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What is the best way to tighten up my technique? Im thinking I need more lessons since I picked up a lot of bad habits in the few years after I stopped getting lessons, but I dont have any interest in learning more theory, mainly because Im not creative enough to put it to use (and our guitarists write everything anyway) Also, I have 2 basses - one tuned to Eb (regular scale) and the other tuned to Drop Db (bigger than usual scale). should I go heavier gauge strings on the Db bass? Currently using Ernie Balls (fluro yellow packaging) but have used purples in the past. Also on the topic of strings, does anyone else find D'addarios to be really, really abrasive? i bought a pack as it was 2-for-1 and Im not even going to use the second set because they are that uncomfortable compared to Ernie Balls. and yeah, I only use round-wounds, so its not that Ive gone from flats to rounds and started cutting up my fingers.
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Jul 21, 2009 06:04
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Plastic Snake posted:What parts of technique do you want to tighten up? Right hand, Left hand, etc.? And don't sell yourself short on creativity. In my experience learning more theory has done nothing but unlock creativity and even if you're not writing songs you bring your own flavor to the table with your bass lines. That's just my 2 cents though. my right hand (fingering hand, left handed). I play with a pick and can pick as fast as I need to, mainly have trouble with my fretting hand struggling to keep up or just being sloppy in general. I suck at making certain shapes/chords and my 'tunnelling' sucks balls completely. I use way too much power to compensate for most of it and just ends up being tiring and messy. Scarf posted:Couldn't hurt to use the heavier gauge. What scale length is your Db bass? Db axe is a Gibson Thunderbird my friend built, which is 1" larger than an Epiphone that we modelled it off. my Eb is a Warwick Rockbass Corvette. Using the D'addarios on that, and they suck. We only have 2 songs in Db so I dont use the T-bird that much, but the ernies on it are pretty drat old and feel a lot nicer to play. no idea if i switched from nickel to SS strings. I know I prefer ernies though.
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Jul 22, 2009 09:10
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Plastic Snake posted:I'd say concentrate on keeping your thumb behind the neck. Make sure the pressure you're using to push the strings down comes from the weight of your arm and not entirely wrist strength. This will help cut down on fatigue and in turn make it easier to play more quickly and smoothly. It takes a lot less power than you think to adequately fret notes, so practice pressing as lightly as is necessary to eliminate string buzzing. Tunneling - for example, playing 3rd fret on E and 1st on A - the finger on E is making a tunnel over the A string. Its probably called something else but thats what I was told it was called.
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Jul 22, 2009 10:15
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How often should I change the preamp batteries in my Warwick Rockbass Corvette? My brother has a bunch of ESPs and said he changes his once a year and he plays pretty much an hour a day every day, plus rehearsal which is 5hrs a week. I do maybe 7hrs all up in a week. Also, does cut/boosting the EQ on the preamp make the batteries drain faster? I recently dabbled with the settings (normally just run it as neutral and then EQ the amp) for a jam session with good results but last night at jam it was incredibly clippy (probably in the preamp on the bass since it wasnt tripping my clip light on my amp) rather than the smoothness I had the week before.
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Nov 3, 2009 22:36
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Thanks for that. I bought it at the start of this year but for all I know its been sitting in a warehouse for a while (its a left handed model and im in australia so it could very be one of maybe 6 ever ordered) Ill change the battery tonight and give it a go. I play it now with about 80% on the bass EQ and it just starts clicking if i use a lot of attack, so hopefully its just the battery. it sounded brutal last week god dammit and the band loved it then last night I got shat on 
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Nov 4, 2009 05:56
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So I just purchased a new bass - a Fender Jazz Aerodyne (made in Japan) in black. I wasnt actually looking for a new bass but I saw this one on ebay, it was left handed, and only slightly more expensive than buying a MIM jazz locally, so I thought why the hell not. the MIM jazz never really caught my fancy, and the Aerodyne comes with P bass pups and is a basswood body, which should gel more nicely with my bands tone. On top of that Ive always liked the sound of a P bass, but never liked the look of them. It was a tough choice between black and white, but I went with black because now our whole band has at least one colorful guitar and one black guitar. Apparently a bad rear end bridge and some quarter pounders will get it sounding amazing, but Im not big/schooled on bass mods, so if someone wants to fill me in, Im all ears. Anyway its on its way from Japan to Australia, so in the mean time, if anyone has one, post up pictures and tell me all about it! 
