Dave Vader

[quote name='Johnston' post='1279563' date='Jun 23 2011, 12:48 PM']Oh I agree a fivers a fiver but then what does a fiver buy you these days. Not a lot . But then when you get guitarists who think you should half a dozen spare sets in the gig bag just because they have. Their half a dozen costs the same as 1 set for the bass.[/quote] Now that is true, took me a while to get out of the habit. Down to 3 spare sets lying about the place now (all used). My guitar box still has loads though. Them fiddly little things break easy...

A lot of squiers way back in the 90s. They said Squier on the headstock, I was a twat.

Excellent, nicked and Fbed.

[quote name='redstriper' post='1280406' date='Jun 24 2011, 12:33 AM']There are 3 things made me start looking for a new bass 1: Weight - the replacement body is solid maple and the bass weighs 10.5lbs. 2: Playability - the replacement fingerboard has massive jumbo frets, there's a dead spot and the intonation isn't perfect. 3: Looks - it's an ugly beast. My plan is to keep the old 'un for recording and special gigs, while using a new one for gigs. I just don't understand why the new ones don't have the tone of my oldie.[/quote] It's the maple body for sure. That thing is clearly unique, you may never replicate it exactly, however hard you try. And as for point 2, refret, and set it up so the dead spots and intonation are gone.

[quote name='Johnston' post='1279403' date='Jun 23 2011, 09:45 AM']But then does the bit that was wound around the tuner not get a little kinked up and kill the string?? Hardly worth it when a spare set of guitar strings is only a fiver, Bar stewards .[/quote] fivers a fiver, I bust strings a lot when I'm gigging. Doesn't kill the string enough for anybody to really notice. Least of all me (or punters). When I can spend a fiver a week on strings I will, but that day will never come.

[quote name='mcnach' post='1278900' date='Jun 22 2011, 07:04 PM']It's very much like when you grab an electric guitar for the first time. You invariably hit that overdrive pedal and what you thought would sound ok from playing acoustic or unplugged, sounds absolutely terrible, with all those unintended vibrations. You try to clean up your technique... and before you know it, it works and you don't really know how you do it, you just do.[/quote] and the exact opposite (overdrive hides a multitude of technique sins)

[quote name='Happy Jack' post='1267604' date='Jun 13 2011, 05:48 PM']You had loads ... until Machines deleted them all. [/quote] that explains it all, thanks Jack. Though my mind had gone, though I think Machines may have deleted it....

[quote name='stingrayPete1977' post='1278921' date='Jun 22 2011, 07:25 PM']I love bass chat! My mate used to leave the ends uncut on his strings in case he snapped one?[/quote] Nothing wrong with that on guitar, I still do it. As long as it snaps at the bridge end you can tie the ball end back on and get twice as much use out of it. Doesn't work with Bass at all sadly.

[quote name='BigAlonBass' post='1277181' date='Jun 21 2011, 03:30 PM']1) He's [i]staring[/i] at the neck. This, to me, equates to self-indulgence, and to heck with the audience.[/quote] I stare at the neck, a lot, well the lines on the side of it anyway, still terrified of hitting wrong notes since I went fretless... Nowt to do with self-indulgence, more to do with wanting to get it right.

[quote name='RhysP' post='1278467' date='Jun 22 2011, 01:07 PM']I rarely play below the 21st fret so I've got to have a two octave neck.[/quote] Have you considered the guitar (it is like a bass, only higher)

[quote name='silddx' post='1278644' date='Jun 22 2011, 03:47 PM']I think, quite often, an instrument can delight in isolation, only to find it doesn't work for you in an ensemble situation.[/quote] Unless it's a P, in which case it's usually quite the reverse. Love my dirty old P copy. It has a Kent Armstrong hot ALnico, in it. Sounds bloody lovely with a band (though in isolation it sounds like a horse taking a dump into a pile of rubber bands supporting some depressed penguins). Just like a P should.

I suspect that if there were no self-indulgence in music, there would be no musical progression, possibly no music at all. Certainly if it had stopped in recent years, we would probably all be playing knees up muvva brahn on a constant loop so that everyone was happy and heard something they knew and could sing along to. I like all music equally ta, there's some songs I don't like, a lot of artists I don't care for, but not s single genre I thoroughly hate (unless Abba count as a genre? And I like that bit out of SOS anyway... Nice thread...

[quote name='Mr Fudge' post='1276780' date='Jun 21 2011, 10:39 AM']Hopefully our "Vision On" Outro would negate too much huffyness. [/quote] It's a shame I would have left after the first half an hour of Mr Blue Sky Somebody would tell me about the Vision on I missed the next day, I would then be crosser, as I would have enjoyed it were it not for the length of ELOs dirge.

