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I didn't realise he does trade-ins, do you know if that is still the case?

Congrats on the new bass BTW - it's a lovely colour!

Mine is passive. I swapped the pickup for an Aguilar AG-4P for more vintage tones. I've had other basses with the Sandberg 2 band EQ and I've never thought that the detent position was actually flat - more like a little boosted on both knobs. Just back the bass knob off a bit if you need to. It's a P pickup so it's also very easy to balance output by adjusting the pickup height on one side or the other. Makes a big difference. I also think that the "30 inch sound" is a myth. There are sounds for particular 30 inch basses - like a Mustang with it's unique pickup, or the woody thud of a Hofner Beatle bass - but after owning 3 shorties all with P bass pickups in them (a variety of passive and active pickups) - they all sound like a precision and different string choices have just as much impact as on a 34 inch precision too. They sound so much like "proper" precisions that I got rid of my proper ones as the shorties are so easy to play. If there was a 30 inch sound then there would be a 34 inch sound too - and just listening to a P and then a J shows that's not true. If you take out the Lionel's pickup and preamp and put a Mustang pickup and passive loom in it, and a set of La Bella Mustang flats - it will sound very close to a Mustang and not the same as a P bass anymore. IIRC the Mustang pickup is not quite in the same place as on a P so there will be a little difference for that.

That looks great. Well actually it’s hardly noticeable and that is exactly as it should be?

You my friend have very good taste in tipples

Which Harley Benton supply is it? That might help us suggest what would work with it.

A three gig weekend. Mini tour? A first in a very long while! We were playing with a Belgian doom band. Nice guys, but they need to find a real drummer. Their backing track was bad. Like they thought, we're in a metal band so we need to be loud, lets put the velocity of all of the MIDI drums to 100%. Some of them were clipping in places and they lacked nuance. It's the sort of music where a bit of ebbing and flowing of the tempo can really enhance it and being too rigid doesn't work in your favour. There were also a few times where the bassist seemed to be quite out of tune on his fretless. Gear Dingwall Combustion -> Boss GX-100 -> Laney Digbeth -> Whatever cabs were available. Friday - The Victoria, Swindon We were on second of 4 bands and I think we were a little sloppy due to low stage volume and we probably should have all turned up a bit. It probably would have helped if we'd have had a practice in the week before the run of gigs. Still a good reception. The first band was the new band of a guitarist we'd played with before (Onieromancer). They were really good. The singer had the full range of metal noises that some make and did amazingly well for his first gig. The other band (Boss Cloth) were a real blend of a few different things. A bt punk, a bit metal, a bit indie. Fretless 5 string Yamaha that was in tune. Saturday - The Victory, Hereford This is a cool venue. The whole bar is the side of a ship with cannons above. The back room for the music had lots of rope and nets and other nautical things and a rather unfortunate pole/mast in the middle of the stage. Where we stored gear was up on a balcony that was done up to look like rigging. What was even amazing was that a Wye Valley pale ale was only £3.70 a pint! We played better than the previous night. I was going into a 115 and 210 and we just had more stage volume. The mast was quite annoying for trying to move around a bit though. I was quite conscious of it and didn't want to smack my headstock on it. Very dark stage too. I struggled to see the fret markers at times. I'm starting to consider installing luminlays on my Combustion... At War With The Sun played first and managed to fill a set with about 3 songs. Just the sort of self indulgence I like! And Mudlarker were really good too. Not my favourite style of vocals to listen to, but they were very good. Oh, and we apparently met the entirety of the Hereford metal scene on that night 😂 Sold two t-shirts though! Sunday - Fuel Rock Club, Cardiff This is a fun place to play. We played once before and the sound guy just seems to know how to get the best out of the venue. I think it was my best performance of the weekend. Also the only one where I hadn't had a beer as I was driving. A correlation methinks... It was also the lowest turnout, but when it's a rainy Sunday night and the opening band (Root Zero) already played there on Friday night, how many are you really expecting? They were really good though. As 6 piece, they looked quite snug on the stage! It was a really fun weekend, but I'm very much wishing I'd taken the day off today!

Reminds me of the time I went to pack up my leads bag (after a gig) and found that someone had placed a video in there - called 'Wild about horses'.

Having made up my fancy lime green cables, I couldn't fit them without lifting the cabinets & amp which were stacked against a wall. So at the weekend I had a little DIY task... Two layers of 12mm plywood and some PSE: The amp came with a little trolley which wasn't up to much but the castors were worth re-using: Slap on some black paint: Ta da! Now it wheels around easily

In my ongoing (ahem) “investigations” of short scale basses, I finally buckled and bought a Sandberg Lionel. It’s a lovely bass. Feels great ergonomically and balances perfectly despite being very light (not much more than 7lbs). Narrower/thinner neck than I’m used to but it’s growing on me. A few thoughts though I’d been keen on hearing other Lionel owners’ opinions on, mainly around tone. I’d read some folk saying the pickup is more modern / less vintage sounding than your average P bass. That may or may not be true, but my overriding feeling tonally is that it sounds much less like a 30” than I was expecting. My experience to date with 30” basses is that you get a more even tone across all the strings, so (for example) in areas like the lower frets of the D string, those notes just sound a bit thicker than they might on a 34”, and conversely, the E and A strings are possibly a little less deep, making the bass seem overall better balanced across the strings. But not on this bass. The E and A strings seem massive and the D and G strings seem thinner sounding. Ie much more like a 34”. Anyone else have that experience and/or any thoughts on why? (BTW I’ve got D’Addario Chromes on it, as I have on most of my other basses).

Maybe it’s because I was trading in a bass, and he wanted to see it in person. In all fairness his place is more like a small workshop than an actual store, it’s probably not ideal for drop-in visits. Ultimately he gave me a decent deal, and his stuff is legit and priced realistically, so I my experience was definitely positive.

I also have the Lekato WS-50, they have been excellent. After 4 years, full charge is good for 3-4 hours, the only minor gripe is if you forget to charge them!

I have always had a thing for lollipops after seeing that photo of Macca with a Jazz with them in the studio. I recently bought a set of 4 Gotoh standard ones with an extra LH one for my 5 string Squier P build. They have a much bigger footprint than the original Squier ones and as such the in-line 4 are almost touching each other. The upside down one wouldn't fit under the others, so I ended up grinding off a corner and re-drilling the plate to make it fit. I should have gone with the Ultra-lite version which others have suggested......

Good suggestion but trying to keep costs down and I'm more than happy with my Harley Benton power supply, these have been my go-to for a few years now 🤙

I had basically these, but with a weird wood grain effect. Rechargeable and sensibly come with a double headed lead so you charge both at once they pop up with money-off quite regularly on Amazon

A simple solution, be it one with a high upfront cost, could be to replace your existing power supply with one that already has a USB charge port on it, such as the CIOKS DC7. Though it's pricey, you could sell whatever you existing supply is to claw back some funds, and the CIOKS is pretty amazing - a worthwhile investment. At least with this approach you know that it was designed for that application and you're not putting any strain on the supply, or injecting noise etc. into the signal chain.

I have the 5.8G Lekato system as above and so does my guitarist in our duo. They just work and so far go on working. I think I've had mine for three years. Before that I had the Line6 system with the 2xAA batteries which is still going strong but I preferred the fom of the Lecato ones with no more fiddly battery, covers bought the Lekatos to try and never looked back. Hmmm a second pair so I always have some charged.... @neepheid you may have started something.