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Mar 6, 2010 14:37
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Boomers arent coated as far as I am aware and I have had them on my guitars the last 4-5 changes. They are also the only strings I have found around Sydney that still do silk wrappings, which look boss against my black headstocks. Daddario can suck a dick. they feel like rear end and keep that bright tone for like 1 4hr rehearsal. they cost half as much (often twofers in shops here) but they are less than half as good. Ernie ball is my second choice.
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Sep 26, 2011 07:49
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can anyone tell me about a Mesa 400 base head? I currently play a Markbass R500 (tube preamp) and its just a bit...farty sounding. I run a tech21 SVT pedal to get my sound but obviously the natural progression is to a tube amp, and there is one of the above amps going cheap second hand. I was thinking of getting an SVT reissue or whatever they are doing with them and keeping my markbass 4x10 (because owning heavy gear is stupid) but there isnt any second hand in my area and the mesa is about half as expensive. essentially, I want that bass tone. you know the one, everyone does, and i know it comes from an ampeg and a fridge cab, but i want to get that close without having to have a fridge cab. will the mesa do it, or at least get drive-y enough to still be worth its weight?
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Sep 28, 2011 07:49
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I haven't posted in this thread or sub forum in a long rear end time and this thread is still talking about the VT bass pedals and rickenbackers being lovely basses (with a Bonus MarkBass post too) I actually really like my 4003, easily my favorite out of my basses. I have tiny hands but the big flat fretboard and thick neck are...good? I have a Dillion rickenbacker clone too and that has a neck that is slimmer than my Aerodyne Jazz neck. as far as Necks go, it sucks. DrChu posted:Supposedly the first releases had one that was engaged all the time. At that time I only ever used it in front of a live amp so the extra top end was mostly lost to the speaker cabinets. I know I was disappointed when I got a v2 to be able to toggle it and it sounded like garbage with it off. V1 have the cab sim engaged all the time. V2 have a defeat I think? I believe I saw somewhere on talkbass forums that noon does not equal 0+/- on the EQ knobs. high knob zero-position is 9 Oclock or something, and 11 for the other two knobs? but worth looking it up. I sold my VT bass to my brothers bass player and then he sold it back to me 5 years later when he got a Fender bass stack. Its basically a perfect bass Pre. I nearly grabbed a VT Bass Deluxe for under $200 recently on facebook. unsurprisingly I was the 5th person in line prepared to move heaven and earth to make it an easy transaction for him. E: someone asked about practice amps so I figure I'll say I use a Positive Grid Spark with an Airstep wireless footswitch. I have my tones dialled in to the presets w/ a drive on each and just practice at home with that. it doesnt sound incredible, but it has the benefit of being an audio interface with my PC or my ipad w/a USB adapter so I can record ideas easily. I live in an apartment and the few times I have had my amp at home (Orange Terror Bass w/their isobaric 2x12) I have had my neighbor ask me about bass guitar so I figure its too loud. Laserface fucked around with this message at 09:58 on Apr 3, 2023 |
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Apr 3, 2023 09:55
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I play with fingers or a pick depending on the song and where it is in the set. Mostly because the few songs I need a pick are just all fast notes and it's the less tiring of the two. I went from tortex .88 triangles to .73 and it's been interesting. They get a nice bend in them after a few hours though which makes them weird to hold the wrong way
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Apr 5, 2023 08:24
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god drat it why is every single isolating effects boardpower system either far too many features/expensive or not enough features/too expensive.
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Apr 17, 2023 07:11
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It seems everything cheap is 5 outlets which leaves me with no room to expand without upgrading, or 10-12 but far too expensive to justify buying because I don't need that many.
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Apr 17, 2023 14:00
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muike posted:is there a way where i can use a stereo breakout cable on my rick, put on effect on one breakout, and then recombine them into one signal? it inherently sounds kind of silly to me but if I can it would be handy. This has been my idea for a while - run the fuzz pedal through the bridge pickup and then leave the neck pickup clean to maintain the low end (never been happy with the dry blend on my bass muff pi) you need a Stereo Y cable and then some way to bring the signals back together which might get weird as mentioned. the setup is really designed to go to two different amplifiers so the two signals never see eachother.
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Apr 19, 2023 02:17
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Pedal board power chat: I ended up ordering this guy: https://www.swamp.net.au/swamp-iso-10-isolated-power-supply-station-for-guitar-effects-pedals because it was local and postage was free. it arrived today. I dont have my pedal board here to test as its at the studio but i have a few loose boss pedals i can gently caress around with later to see how it works. plenty of included cables and the USB port was a nice touch. I have some party lights i could run off the USB port since it seems lighting techs are either non existent or uninterested around here.
