SimonK

Maybe take the guitar into a shop and get a set-up as well? I've used 12-53 phospho-bronzes on my acoustics for 30+ years, and normally if there is a tension issue it's more to do with needing the truss-rod tweaked a bit rather than the strings.

I'd just go in to a shop and play a bunch - you will probably find the one you like the most is higher than your budget anyway - that's certainly my experience as I don't think I've ever gone under budget on a music related purchase! Thus said, for £1500 I don't think I'd ever buy without playing, but for £500 I might take the risk - so I suppose one advantage of going cheap is that you potentially have more options than just the ones you can lay your hands on in a shop!

I've got a template (see attached) that I've used in various situations before. I think it originally came from my University for research type things but I've used it for a local cricket club and various other public events. The idea is to identify potential risks, calculate the score based on probability x severity, say what you will do to mitigate the risk, and then calculate a new score post mitigation. Risk Assessment Blank.docx

Score - just need to work out what's wrong with it when I pick it up tomorrow.

Here's four of my rigs:

...is that a tier 1 fail as the sugar from the mini eggs goes into your blood which powers the muscles in your fingers to play bass and thus definitely contributes to the signal path 🙂 ?

They've never all been in the same place as I tend to leave them where I play - far too heavy to steal or move unnecessarily! Mind you writing the above post did make me think that this summer I should get them all together in one place just for the fun of it - I've probably also got enough heads and splitter pedals to power the whole lot as one big rig which would be entertaining - I could use bass chat members to see how far away they could hear me from!

Yes I have multiple Trace Elliot cabs because they sound awesome, but due to their weight and age can now be picked up for almost nothing. Currently I have the following (roughly grouped how I use them): 2x2103x The first one has replacement speakers that are a bit dodgy, so I grabbed a second for about £40. I only really use the good one now. 1x1153 which is a nice 15 inch speaker to fit under the 2103x 1x1048 for the 4x10 sound 1x2103H for the 2x10 + horn sound 1x1810x it was going for £20 so I thought why not A combo which is essentially a 1048H cab which used to have a GP12 head apart from the previous owner threw it away so I added a GP7 head from a 715 combo, meaning I now have an additional 15 inch speaker in a cab but without a head - not dissimilar to the 1153 as above. This latter one is mainly used as a work bench! So yes that will be 8 Trace Elliots...

If you are starting out the Squire will be fine - you are unlikely to notice much of a difference between instruments at this price point. The most important thing is to just get playing (and practicing).

+1 for the squire, although listening to that I would say playing ability (and hitting notes cleanly) will make a far bigger difference than the instrument you choose - indeed if you are starting out trying to play slap I would stick to a four string until you've been playing for a few years!

I think, same as with other areas, AI will change the way music is written and maybe even recorded. It's a tool, and for me can help me write lyrics in particular that I have struggled to do in the past. Then the song/music writing part gives some interesting ideas, but in both cases I think I would want to use the AI as a tool to help develop something that I would probably want to record properly in the end - thus said the AI vocals are loads better than any singer I know, so it may be putting AI vocals over a recorded track. Of course the biggest problem with AI is that it makes it much easier for people to create things, meaning more crap to wade through until you find something good!

Actually from the sound of this thread so far it seems most of us like one or two things (for me the Trace Elliot stuff), but dislike the majority of what they do. This feels different from other brands (certainly for me) as while I am not interested in a lot of things, I don't "dislike" products from other brands in perhaps the same way I do with Peavey.

I honestly just googled "AI song lyrics" and I think it was https://boredhumans.com/lyrics_generator.php that popped up first, and then once I had the lyrics I googled "Free ai song generator" and https://aisonggenerator.io/ seemed to work best. It wouldn't let me download a higher quality version of the song so I then paid a one month subscription just to keep fiddling round with it a bit more. I can't vouch for these being the best/worst or anything in between. They just seemed to work!

Perhaps the ELF line is their most successful and highly rated product(s) at the moment?

