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Ha,ha. this is awesome! 😝 I approve! Thank you!

I wonder how you'd feel if your £2k Ric turned up with frets like this 😀 Or when they were like this on the replacement sent the following week 🤣

I get a bit / lot confused sometimes.... With another load of new gear being released at the moment, I can't help wonder the same thing every year... There's only really 2 uses for an amp - practicing/home use and playing live / in bands. So why do nearly all the manufacturers sell ranges that are dead set in the middle? And serve neither use? Ie the 200w class d type? Or 200w class d combos etc... That's too loud / needless for home and just not practical for gigging and to be honest not much different in price. I see loads and loads of stuff I'd like to buy second hand, then see it's the weaker version, drives me mad! Surely it's the same effort to put in a 500w power module as it is a 200w one? A bass amp used to be a bass amp... Ie you could gig with it without worry, and a practice amp for home was just that. Now it's a minefield out there...

Hi. I enjoy taking part in the BassChat monthly composition challenge. It's a chance to practice music production and complete in a set time. This month I was inspired by @Baloney Balderdash's entry track. I decided it would be fun to remix, and fed it into the machine. Here is the original: And here's the remix:

That quite clearly says it’s not required for buyers.

I suspect it’s a combination of all of the above - move, Christmas and supplier issues. My order was early October and I was hoping it might be here for my gig tonight but as I’m then away for a couple of weeks and I’d said I’d collect but couldn’t mid February I started another email to check a couple of days ago then didn’t bother. Hopefully it’ll be here for the first gig after I get back 🤞

A lot of the sellers that I used have disappeared from eBay but they do seem to come and go as I suspect some of them get pulled for copyright infringement etc. .There are plenty of bass necks on AliExpress though. China YueTong Store https://a.aliexpress.com/_EuhSpbm This is one that I haven‘t used before but am looking at to use next on AliExpress but I have a few necks stockpiled already for future builds. As with all things when you buy on online selling sites….do your research!……how long have they been on that platform, What are their reviews and do the reviews look genuine and most importantly, do they appear to specialise in guitar or instrument stock? The one above appears to supply instrument components which are also orchestral string necks so I would hope they would know what they are doing. If you are expecting an out of the box, set up, ready to go neck then you will be disappointed. If you are happy to do some levelling, dressing etc then they are very good for the money compared to a real Fender neck. You would likely have to do the same to one of those anyway. I have a customer MIM neck in the workshop at the moment to pair with one of my bodies. If I put it next to a Chinese one, apart from the headstock logo, there is very little difference in the quality if at all. It is very much a do your due diligence and a bit of fingers crossed when you first order from a company but I’ve never had a bad or unusable neck from China yet nor I have ever had one not arrive or damaged in transit. perhaps I’ve just been lucky.

Yeah absolutely, I play synth all the time but programming patches is my least favourite aspect of it. Good presets are a must and that’s where the MXR (with very strong marketing) has convinced people. As for trying to program FM… no thanks! 😅

So my 1975/76 p bass is pretty much original but its clear its had a new nut in its previous life. The new one doesnt quite fit right with a very small gap either end between the edge of the fretboard and the nut. Its never massively bothered me but what has since i started using smaller gauge strings is the slot depths. In particular the G and D sit quite low down and i have a feeling the G is being pinched resulting in a slighty more dead tone. Looking at these phone pics would you say it needs a trip to the tech for a new nut?

The Anagram was overkill, but you’ve just bought a QC Mini? What’s changed? I’m trying to decide between the two and nearly settled on the Anagram….

If you are frustrated by the pieces, then move on. And as @LawrenceH said, come back after a while and you'll be amazed how "easy" they were, simply because you've learnt something more difficult. It's indeed all in the mindset. That said, piano is not an easy instrument at all, but you can play it.

Rent - Pet Shop Boys

Last night turned out to be a good one, despite having a particularly heavy cold that seems to be doing the rounds. I still have some in-date covid tests and it's apparently not, so on with the show. The gig was guest-headliner at a Metal 2 The Masses competition heat (playing while the votes are being counted and the judges are deliberating), so I swapped my usual 10-6 shift at work for the 7-3, got to the venue for 4 as instructed, sound-checked at about 6, nipped to Tesco for a picnic that I couldn't taste, and then just loitered in the dressing room until showtime at 9:45. I would have liked to see the competition bands but I was best off sat on a sofa with my menthol sweets and a bog-roll. Stage time came around fast enough, and although the drummer had been at the JD a little more than usual, he only made a couple of mistakes and I managed not to have any fits of coughing, sneezing or otherwise malfunctioning. There were plenty watching and all the inter-song noises were positive and enthusiastic, but the highlight for me was the looks on the faces of a pair of lasses down at the front. I may be wrong, but I got the feeling that they'd perhaps spent the night dutifully supporting their boy/friends in one of the more shouty-thrashy bands, so being faced with two corseted sopranos in an operatic-symphonic outfit at the same gig seemed to catch them off-guard; they looked somewhere between emotional and mesmerised ...in a good way. Packed up and tried to help as much as possible with loading out, but I was at the 'if I start coughing I'm not sure I'll be able to stop before I run out of air and keel over' stage, so I made my apologies and my exit. Had a gloriously rough night and now need to spend the next three days helping my lass to move house. Epic. Gear was my RB Streamer LX 5 -(G30)-> [XS-1 -> BC-1X -> VT Bass v2 -> BDDI v2] -> TC BAM200 -> Blackstar house cab, and it really sounded quite good from where I was stood so hopefully that translated to FoH. Noticed that I was getting some very brief drop-outs on the G30, which is very unusual for it in my experience, but I eventually spotted that it was happening every time one of the singers operated the switch on her radio mic. Will have to see whether it was a one-off or maybe a different channel will be less susceptible to issues. Took the Hardly Benton along as backup, and the one photo I was bothered to take all evening is of it...

From my outside view… it feels like the FI1 was a reissue of the DI with more things a synth geek would want - that then gets added too and more and more functionality. Which is cool and you end up with a pretty awesome bass synth … that requires a bit of knowledge to program and tweak… but a lot of people want a microkorg, with a big knob that they can select “trance patch 1” and not tweak. I think with the DX7 stuff that might be even more of a thing as I’ve messed around with Dexed and it kinda made my head explode a bit!

Have you ever used your cabs on their sides to avoid the overhang with your 400+? (I realise LFSys recommends rotating the horn for ultimate performance)

The Letter - Joe Cocker

Excellent

Mr Postman - The Beatles / The Carpenters

I took me a while but I'd love to come along. Bringing G&L 2500 x 2 (One Tribute) P basses: P-Retro'd Warmoth, 32" scale Zoot, 54 and basic Warmoth. 2 amp heads, 1 x 12" Accugroove Line 6 Helix LT with Laptop. Peter

Paging @Silky999 - he's used quite a few imported roasted necks in builds recently. He will have the knowledge of where to go and what's good value.

Return to sender - Elvis Presley