I would post setlists for all my many bands, but they would just make me depressed. Sorry, will try again later when I am more cheerful and helpful. Oh, and Mr Fudge, I would enjoy your whole show, I would shout for more, and then you would play ELO at me, and I would get huffy and walk out.

[quote name='Earbrass' post='1268333' date='Jun 14 2011, 10:36 AM']Everybody seems to be focusing on which bass they'd prefer to sell or would mind selling the least, but if, as the original question suggests, I was short of cash and needed to sell a bass, I'd also be looking at which one would be most likely to sell quickly and for a good price.[/quote] Damn straight, that's why all the instruments left round my place are cheap and nasty...

Yep, am playing the main stage of Sonic Rock Solstice on Saturday 18th June at about 2-2:30 with Secrets for September. Anybody else here playing the festival? I will be there for about the half hour I am playing, and then I will be legging it back to Devon for my step-daughter's 18th. Fun day (or it would be if I didn't have to leg it back). Oh, it's at Builth Wells in Wales somewhere (hope my map works).

You have used 0bytes of 30MB Oh, I shan't delete my attachments then, I don't seem to have used any. Hoorah!

Muppetman Sh1tray Was going to use it on my weird project a while back, but sold the whole thing off before I got to the decal.

[quote name='BigRedX' post='1264123' date='Jun 10 2011, 04:47 PM']Has no-one else noticed that the bridge is in totally the wrong place? It should be somewhere around the position of the angled pickup. No wonder it won't play in tune.[/quote] I had hoped that the scale length was longer for baritoney goodness. Oh well...

[quote name='blind pilot' post='1264092' date='Jun 10 2011, 04:23 PM']I recently bought a tanglewood bass of the bay, for peanuts. I played it, and liked it so have decided to mod it a little, will be painting it a nice super shiney glossy black, and sticking in a pukka copy of a stingray 2 band pre-amp, with a view to fitting a nice SD pup too. Now would it be wrong of me to make up a nice waterslide decal of a pukka Musicman logo for the headstock, so it looks the part? I must stress I am doing it for me, not to sell on as a pukka one to some poor bugger (like on recent posts here) I would just like it to look the 'part' Is that too vain of me? [attachment=82280:09062011356.jpg][/quote] How about doing a "muppetman" logo instead? To save any later owners of said bass using it for nefarious purposes. Looks convincing enough to the audience.

[url="http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ARCHTOP-GUITAR-PROJECT-/230632364119?pt=UK_Guitar_Accessories&hash=item35b2c29857#ht_500wt_902"]http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ARCHTOP-GUITAR-PROJE...57#ht_500wt_902[/url] For the record, if I had a few quid, I would get this, though the picture of Slash on it is off-putting. Tempted to make one of my own....

Not bad, did 2 gigs, one at the Sorry Head in Exeter, then a quick jaunt down the road to Bombay Bills, both with my originals band, Secrets for September. 1st was good, 2nd suffered a lot from not being able to hear the keyboard backing tracks so well (guitar player missed a few notes, hey ho, they're his songs as well). Plus side, guy at the end of the BBs set was very nice to me about my playing, and had a little chat about the legendary Dave fretless home-made nightmare bass. Liked that, not often people are nice about it.

[quote name='mart' post='1263560' date='Jun 10 2011, 08:06 AM']This seems a good question to ask. And I wonder if it's simply that RIC don't work hard at artist relations. Putting that another way, when famous bassist X switches to brand Y, is that generally because a nice rep from brand Y came and visited him/her and persuaded them to switch? I don't know if that's the case, but if it is, one could speculate a bit further (since that's what 'tinternet is best at, eh? ): RIC don't seem very interested in increasing their production capacity - they've got a huge waiting list for their gear and are happy with that situation. So maybe they can't see any point trying to get other famous players to play Rics, since that would only lead to more people wanting their kit, and an increase in the waiting list.[/quote] Although IIRC McCartney said in an interview once that he only started playing the Ric for precisely that reason, cos they gave him a free one, and it was the 1st ACTUAL left hander he'd got hold of.

[url="http://www.amazon.co.uk/Upside-Down-Single/dp/B0054SJ8FG/ref=sr_shvl_album_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1307692997&sr=301-1"]http://www.amazon.co.uk/Upside-Down-Single...97&sr=301-1[/url] I'm on this (please don't pay too much attention to the Bass part, I thought it was just a demo, sent it by mp3 to Matt, who floated it into the track. There are latency issues, I would have liked to redo it with a hardwire, hey ho) It's on iTunes as well. Fun fun fun...

Generally it is a good option if you have upgraded from a beginner bass to something better, and you fancy having a go at fretless. Also an easy step into the world of modding and luthiery in general. Much easier to get your old encore and rip the frets out than get the £30 it'll fetch on ebay towards a squier VM (which is not as cheap as you might think).