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I'm using this neoprene foam instead of the very very very expensive short lengths sold by Fender, Thomann and the likes. https://www.amazon.co.uk/Longx150mm-Widex20mm-Insulation-Vibration-Furniture/dp/B09KTSNQY1/ You'll have enough for the rest of your life and you can reduce their thickness very easily with a simple cutter and create made to measure durable pickup height foam.

No surprises there. The original was very expensive for the time and I'm sure inflation will take its toll. At the moment home practice is taken up with band stuff but if I get a bit of time I might make up a practice board and put a beat buddy on it, with maybe just a tuner and looper.

I don't know why this wasn't clear enough.

Didn’t look cheap. $400+

Or just order one from Sweetwater and get your brother in law to bring it home from a business trip in Texas. The XB is a definite step up from the dUg pedal, but ultimately once you dial in your desired tone, you're not going to stray far from that. [Edit] My main issue tonally with the Waterstone was that when plugging into any singular amp/stomp, this was shaping everything that the bass was outputting. The lows might be nice, but the octaves were nearly always quite nasty (and vice versa). The XB seemingly resolves this, in wrestling some tonal control out of the instrument, albeit out of one stomp.

QI’ve had a G4M Bass Guitar Foam Case for over 10 years, and done over 800 gigs with it. I can’t recommend them enough - fitted shape, lightweight yet offer amazing protection. Best of both worlds really - gig bag weight and convenience with hard case durability. ( They have back straps too, although I just use mine like a conventional case.) £49.99 at G4M, incredible value for money.

I had a Beat Buddy Mini. I thought it was excellent but I ended up using it mainly as a metronome and I sold it. I am tempted to buy one of the latest version when it comes out, depending on the price.

No thanks.

Can't Get It Out Of My Head - ELO

Obsessed With You - X-Ray Spex

Ah ok cool, yeah drop me a text, interesting to see what you have. Cheers Si

Alembic Series 2. Why? I like spending other people's money.

I've not heard of anyone doing this before. Are these finishes compatible?

I love it, there's a few times ive had an idea, connected to my phone and recorded a quick video with the audio from the Go that would've otherwise been long forgotten. I love that I can play bass in the garden while my daughter's playing too. It also sounds great considering how compact it is.

You don't need to give me an excuse to show off my korinaburst Triad. It also has a Freeway 10 way switch fitted, for the standard options on one bank, then various series/parallel options not normally available. Pretty simple fit, visually undetectable, very elegant mod (works by tilting the blade switch up/down to access the two banks of options).

Just a little old-school board i put together using spare parts...

Busy evening. Got home and fitted the new pickup ring to the pickup - fit great first time, except the pickup height screw holes were a bit tight but they pushed though OK with a little persuasion. I decided to get stuck in and make some more progress, so I got down to dismantling the bass. Found some interesting things: The channels which the bridge saddle grub screws sit in are actually stamped into the bridge plate, proud and so there are shallow channels routed into the body to accommodate them. # Wonderful documentation - separate date stamps for body (Sept 1998) and neck (Oct 1998). Anyway, after unearthing some hidden treasure, I made my plan: That's a lot of wood to get through (about 47mm)! Body clamped securely in the bench vice. But I wasn't ready just to gung ho so I grabbed a scrap bit of wood for a test run. I deliberately picked one which wasn't much bigger than the 20mm bit so I could see how good my aim was. Turns out my aim is pretty good. Also checked that 20mm was indeed big enough to accommodate a jack socket. It is. Time to take a deep breath and drill for real this time. As you can see I did deviate a bit from the original pilot hole, but not in either of the directions which would matter. The drill did wander a little at the beginning when it was trying to break through the finish, hence the white mark on the bottom edge. But by the time I got to this depth, my drill wasn't making much progress. So I decided to stop there (about 10mm short of breaking through into the control cavity) and simply enlarged the old pilot hole a little to allow space for wires to come through. Jack socket loads in from the outside. A tad unorthodox, but hey, it's an unorthodox bass! Done. As luck would have it, I found a "football" jack plate in my spares box. So that saved me ordering one. Made a couple of pilot holes (using the hand drill this time - had quite enough of power tools for one day!) and fitted the plate to the side of the body. Last of all, I moved the jack socket properly (as in desoldered it, moved it to the side and reconnected it - which would not have been necessary if I had gone all the way through with the forstner bit but it's a small price to pay for sanity etc. Now there's a hole free in the top of the body for a pickup selector switch. But that's for another time.

We played the Vulcan restoration trust beer festival again this year. Firstly it’s the coolest venue - a hanger with a Vulcan bomber front and centre, nice size stage. The crowd are sat around tables and are a bit reticent to leave them to have a dance, but we did lure a few up, at least! The sound on stage was terrible to the point that I didn’t enjoy the gig at all, and Mrs Buccaneer said my face was displaying subtitles that demonstrated my displeasure. However watching the videos back we sounded ok out front, so I’m far happier now. We ran short on time and had to cut the set a tad, but that meant we finished with Paranoid - and in our first gig since Ozzy’s death, that felt apt. Rock against Leukaemia in Ipswich next week!