All Activity

I wouldn't put any value whatsoever in the bass being signed by "serious legends." If you are seriously interested in this bass I would do a bit (a lot) of due-diligence on Alembic Persuader basses, specifically the five string version. I remember the 4 string Persuader was a 32 inch scale, and that scale might well not work so well on a five. Check the specs regarding that and also the weight of the bass. A five string Alembic could well be pretty heavy. Alembics basses are notoriously idiosyncratic, and though they sound wonderful are not always particularly user-friendly so if you've got that kind of money to spend proceed carefully. There's a lot of nice basses out there for that kind of cash.

decent review here...

Thanks @Jack that's really helpful

Three gigs this week for me. Tuesday saw the duo at our monthly residency at The Anlaby Park hotel. A full house, lots of requests and generally a good one for us. There’s a family with late teenage kids who often come in, and the daughter always asks us to play something by Ariana Grande so we will have to see what we can manage - we’ve done the odd Taylor Swift or Lady Gaga tune so challenge accepted! Got a few requests for ‘new’ country stuff too, so we did ‘Tennessee Whiskey’ by Chris Stapleton which went down well. Used my Squier Jag SS with the Rumble 500. Wednesday I was playing at the local rock n roll club night in Hessle. 3 piece band with two friends on guitar and drums. Not quite as busy as usual, so I hope it’s not starting to slide down as we get paid according to how many we get in. Still, plenty of dancers who get up for pretty much any songs we do, whether fast, mid tempo or slow. My usual P-Lyte into a Hartke 3500 and Loud 4x10 cab. Despite being heavy I do like the Hartke, but it helps being able to leave the gear at the club. Then Thursday the duo was at my local village pub, 200 yds from my front door. Possibly the last time we might play there as it’s currently up for sale, so it may have explained why it was rammed with people when we arrived. We had so many requests we had to play longer sets to try and make sure we didn’t leave anyone out. Along with the more regular stuff we did ‘Streets of London’, ‘Bat out of hell’ ‘Leaving on a jet plane’ ( for a lady who was emigrating this weekend ) and finished with ‘Another brick in the wall’. My guitarist partner was absolutely on fire on this, so we had to do a couple of encores after it. Great to see so many locals and friends in, including my daughter and her in-laws who are over from Australia. Used my Kingman electro acoustic with the Rumble 500, but TBH wish I’d just stuck with an electric as it got a bit loud towards the end. A great night, made even better by the short journey home. A bit knackered after 3 gigs on the trot, so nice to have Friday and today off. Next gig for us is tomorrow at our favourite venue The Sun Inn, Beverley, starting around 5pm. Hopefully the storm will have died down by then, as it’s a lousy get in if the weather is bad - fingers crossed.

More likely the usual tale of someone doing something cool (and in this case technically difficult) and taking more orders on than they can manage, have a few setbacks, a batch that comes out wrong, a bout of flu ... and suddenly it all gets ontop of them ...

If you plug a mono jack into the Rick-O-Sound socket you should only get the Treble pickup, as it's the Tip connection of the TRS. For diagnostics you can pull it part-way out to get the Bass pickup, which is on the Ring connector. And, of course (for all bar one guitar model), you only plug into one at a time: the Normal (mono) socket has a switch which connects the Bass pickup to the Tip too, so you may get no sound at all if you try to use both outputs at the same time.

There's a big difference between the two hypotheses "How many basses is too many ?" and "How many basses do you need?" How many basses is too many depends on your personal circumstances. If you're John Entwistle or Geddy Lee then in excess of 250 basses is perfectly okay. If you're living in a bedsit and struggling to make ends meet you can probably manage with less than that. How many basses you need depends on your musical circumstances and is related to the question "Which bass do I need?" In other words, you might need to be judicious in your choice of basses, considering your needs and preferences and bearing in mind the limits on how many you can have at one time. As for myself, I can be perfectly happy playing just one bass, probably a Jazz Bass, if I've got a P Bass as well then there's not much else I really need or want on a regular basis. Add a fretless and a decent five string and I can amuse myself for any foreseeable future. Any additions beyond those are really just icing on the cake. Anything more than that and you're into having a "collection", and a collection is more often than not, an entity in itself that can become burdensome.

There's also the question about which socket you're using. If you're wearing the bass, the front one should be the "Ric-o-Sound", the rear one should be the one to use. Ric-o-Sound is a stereo socket, and splits the signal if you're using a stereo jack. Just a thought...

