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The great thing about Ishibashi is because their on line presence is based on the stock from all their shops, they have a regular turnover of new and especially of used instruments. Therefore if the bass you are after isn't in stock to today, it may well be in stock tomorrow, or next week or next month. It just depends on how long you want to wait before one comes up. None of the basses I bought from them were exactly common - the Yamaha BJ-5B was made in a limited edition of just 50 - but all of them eventually came up for sale on Ishibashi.

Only quoting this bit because it raises an interesting question which your post does go on to mention. Everything goes to pot once the marketers get hold of every bit of printed and broadcast material. It's the governments fault. To a large extent it's the voters fault and to a greater extent it's the non voters fault. Anyone who ever proudly says 'I don't vote, they are all the same' it's definitely their fault. Companies are over claiming figures massively and across the board, they routinely measure their amps output power then simply multiply the figure by four. Literally just that, times four, no science, no measurement just barefaced lie. To be fair some even admit it. In the small print you'll see "**calculated figure". Frequency responses are now given +/- 10db rather than the +/-3db used decades ago and sometimes even less honestly. The problem is that once one company does it everyone eventually has to. Who would buy a 500W PA speaker from RCF when they can get a 2000W one from Yamaha. And that's the thing; for years you could buy really cheap 'party speakers' from the likes of Maplin advertising 1,000W PMPO which we all knew weren't serious speakers, but people who wanted to party could buy something good value for money and claim they had a 2,000W system. Then firms like Alto and Samson started to use the same PMPO figures and ate into the market. "I know it's only an Alto but is sounds OK and it's 2,000W so it's got to be as good as a 500W Yamaha" In the end Yamaha and others cracked and started using the 'calculated power' fiction and everybody else had to fall into line or let their sales fall. I notice that even Wharfedale have cracked and FBT are quoting the silly 4x power figures and then giving the maximum output figures of their PA in real money. So why is this the governments fault? Because there are laws in this country, and the rest of Europe to prevent advertising lies, to protect the public but the laws aren't enforced. The penalties for dishonest advertising aren't particularly severe but all of the funding for public protection has been slashed by politicians of all the ruling parties in the name of cutting spending and goverment red tape. The refgulators have almost no power over the sectors they are reglating and everything gets a little more s**t. Literally in the case of the water companies and some of the hospitality venues. Meanwhile with the loss of interest in politics and membership the parties are all now dependent upon 'donations' from rich individuals, lobbyists and the companies they are supposed to be regulating for our benefit. We go on voting for parties that promise tax cuts and cuts to the nanny state so now all the major parties promise to do just that. (whether they do or not you can judge for yourselves, there's not a lot of advertising standards in politics any more,though they aren't all the same in how brazen or even plausible their lies are. We also seem to enjoy being lied to, you can work out an amplifier or a speakers power if you know a bit of simple physics and can be bothered to do the sums. I could name dozens of people on BassChat who do this routinely several of whom have already posted in this thread. The trouble is that people love to say they bought a 2,000W bass amp and that their PA is 10,000W just as much as they like to say they voted for the party that will fix the £16billion worth of potholes, cntinue the triple lock and promise to cut taxes and borrowing at the same time.

Nice one AL. I’ll get us rolling. My time ‘on the road’ didn’t last long. I quickly realised I didn’t have the resilience and passion necessary. Bearing in mind this was the late seventies, the things that did it for me were; poor quality food at inconvenient/unhealthy times, uncomfortable travel and bad sleeping arrangements. I did about six months and then bottled-out for a career in engineering. After that I was happy to keep music as a hobby. For me, the T&Cs of music as a full-time weren’t worth it. I do admire all those who have what it takes to do it. Ironically, later in my career in chemical engineering I ended-up working overseas on various projects. However, I did have a company Gold Amex card and my own choice of hotels. A mate of mine always says, if the life of a touring musician was promoted as a punishment Amnesty International would be all over it.

Duh! I meant that on first reading I thought he sang it at the OM.

Locomotive Breath - Jethro Tull

I love the Stingray sound and in the past I owned a brilliant Ray34 which was under 4kg and had an Aguilar pickup and John East preamp. I have to say I find it intriguing why they are so bloody expensive. I think £850-£1000 is entirely reasonable for a second hand US model.

New pots have killed the synth/octave sound - so… result! However, as NOTHING is ever simple, my new tone pot has no sweep/roll off and seems to be DOA. Have to love the unintended consequences of working on a bass 😂

Hopefully that'll be this weekend. I have two jobs over the next two days, so will be able to give it a proper road test... The engraved neck plate is a nice touch. Looks very OEM

That's a real shame as it looks great! Seems a bit odd that a P Bass took 3 years, but that's the nature of custom builds...

@MostLow: usually it is feasible to fill the preamp side, and adjust the volume to the desired loudness. This way the noise level is low and the preamp works in its best performance level.

which Tygers guitar player. Is it Fred?

Not exactly in the studio, but I bought myself a second hand M1 Pro MacBook Pro with 32gb of RAM a few weeks ago. Such an upgrade from my old mid-2012 version! I can't seem to run out of plugins to try out different mixing ideas which is really nice. I've re-mixed one of the songs from our first EP to something I'm much more pleased with generally. It's like a blanket has been lifted off. The aim is to secretly redo both the first and second EPs in secret and then present them to the band as an album. Generally, it's something I'd like to get more into as well.