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Hi all, Charlie here! I think it's fair enough that you all should know what we do for the 15% commission we take... So here you have it! - We have all items on display in our central London shop for customers to try, this takes away the stress of having to arrange viewings etc - We list each item on our website, on Reverb (which also sends a feed to Google Shopping) and we also post on our social media pages which has a combined following of almost 15,000 people - We take professional, hi-res photos of each item (and that's no quick job I can tell you...) - Each item is fully insured - Each item is offered with a full complimentary setup - Each pre-owned item has a 3 month limited warrantee - We offer free UK shipping over £100 which costs us over £20 to do for each item - If we know of a potential customer for your item we will get in contact with them - We have been in this business for over 25 years! Let me know if you have any more questions, hopefully I can help!

I left a band once after a blazing row at the rehearsal rooms in the coffee machine area, stormed off back into the room, packed my kit...and then had to go back and ask for a hand getting my Ampeg 810 up the stairs and into my car. This is why lightweight cabs are the way forward...Flouncing Ability is an often-overlooked plus point...

Forgot to post this pic of MiniMert playing @MacDaddy‘s Snapdragon folding bass:

View as Web page This Thursday, International Women's Day, head to any Guitar Center or Guitarcenter.com and stock up on D'Addario Strings and Accessories, Promark Drumsticks, Evans Drumheads, D'Addario Woodwinds or D'Addario Orchestral products, and the D'Addario Foundation will give 50% of every sale to support girls in music. Proceeds from this day will go directly to the Music Education for Girls Initiative, a special fund set up by the D'Addario Foundation that offers girls the resources they need to study music at a higher level, and the encouragement they need to keep playing. Click below to donate to the Music Education for Girls Initiative and learn more about the D'Addario Foundation. LEARN MORE

Looking back over 40 years-worth of drummers it's clear that the softly-softly approach is a complete waste of energy. However nicely one puts it, drummers always get the hump. This being the case, I have eschewed diplomacy and now adopt a more robust approach e.g. 'Play it like that again and I'll f**king kill you stone dead on the spot. Savvy?' OK, they still quit the band but it saves time on all the pussyfooting around.

Surely with packing up all that kit it was the longest storming out it could possibly be. Did noone say anything during the packing up? I'm imagining 5 minutes of angry packing while the band looks on in awkward silence...

Best bass for a flounce-smash? Probably a standard-scale hollowbody with no centre block. In advance, fill it with confetti for that extra touch of class.

I must admit, I did look at the prices of pickups on the aguilar stand and was horrified. Then I saw someone on the stand coming towards me, so I ran away

Steve did a great job getting there. I was with Markbass for the weekend, I live on the Devon Somerset border in the Blackdown hills, and it took me 6 1/2 hours just to dig my van out of the snow and frozen rain, and get it onto the A303... a total of 50m max.... I then had a 4 1/2 hour drive nearly being run off the road into the snow by a Richard in a Range Rover Vogue... I made it for the whole show... wheres my pat on the back?

I've looked into this myself and two instruments that stand out are the Eminence (which is strictly not an EUB, it's a small bodied acoustic instrument with a pickup that amplifies the acoustic sound), and the Yamaha SLB, which has electronics to mimic the sound of an amplified acoustic upright. They ain't cheap though but hold their value better ;-) The cheaper instruments seem to either require a lot of mods to make them usable or have quality issues, but they're cheap as chips and easy to buy.

There will be differences between FRFR solutions but the difference between FRFR solutions will be a lot smaller than between cab solutions. This is purely because different cab companies have a different tonal goal in mind. FRFR cab companies have one tonal goal in mind "what goes in is what comes out"

So get in touch. There's probably more going on in the guys life, find out what's up.

"Well, I'm glad he's gone. These sweets are a bit sticky, though..." "The raisins are worse..."

Good evening, Andy, and ... Plenty to read and amuse you here, and lots to learn and share. 'Be gentle with me'..? I'll try , but kid gloves are not my default garment, I'm afraid. What's the issue..? Just a quiet word in your receptive ear, really, to warn you that the Squier Police will be along shortly, mocking, jeering and generally heaping red-hot coals on the unfortunate innocent who has the nerve to spell the marque wrongly. As to it being a Fender... Good gracious..! Hordes of baying Basschat pedants will already be frothing at the gills when they see that. We may yet be able to save the situation, if you've your cheque book handy; maybe we can pass off the faux pas as a knowing joke on your part..? A deliberate early attempt at 'in' humour..? Depends on the amount received, of course. Be warned, however, that there are those who take these things seriously, very seriously indeed. We'll try to calm spirits for now, until your cheque arrives; meanwhile... Have a nice day Douglas

I think anything heavier than around 20kg would seriously hamper an effective flounce. But if you were using the house rig and a cheap bass it would be great to smash it on the floor, Who-style, before storming out. The bastards wouldn't forget that in a hurry.

You're right! Me and @bartelby managed to sell his Ibby to Wunjos for 33% more than he was going to get from a BCer for them to onsell - that's 'cos they reckoned they could make a profit on top and we and they were both happy with the transaction. Tom is the manager there - a really nice guy.

I mentioned it once but I think I got away with it.

Nit-picking. And a pat on the back to @skelf too, who was there all weekend.