Sweet Like Chocolate - Shanks & Bigfoot

Not a scam but you’re not the only one to experience frustrating delays: https://www.thefretboard.co.uk/discussion/287054/

I’ve seen this and oh my gawwwwd! 1988 Alembic Persuader PMSB-5 5-string Bass signed by Stanley,Victor,Marcus,etc. What kinda offer do you think guys? Hes asking 6-7 k US dollars. It’s in mint condition and signed by some serious legends . Cheers

Hello, I contacted Francois from https://www.avantguardshop.com in February regarding custom pickguard, we agreed on conditions, he pointed out that current lead time was 4 months. I sent payment, he confirmed reception of payment and that was pretty much last reasonable communication from him: There was no further communication from him till May when I asked how things are going and I learned that "We're making good progress on your guard, although there's some important steps ahead that we can't rush. I'm going to the laser cutting booth next week, while the material is resting.". Then there was no further communication from him till July when I had to ask twice (29th June and then 4th July) to get response. I got response "I'm approaching completion on your guard. Here's the template straight out of the laser booth. I'm transferring it to the material on monday, will send an update." together with picture of laser-cut template. There was no further communication so I asked for status again on 4th August. No response. So I asked again on 2nd September. And again on 9th September. And a gain on 18th September: I got response on 18th September: "this one should be complete over the weekend, and shipping on monday with this week's batch! Sorry about the wait": There was again no further communication, so I asked again on 2nd October and got no response. So at this point I'm getting on terms that I was scammed, hence I am posting it here as a warning for anyone considering doing business with Avantguard. I'd also like your feedback: did you receive any pickguard from Avantguard recently? If yes, could you share details? When ordered, when delivered? Maybe it was legit business that turned into scam recently? Thx

Another great track from Kazumi Watanabe, the tune 'Azimuth' from the 2011 album 'Tricoroll' with Janek Gwizdala and drummer Horacio Hernandez in the rhythm section. Some challenges in the read but more than playable. https://bilbosbassbites.co.uk/azimuth-kazumi-watanabe/

They're looking great, Kiwi. It's hard to tell whether or not it's the camera artifacting and making certain areas up, but are the graphite weaves all even to the naked eye? For a prototype batch, they seem to have all come out pretty well. I'll have to send you some more money soon!

Relieved Ralph of his Alto TS 110A. Lovely little PA speaker, and a lovely chap! Thanks Ralph... 🙂

They may be simple (high-level) designs, but that can be a good thing. And, of course, the selection/matching/tolerance of the components forms part of the specification/design of the amp. So, apparently similar designs can differ in sound quite markedly. The "power" thing is interesting and perhaps subjective, and may not be definitive in terms of perceived volume/loudness... There's a saying that 10x the power = 2x the volume (all other aspects being the same); given that Trace Elliot amps are available in 500W (or more) and I've yet to see a 5kW power amp or bass cab, I'd suggest that the "way beyond" assertion is questionable. There's also the question of how the "power" is measured: rms, peak, sustained, etc. I remember in the past someone saying you couldn't run a Hi-Fi amp at full volume because it would distort; I said that just meant its spec was wrong and demonstrated my 15Wpc amp cranked up with no discernable degradation of sound. In the real world, the last time I went out I took my Trace Elliot 300W amp and it sounded bloody good; I don't think I had the vol above 1/4. I do have a couple of preamps (Ampreg & SWR) and a Class-D power amp in a 19" case, and keep meaning to give them a go. However, I've also recently picked up an EBS Reidmar 250W and that's probably next on the list.

I've had extreme experiences with Royal Mail/Parcel force in September. I have a lot of rare plants in my garden. When I say rare, I mean some are growing nowhere else within these isles. I collect the seed, give it to a lady who runs a nursery and she then lets me have the pick of her stock for my garden. A nice arrangement. I posted off all this year's seed and, after one failed attempt at delivery, Royal Mail say they have lost it. I posted something to Texas, it arrived inside of a week.

OASIS - NOEL GALLAGHER'S OWNED AND AUTOGRAPHED SUNBURST FENDER PRECISION, estimated 10k-20k for a 73P, be interesting to see how much it goes for, https://www.the-saleroom.com/en-gb/auction-catalogues/propstore/catalogue-id-the-pr10049/lot-d6897252-ef72-4ce8-abb0-b36a00f9edf6

Life Is Sweet - Natalie Merchant