something else.

Well, it was his car and he was driving [1] so he didn't get any complaints. [1] although I'd promised to share the driving I fell asleep

did my friend win?

Oh yes! On 15th April, 2003 I had no voice as I'd screamed so much at the Duran Duran reunion tour at Wembley the night before! We had the strangest drive home too - heavy fog on the way back to Devon, and my friend who was driving played Kraftwerk all the way.

I'm going with "The Switchblade Dog Experience" 👍

No longer listed on ebay!

I started with Garageband and a little Berhringer 4-channel mixer with USB. A cheap way to get into digital music, though I found Garage Band a slippery slope to Logic Pro. Reaper seems pretty good though - we have to use it next year at uni so I've been starting to use it.

The walls in my practice room are painted Harp Strings. The woodwork is Inky Prose.

I visited a recording studio last week to help a friend out. I was meant to just be playing mandolin and accordion, but as his band was 'between bass players' at the time I was asked to dep on bass guitar too...

Hmmm... 🤔 However, this one isn't bad...

I would robustly disagree with "musical genius"! You're right though that the skills from viola & mandolin have the possibility to combine to make for a really good start on violin. But I have two reasons for getting a teacher - I'm hoping a teacher will help address issues quickly and speed up my progress, especially as our band has some summer gigs that I think would benefit from some fiddle-playing. Also, I've been convinced that folk is better learned by ear from a folk musician rather than from reading dots. My teacher does 1-1 lessons but also hosts group Zoom lessons, which is a nice way to learn and I expect after a few months I'll just do the Zoom sessions.

Yes, this is the route I'm going - practice and ear training. I have a teacher lined up - she does 1:1 lessons and also does group Zoom lessons. First one 5.30 this evening!

I took part in my first professional recording sessionthis morning! Due to recent band changes I ended up laying down bass guyitar, octave mandolin and piano accordion. Just to keep me on my toes, the song was in the key of D♭, OK on bass and mando but a pain in the proverbial on accordion. But it was a lot of fun being in a professional studio and seeing how things worked - very different to recording stuff at home with my Zoom recorder!

It is! I had anaphylaxis and had an ambulance etc. last year, a few weeks before I had to record my end of year project for uni. Flex pitch saved the day when my voice wasn't 100% recovered. It also helped fix slight pitch issues for a multi-tracked 4-part recorder piece. I did admit this in my [write] up.

My modest rig - Orange 25B practice amp and Squier fretless jazz. I didn't think I needed anything else, then I saw @Yorkshire Bottom End's Trace Elliot cabinets... 🙄

I love the look of those 110 TE cabinets!

I'd be happy getting the same make & model - Aria Pro II Wildcat in white. But it would need to be exact. I keep looking on ebay, but white with the earlier P/J pickups seems pretty rare. Nothing particularly special about them except my dad bought me one as a kid. Here's one in red...

Exactly! I have an Orange amp with gain and built in chorus & reverb. Muhahaha! Frets would certainly save me a lot of grief - I've muscle memory from playing the larger viola, so particularly third-finger notes I'm playing a bit sharp. My double bass has a sneaky strip of electrician's tape across where the fifth fret would be, but I'm going 'cold turkey' with my violin, trying to train my ear.

I've played classical viola for a few years - but got increasingly bored with the typical viola parts, with all the good bits of tune going to violin and 'cello. Then I got into folk music, and playing folk tunes meant for violin on viola was just making my life unnecessarily hard, especially as I'm not a particularly good player. So yesterday my viola got chopped in on a violin! I went to the shop expecting to buy a basic acoustic student instrument. But this beasty was up on a high shelf - too high to make out the price tag. But I asked and it was surprisingly affordable. I love its style - a sort of clash between very modern but with hints of the mediaeval. First play I had that instant feeling it was the one I was going to buy. Built-in electric pickup is a bonus and being semi-acoustic it's quiet for practice.

Edit: I already posted this 2-3 weeks ago! 😖

Yes, my Squier jazz - and I went as far as to sell all my other three basses as I so rarely played them!