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I've never had a speaker fail on me. I had two amps fail in the same gig in 2017 with different issues and a third amp fail the following week. I always carry two amps and GK Plex (DI, Tuner, Comp). Having a DI as backup only only works if there's a PA/monitors/channel available. If I had to chose just one, it would be an amp.

For those of us not in the know, what is it?

Flightcase Warehouse full flight-case for bass guitar, really heavy duty touring quality. Some tarnishing of the plated metal parts as it's been sat in my garage for the past decade or so, but otherwise in good nick and latches functioning smoothly. Internally lined with a thin layer of high density foam; you fit foam in cut to fit your bass. External dimensions (including corner protectors) in cm: L - 120, W - 42, D - 17 Internal dimensions (cm): L - 177.5, W - 38.5, D - 12 Free for collection from near Swansea, South Wales

Haven’t put much up here lately as I’ve been travelling a fair bit, anyway a wonderful album to check out if you have a chance, it’s on the heavy dub side and there’s some great Basslines in there , love a bit of Soul Syndicate

I was all set to get a Tonex One a few weeks ago, but then i found out that i cant just hook it up to a Chocolate (like i could with the GP-5), without the Pirate box. So i thinking of getting full size one. Not sure I’ll brother with the bass stuff at this point, an amp’s and amp after all, and there seems to be plenty in the standard version. Can anyone tell me if it’s possible to keep the amp/cab on and turn effects on and off? Would i still need soemthing like the Pirate box even with the larger Tonex, or can i hook it up directly? Thanks for any info. Im still trying to get my head around what is and isn’t possible with these things.

Hazy in Yaxley - Bromhead’s Jacket

Fog On The Tyne - Lindisfarne

Well, I might be getting old in years but I still understand how the world works, for young people as much as myself. I suppose the critical difference is how much credibility and importance the individual places on whatever respective media. You see Russ, I would beg to differ that most of the manufacturers you mention are adequate replacements for those that are effectively gone now. Dingwall would be the exception. Shuker, Sei, Overwater and GB all build fine basses but I wouldn't give them house room. They just have never appealed to me. None of them can hold a candle to a Wal, or Status or Jaydee for that matter, in terms of being what I want. I'm sure plenty of other folks feel the same. It's naive to think that what most people want when they are buying a bass is merely an adequate (or even superb) instrument. More than anything they are buying an idea combined with association, and the feelings that combination gives them. Very few bass builders appeal to me nowadays. It's not just a generational thing or me hankering for my youth, basses just aren't as interesting or diverse as they once were, fanned frets ect. not withstanding.

My old club band played at one social club NYE gig. We were in an upstairs room, children were only allowed downstairs. The room was half-empty. The consolation was that of the three raffle prizes, we won two (I got whisky, the guitarist got vodka). I've played at weddings - only a couple with rock bands, rather more were with the ceilidh band. For the ceilidh band, we used to use sashes[1] for same-sex dancing pairs to determine which was "man" and which was "woman", but when we did one for a wedding between a gay vicar and his partner, we decided that we could finish up overthinking things. [1] Against my advice, orange. And our dulcimer player wore a bowler hat. Fortunately we never played any Irish gigs.

As for a 32” scale, there is only one !!!

Thank you my good man, I owe you a fondant fancy next time I see you. 👍

That's fair enough.

I bought a pedal from Tom - it arrived super quickly and really well packed. Top bloke - thanks Tom!

There's probably more custom bass luthiers out there now than there has ever been, but most of them are pretty small scale operations. Yes, the majority of the market is still FSOs, but you're starting to see more interesting instruments working their way into the limelight - the rise of Dingwall has been a big deal in that regard. Ibanez continue to be pretty brave with their designs, considering they're a mass-market manufacturer. You're not seeing so much of the alternative-material instruments, although you've got the likes of Klos picking up the baton dropped by Status when they stopped making aftermarket graphite necks, and it seems there's quite a big market out there for carbon-fibre acoustic guitars from the likes of Enya and Lava. At least, in the UK, we've got the likes of Shuker, Sei, Overwater and GB still making great custom instruments, although it's very sad (but understandable, given Rob's desire to retire) that Status have had to downsize so much.

The Pirate Midi Polar Max is based on this open source project https://github.com/Builty/TonexOneController/tree/main I thought I'd seen something similar to this. 10% of sales go to the person who manages the code, which is good. If you wanted to save money, you could (if you were so inclined): Buy this https://github.com/Builty/TonexOneController/blob/main/HardwarePlatform_Waveshare4.3B.md Buy 2-16 pedal switches plus this board https://www.sparkfun.com/sparkfun-16-output-i-o-expander-breakout-sx1509.html Buy this for Midi https://www.amazon.com/HiLetgo-Reciprocal-Hardware-Automatic-Converter/dp/B082Y19KV9 Build yourself a case Download the firmware and test it works though I'm not sure how much money you'd save TBH as all of this takes time and I would value my time at more than it costs to build this, but it's neat and you can still plug in extra pedal switches such as the Chocolate. I did have one question for any Chocolate owners, I didn't think that the Chocolate supported switching through pressing C & D together. I will have to look again and perhaps there is a firmware upgrade. Rob

Not wanting to labour the point - but the print/insta generation thing applies to us buyers too…

This is true. I’m in a covers and original band. The former is mostly booked by the set list (we play blue note jazz stuff). The originals band is done by an agent.