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To fit a 12mm peg in a 14mm hole, you only need something 1mm thick to fill the gap. Amazon sells lengths of plastic tubing that you can easily cut down to size, brass would probably work fine too.

There are 3 different models at the moment on Kleinanzeigen in Germany: https://www.kleinanzeigen.de/s-anzeige/sony-dash-pcm-3324-digitale-tonbandmaschine/2770799789-172-9399 https://www.kleinanzeigen.de/s-anzeige/sony-pcm-3324s-24-spur-digital-bandmaschine/2421553558-74-7482 https://www.kleinanzeigen.de/s-anzeige/sony-pcm-3324a-professionelles-digitales-mehrspur-tonbandgeraet-/2974919996-172-4564

The weight distribution of that bass sounds like a home-made Precision I have knocking around. The body is so light that it's almost comical. The bodies must be made from the lightest mdf/ply or balsa wood. But they do still sound pretty good. I have two students who initially had G4M stuff. One had an average weight one, and the other had one that weighed more than a boat anchor. They must use the cheapest wood they can get in the Chinese factory. Weight be damned As for adjusting to 5-strings, initially just treat the B-string as an incredibly wide thumb-rest, then just accept that you have an extra string and more notes to play with. It will blend in in your mind in no time. I grew up with a 5-string Double Bass, so I really had to treat it as a full 5-string instrument, as opposed to just something merely with an extra string. You may find yourself occasionally playing on the wrong string. This too shall pass!

Don't name and shame until you've put your points across to the builder and got a response - don't let the Basschat horde persuade you otherwise. At the very least they should be given a fair and unbiased chance to right their wrongs. I'd be pushing for full repair/refinish etc, FOC including shipping. Failing that, a hefty partial refund to cover the cost of someone else doing the work (maybe get some quotes if you can). Last resort for me would be a full refund (I assume you want to keep it and they certainly don't want it back).

The thing is that bass cabs aren't necessarily flat response and Markbass have their own 'sound' with a boomy ill defined low mid peak. Then you have to consider what the tops are doing, They've been designed for a flat response but they have a crossover of their own linking the bass driver to the horn. Push the HPF high enough in the subs crossover and it starts to interact with the crossover in the tops where the bass driver is now acting as the midrange driver in a three way system. Three way crossovers are a total PItA to design well. Keeping the crossover down around the 100Hz range means you are doing all this at a point where our ears aren't too picky/discriminating. IME 120Hz might be the sort of starting point that I'd try. This is a bodge and @synthaside is just going to have to use their ears to get the best out of it. Only they can judge if it is better than the Yamahas on their own but just trying is a great way to learn .

New Chronixx album 'Exile' is worth a listen. One of my favourites from it:

I guess it depends what practice is. I remember reading Rufus Reid saying if you’re not pushing yourself you’re not learning. While we’re all different I struggle to see how you can practice anything meaningfully for hours on end, as it really affects the brain. I work in a creative job and I struggle to practice more than 30-60 minutes a day. But that’s structured practice. I manage more hours of noodling, but that’s not what I’d consider real practice. Mostly I’m happy I could play pretty much anything I wanted if I could be bothered to put the effort in. But I can’t be bothered.

Is there some kind of reference point or link for this or do I need to start watching daytime TV during work hours and hope for the best? 😂

This is really not a great audio recording and does that PA rig no favours - we sounded way better than this in the room.

It took us far too much of the first set to sort out the appropriate settings on both the sub and the tops - too many options everywhere - but by about 20 mins in @Silvia Bluejay was beginning to get less disgusted with the basic sound and starting to apply the right EQ to make improvements. I thought the sub was strangely sensitive (on its own volume control) to an exact sweet spot for best resuts, but we weren't being helped by either the room (very lively) or the band layout - we had the tops on either side of the band and the sub on the floor dead centre, but further forward than I'd have preferred due to a partition getting in the way. By set #2 Silvie had it completely under control and the sound was fine, certainly far better than with just the CP8s on their own. They're great units and I really rate them for confined spaces, but Silvie never tires of pointing out that they're really intended for use as floor wedges and sound awful compared to our more serious PA kit. As an audio experience, and judged purely for that, the Citronic sub + 2xQSC CP8s rig was actually a bit meh and of course that's exactly what I expected. Now factor in the portability and form factor in a badly-designed boozer with a tricky load-in and it all makes sense. I'm delighted that we have that rig ... we won't use it often but we'll use it where we need it, and that will probably be a dozen times a year.

A second recommendation for the Nova system from @andrepassini from me . Have used it in the past on a P bass conversion and it is a masterpiece of engineering .

Well a lot can happen in a week. John @Chienmortbb has been looking for a small lightweight sub for some time. He has the usual problems with hefting around huge speakers and one of the solutions are Wharfedale Titans, 12" speakers which have a great vocal sound with a decent horn and driver, go really loud and are nice and light. The problem is the lightweight cab means they don't do bass well at high volumes. That Citronic sub looked like a solution and the thought was that if it wasn't up to the job we'd just remove the plate amp and build a new cab with a better speaker in. £200 for an amp and crossover looked too good to be true. John ordered one too and we unpacked it at the SW Bass Bash on Sunday. So first impressions, it's tiny and very portable, quite nicely made too. The cab seems solid with a decent paint finish, the grill is good enough and some nice handles have been fitted. The plate amp itself seems well constructed and it all works OK. The sound was acceptable, these things don't go down really low but they do add a nice thump to the sound. We were in a smallish room with other people doing other things so we didn't have the cahnce to run at gig volumes but with sub and both 12" tops turned up there was too much bass. turning the sub back to 1.00 o'clock gave a disco bass sound and 12.30 was where the balance was. The sub wasn't flat out distorting before I turned it down and I reckon it was rolled back slightly more than 12db. One of these with a couple of eights might be a good match but two with the Wharfedales would proibably work well. They are light enough for me at 73 to carry two at a time and would back easily into most cars, they are the size of many 1x10 bass cabs. At £200 they are a steal. Looking forward to seeing how @Happy Jack got on at the gig

Yes this is it. A 5 string is about economy of effort. You can basically play 90% of songs in one position.

Some of the work they do on the TV antiques restoration shows can leave the repairs invisible.

Ying Tong Diddle I Po - The Goons

Anything with dynamic pricing can go and brew itself a cup of fukkoff

Flash, Bang Wallop - Tommy Steele

We are back on track, the glue joint feels very strong. Just need to clean it up and assess the visual impact as I was hoping to keep it natural

If I’ve learned one thing about 5, and it’s my third attempt it is to forget it’s there until you need to “play across” to avoid open strings - few songs use notes lower than E example you could play teenaged dirtbag by playing across from fret 5 rather than use E and A open strings, then youre free to shift up and down by a semitone if needed

Wreck On The Highway - Bruce springsteen

Just noticed what it says on your t-shirt @neepheid! 🤣