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It was not Ray Thistlethwait but the guy was similarly breathtaking. I feel a bit harsh by not being able to at least share his name. I'm sure someone can find out... I saw Thundercat last year in Wolverhampton and he was fabulous also.

I go into the office every few weeks or so, I've teams in Sheffield, Manchester and Croydon so regardless of where I work, I'm usually on a Teams call as somebody isn't in the location I'm in. We have a lot of older kit and I know full well there's cupboards full of older stuff like Surface Pro PSU's, It's just a case of finding them. I like old Thinkpads, I was at IBM for 15 years and they made great laptops, Even when they flogged it to Lenovo, they were still good laptops. The cases were thicker and made of better plastic. Not as stylish as the Dell's but a lot more robust. When we were out on site, we'd see Dell's and other laptops with duct tape holding things together like compartment lids, never had that with an old Thinkpad. Easy to change the keyboard over as well. The only downside was their love of DisplayPort over HDMI, they would not drop DP in favour of HDMI for far too long. Anyway, I have put the word out and am asking around for a PSU. Rob

I've recently been thinking along similar lines albeit making use of a 4u rack case I have lying about and filling it with goodies for a "silent" stage rig. So far three spaces would be used with a sansamp RBI, tuner, and compressor, but then I would like an in ear system to complete the rack. But this is where I am faltering as what I would like to do is to be able to mix in my own bass level with whatever the desk is sending me so that I am not reliant on the PA operator to give me my own level. The closest I can find to this functionality is systems that take a L and R feed in, but then allow you to be in "mono" mode and mix the L and R to your own liking. But I'd be interested to know if anyone knows of a specific IEM system that has it's own mixer built in specifically.

This has a look of ‘death to false basses !’ about it . Embrace your inner pinnick/ Petersson / manowar , and turn to 12 !

Rich bought my HX Stomp. Paid immediately and was a great communicator.

Finally made a start on building my second bass, about 25 years after starting (but never finishing) my first. I've decided to buy a neck for this one to save time, money and effort. But I am aiming to make a neck next time... This is going to be a replica/reimagining of the Musicman St Vincent guitar - there were rumours they were going to make a Pino-backed bass a few years ago but it never came to be. I've only seen two other homemade ones, both look very nice but I'm going to try and go one better. Firstly it'll be a 5er, partly because I've always wanted one and also I got a deal on some Fishman Fluence 5 string pickups. The neck I found (£70 on Reverb) has a reasonably good MM-shaped headstock so the overall look should be fairly authentic. The body shape may however be slightly different, as I don't happen to have a genuine St V lying around to copy. I've looked around online at all the plans and photos I can find, and I think it'll be somewhat closer to a modified/truncated Explorer, rather than a straight copy of a St V - no particular reason for this, it just felt like a nice shape to me (I wonder if that might be where they started with the original St V design process anyway). It's still all on paper anyway so who knows? I'm also going to do front and back binding, partly thanks to Basvarken and his beautiful Explorers. Colour will be a deep metallic; I'm undecided between red, blue, green and purple but red is currently in the lead. After watching a bunch of Matt Estlea's videos about sharpening and setting up a plane, I've started smoothing the top and back of the ash body. Feels good to actually move some wood around - I recently redid our front hall with some lovely herringbone T&G, the woodworking genes kicked in hard. Next step is to finalise the body shape and geometry - any tips for establishing neck angle? (saddle height is 12-17mm over the body according to Schaller, bridge is a 3D-5). I've also got a bunch of other things to work out and research, like doing the binding. Everyone says to use acetone for gluing, leave it a hair's width proud of the wood and scrape it back, and do the finish after the binding is on. But should you scrape it flush then do the finish, or finish then scrape? And clear lacquer over the binding or leave it plain? I'm also going to paint the headstock to match the body, should I bind it too? Progress will be slow so don't expect weekly updates! If I've got the body routed out by New Year's I'll be happy.

