Well, my new Yamaha RBX A2 bass guitar arrived and I've already used it on a new track. It's a very well made instrument and has a good range of tones. The light-up volume controls add a nice visual touch too.
However, one thing I overlooked when I bought it is that there are no position markers on the fretboard. With it's extended scale length, (much longer than a guitar,) I'm finding it hard to accurately judge my left-hand position to hit the right notes. There are some very small position marker dots on the side of the neck but seeing these with my diabetic impaired visions is nigh on impossible. For someone who plays bass all the time, and with better vision than myself, the absence of fretboard position markers probably doesn't pose such a problem, but, for me it's concerning.
In the studio I can stop if I make a mistake and try again but doing this loses some of the spontaneity and takes time. Maybe I'll get more used to it the more I use the bass. Let's face it, I haven't played bass guitar on my recordings for many years so there's bound to be a little adjustment needed to feel comfortable with it.
This afternoon I have a doctor's appointment to check out my finger problem. Funnily enough, it's not too bad today. Somedays are worse than others though.
My son Elliot came over for dinner last night. Daughter Elle is away in France at the moment, visiting a friend.
Elliot and I had a good chin wag about lots of things, politics, the absurdity of the Trump administration, the self-harm Britain is inflicting on itself with 'Brexit' and, of course, music and recording techniques. A brief demonstration of compression up in my studio in response to Elliot's questioning on how to avoid 'clipping' in a mix.
Emi will soon be going to Tokyo for her 10 day visit. I've begun to buy 'ready meals' to put in the freezer ready for my solitary existence but only got three so far. Will perhaps buy more today.
Thinking again about my backlog of albums. Whilst 'Drive This Comet Across The Sky' is scheduled for a Bandcamp download release in April and 'Dynamos And Tremolos' will hopefully become available as a physical CD sometime in late May or early June, there's still several albums to go yet to catch up. I've been considering 'Magnetic Travels' as a possible third release 'though I haven't got the artwork together for it yet. (Just a fun flyer so far.) Perhaps I could also make more than one new album available at my 70th birthday event in December. We'll see what transpires...
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