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I spoke to John about using the MMSR as it is the obvious choice. He didn't recommend it. I've since lowered the treble response frequency using the internal switches and I've fitted some high quality Gotoh knobs to the EMG controls. The bass is now simply awesome especially in a band setting. It's difficult to imagine anything better (given that I've owned well over 100 basses that's saying something significant ). Peter

Hiss

Here's some useful advice on re-skinning an antique zither banjo. After soaking the skin, fitting a flesh hoop, stretching the skin with the hoop and carefully tensioning all eighteen screws, you may find it useful to emply a pair of screwdrivers to coax the nut blank in its little plastic bag out of the inside of the instrument.

It's a very ok.

I’ve noticed though - the headstock finish is very fragile on these. Already a couple of marks on it. Ah well - they’ll be very busy basses so a bit of real relic’ing wont kill anyone.

I’ve also got 2 Badass bridges on the way 😆

Sad but true!

I 100% agree. I'll even offer up an alternative perspective. Currently, I'm doing the Sound, Light and Live Event Engineering course at Derby Uni. One of my lecturers is a guy named Jon Burton. You might not know this name, but odds are good you've heard his work, he's spent the last few decades as The Prodigy's touring sound engineer. He's also engineer for Biffy Clyro, and a number of other acts I won't bother naming because I haven't got the time. Last year, we as a class went to have a look at the Biffy Clyro shows in London, where they were playing their first few albums in full, a different album each night. During his explanation of what was going on, the guitar tech started checking the guitar rig, and you would not believe the amount of volume coming out of the cabs. Simon Neil runs three separate rigs, and when he wants to add more intensity, he doesn't swap to another amp and cab, he simply adds them to what he was already playing through. Naturally, we all wanted to know "Why are you using amps when you could just use modellers and have a quiet stage?". He told us they'd tried it, and they hated it, but they persisted for a while because they thought that they had to. Until he came in and said "Well, if you hate it, just use your amps, we'll figure it out at the desk." Anyway, moral of the story is, the right engineer can work with you to make sure that you're comfortable on stage, and that you're sounding your best, even if you want to drag your big rig with you everywhere you go. He intentionally sacrificed a little vocal clarity to make sure that the performers were as comfortable on stage as possible, because he knew that it'd make the actual performance that much better.

It isn't necessarily unpopular, merely divorced from the reality of selling creative input. If I make a chair, and someone copies the non-functional aspects of my design, that person has infringed my property rights. If I have a patent on an aspect of the chair's design, that is also my intellectual property. If I have a trademark, that belongs to me too. If I convey those rights to, say, Ikea for a lump sum, do I somehow not deserve to be paid for my work? One of the reasons that intellectual property concepts exist is that they encourage creativity and innovation. Put simply, the possibility of income provides an incentive to create speculatively. Otherwise, the market will do what markets without intellectual property rights always do: reward people who make things with known values and deter people from making things with untested merits. If the incentive to innovate does not appeal to you, consider this: I write for a living. I insist on payment prior to publication, and my fee is high by the standards of my field of expertise. I can set a high fee because I am very good at what I do, and I am a free agent. The end result, however, is that a very small number of potential buyers of my products can afford to buy my products. My "honest work" is beyond the reach of most of the people in my tiny corner of the world who would like to buy it. Something similar applies to, say, a novel by Salman Rushdie, or a recording by Bob Dylan (or a chair that you can buy at Ikea; try getting the same thing from the chap who makes it by hand). A system of royalties, or other ways for creators of intellectual property to be paid, allows customers to pay very small amounts of money for enjoying fruits of someone's labour, usually because a company or other entity facilitates widespread access. It bewilders me that people actually seem to resent the wealth that successful artists sometimes accumulate, instead of thinking, "This is great! A novel for the household, and its costs less than a modest lunch for two!" Or, "I can't believe that I get this song for the price of a bar of chocolate." Try getting a decent chair for that. Intellectual property is what makes it possible for a broad public to enjoy what might otherwise be available only to the wealthiest among us. I would argue that intellectual property is also what made it possible to reward contributions to the public good without requiring the contributors to serve the interests of privileged investors. Sure, we could go back to a simpler time, but honest artisans were always outnumbered by the serfs, sharecroppers and industrial workers who put in 12-hour days for the benefit of magnates rather than themselves.

Personally, as originally, I believe the jacket is fastened and it does not cover the headstock.

Very much the same here. Over the years I've been fortunate to own some of the 'holy grail' instruments. In the end all the pre-CBS basses have gone because I have better basses from later periods or other makers. It is playability that matters. Yes I have some 60s and 70s basses, but I have owned them for a long time.

I'm still in. All I've bought remotely related this year is a display cabinet for my halo. 😇 🤣🤣

Along with my bass ☹️

Sounded very good on Saturday

I think I win "most pickups on a single fail"...