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Ok guys I'll tell you what I did. I discovered by accident that Gear4music do what is called the LA bass for about 90 quid, it comes with a rosewood neck which I hate but I bought one anyway to see how bad it was. Imagine my surprise when it arrived and it was as light as a feather! When I checked the spec' the bodies are made of Paulownia wood which is very light so I wondered if they had a maple neck that was also 61mm. They had so I bought one to try out and it fitted! very tight but some very light sanding made it fit spot on. There was a little neck dive, nothing much so I bought some wilkinson schaller stylee tuners which fixed it. I bought a loom from John (KiOgon) and a pickup of choice to finish it and it's brilliant. Issues with doing this job. The first one I did the neck wasn't exactly straight and the strings ran off a bit but it was easily fixed by using a Schaller 2000 bridge that has lateral adjustment so the strings could be lined up exactly. There are other cheaper ways to sort that though. The fret edges can be a bit sharp but that's easily filed and smoothed, also the maple necks are a bit paddle shaped, my friend Dave on here very kindly made me a headstock template so shaping it was just a jigsaw and a bit of sandpaper away. I'm very pleased with my cheap lightweight basses, my gas is now satisfied. HTH Tom. Oh the necks are only £35

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Did you grass us all up? 😂😂😂

Maybe some limited rock guitarists have that attitude but in jazz, soul, and other genres, flat keys including Eb are definitely much more common and any guitarist worth his or her salt would be expected to play them without question. It's only a matter of learning your chords and scales properly.

I know that Taunton Hobbit, but this is the most excitement I've had in ages, now move along Killjoy

In other news music retailer Gear For Music have just announced bankruptcy after an unfortunate pricing error was ruthlessly exploited by an online bass community...

These are all class D Amps with switching power supplies and although very efficient, the still produce heat. Usually the total combination is about 80% efficient so at 200 watts, total power is 200 X 100/80or 250 watts. So you still have to dissipate 50 watts of heat. If you can touch it but it is very hot it is likely around 60C, at 70C you cannot keep your finger on it. Many Amps have their over temperature settings between 60-70 degrees. Make sure the space around the amp is clear to aid airflow but in general if the Amp is not cutting out, I would not worry.

Thread resurrection. I finally took the plunge and bought the Stingray last week. Loving it so far. :-)

This is nice. Do PJB make combos you can actually gig with? That are still tiny? Not really. The Pjb compact suitcase is a great combo, but quite heavy. I've a flightcase that is much lighter, and a bit smaller, but it isn't loud and still won't quite hide behind the sofa. It is giggable for quiet / acoustic stuff but needs a pb300 beneath it to he heard over loud drummers and guitarists. A double 4 or bass cub plugged into a PB 300 is a good modular solution .. but I guess so is a gk mb200 combined with a small and a large cab To the OP I'd say Roland micro cube.

There's a huge difference between picking up a bass at 60, after a 30-year break, and picking up a bass for the first time at 60, 45 years after your mother beat it into your head that you would never be able to play. I desperately resent and regret the 45 wasted years. The important thing is that I've defeated the "you will never be able to do this" demons and I am actually now playing bass. The demons are still there - I grabbed the chance to play in the jam at Carlisle Blues Festival a couple of months ago with two of the best blues singers in the UK, Connie Lush and Kaz Hawkins, and pretty much turned to jelly. Held down a basic 12-bar, which was enough - and far more than I would have dared to dream for most of my life. It's too late for some of the dreams, but it's not too late to achieve some of them. Go for it.

Mark, a.k.a. bluesparky. RIP.

I have one of these but live too far away for you to try it,however I can confirm these are awesome amps. I will never go back to a class D unit now this thing has way way more ooomph than my MB800 FUSION ever had & is plenty loud enough to compete with our insane drummer.

Yes. Are you going to tell us then, or what..?

The payment has been taken from my credit card account and no cancellation yet from GfM so we’ll see. It’s no big deal right now. Actually it might not be a deal at all...................

I remember Logic on Mac back in the day asa a midi sequencer. Macs never crash they said. Hourly it would crash, all the damned time. On any one of 12 available machines. A gargantuan pain in the derrière, and not a patch on an Atari for midi. Hey ho 😆

See if it happens first...😂

I’ve just ordered one at £40.26 incl delivery. And that includes an amp! We’ll see.

