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I’ve been playing both pick and finger style since I started and like to think I do so very comfortably but I did play electric guitar before switching to bass due to the fact my hands are too big to play a guitar comfortably so that’s more than likely helped

Since the separation and privatisation of Royal Mail & Parcelforce from The Post Office there can’t be much disagreement that they’ve both gone downhill. Thankfully The Post Office was retained under Govt ownership.

I sold a P bass to Adrian. Very prompt payment and when things went absolutely pear shaped courtesy of Parcelforce, he was most understanding and patient whilst I sorted things out. Nice friendly BCer.

It's possible if you provide the goods which are actually worth the asking price. Compare and contrast with Epiphone's prices ticking upward, but giving basically the same instruments they always did, as well as creating strange anomalies like a bolt on single pickup Grabber costing more than a thru neck, two pickup Thunderbird or a hollow bodied Jack Casady (which surely *must* cost more to make than a Grabber). It makes no sense at all.

Again agree. Since we started Knock Off in 2013 we played all over the country. At our first Rebellion in 2015 we must have had 700 watching us (1000 capacity room) whereas bands who’d been on the scene for years, but only played locally were getting much smaller audiences.

Freak On A Leash - Korn

A tad confused. Are you quitting bass playing altogether , or are you still going to be playing at home ?

Just got my hands on the Damnation Dirt Mixer. I also borrowed a reamp box which is super handy for experimenting. Back to the pedal drawing board… So far I’m leaning towards the Venus and Dagger for a good balance between clanky boost and a crispy distortion tone. The Black Math is a lot of fun though and infinitely more useable with the Dirt Mixer.

Result! Looks ace, well done 👍

Sorry to hear this . I haven’t used parcelforce , but used. Royal Mail many times over . Nothing is perfect as we know , and EVRI is my enemy . However what does infuriate me with Royal Mail , is proving that they need to compensate you when they lose or damage things ! That is when I hate them with a passion . When they delivered rare vinyl damaged . The process of uploading the jpegs , quoting the size/ depth/ width of the item is soul destroying! Then they have a cheek to tell me I am not being compensated after providing them with all the proof required . That is when they are a p.o.s ! When as you say , you see your item in the post office and you have to prove it is yours when they should have collected it is extracting the urine ! There are a couple of occasions where I purchased vinyl on eBay for it to go missing via Royal Mail , and I got refunded in a pleasant manner on both occasion. I made sure of course to leave great feedback . Regarding the damaged item , the vinyl want rare , but the 12” gatefold cover was. I refunded the postal charge where I was ripped off from Royal Mail , and the buyer thankfully left good feedback explaining that I resolved the issue . Hopefully I can stop buying and selling stuff eventually 🙂

When they were still in Brooklyn I spent a couple of hours at the Sadowsky workshop trying all their demo models. IMO every single one sounded better with the pre-amp turned off.

I play the bass I'm going to be using with my band at the rehearsal and gig. IMO there's little point playing anything else. Once every 3 or 4 months I'll do a rehearsal with my backup bass to make sure that I can still play all the songs on it, and I haven't written anything new that can't be done on both basses.

Of course! You posted a stupid statement. Did you not expect to be taken to task for it?

Unless they are playing music that is only going to appeal to a very minority audience they must be doing something wrong. Maybe "headlining" before they have grown an audience that will support it. IMO until you have at least one album out that is selling and/or streaming well your band is not ready to headline a gig. You need to have 40-45 minutes of music that at least half the audience is going to be familiar with. The other thing is are they playing where the audiences are? These days for an unsigned or small-label band London is just another city with nothing that makes it any more or less special than any other city. Go where your audience is or at least where there are promotors for your genre. Otherwise you will end up playing the same few places to the same few people and run the possibility of outstaying your welcome.

There’s still graphite in there, but only in the same way as many other makers now - stiffening rods in the neck. They did this before back in the 90s before going back to the full graphite necks. Apparently the newer Statii with the wood necks are very good and sound very similar to the all-graphite ones (the phenolic fingerboards and Hyperactive pickups are responsible for much of the sound) but Status’ USP was always the graphite neck. Mike Walsh at Zoot was supposed to be tooling up to produce graphite necks - I’m wondering how far he’s got with that. He could be one to watch, since he now makes his own pickups, circuits, etc too. Back on topic, sort of - I played an L2000 with a Status graphite neck back in the mid-2000s. That was a good bass - extremely bright sound, but thick. Total slap machine. If Fender are going to keep the Tribute series going, that’s a good thing. Fender’s factories in the Far East are very good, with great QC. I just hope they don’t just keep them in a holding pattern, with the exact same products, colours, etc. It needs to be differentiated from the BBE era somehow.

After a 9 month break from using any amp head because I go straight into my PA for pub / club / function band gigs, I thought about looked around for a suitable head in case I need one for rehearsals or non PA type gigs or jams. For 10 years or more I've used digital heads because of weight saving but always felt unhappy with the sound unless spending well over 1k on more high end heads. I've had Ashdown digital and class AB heads before but never got on with the sound as I was using only active basses at the time. ( Just didn't suit my idea of good sound ) I now use only passive basses so I thought of trying out Ashdown again. I managed to pick up an ABM 400 ltd edition 25 year model for a good price. It's new and came with a large metal flight case and foot switch. Well the sound is perfect for my passive basses and it has all the authoritiy anyone would ever want. I changed the valve from the non descript Chinese crap to a branded Electro Harmonix with a marked improvement in overdrive tone. While I was in there I noticed that the preamp board in labelled ABM 600 and the power board is also from an ABM 600 but is labelled 500 watts. The amp is labelled 400 watts? I've just tried the foot switch and to my surprise and bonus the Compressor button turns on the compressor that is obviously on the ABM 600 preamp board. I can't change the compressor settings as there is not a knob on the front panel but it sounds great for squashing the in coming sound.

I just pick one and play it. Next time I am playing chances are I will pick a different one and play it. Unless there is some compelling reason, I don't actually swap basses once I have started playing (like I was planning to take a different bass to a gig or if I want to see something is easier to play on some piece or not)