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Apr 19, 2023 03:48
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had a pretty big gig last night and got to play on the house backline. all Orange gear, had the 500W tube head and a fridge cab, guitarist had a full stack. I was a complete moron and left the amp in standby for the whole show so it was just DI to the front of house. DI sounded alright though from a few videos.
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Apr 24, 2023 02:07
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Trying out for a sludge/doom 3 piece next week. Songs are easy enough to learn. Is it good to have add my own little touches here and there for a band audition or should I play it straight? Also how many people does it take to move an 8x10
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Apr 27, 2023 13:51
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I have an aerodyne jazz MIJ, a rickenbacker 4003, a dillion 4003 copy and a home made thunderbird. Aerodyne is nice and light. 4003 is alright too. Dillion is kinda hefty for what it is. Thunderbird is a 35" scale with the body proportions pumped to match, and it's made of coachwood. It's around 8kg/17lbs. Rings for days in C tuning.
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Apr 28, 2023 06:58
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The all in one amps are great as practice amps but I wouldn't buy one for gigs unless it was specifically for taking on the road to Practice or for a very low volume band, acoustic or something. I have a positive grid spark and while it's not the best for bass in terms of amps/fx available it sounds decent. Paired with the wireless foot switch I can rehearse set lists at home easily enough. Acts as a audio interface to my iPad for taking down ideas in garage band. Worked great to amp up a bass to jam with our acoustics in my friends yard too.
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Apr 29, 2023 02:48
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Maybe theres a better thread for it, but is anyone else left handed in here? I am the cursed kind of lefty where i have to play LH guitars. This was never really a problem outside of the limited ability to walk into a shop and play a guitar to see how it feels until I started using pedalboard. unfortunately there is no such thing as LH effects pedals so my cable always ends up getting under my feet, wrapped around my leg, or just generally in the loving way. I have tried running a long cable looped around behind my amp, or running a 6ft lead around the top of the pedal board to the right hand side into the pedal input. neither is really ideal as sometimes the former doesnt leave me much length to move around and the latter can get jammed up under my wah pedal. Current front runner is to add the Rockboard Patchbay to my Rockboard and wire it up so the leads come out the top-left of the board. That or just get a Boss WL-50. Laserface fucked around with this message at 00:36 on May 1, 2023 |
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May 1, 2023 00:33
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Played a gig at my friends bar/cafe that was super cool. No drum mics, no di, felt just like the rehearsal space so we got super jammy and intimate. A whole venue of people just there to see music, not there for us specifically. They loved it. We loved it. Probably the most fun gig I've ever played. When my friend had to close, we went to karaoke with a bunch of the crowd. Then we hit the bar at the hotel we were staying in. Then we partied in our lovely hotel room til 5 am. Out of town shows fuckin rule.
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May 6, 2023 13:56
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The doom metal band accepted my performance as sacrifice to Satan and I am now in the band. Played all their stuff straight to the recordings and then they asked me to come up with a riff on the spot to jam on. I really suck at actually writing music and not just a baseline for a song, so it was a little scary. Thankfully doom is mostly pentatonic so I just played sabbathy slow stuff in C and they liked it. They also sometimes practice some songs in double time because it's more time efficient which I thought was funny.
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May 7, 2023 11:25
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Oh yeah I'm already in another entirely different band with my friends, doing a mix of desert rocky/blues/psychy/boppy jam stuff with female vocals. I love all things stoner/doom though so this is perfect for me. Plus I get to play my long scale thunderbird in C tuning and feel my insides rattle. Surprisingly my orange 2x10 isobaric cab was capable of competing with the orange stack the guy was using. Didn't get close to speaker distortion at all, and the terror bass has heaps of headroom. It actually gets hotter playing in the other band strangely enough.
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May 7, 2023 12:36
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Basic Poster posted:Glad Im not the only one with a purple bass Whatupppp purp crew 
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May 8, 2023 08:33
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Anyone got experience with true fire for bass lessons?
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May 13, 2023 02:12
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I got my first bass lesson in like 20 years today and uhhh feels like I just unlearned a bunch of poo poo. Lots to do on the fundamentals of theory, which will help my growing ability to play by ear.
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May 20, 2023 04:18
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What's the deal with la Bella? Seem to be anything that anyone uses I like flats on a practice bass so I don't shred my fingers by round sounds sound too good to me. Not to say flats are bad, but just not what I need for my bands.
