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This in spades. That criteria alone rules out for me the vast majority of players. Simply knowing the board inside out does not neccesarily make for good music. I love Nile Rodgers playing style and what he brought to popular music, but is he 'great guitarist' of course not but he is an extremely distinct and influential musician by the way he plays.

Which store was this?

In the bristol one, pre-move, the bass guy was pretty helpful, although they didn't really have anything other than the Ibanez like I already had, a large number of fenders I wasn't interested in and the occasional rickenbacker at rickenbacker prices. They had a lot of guitars. I bought serveral things from them, I got my ME90B from them as it was available and accessible, several leads, strings, microphone stand, etc. They failed to sell me an Argon8 that I wanted and they had because I couldn't get to try it due to a lack of interest on their part, and a Yamaha DX which they had but didn't have a price so I assumed it was more expensive. Its a shame they have gone, but tbh, since they moved in bristol I have only visited once as its not somewhere I generally would be.

They're Coming to Take Me Away, Ha Haaa! - Napoleon XIV

I'm sure an SP1 is great, and I might treat myself - but I think I'll feel like I've paid a bit much if they rise much above £2k. Not least as the D-Roc 5 is about £1,750 and I can't see many (any?!) reasons the SP1 should cost more to produce. (the D-Roc often being about 4.4kg rules that out for me though, same with the Combustion and the NG).

If I had a Fender obsession I'd want to buy from a store that had at least 10 examples of the supposedly identical bass (or guitar) I was interested in so I could try them all and select the one that suited me the best.

We always try our best, so thank you

Up until earlier this week we had a massive PMT store here in Nottingham. Lots of guitars and not nearly so many basses but all very mainstream and nothing quirky second-hand. It's been over 30 years since I was last interested in a mainstream guitars or basses. I'll stick with well-known manufacturers for high-tech products mostly because I want decent support should anything go wrong. I bought my Helix from PMT (pre-COVID) mostly because they were one of the few resellers that had one in stock when I wanted to buy it. However when I was looking for a MIDI controller keyboard a couple of years ago they were exceedingly unhelpful (as mentioned earlier in this thread).

Yikes! As someone who's been injured by dodgy equipment in a rehearsal room in the past, and have the scar to prove it, I absolutely wouldn't be going anywhere near it again!

Think a reminder would be good Daryl. I've probably seen it but cant recall it. Dave

You're welcome Steve. I've corrected my typo,I meant I heard the price difference between the 425x and 1025x was NOT entirely justified. Yes I saw the AFR5 and it almost looked mint to me in all honesty. Ironically it's EXACTLY the piezo that's holding me back. Yes we're real fickle 😂 Have a good weekend yourself 👍

I will definitely be doing this in the future ... we got all of our gear tested for a birthday gig at a rugby club a bit back, not so much of an issue as our singer's husband works in Movie production in sound and lighting and " borrowed a tester from work " which prints the certificate too Aforementioned rugby club literally pointed to a corner where the only wall plug showed obvious signs of being Burnt out ... we didnt dare use one ... instead ran a long cable from over near the DJ ... who moaned about it. We also recently played a rehearsal space ... where i kept getting a mild electric shock through my mic into my lips .. then venue swore up and down it was fine ... they came and checked it no shock ... when they touched the mic with a hand so clearly no issue. Turns instruments have grounds and the fault was in the wall cicruit " so as i played and sang bass i was shorting the PA and bass amp VIA MY LIPS dug about on the net as to what was happening a reddit post / article explaining the likely fault with enough detail they had it tested which failed hard. We have " some discounted rehearsals " but im not sure i fancy it again ...

If You Leave Me, Can I Come Too ? - Mental As Anything

We have a tiny music store in town, from what I can gather it relies on its (extremely good and busy) upstairs music school to survive. And I'm glad it does. All I ever buy from there is picks, as I don't need any budget basses and they don't carry my preferred strings. But it's nice to know it's there.

I'm not keen on built-in XLR outputs unless they are guaranteed to be protected from phantom power voltages. I always use my own passive EMO DI box with my Helix for connecting it to the PA.

I'd give the EMGs a while, see if you like them. It's different from passive, but there is a lot to be said for them. They are active pickups which is different from an active preamp, and one of the differences is that the current draw is much lower so you don't need to swap the batteries often. Here is a pretty strong argument for the EMGs! And here is a way to boost the voltage going to the pickups (Lee has 18 volts with 2 batteries IIRC) - https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/192895789297?_trksid=p4375194.c101949.m162918 - check the specs on the pickups first to make sure they can handle it - most of them can handle up to 27 volts - I found it made for more headroom (as I lean in a bit too much on the strings).

Bass Direct ticks a lot of boxes for me: Fair part excahnge prices, great selection of basses to try out in a friendly place, and it is often only shop in the UK to get certain basses.

No surprise really, its a combo of a couple of shipments a week and the fact it is / was pentecost , the annual tradition for all Germans to take the time off to spend in their cars and sit in traffic on the way the coast ... We spent it in Zeeland ... it rained and blusterd ... the entire time .... we then flew to Riga just in time for the weather to improve massively, i hear from family it was 29C .

Great bass, congrats! It is my #1 and have it about 19 years. If you ever want to upgrade the pups check https://tombrantleyrewinds.com/geddy-lee-jazz-bass-pickups Great upgrade on my GL signature.