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When you're a millionaire sticking it to the man becomes harder to carry off.

It would be worth servicing the amp if it's not been done for may years. Over time connections can deteriorate and the cumulative effect can cause increased noise pickup, particularly if the grounding is not totally effective. I've made improvements to several amps by improving screening in critical places, such as unscreened input jumper cables. Some designs are more susceptible to noise pickup than others should not be so bad as to make the amp unusable.

Running With The Sniffles - Van Halen

40 years and the after effects of the drugs probably haven't helped.

Funnily enough I watched an interview of a Bass player by a drummer. Both professional players. The drummer's aim of the series of interviews was to find out what musicians wanted from drummers and various general tips. The bass player pointed out there was a difference between substance use and substance abuse. And that it's a fine line. He'd never seen anyone fired for not having a beer on stage with them, but seen plenty not hired again for just having a single beer. This was the US though and they can have very puritanical views.

I occasionally gig with a local singer-songwriter. On one such gig, I was to be on lead guitar and when we rehearsed in the BL’s front room, the bass player was getting noise through his old-school Class AB combo (can’t remember what, but not Ashdown). After our rehearsal I volunteered to take a look at it, so we heaved it into the kitchen so that I could get the chassis out and onto the table. The amp worked fine in the kitchen. We identified the source of noise as the BL’s wireless router. There are plenty of old bass amps either designed or built in the 90s that are still being gigged today because of their perceived sonic heft, and despite their physical heft. Far fewer people back then had WiFi at home, so it wasn’t something designers had to address. Also I think getting your gain staging right may help to reduce background noise.

It may be worth checking with one of the UK based pickup makers but you could try to get a P pickup that has two parts that are both wound the same way and magnetically oriented the same way. This would need no mods to the bass. The rational for this is that a normal P pickup is two pickups, each one is would in the opposite direction to the other (one wound clockwise. The other any-clockwise. Having the magnets reversed does make for a mellower sound than a J in the neck position as a traditional J pickup is single coil rather than humbucking or hum cancelling. if you could get two halves of s P pickup that are wound the same way and have the same magnetic orientation, it is effectively a single coil pickup like a J. Of course there is a slight offset between the two elements but I doubt you would hear the difference. It would not be. J pickup but it should be quite close and a lot less work than getting a new J pickup and scratch plate. Rather than buying a boutique set, you could say buy two sets of less expensive P pickup sets like Toneriders and then you would have another set for your next project . I should addd that I have not tried this and both the impedance and inductance of the new pickup may be different to a J and as such may not be to your liking. This is where working with someone that winds pickups for a living would be a safer but more expensive bet..

Snot Unusual - Tom Jones

It may be worth getting the amps checked out by a competent tech. It may be that the valve bias setting is different or there may be failing / failed components in the circuit. It is possible that you have a partially shorted output transformer, but that is uncommon. I'm assuming that the amps are always connected to a speaker load when switched on as valve amps don't like running into a high impedence.

The ones I got by mistake sound more like cutlery than a bass. I may be missing the point though.

Here are the best bridge close-ups of the two 8-string basses that I used to own: Both have individually movable saddles for the main and octave string in each course. The second image is of the Carlo Robelli bass which has the same bridge and tail-piece combination as that fitted to the Dean and Schecter 8-string basses. As @Wolverinebass has said the best 8-string bass bridges used to be those made by Schaller which AFAICS are now out of production.

That's perfect. 👍🏻👌🏻

Thanks, that's very helpful. I'll probably go with a set from here as they claims ot be a matched pair for the specific model - https://www.ampvalves.co.uk/product-category/choose-your-amp/ashdown-amplifiers/ashdown-220-touring/ But I'm going to contact Ashdown first and see what they have to say and will likely book it on for a service as it's probably long overdue.

Is your bridge actually falling, or slipping slightly? That can be due to the feet of the bridge not being 'fitted' properly - this is usually fixed by taping a piece of sandpaper to the front and physically running the bridge feet up and down it, so that the feet are matched to the curvature of the front plate. Traditionally, the bridge should be angled very slightly, so the top of the bridge is slightly 'pulling' away from the tuners. You may have to adjust it several times during initial tuning when re-stringing, as it will naturally move as the tension increases.

Just curious how it's all fitted in the space available. I can only find pictures of bridges for 8 evenly spaced strings.

It's normal for solid state/hybrid amps, but if you are relying on overdriving the output stage of a valve amp it's different.

The one I have on mine is the Schaller 471 bridge which has independent saddles for the different sets of strings. The downside is that it doesn't have grooves cut into the saddles and youd have to do it yourself. I don't know if it's made anymore. Most of the other versions used on commercially available basses are of the tune-o-matic variety.

I have an irrational prejudice against stainless steel strings. Who on earth likes the things?

My favourite album of 2025 was 'NOBODY'S GIRL' by Amanda Shires, just a superb release John 😎 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xxm7mgSgV0Q https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2GmoXcuBETU

Personally and with some personal experience I'd say the link between creativity and drugs is mostly nonsense. People with the creative spark have it whether they are taking substances or not. Just because in previous decades a lot of successful and creative bands were known to take drugs it does not mean that that the drugs made them succesful and creative, it's just a classic example of correlation does not equal causation. Although the myth that drugs were responsible for the creativity probably encouraged more musicians to experiment to see if they could unlock some sort of hidden potential. In fact generally when you look more closely at the history of a lot of these bands the excessive lifestyles were far more disruptive than they were positives for the careers concerned and in many cases were directly responsible for bands either breaking up or, members being sacked or, in the worst cases, band members not living to make more music.