Wulf's Webden

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15 June 2026
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Strap Locks

Beyond keeping an eye on the setup, I don’t tend to do a lot of after-market modification to my basses. One exception to that rule is that I like my instruments fitted with strap locks. There are various strap lock systems available but the one I’ve standardised are Schallers. By using an additional mechanical component, you make it much less likely the strap will depart from the strap button on the instrument. I have had that happen before which is probably why I treat this action as a fairly essential step.

The modern Schaller ones can be quite expensive so I ordered a pair of the older model off eBay, which were much cheaper (less than £5 with free delivery). It took a little while to fit them because I tried to reuse the screws from the bass but hadn’t realised that they protruded too much from the top. The screws which came with the locks were silver rather than black but that won’t be seen when a strap is on the bass, so that was an easy fix when I realised.

Without that slight detour, the fitting would have been less than five minutes from unpacking to another bass that isn’t going to suddenly dive floorwards. I can also pick which strap I want to use on this instrument (the Ibanez SR305EB) as the new models are backwardly compatible with the strap buttons although the bass is so comfortably light I’ll probably just stick with the purple nylon strap I had on it already for now.

14 June 2026
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FxSound

Jane and I were watching something this afternoon using the set up in our front room – laptop to HDMI monitor and audio from the monitor to the Aux in on my Blackstar ID Core BEAM amp – and it was sounding too bass heavy. I looked but I couldn’t find any way to control that. Win11 just had a volume setting, the monitor didn’t help and the amp just made the input louder, with the settings just for an instrument input rather than the aux feed.

A bit of searching recommended a program available via the Windows Store called FxSound and it provided all the EQ control I needed to get a better sound output. In this case, it was mainly rolling down the bass that did the trick. In fact, I was so impressed that I’ve also installed it on my own Windows box and it gives me extra control over the sound that I’ve been missing. I need to test it some more but thumbs up for now.

13 June 2026
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Singaround Songs – June 2026

Three songs at today’s singaround (on double bass). I started with Wayfaring Stranger, which is part of a medley the Charnwood Training Band has recently started playing. On my next go, I went for I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel to Be Free, a jazzy piece that I’ll be playing with The Panamas on Sunday week. I also got to close out the afternoon and picked Proud Mary. It would have been a good choice for next Saturday’s boat gig but I didn’t get round to working out an arrangement. All in all, a good afternoon.

12 June 2026
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Nobody Fell In

Yesterday’s WiFi weirdness was definitely weirdness – everything was back to working this morning but I did establish that a wired connection is a little faster (although not by much) so I’ll stick with that for now.

Meanwhile, the title refers to tonight’s rehearsal with AVAST, the Astonishingly Versatile Assortment of Sailing Troubadours, a subset of players from the various Charnwood Concert Bands, who will be raising money for charity on Saturday week by sailing down the River Soar / Grand Union Canal and busking at various riverside pubs. We have been preparing for some time but this was our first rehearsal on the boats we will be using. I get to sit inside the covered area which not only gives me extra shelter but also provides a nice sounding board so I was getting very pleasing tones out of my tuba.

On Saturday 20th June we are due at The Waterside Inn (Mountsorrel) at 12:15pm, The Navigation Inn (Barrow Upon Soar) at 2pm and The Moorings (also Barrow) at 3:30pm. We’re collecting money for the Midnight Music Library (disclosure: for which I am a trustee), a community interest project that is setting up an affordable library where people can hire instruments, accessories and sheet music. Relatively early days yet but Dee, the chair and driving force, already has quite a substantial number of instruments so the next steps (which need some funding) are to find somewhere suitable for them to live so the lending can begin.

11 June 2026
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WiFi Weirdness

I took a break from my paid work for a chunk of today in order to finish off the first draft of my sermon for Sunday. I wanted to keep working on MS Word while I relocated to the kitchen so I could keep on going while finishing off cooking some bread rolls so, for the first time in a long while, I booted my laptop into Windows rather than Linux. Later on, I sat down to get on with some work and discovered that, back in Linux, the WiFi wasn’t working. Normally I sit at my (Windows) desktop machine and connect across to the Linux-running laptop which acts as my dev server so not having WiFi was a bit of a pain (and time waster).

In the end, I managed to dig out an old network switch and convert my set up to wired networking. That works fine but it did mean I didn’t get the little dev tasks I had planned knocked off the list. Ah well… I’ll get onto that tomorrow and did manage to get Cursor installed on the Linux box so I can run it directly on my dev repositories.

Weirder still, I’ve rebooted back into Windows as I’ll be using the laptop to take minutes at a meeting tonight and I don’t want the Linux hard drive hanging off the back… and WiFi is working there. Hmmnn…

Something to puzzle on tomorrow but at least I’ve got the wired option and it also be interesting to know if wired networking through old gear is faster than WiFi or if the wireless option has caught it up.