My plans changed earlier and I replaced the battery box in the Hamer. It had green corrosion on the copper connectors and wasn’t right and I just happened to have an identical new one in my spares. It’s 100% now. I’ve already had a mess around with the HX Stomp today. What you say above is what my first thoughts are after running a few different iterations of bi-amping patches. If you give the sound engineer a premixed signal then he should expect to treat you like he does the keys player or the backing track; just adjust for the ambient rather than trying to get the bass sound that is in his head. I think more sound engineers are getting used to modelling and going that way. It makes life easier for them. The patch I’ve done this morning uses that same split at 500hz. Mandarin 80 for the highs with 412 Mandarin Cab and Mandarin Bass 200 for the lows with the 6x10 Cali Power. Then I’ve saved another patch that is just into the G Cougar 800 with 6x10 Cali Power and as good as it is, it’s not bi-amped and doesn’t have anywhere near the same impact. I’m happy to share these patches as starting points if anyone wants them. One question on the HX Stomp. Do I need to carry one of those jack to XLR DI boxes to give the man my HX stomp out? So, as in HX Stomp “Send” (front RHS) to Behringer DI100 type of box?

Bough an HX Stomp from John. Perfect transaction. Item in top condition, clearly well cared for. Great communication throughout. Very well packaged and quick despatch & delivery. Thank you John

@cheddatom I agree about Louis Cole. A really singular musician, I think. Similarly, how often does Thundercat come up on this forum? In Knower's "Live Sesh" youtube videos Rai Thistlethwayte is the keys player. He is an absolute monster. Was it him? If so, I'm more gutted to have missed him than Sam Wilkes! Wild solos ahead:

Can cultural appropriation exist in a truly multicultural society?

I saw that Tower of Power before Rocco died, but he was unwell enough to miss the gig. There was no stand in for that gig either. One could charitably suggest he was irreplaceable, perhaps?

Must be the only thing miss about working in our office since going fully remote , Scrounging in the Waste electricals bin , Pretty sure this old surface pro came from there too , but yes a 4 is a bit slow for actual office work these days . So much great stuff used to get timed out or taken out of circulation due to mergers / policy change , Non standard gear couldnt be refreshed and we weren't allowed to sell it on as business had to prove it had been " ethically disposed of " , / lots of forms stating it had been manually disposed of by one of the team. The TPM Module fiasco had me fill by boots with I7 Thinkpads , which i'd rebuild for friends and family as chromebooks with either Flex , forced upgrade to Win 11 or Nix for the more adventurous. My Current home theatre projector used to live in the main boardroom ... but apparently " wasn't bright enough" Translation They wanted a 4k 100 inch telepresence screen like they had seen in another boardroom , one chromecast later and i've been using it as a smart projector for the last 3 years.

I've rather fancied one for ages. Just got to see if the 35" scale causes any issues, given that my other fretlesses are 34". At least it's not a 42" scale...

I would use one of those if i got to the stage where my currently heavy basses started to be a problem. Though I do wonder how stable they are as they would have a high centre of gravity with a bass on the top.

I confess that part of me baulks at the arrogance of people who expect others to chauffeur them around. Arrogance may be a little strong but I struggle with the concept. I have mentioned my drummer friend. He tried driving but suffered an unbelievable trauma at the age of 4 (older brother vs lorry) that I fully understand his position. By the same token, I have driven 432 miles to collect and deliver a bandmate home when he was stuck.

Butane Skies Shutterspeed Crooked Snout Wisdom Teeth Frances (session bassist for solo singer) Butane Skies is the only one with material released. They're doing really well playing festivals and moving up the stages. Shutterspeed are getting really good support slots and Crooked Snout are headlining the second stage at a punk day festival.

Cultural appropriation = telling people they can not do something because of their culture or the colour of their skin. The last vestige of acceptable racism?

That's just the sort of barking mad eccentricity that appeals to me.

Here @RonC: https://meisterworks.myshopify.com/collections/luminlay-products Always order there and nowhere else as there are many fakes and it's the maker's webshop.

That Zombie is applicable (as @tegs07 said) to any conflict situation where there's an unquestioning force doing evil things. Another Zombie (by the Cranberries) was about a specific conflict and its aftermath, and I don't hear anyone English doing any sort of introduction for it to give the context (it gets played a lot at open mics).

I think it depends how much you want to sit 'in' the mix vs being distinct. IME the pre-special Stingrays have a definite lack of subtlety, especially in what I hear as a very artificial top end. When people say "the active bass sound" I think of Rays whereas something like a Sadowsky sounds like a passive bass with more eq control.