Rosie C

Not just the line selector, but a whole bunch of pedals. I have an Orange amp simulator now nestling in my basket!

Ah, that brings back some memories. It must be 20 years since I was last at "Stormin' the Castle".

I don't think anyone has mentioned the Orange Crush 25B yet - I use it as my practice amp, and it's also loud enough to use as my amp performing in church. Church of England, nothing too raucous! 😉 I had one, and it did sound lovely. But it only lasted about a year before the pre-amp circuit blew.

Using a fork-lift?

I heard Free's "Wishing Well" on the radio this morning and was taken with a sudden urge to learn it and multi-track it

Enjoy! As we discussed on another topic, I have a similar bass and like it very much.

Having had my first lesson last week, my mandolin teacher has me learning a 2-octave G major scale and the arpeggios for G, Am, Bm, C, D, Em and F#dim. Compared to bass lessons I've had it's brutal, but I am learning quite quickly.

This is what I do - ambient IEMs run through a personal headphone amp from a signal split out from my pedal board. My first pedal is a TU-3 tuner which has two outputs.

Post photos!

I'm lucky that I look a fair bit younger than my mid-50's. But coming late to music after a decent career as an engineer (where only my skills mattered) it was a bit of a shock to see, on social media, mediocre music by pretty young women getting lots of love, and good music by older, grey-haired women being ignored. Also, I see very competent young female musicians posting mostly photos with thigh and cleavage and (as someone who grew up immersed in 1980s women's lib) that's quite depressing that they feel that's a way to get on. In contrast it does seem that in many genres people feel a weather-worn older man, guitar in hand, knows something of life and has songs & stories worth listening to. So (to get back to the point of the topic) yes, I can see in due course I might well 'get some work done'.

I measured it at: E - 11mm, A - 11mm, D - 10mm, G - 7.5mm That is fingerboard to underside of the strings. That's not how it arrived, I spent some time sanding the edge down until I found it comfortable. I have the beginnings of arthritis in my hands, so it has a relatively low action and synthetic 'rockabilly' strings. The adjusters were added to the bridge to fit the pickup.

I'll dig out a measuring device and check tomorrow!

This is new today! A mandolin from Thomann for £50. I did a bit of research before buying and the consensus seemed to be that if you could: fit decent strings sand the bridge to fit the arch top properly set the action set the intonation then it was a pretty good instrument for the money - and so it has turned out! It has an adjustable bridge so setting the action is straighforward. The reviews were right - the bridge isn't bad quality but on arrival doesn't fit the profile of the arch-top:

I have a bad recommendation - I recently bought an Omnitronic 6 channel box, but while it passes a cable test, some of the channels don't work properly with 48v phantom power mics.

So true. I've had phone videos of me singing and I think I sound awful, yet on the same video the crowd are applauding and having a good time. So I can't be as bad as I think I sound. (I keep telling myself this!)

At our last gig, playing outdoors in a beer garden and plugged in to a socket in the outdoors bar. During the second set the power dropped out for 2 or 3 seconds. Then came back. It did it two or three times. My best guess is a dodgy connection somewhere in the pub's wiring. A Jackery would have been ideal - and avoided an extension lead running across the veranda.

I actually have a little 2kW petrol generator, it used to run halogen flood lights, I wouldn't want to plug anything electronic into it. But maybe I'll sell it to help with the cost of a larger Jackery. Our Morris side have the 1k Jackery, and you're right on both counts! I'll go for the 500W if I can - but the PA is rated at 350W, and with my bass amp too, it seems a bit close.

Yes, I'm only using the iPad as a capture device. It has a 12.9" screen, but even just for recording it's not great. But, I'm finding that having two microphones through the little Behringer mixer into the iPad gives better control over individual microphones than my 4-track Tascam recorder, so I'm persevering. But roll on Christmas and a stand-alone recorder! For editing I have Logic running on my Mac with a single 27" monitor - it does get very cluttered, but is usable.

After I slipped a disc, 5kg was about the most I could carry for a couple of years, so I gigged with a GR AT110 carbon fibre cabinet - it was pricey, but it sounded pretty good.

"Thump" is a double bass with Innovation "black rockabilly" strings. 😉

Thanks @dave_bass5 , that's good to know as I'll likely be getting something like the Tascam Model 16 at the end of the year - and while it can do stand alone recording, it has the option to output all tracks on USB. Meanwhile, I've subscribed to a £5/month Logic licence, rather than use GarageBand - but still recording 2 tracks on the iPad, and 2 tracks on the Tascam recorder. I've also managed to strain my voice (again) so have a couple of months where I can work on guitar skills and recording technique.

Yes, I have the smallest one, 240 watt hour I think. But if we keep doing outdoor gigs we're thinking of getting the 1k one for our PA.

Yes, after 40 years of bass guitar and playing bass in the background of a couple of bands, I was taken with an urge to be up front. I took up vocals, piano accordion and larger mandolins. Vocals and mandolin have gone well, I can perform them together, and a lot of practice is the two at the same time. Accordion has gone less well, there's a lot of muscle memory needed and without regular practice I'm not progressing. Also depending on the genre I need different size accordion. I've done a few gigs but wasn't 100% happy. Very much worth doing, and of course it means I can multi-track recordings - I'm in the middle of recording a bunch of folk songs with vocal and mandolin, and I'll go back and add bass guitar to them later.

I use an Orange Crush 25W practice amp, with a separate 'Jackery' battery pack that has a mains output. It works well and the Jackery is good for 6+ hours of play.

When helping my dad move furniture he had a similar injury - caught his finger between a sofa and a door frame and lost the end. He had a skin graft from his thigh and made pretty much a full recovery. He said it twinged from time to time, but slowly improved, and after a couple of years he realised he couldn't remember the last time it had hurt.