10 June 2026
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The Rugby Prophet?

I was leading the Bible study at home group tonight and hadn’t forewarned people about the exact topic. That allowed me to start with cryptic question: which biblical prophet is often sung about at England rugby games, what is the song and how is it connected to them?

Here is a copyright free picture from Flickr that may give you a clue … and also give you a chance to answer the question before scrolling down to find the answer:

Medes - Chariot

The answer is Elijah who features regularly from 1 Kings 17 until 2 Kings 2. The song is Swing Low, Sweet Chariot and the connection is found in 2 Kings 2. Yes, that is when the story of his life ends because God sends a “chariot of fire” (cue another well-known song) to sweep him up to heaven. Along with Enoch (who, as mentioned in Hebrews 11, was the focus of last Sunday’s sermon at Hathern Baptist Church), he is one of two people in the Bible who doesn’t experience death.

What about Jesus? He is alive (hallelujah!) but it would be heresy to suggest he didn’t die. To quote the Nicene Creed:

For our sake he [Jesus] was crucified under Pontius Pilate; 
he suffered death and was buried. 
On the third day he rose again 
in accordance with the Scriptures; 

So that’s the answer to my cryptic question, a snippet about Elijah and a bit of Christology thrown in for good measure.

9 June 2026
by wpAdmin
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Into the Reading Pit

I decided to throw caution to the wind tonight and take along the new bass to tonight’s concert band rehearsal. I did make a couple of fumbles because of the extra string but by and large it went pretty smoothly including the new piece we had to sight read. I’ll probably go back to my regular four string next week but that’s because I don’t need the notes below E for anything notated and I don’t need all the tonal options I get from two pickups and five control knobs (one pickup, volume and tone is enough for that context).

What I did observe was how light and comfortable the Ibanez bass was – that’s definitely a win for new one.

8 June 2026
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Volunteer Plants

“Volunteer Plants” is a term for ones that come up of their own accord. Some are commonly known as weeds although occasionally you can find a way of redefining these ones as something useful, like the chamomile that comes up every year at my allotment and give me a harvest of flowers I can dry for chamomile tea.

Another category are the ones that come up in homemade compost. It can be hard to get the heap to run hot enough to destroy seeds and even a hot heap will have cooler edges. Tomatoes are one example of a plant that is remarkably resilient – apparently they often pop up at sewage treatment works, having been digested, flushed and washed along the sewers! At the moment, I’ve got several seedlings that are recognisably members of the cucurbitaceae popping up in my polytunnel in a patch that I topped up with some of my garden compost a few weeks ago.

The trouble with volunteers is that they don’t come with labels. Those plants springing up could be from discarded pots that seemed not to germinate (three varieties of squash and courgette this year and not all came up), they could be from the squash I grew last year or they could even be from an earlier batch including cucumbers (that particular lot of compost had sat for a while). It is going to be hard to tell them apart until they get a lot larger and, in some cases, even fruiting won’t be enough for a definite ID.

I’ve potted one up today and I’ll probably do more later this week. I don’t know exactly what they are and I’ll have to guess how to look after them but perhaps I’ll get some pleasant surprises. Even if not, it will still be more fuel for the heap!

7 June 2026
by wpAdmin
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Out in Public

My new bass got its first public outing today for the morning service at Hathern Baptist. It is music I can feel my way through and the bass did pretty well. I’ve found myself adapting to the five string pretty easily. I pretty much set myself with one sound for all the songs rather than messing with all the knobs but I tend to do that even when I’m playing my six string Sei bass and I was able to pull the sounds I needed out by how I played (well, that and the multiFX board at my feet!).

I decided not to take it to the CSWO rehearsal in the evening, which was probably just as well as it was quite a sight-reading heavy session tonight, trying out several new pieces as we think about what might be added to the set for forthcoming concerts. I’ll probably wait until the summer season gigs are past before bringing it along there or to the concert band but I am keen to give it a try in those settings.

I’m keen to give the bass quite a lot of play – partly to get fully familiar with it but also so I start to wear the strings and can feel justified in replacing them with something more experimental. I’m thinking lighter strings so I can have an instrument going from a low D (up to F in this case) and probably a brand, material or finish I’ve not tried before.

6 June 2026
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Last Night of the (week in the park) Proms

More park music tonight but this time I was on the audience side. To close out the Hathern Big Week, the Hathern Band led a concert that closed out with the pieces that typically come up on the last night of the Proms.

I’m much more used to the concert band sound, which includes flutes, clarinets, saxes and more along with various brass instruments (and drums and “string” bass). Hathern Band is a full on brass outfit (well – some percussion as well). If I wanted to join them, I’d have to learn how to read a transposed treble clef part. Treble clef is fine but it would also mean a different set of valve combinations.

Oh, and I’d probably have to up my playing game – the group is a “First Section” band which means they compete in band competitions to a very high standard (sections are similar to football leagues and the only one higher than “First” is “Championship”).

Anyway, a very enjoyable way to spend the evening and the rain held off for at least two minutes after the final notes were played!