Yes I watched it yesterday and thought no wonder I've never liked Peavey... and then realised they currently have the ownership of my favourite amp brand, and while it's all the pre-Peavey kit I love the most, a bit of me hopes that the new kit can keep the history going... although after watching that maybe not...

I went to one free online programme and asked it to write some lyrics on the subject of death in the style of Def Leppard (I thought this was appropriately rock & roll!), and then fed the lyrics into another free programme to write the music, specifying the instruments and a male vocal. I have to admit I am quite impressed, although my immediate thought would be to re-record this playing all the instrument live (or at least for real!), and possibly tweak the lyrics a bit. The upshot is that it has potentially produced a very playable song, and I could see myself generating tens of songs using this method, then cherry picking the best to re-record and even play live.

Let me try posting my AI song here - no one else seems to be appreciating how brilliant it is - mostly because it took only two programmes and about twenty minutes to produce!! Dancing With Shadows.mp3

Out of interest do you use the "boost" switch for anything? I've always kind of viewed this as a more guitar orientated function.

It sounds to me from reading this there are two types of buyers: 1) I want something with the original spec but second hand 2) I want an instrument and don't mind if it has a history Possibly the market for 1)'s is more lucrative than 2)'s, but I'd wager the 2)'s often play better! What we all seem to agree on is that a potential 3) "I've upgraded so pay me more" is a non-starter!

Losing tuning stability is almost always a tuner, nut or bridge problem. Sweat in bridges also causes them to corrode and isn't the easiest thing to get out without taking them apart. Tuners can seize up as well, and can get knocked if the bass gets knocked off its stand (no matter how careful it happens sooner or later!) although I should add these things all happen on my gigging basses - I have a couple stay at home guitars and nothing has gone wrong with these!

Blimey - after scratchy pots, failing jack sockets and broken battery wires, tuners and bridges are generally the next things that cause me problems!

Of course despite writing the above I do now recall changing the pickups in a Stratocaster for a set of Texas specials, and then putting the originals on a different strat that I wanted a more vintage sound for, and switching two from that strat into a Tele, and then generally losing track of which pickup started in which guitar - again not thinking about selling but can at least guaraantee Fender made US pickups in all three guitars but wouldn't be marketing any as "upgraded"! Incidentally I've seen a few people try something similar with bass cabs, "upgrading" a speaker without perhaps realising the importance of cabs with ports being tuned for specific speakers...

This makes total sense to me - upgrade/replace as needed for playing reasons, but keep the original parts and if/when things get sold on say why you did it. But don't be the person who tries to mark up a prce because they added some more expensive pickups just "because"!

I think there is a level of honesty to all this. For instance I drove up to Liverpool fifteen years ago to pick up a Stingray via eBay, and when I got to it the case reeked of cigarette smoke and there was a crack in the neck plate where someone had overtightened a screw (neither of which were mentioned in the eBay ad). It played fine, I got £200 off the price, and sourced a new Stingray neck plate although now the serial number on the new neck plate doesn't match the actual bass (to this day I don't know how the luthier who did the fix, clean & set-up came across it). I also got a new, branded, musicman case which fixed the smell. I've been playing that bass for 15 years now with no problems at all, albeit might need a refret fairly soon. I have no intention to sell it at the moment, but when I do I will include the old neck plate with the crack and tell the story - hopefully any potential buyer will like the fact the instrument has a backstory and many hundreds of gigs (and potentially a refret). But I'm guessing it won't interest collectors.

I've been eyeing these all in one pedals up for a while, and for me it's between the Trace Elliot and the Fishman Platinum Pro EQ. The EBS and Tech21 have similar features but do not seem to be designed quite so well. There's plenty of other preamp pedals around, but these in particular are designed for being "all in one" solutions without quite getting into digital multi-effects. As a general TE fan I will probably end up with the Transit-B sooner or later as a grab and go option to put in the pocket of a gig bag.