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Some chill grooves for a rainy Tuesday morning.

Just curious. Was killing time at used basses and a fairly large number carried BIN prices of £208.68. On a second look it appears prices ending with .68 or with an '8' in general are just as common. Anyone an idea why ?

It did sound very good, though I was using the Tech21 for the drive and the preamp on the bass for any EQ so trying to keep the RM as just an amp stage. For some reason I prefer to get any colouration from pedals, bass and cab rather than the amp. Always have. No idea why.

I would say no... unless you feel West Indians shouldn't play punk or heavy metal. But the lyrics do some dodgy stereotyping. https://www.theguardian.com/music/2025/jan/23/10ccs-graham-gouldman-every-west-indian-person-ive-spoken-to-loves-dreadlock-holiday-but-i-wouldnt-write-certain-lines-now

By who? someone completely deaf?!

I lost one of the bell plate screws from my old Sire once, eventually found it days later stuck to one of the pickup pole pieces. Felt like a proper idiot. These are 2.5mm long and M2 size: https://www.accu.co.uk/large-slotted-pan-head-screws/611742-SFPL-M2-2-5-A1-BL It's a common size for NVME SSDs so you may have more luck sourcing some that way, some here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Screws-60pcs-Mounting-Screwdrivers-Laptop/dp/B0F8VWV9LH?source=ps-sl-shoppingads-lpcontext&psc=1&smid=A1EWA2C6OH3Y0Q

The Nordy mute is definitely the fastest on/off option but it is so expensive for a stick with some foam on it. And the foam is very hard and mutes massively. A triangular shaped foam would allow the muting amount to be altered just but pushing it on more or easing it off - ideally with a softer foam... That and the stupid price made me make my own ones. Plastic Ice Lolly stick. About £5 for 20 of them: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B06XY9JF3V?th=1 and then some adhesive backed foam tape: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B07VJXPD4B?th=1 (Just an example, you can get it a lot cheaper than that, for shorter amounts) And you can make a bunch of them for various basses. Stick the foam to the lolly stick and then use a sharp knife to cut the slots to fit your instrument. Can even shape the foam for more and less muting with just a pair of scissors. Cut the lolly stick down to size to remove the excess length. I made enough for all my basses for about a quarter of the cost of a single Nordy one.

A bit of Slim Smith this morning

Ashdown RM amp & ABM/MAG cab a very good pairing in my experience.

I’m so glad you’re getting on with your new Xotic. It was a pleasure to meet you in store, and to help you find the right bass. ☺️

The battery went flat (my fault) and I wanted to check active mode worked I knew that the passive mode does a fairly good jazz bass sound but switching to active with it’s totally separate tone control (para mid eq plus treble plus bass) you can get a fairly good p bass tone. the levels are about the same, so I can switch the two sounds instantly using the active switch and it’s a 5

I had a 100 watt Carlsbro valve PA head that (with a similar amount of cab) would stay fully clean at the sort of volumes where the PF50T is starting to get grindy. But for some styles, the sound of a valve amp sailing close to the wind is fun, and the portability, more useful EQ and DI outputs of the PF50T are good to have. The Carlsbro got left at home for a lot of gigs just because it was a heftier lump and sound guys tended to just want a DI in front of it anyway.

Interesting, I'm curious about this! Doesn't look very practical, in that it needs to be woven in, alternating over and under the strings so it's not something you place onto your bass on the fly like say a Nordymute. But it does look like a nice and simple concept that shouldn't be too expensive. Long & McQuade lists it for 7.99 Canadian dollars! And there's a guitar version too, that comes in a set of 3 (in 3 different widths for varying degrees of muting) for 7.99 as well. Not sure why the bass version costs the same as a set of 3 guitar mutes though.

Yeah, I use the Finger style preset at home, even though hi play with a pick. My M-Vave Chocolate finally arrived yesterday. Easy enough to set up and it makes a big difference to the GP-5. not quite as versatile as I had hoped, but exactly what I need for rehearsals. I have FS 1 set to engage Drive + NR, FS2 engages Modulation (be it Phaser or Chorus) + EQ, and 3 + 4 scroll through patches. Ive not bothered with the other two switches (E+F). The Amp sim is left on but no Cab sim. I use the EQ block with modulation more to control any volume changes than EQ, although it does help with the Phaser by lowing the low a tiny bit as well A bit disappointed that I have to power the M-Vave for the Host side to work, but as it will run off a phone charger or power bank, and power the GP-5 its not a big deal. the only issue i wish i could sort out is that (as far as i can see) to get each switch to turn on and off an effect ive had to set the switches to A/B. This works well but the GO-5 doesn’t seem to relay the effect block state when it’s first called up. So depending on where the foot switch was left before it can take two presses to engage the block on first use of that patch. Not a big deal, just no ideal.