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May 26, 2023 10:18
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DrChu posted:What strings are you using? The only rounds I’ve noticed that were noticeable rough were Rotosounds, nearly every other name brand string feels smooth in comparison to those. You should be practicing with rounds if you want to get your fingers used to them though. I've had some really rough round wounds. Whatever is on my rickenbacker right now (supposedly factory strings, has coloured balls on the bridge end with no silk wrappings) are much smoother in comparison but also might be a lower gauge than what I normally put on everything - Ernie ball yellows. I liked GHS boomers in my old band but haven't really tried anything else. Is there a difference in abrasiveness between nickel and stainless?
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May 26, 2023 23:29
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Anyone got advice on oversized/laaaaarge cases/gig bags? My thunderbird is 130cm long by 40cm wide. It's too big for a Gibson/epiphone t-bird hard case (and gently caress Gibson, I had this xxl tbird built because they don't acknowledge lefties exist, I refuse to give them money) I've been told BC Rich cases might work but they're also far too wide (and then everyone thinks you play a bc rich) Keyboard cases are far too expensive and bulky to fit in my car, if they're even wide enough Any site listing a case/bag that fits is listing the box the case/bag comes in rather than the actual size of the internal of the case/bag or not at all. Made all the more harder by the slow death of retail and nobody stocking anything on the shelf to test fit. Not that music stores here have ever been good for that.
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May 29, 2023 15:32
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Spanish Manlove posted:Why do you care if people think you play a BC Rich? It's a joke and the case would be too wide to get into my car.
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May 29, 2023 23:25
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Maximum Sexy Pigeon posted:Something for an acoustic bass? Ended up emailing armour ma Aussie distributor because a retailer had dimensions that would fit (it was the box dimensions, not the bag dimensions) and the helpful rep that answered my email actually spent half an hour plugging in sizes on gators case finder to find something that might work. At $300 I still want to test fit first and it'll need some extra padding but it might work. My other option is get a chippy friend to build me one but he's half way thru building his house and working too so I don't want to be that guy.
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May 30, 2023 12:33
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Placement is a science, the materials are not.
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Jun 2, 2023 08:52
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35" tunes to C real good without going up to a 130 gauge string.
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Jun 17, 2023 04:33
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Wowporn posted:My 34" stingray is tuned to C and I only use 115? I run into this with guitars too, people like "unff yeah gimme that 27" multiscale so I can detune" and I have a 24" mustang also tuned to C with 12's, idk do people just love high tension or what. I wanna bend two whole steps if I want to I think I use 110 and it's probably a little too floppy if I'm being honest about it. I prefer higher tension though I think. One of my other guitars has 105s and works fine in E and C tuning without rattles or buzzes. Having a properly set up guitar helps.
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Jun 20, 2023 09:50
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Solumin posted:What are some good starter pedals? I've already got a DI box (that I don't really know how to use) and a simple compressor (that I don't really know how to use). I'm in a metal jam group, some kind of distortion would probably be a good idea. Polytune, a muff fuzz of some kind, chorus, a decent preamp (anything sansamp)
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Aug 2, 2023 05:37
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Oh is there rules now?
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Aug 2, 2023 13:38
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Solumin posted:Thank you everyone for the suggestions! That DI/preamp is basically all you need for good tone.
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Aug 3, 2023 01:44
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Orange make amps called "pedal baby" that are just 100w power stages designed for this purpose, if you didn't want a rack mount sized unit.
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Aug 11, 2023 04:34
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The only difference between 1/4" and XLR is the noise floor is lower, I thought? Better for mixing. If there's audible noise on the line from the pre amp on 1/4" it may still be there with the XLR output.
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Aug 14, 2023 05:16
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This is entirely a me-problem but its pissing me off enough to post in the hopes that someone else relates or has any tips. Im left handed. I play left handed. Reading charts on scales is unintuitive as I am reading left to right, but hand is moving right to left up the scale. Something about reading the scale one way and moving my hand another makes it near impossible for me to do it by memory/feel alone and it took me a good 30min to learn how to play a scale on one string.
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Sep 5, 2023 08:43
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Spanish Manlove posted:Take the scale chart and write it down on a piece of paper in left hand form. Regular lined paper works fine, just have to draw in the frets. The act of transposing it and writing it down will help cement the shape in memory That'll do! you'd think in 2023 we would have a simple 'flip' button but I guess being 10% of the population and then an even further percentage smaller of lefties that actually play lefty means theres just no reason for it. oh well.
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Sep 5, 2023 13:45
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