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Question for bassists: the pickups in my j bass have questionable (aka very low) output. Is that normal? It looks like a typical j bass pickup is usually wound to ~8k. To get an audible signal I'm having to really amplify the input signal to levels that I'd consider noisey and unusable, which...

The plate the tuners sit in is so simple and effective. It's such a deceptively elegant design. I've got lockers on all of my guitars and the hipshots are easily my favorite.

I had been despairing about how low I was on a bunch of basic supplies. Resistors, caps, etc. Especially when the Canadian dollar has been terrible and Tayda's duty free shipping is still ~$20 for every $100 of stuff. I organized my work space (aka took everything out of the bin I haphazardly...

Playing well is overrated. I used to beat myself up over mistakes. Nobody cared. People did notice when I was too stiff or if I didn't move around. Live music is great because it's kinetic.

I read dancing in the glory of monsters a couple years ago, which is a book about the DRC. It did its best to parse out the modern history of the region. One of the things that stuck with me was the extremely complicated relationship between resource extraction, violence, and poverty. One of the...

The thing I struggle with in a thread like this is communicating use case. My favourites totally depend on context. The Cattle Driver and Rangefinder are my favourite pedals to put in front of an amp. They both sound bad with my recording/practice setup (either a Sunn Beta preamp into a UniCab...

I picked it up on a lark. The whole NOS Mitsubishi chip seemed interesting. The description made it sound like it would be carbon copy-ish. I still can't believe how much I like it. Really easy to dial in. It somehow manages to both fade into the background, providing a nice ambient sound, and...

Rangefinder into a cattle driver are my favorites for playing with a guitar into an amp. Pro-10 is extremely versatile. I usually use the bluesbreaker side with my baritone, the odr to compliment the brighter guitar tones I usually prefer. The Brown Betty is my favorite for recording. Usually...

I'm not sure that I actually enjoy building pedals - it front-loads the suffering. Populating a board is kind of tedious. All I can think about when I'm soldering, even with a fume extractor, is lead exposure. Troubleshooting makes me want to throw things in frustration. Drilling kind of sucks...

I'm running my pedal board into a beta lead preamp (the pcbguitarmania one - actually not a total piece of garbage!) into a unicab into a focusrite 2i2. Recording in Reaper. I recorded this a few weeks ago with the setup to test out the guitar I 3D printed. I don't totally remember what my...

Mine's a warmoth partscaster from the late 2000s (2008 maybe?). Mahogany body, mahogany neck, ebony fretboard. This thing is my reference for a perfect neck shape. SD quarter pound pickups. Lost the knob on the pickup selector at a show. Cut my hand on the bare switch a few weeks later so I bent...

I'm an academic librarian. I mostly look after collections (negotiate database licenses, buy books, etc) and teach in the campus makerspace. Easily the best job I've ever had. I used to be a digital literacy and makerspace librarian in a public library but it was unusually stressful. Low pay...

I've been largely disappointed by horror novels with some notable exceptions. Whenever I think of a horror story my brain always conjures up the Priests Tale from Hyperion (Dan Simmons) as the example. I think Blood Meridian qualifies as horror (horror-western?). That's probably my favourite...

For me it depends on what I'm doing. I usually play black metal. I'll always have at least one delay on (usually a hydra delay) with the delay time set between 100-250ms, medium-ish repeats, 30% mix running into a reverb (extra wet; usually a gravitation reverb). Since I'm trem picking for...

How do you like the process? I rode a 134 years ago and really liked how everything felt. I need to tear apart my hardtail and move the parts over to a new frame and service everything on my main bike. Last season just kept going and I assumed every ride for a month was going to be the last...

Unusual project on my bench (temporarily hanging for a photo): Some of my work time got assigned to my university makerspace. I decided to try my hand at putting together a “prusacaster” for a professional development project. I’m almost done with the printing. I need to remove some epoxy...

I think minimum of 4 for me, but it depends on if I'm playing with an amp or headphones/modeller. I don't usually play with a clean signal (I mostly play metal). Usually I'll stack drives or a boost and distortion. That gives me some flexibility to chug and noodle. That goes into at least one...

You shouldn't have to though. The gym that I climb at has been playing a few of their 90s hits regularly. When I comment about how much I hate the end of the world as we know it I sometimes get to meet new REM fans and should be used to this. I realize I'm probably the odd one out here and...

I'm always genuinely surprised how many people like REM. I feel like this question can only be personal. My vote is for Neurosis, His Hero is Gone, or portraits of past. They probably had the biggest musical impact on my taste, approach to playing music, and the subsequent opportunities I had...

Hoopla is a weird company. I think they have the licensing rights for all the stuff they lend and then charge libraries $1 (or something) every time something is lent out. Libby is owned by a middleman with an online store for libraries. They get books at wholesale and sell them at msrp...