I identified very much with this band growing up in Thatcher's Britain and could've chosen anything but this is the closest:

The amp I played was at Pirate Studios Edinburgh!

the commercial rate was TorFx. google it excellent service. phone calls a account manager txt when funds transferred well better than bank rates Paul

Ive not had one myself, but i have had the ashdown superfly which used to get really hot and ive just bought a little giant 1000 which some reports of getting warm. Ive fitted 'taller' rubber feet to the base and the heat disperses so much better. The little giant has vents on top and non on the bottom, so youd think the heat would disipate upwards, but the bottom got hot. Adding the taller rubber feet allowed the heat to escape a lot better and now it doesnt even get warm.

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Sounds like a fair and reasonable price to me.

Bought the 8 Gotoh GB 707 from Davide. Great communication, very well packed (nice box, by the way) and sent immediately. What else ? Un vero doppio ristretto !

Just 5 for me. 3 with the Dale Fontaine and the TCC Band and 2 deps. Who knows what next year will bring.

It's a niche market.

Hey bill nice rig. Are you the guy who played bass for rag n bone mans Beyoncé cover for the live lounge? That’s a cracking bit of playing, that bassline.

Sub-optimally placed tuning pegs? *hides*

Yep, I'd stick to the phaser. Compressor then phaser

Wow, fantastic Job!

My guitarist had the active neo in his old Takamine. He no longer has the guitar, I wonder if he still has the pup. I preferred the sound of it to his current Baggs piezo setup. The little battery lasted ages, and plenty of juice on tap.

Great mixers the MG Series and I find very easy to use, but I have one so am biased. Probably Aux bus weirdness as Cheddatom says. Pete's rough guide to MX series mixers:. This doesn't include the digital effects, if you have any. Start with: All channels switched off. All channel faders down. Group bus faders ( dark grey) down. Stereo (Master) fader (helpfully coloured Red) down. All EQ's to 12 O clock. Pan r/l to 12 O clock. Compression to zero. All 'pfl' buttons up. All 1-2 and 3-4' buttons up (if you have these). All 'ST' buttons up. All the aux channel sends to zero (the ones with blue tops). All Aux master volumes to zero. Connect everything up. Power on mixer, amps, powered monitors in that order. For each channel: Turn on the channel and press down the pfl button for that channel. Get someone to speak or play and adjust the 'gain' control until the output in the VU metres is occasionally reaching 0, in green. Put the pfl button back in the 'up' position and turn the channel off. Lather, rinse, repeat, for all the channels you're using. Set the monitor/phones switch to 'Stereo' (up) and turn on 'On' and 'ST' for the channels you're using. Bring up the faders on individual channels and get a rough balance on the headphones. When you're ready, bring up the Stereo fader gently until you get FOH. Optionally, increase compression but don't overdo it. If you want to adjust EQ, try and cut rather than boost. (ie cut mid and bass to boost treble) If you're using separate monitors, connect them to one of the 'Aux' inputs on the back of the desk (not the 'Monitor' sockets on the top of the desk next to the headphone jack). Usually you want Aux1. If there is a pre/post switch set it to pre. Turn up the Aux Send master for the Aux you're using to somewhere between 12.00 and 3.00 and then turn up the individual channels Aux Send to get a monitor mix. Hope this helps, good luck and have a great gig. If all else fails, read this! https://partydj.be/PDF-files/Handleidingen/Sound/Yamaha/yamaha-mg166cx-manual.pdf

Now that's a great call, HazBeen. I haven't listened to Time's Up or Vivid for years.

Halfway 135 by VTypeV4, on Flickr Fender cab part way through a partial restoration - JBL D/K installed today. Tested and sound lovely!

