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Dave and Mark are good people and, as an on-and-off (mostly on) user of Ashdown gear since 2003, they've never been anything less than excellent with their customer service. They even helped me out with a bit of tour support about 10 years back, which was above and beyond, considering I'm basically a nobody who was playing in an unsigned band at the time (UK tour supporting a well-known 1980s rock singer and his band). I did have an issue recently with a RM-800 Evo III I bought from Reverb, and I didn't hear back from them in a timely manner because of the chaos of NAMM. I just ended up returning it to the seller, no harm done. I'll pick up one of the new UK-made ones when they become available.

Gangsters — The Specials

Robert De Niro's Waiting - Banarama

I've just done a NBD post on my recently purchased Rivolta Duocata if you're interested.

If was after something to double on gigs with my upright bass. In order to quickly put down the upright and pick up the electric bass it needed to be lightweight and shortscale. The band is all acoustic (through PA) so I wanted it to look right as well. I saw Eastwood selling Rivolta guitars on their website and they were making twelve of these Duocata basses and it ticked all the boxes. I do like the look of Rickenbackers and love a florentine cut. These basses have checkerboard binding and more than a hint of Rickenbacker about them, the soundclips were good so I ordered one. It was a gamble as I'd never heard of Rivolta before but it paid off, this little bass is fantastic. So well made, so playable and sounds great. Simple, single PU, volume and tone but there's so much variation in tone with playing position. I'm really fussy but I really can't fault this bass, well I can but it's three really minor things that most people would never notice, or let bother them. The volume control is a touch on the on/off side, there is a tiny bit of plastic swarf on the inner lower edge of the 'f' hole binding, and the biggest bug is that the scratchplate isn't perfectly aligned to the strings. Told you I was fussy. All easily sorted though. The woods, the grain and the colour is lovely. The neck is a three piece with two more strips on the headstock, like a Rickenbacker albeit they're all the same wood. I don't know what tuners they are but they feel solid and stable. Nor do I know what pickup it is but it sounds great. The binding everywhere is perfect, you cannot feel any edges, the frets are nicely finished, paint is perfect, just a really well made bass. They're made in Indonesia then sent to Rivolta in Nashville where they set them up and QC them, it arrive still in tune really nicely set up. Anyway, enough waffle, pictures 😁.

The ADI21 is rather good on electric upright bass. When I had a Dean Pace it was an always on effect. I've also used it to great effect with my NS-design CR-5M.

Cracked Actor - Bowie

Michaelcaine. Madness

I've offered to buy them back at the same price

Hi Andy, it's very much horses for courses. I use my RCF 310's with my duo but we are pretty loud. Bass, guitar and two vocals with programmed drums all straight through the PA and pretty loud we regularly play for 50-100 people. You might need that much but you might not. The argument for these is that they would do everything you were likely to ever need including putting bass through and leaving your bass amp behind. The argument against is that you'd be carrying a lot of hardware you'd rarely need. I guess you are playing with a bodhran or something similar as your loudest percussion which wouldn't be too difficult to match with even a pair of decent 8" speakers as has been suggested. That's not a bad shout as a compromise between versatility and ease of transport. The RCF Evox would be good too and I quite like the sound they make. Some of the other stick on a sub systems can be a bit disco with slightly over eq'd responses though so make sure you have a listen before you buy.. The only way you'd find out if one was enough would be by trying it and being prepared to buy a second if that wasn't up to the job you wanted.

I didn’t ask I’m afraid!

Ooh, very nice Sir! I sadly had to let my Cayenne HH Elite Dimension go as a trade-in when I bought my KingBass Mk-II last year. Still miss it!

Novocaine - Fall Out Boy

Comfortably Numb - Pink Floyd

Chevin A500 can be bridged to do 700w @ 8ohms.

Geoff spotted my plea for an Origin Effects Super Vintage pedal in wanted and he answered the call, the whole deal came together like strawberries and cream, effortless and super swift, thanks dude!!

best of luck - rare bird

You called? Best Fenders I’ve ever played for sure. Had a USA maple alnico SR5 but it didn’t survive the Dimensions arriving ❤️

never tried 20mm but 19mm on my MTD is good