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Had the pleasure of meeting Stephen and selling a double bass to him. Nice chap and great bass player. Hope the bass serves you well Stephen.

Very nice Bagman, looks great

I'd like to try and make it this year. Would you please add me to the list. I can bring a few 4/5 string basses as well as my double bass if anyone is interested in that (and there's room in the hall :)). I can also bring a Fearless F112 and one or two PJB Cab 27s along with some amps.

Thanks for the tips everyone. Dropping it off with PSG tomorrow.

Got it with the mail yesterday, and have been spending much time ever since experimenting with it. As expected it is much more quiet than the Joyo Oxford Sound clone of it, though still a bit of hiss with the drive set relatively high, nothing I can't live with though, and who knows, it might go away when I finally pull myself together to remake my pedal board, which got a powersupply with isolated and filtered outputs. Other than that it also sound better, the controls works a bit different though, and the build in cab sim filter seems somewhat more aggressive than on the Joyo clone, so it was not possible to simply 1:1 replace the Joyo. With a lot of experimenting, trial and error, though, I managed to come up with an even better solution. That is that the Tech 21 Oxford has single handedly replaced, well, the Joyo Oxford Sound, of course, but also the Joyo Orange Juice, that I used as my always on overdrive in conjunction with the Joyo Oxford Sound, as well as the NUX Melvin Lee Davis Bass Preamp, which otherwise functioned as my main tone shaping preamp. So now the Tech 21 Oxford functions as both my always on overdrive and as my main tone shaping preamp, and I couldn't be happier, the result is a much clearer tone, with much less background noise, and a s a welcome bonus it simplified my setup quite a bit too. I use it with cab sim turned off, and in one of the loops of a Boss LS-2, using the remaining empty loop as dry blend, to retain some more low end, just a bit, Oxford/Dry blend set at an about 67:33 (~2:1) ratio, that is 100% Oxford and then about 50% dry signal. And with the EQ of the Oxford actually nearly flat, having it dialed in as follows: Level: Unity - Mid; Ever so slightly boosted not even full 1 o'clock (12:30) - Character: same as Mid (12:30 o'clock) - Drive: a bit above 1 o'clock (1:30) - Low: noon - High: ever so slightly cut, not even full down to 11 o'clock (11:30) - Cab Sim: Off Thing is you can really hear the subtleties of the controls on this pedal, so even small changes actually makes a notable difference. Fortunately the pots of the controls are super tight, that is they do actually move perfectly smoothly, but you have to apply a bit of intentional push for them to turn, so you would have to do an effort to accidentally knock the settings of the pedal out of whack. Anyway, to conclude this ramble: The Tech 21 Oxford works really well in my "amp-less" setup, as the main tone shaping preamp and always on overdrive, followed by a Zoom MS-70CDR, that I use exclusively as an EQ based cab sim filter, making use of the dual parametric bass EQ effect model in it (personally I found that I prefer this over every single IR based cab sim I ever tried, and believe me, I tried a lot). Gives me a really grindy overdriven tone, without any of the fizzy artifacts you tend to get with most drive pedals, and with low end, punch and attack intact. You can hear it here: Signal chain : HoTone Trem (tremolo pedal, acting primarily as buffer, but also got some very subtle tremolo dialed in) -> EHX Black Finger (tube driven optical compressor, though primarily used as tube preamp, with minimal compression dialed in) -> Boss XS-1 Poly Shifter (set to a 1 octave up, to emulate an effect somewhat similar to that of an 8 string, octave course, bass) -> Boss LS-2 -> [Loop A : Tech 21 Oxford |+| Loop B : Dry blend (67:33 ratio)] -> NUX Tape Core Deluxe (emulates a Roland RE-201 Space Echo tape delay, dialed in with spring reverb, and additionally is set to deliver a reverb like subtle delay) -> Zoom Ms-70CDR (utilizing the dual bass parametric EQ model to emulate a cab sim filter, back at the same settings as the old Joyo Oxford Sound setup, where I used a Zoom B1Xon) -> ART Tube MP Project Series (tube preamp) Playing a 28.6" scale length 5 string Ibanez GSRM25 Mikro Bass, with just the stock J bridge pickup wired directly to the output jack socket, and tuned to G#1 (51.91Hz) standard tuning (that is as in one half step bellow the upper 4 strings of a 6 string bass in regular B standard tuning, plus a high E). First half or so of this sound test is finger plucking, last half, from about the 1:48 mark, or so I use a pick.

Turn To Stone - Joe Walsh

Maybe I don’t push things hard enough ?

Concrete and Clay - Mental As Anything

I prefer to get into bands on the quality of my playing. Which is why I've been bandless for almost two years.

50 years old

Who told you about my impending infractions I wouldn’t even class MIDI as an instrument and tbh it sounds like hard work 😂

I have this morning ordered a Raspberry Pi kit, https://kitronik.co.uk/products/5325-the-kitronik-discovery-kit-for-raspberry-pi-pico-included along with other bits (add-ons, jumper cables, break-out kits, expansion boxes). So far, not a fail. However, my plan is to learn how to use the Raspberry Pi architecture and develop a device that can detect 13 different switches. I will then combine it with a 13-note organ-style pedal board (purchased in 2025) and a kit that uses a Raspberry Pi Pico to generate MIDI note signals. https://midimuso.co.uk/index.php/pico-midi/ I will then plug it into a EMU Classic Keys synth rack unit, via MIDI, and pretend that I have a Moog Taurus. However, I will have made the instrument myself, out of bits that are not primarily musical gear (apart from 4 MIDI connectors, and the EMU) So, is a DIY instrument a fail? Is this the same as a luthier making a bass guitar out of some bits of timber? Or the equivalent of making a Bitsa bass, and pretending that none of the bits are fails... In summary, I purchased a non-midi pedalboard, and some electronics, with the intention of creating and then having a midi pedalboard in 2026. Have I failed Tier 2, or will it only be a fail once it works?

What a lovely thing, really nostalgic looking but hopefully with more modern playability. If you ever wanted to do a Thamesmen tribute band it would fit right in as well.

Right. Confession time. Final clear coats on today. Gloss looking glorious. Standing there thinking, “That is absolutely spot on. I am a finishing god!” Then… during clean up… yes, during clean up… when the gun was down, the spraying was finished, and I was basically doing a slow-motion victory lap around the workshop… a rogue flick of thinner somehow produced a bubble right on the edge. Not mid-coat. Not during a risky pass. Not because I rushed it. During. Clean. Up. Which means lacquer doesn’t fight you while you’re working — it waits until you relax. Several entirely new swear words were invented. The sort that would make a seasoned fishwife blush and quietly reassess her life choices. So the body is now quarantined in a warm room while the clear cures properly. I’ll sort the area the right way and then lay down a final couple of refinement coats to unify everything. No panic. No bodges. Just patience, sanding blocks, and a reminder that the last 2% of a build is where character (and vocabulary) is developed. Still massively happy with how it’s come together — just slightly p***ed off by the timing. Made to play. Built to last. Occasionally built to test the limits of polite language. 😅

Eich BC112Pro. It does everything - and if you need more, the DI is great.