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I hope I get to be as good as you guys one day. Being playing for about 2 months, about an hour a day. Can just about pluck a major and minor chord, slowly.

Be yourself and make sure your gear is up to scratch but most importantly.....be yourself. Go for it and the best of luck.

Hey up @Paddy Morris- quick comparison here: Does the transmitter unit on your NUX rattle when you shake it? Just got mine 30mins ago, plugged it in and there's a fatal buzz around C. Turns out there's something rattling inside the transmitter unit, which resonates loud enough that the bass picks it up and transmits as audio signal. So that's no use at all. Sending straight back for a replacement and hoping its just a one-off fault, rather than design fault! (Incidentally, as expected, sound appears to be a million times better than Joyo direct into Piezo - though nerdy spectrum analysis will have to wait).

S-s-s-single Bed - Fox

Duvet Know It's Christmas? - Band Aid

Down Down - Quo

Hywel bought a Darkglass pedal from me a few days ago. He's a great chap to deal with, great communication and a nice guy. Would definitely be happy to deal with him again.

Although I won't be joining the queue to buy one, this sort of product is exactly why Spector appears to be going from strength to strength. And to reference another thread, G&L needs to have a look at what Korg has enabled Spector to do.

I don't think I'll be playing one.

As per my comment: you can use the neck, but need a new fretboard (& frets). They missed a trick: they could've done it as a fretless!

If you pay in full for something, what gives the manufacturer any right to demand it back? They are also selling you something. It is cheeky, at best. I'd challenge that. Unless I'd signed an agreement to such an "exchange", I'd ask them to make a straight swap new for old if they insisted on exchanging parts.

Delivered on the Ali-Express by any chance? Haha… I’ve just returned the full fat version as it happens - nice bit of kit but didn’t warrant £300

Good point. The band I'm meeting don't want a bassist with other band commitments that limits their flexibility with booking gigs. This could be a showstopper for some. It's certainly a consideration if you're joining a band that does say 2 gigs a month and then something else comes along that's similar or more.

I've had the (mis)fortune to experience a wide spectrum of stage patter over my gigging career. I started off in an originals band where the aim was to play a set through with little or no interaction with the audience - we played a Hawkwind influenced 'show' with linking music of sound effects between the actual songs so there was little scope for it. As the audience were there to see us, it didn't matter too much and worked in the context of what we were doing. That was a good thing because we were all so new to it all that we wouldn't really have been able to handle a difficult audience. Later I was very fortunate to work with a guy in a covers band who was a very good front man. He was able to gauge an audience and interact with them very well. His patter would be different according to the circumstances, ranging from next to nothing if the crowd were dancing (we once played an hour of the set back to back with no gaps as the punters were filling the dance floor) to gentle jokes at the band's expense if he needed to inject some humour. He had spontaneity and wit and the wisdom to know how and when to use it. There were never any controversial topics, inappropriate language or picking on audience members. I think these two examples show the difference between the stage patter required for an audience who is there for the band or music and one that is there anyway and for whom the band is incidental. I played in a trio where the frontwoman was a good singer but had no self confidence away from singing. Between songs was an awkward silence. Standing on the stage while we lined up the next song (we were using backing tracks) or tuned up was excruciating and made me realise that regardless of the circumstances, it may be necessary to engage with the audience if there's an unexpected delay. In this case I was forced into it with mixed results; I'm not very good with spontaneous witty banter. I played in a duo with a front man who decided he was a comedian and significant amounts of gig time were given over to his comedy script. There was occasional polite laughter but for people who had come to see and dance to music, it was totally inappropriate and went on far too long between songs. I didn't stick with that duo for long. For me and in my experience stage patter is important and the ability to deploy it appropriately and skillfully is essential. Knowing when to shut up is equally important. People pay to see a band primarily for the music and dancing and while for me it should be a performance, that doesn't mean scripted jokes or long song introductions. Personally, I make a few notes; for example at the recent festival gig where I played in a support band before my main band, I made sure that as the front man I could thank the previous act, introduce the act on after us and talk about the charities that were being supported by the event. I thanked the volunteers helping and our sound man. I had to say some words between songs as we had instrument swaps and I made a point of getting the audience to acknowledge a particularly good performance by our sax player. Most of that was prompted by words or phrases scribbled on my set list and it was spread across the 45 minutes of our set.

We All Fall Down - Aerosmith

Just echoing what most other people have said: how lame can you get Rickenbacker? They had an opportunity to come up with something that would tick all the short scale boxes: less reach, smaller lighter body (important for Rickies), pickups in the sweet spot (but still different fundamentals from the scale), etc. it could have been a Rickenbacker for players who hanker after one but can’t handle the size and weight of the standard offerings. They could even have taken the opportunity to fix some of the other shortcomings like the bridge/intonation and the sharp edges! Opportunity lost IMO!