Just want to chip in hear to tell you about my acoustic bass, a custom Brook bass, handmade in Devon by three guys, using all traditional methods. It is called a Lowman. All Brook guitars are named after rivers, so I was delighted to discover there was a river Loman to name my custom bass after. It is based on the body shape and size of a Gibson J200. It has a Engelmann bear claw spruce top, bubinga back and sides, and walnut neck. This is what she sounds like, having just recorded this bass trio today. The tune is a Gordon Duncan bagpipe tune (I am who folk musician who also plays guitar and mandolin. I have arranged several celtic tunes for solo bass) Sorry, don’t know how to embed this in the post Acoustic basses are great fun, and my reasons for owning one are many. I like the way they look, especially with other acoustic instrument, they sound more ‘alive’ than electric basses, and their acoustic nature lets you ‘feel’ the music more, if you know what I mean. Robbie

A good few of the bands I gig with, many of whom are pro bands, have band members in their 60s. Charlie harper, the lead singer of the UK Subs is 73 or 74, his view is while he is able to do it, he will. And so should we all!

One of my students was 80 in September. He's actually out of all my students the most dedicated. We're currently doing chord melody jazz stuff. He saw me showing off a few weeks ago, and wanted to learn how to do it. He's also getting a 5 string after Christmas. You're never too old.

The very moment the bass was sold the old owner doesn't get a say in what happens to it anymore. That could be if it was repainted, split for parts, used as a baseball bat or sold on for more money. It doesn't matter if that was the buyers intention or whether on the morning he got the bass he lost his job and needs some cash fast. To complain about what the new legitimate owner wants to do with his property is pathetic and infantile. A few years ago I sold a pair of Markbass cabs on here to a guy somewhere in europe. Might have been France. Can't remember. Anyway - after about 6 months he decided they weren't for him and put them up for sale. I didn't notice until a prospective buyer sent me a PM to demand to know what price I had sold them for (and it was really a "demand" and whether the current owner was ripping me off. Turned out that the prospective buyer didn't even think about shipping costs to another country (seller was doing an inclusive price) or market changes (the cabs had been discontinued and there was a bit more interest in them) or any other factor - like changing in shipping fees or even the use of a different speed of shipping service. He also seemed amazed that I genuinely did not give a flying flip at a rolling donut about the new price for the cabs, and he got quite upset that I wouldn't tell him the final sales price or the shipping cost to get them abroad in the first place. Apparently not divulging the content of private discussions is "against the community spirit" or some other bollocks. Absolute tool.

One is stylish, well designed, well balanced, plays peachy and is versatile... The other is a Rick...

As an acne ravaged 16 year old, my life had already been changed when I met a girl at school three years my junior. I was well and truly hooked and used to walk her home every night (carrying her books of course). Nothing happened between us but when I heard John Sebastian's lyrics in "Younger Girl" they said it all. "Should I Hang Around Acting Like Her Brother, In A Few More Years They'll Call Us Right For Each Other. But Why If I Wait I'll Just Die!" Stupidly, I waited and she married someone else! I liked the Hondells version that was played on Radio Caroline (North) back in 1966. Here we are 50 years on and that song still strikes a chord with me. To compound things, a few years ago Frankie Valli recorded "My Eyes Adored You" which told my sad story; "Carried Your Books From School, Playing Make Believe You're Married To Me". Oh the pangs of first love! I met her again earlier this year and she still caused a little flutter in my heart. What a sad old fool I am!

On the active passive front - we are strongly considering for 2018 to do away with the "Active" and "Passive" split and just have one option. And that'll be "Active" but with a Push-Pull Volume pot that switches between active and passive.

They tend to be quite common on European instruments - I don't know why everyone doesn't use them, tbh. They also make getting a super low action easier.

I tend to play open strings as often as I can depending on the song and the position of my left hand on the neck. But I have nerve damage in my left arm so the fewer fretted notes I can play the less fatigued my left hand becomes. Needs must and all that.

I never really saw this as an either/or thing ...

Tough choice. I nearly bought a Sandberg JM4 (pre name change to TM4 and change of the body shapes to be less 'Fendery') in 2009, but ended up going for a Sadowsky Metro. The Stingray is an utterly iconic bass though. In terms of build quality of both I think you would actually be okay to buy them without having played one if have made your mind up on what you are wanting. My view is that if you have been wanting a Stingray for years then you should buy a Stingray. The Sandberg will be a great bass but my guess is that no matter how good the instrument is, your brain will still be sending you 'I want a Stingray' message for months and years to come. Try the bass that is in Guitar Guitar and if you like it, buy it.