Good technique there, nice straight wrist. Thumb's a bit higher than I'd like to see, mind ...

Let's be fair, at £1760 for a 4x10 and (if memory serves) almost £900 for a 1x12, I'm pretty sure Aguilar can afford to be there. What I thought was especially funny was that if you walked 2 stands along, Peavey were selling their 4x10 for £350. Five times better? I doubt it is, but that pricing is tonto. Nobody with any sanity will pay that much. Aguilar are now having a laugh.

If you want loads of sub 56 hz coming out of your PA, guarantee your mix is going to be sounding pants anyway. Bearing in mind you rarely hear the fundamental of your bass guitar anyway (more the harmonics), only going down to 56 hz is certainly not a bad thing for bass monitoring purposes - or out front for that matter. Anything lower is going to be eating up loads of power and for very little reward.

If, like most luthiers your USP is making unique hand-crafted instruments with meticulous attention to detail, why would you want to dilute that with a budget line? Like it or not if you are a one-man operation making something that doesn't owe a large part of its inspiration to the designs of Leo Fender and you want to do it absolutely right, then you are going to find it difficult to come in under £3000 these days. Otherwise you are basically saying that the instrument doesn't matter and then we'd all be fine playing £200 Squiers.

Really? Sack him even though there may be -relationship troubles -threat of income loss -death or illness of a loved one -mental health issues -brexitstress -a crush on the bandleader and now his heart is broken -insomnia -anything else -none of the above.... Have a chat, he may need a friend.

Maybe I should get in touch with him a site for a bass I think Bernie could do well at LBGS, there were a lot of OTT luthier show off pieces (understandably and I enjoy that) but I think what I would like to see from more exhibitors would be an example of a show off piece, mid range and a low end (by their standards) instruments

all my photos are on my facebook page and shared to the Basschat page, if you are not on facebook, you can still see them via this link, Saturday

Kevin, I hope you don't mind but I just edited the title as the word plectrum was missing a "T" in the title. I'm not trying to make an issue of it, it's just it is showing as me having edited it and I wanted you to know that it was nothing more sinister than a missing letter re-added. First time I've done it, next time I'll add the reason so as not to draw attention to it. Move along people, nothing to see here!

Who's gone for top end speakers? Pro's have gone in ears and helix (or similar) into full range PA. Dinosaurs down the pub knocking out alright now are where the high end cab sales are these days

Here's a 28'' scale fretless I just finished (build thread in the Build diaries section). It's called the Flea Market Funk Machine as it was made entirely out of wood from furniture found at flea markets.

I will not see Steven Wilson over here in Luxemburg next Saturday, the venue being too small it's been sold out in a snap, but my wife and I are going to see Gary Numan this Friday just ... 40 years too late, but a least, we'll have seen him once.

Go to a proper shop with a good range of stock and try a few. It's the only way. It's a major purchase (if you are going to consider for some of the amps referred to above, you're looking at a grand or so) so spend some time on it and don't make a purchase on someone else's say so (the Marketplace is full of nearly new stuff people bought and decided they didn't like after a short while, probably because they listened to others' opinions). You need to find out what suits you.

Some pedals, mainly digital ones, leak noise back into the shared power rail which then gets picked up by other pedals. Pretty sure I had this problem with the B3 too. You don't necessarily need an expensive isolated power supply, just run a separate wall wart for the Zoom!

Very excited to be able to post my new bands first track. We’re called ‘The Goodbye Look’ so if you like the song, head over and like us on Facebook. Our EP should be out by the end of the month

Obviously, those 3 frfr solutions will in fact all sound slightly different yes. No speaker can ever be frfr, and even if it was directly on axis then it wouldn't be off axis and it certainly wouldn't be anywhere near once it's in a room rather than an anechoic chamber. The point is, they're getting as close as they can within certain physics, budget, size, weight and cost constraints. Give me a very large, very capable PA system in a good room, an RTA mic and a pink noise generator and I'll get you damn close to frfr in one particular spot. But as soon as you move around the room, move the pa system to a different room or indeed try and compress the whole pa system into something the size and weight of a QSC 10.2 then you're going to move farther away from the ideal. An 8x10" (or really most cabs) are designed to sound subjectively good. They're a part of the instrument and they're for sound production, not sound REproduction. FRFR just means that you're aiming for clean and clear, you're aiming for reproduction rather than production. Whether or not you can ever achieve it is another matter.

They used too, quite difficult to find now though, discontinued and apparently no-one is selling theirs. Si

I've used the NS CR4M for over ten years. Its the one with the dual pickup system for pizz and arco. The neck doesn't really feel like a double bass neck to me, and it has dot markers on the fingerboard, which I hate. But with experimentation with different amps, I've gotten a reasonable imitation of an amplified double bass out of it. Yes, it can be slapped if you just raise the action enough. To my ears, the slap sound is quite authentic. If you're not careful, it can ending up sounding like a standard fretless bass, especially into a desk, but as said, if matched to the right amplification, it does actually sound ok.

Just get making in your spare time and get it all refined. You have to learn through trial and error - also, repairing other basses I guess. There is no one method for building instruments- that's what makes each luthier interesting. You only have to look at the jigs for putting a radius on a neck for example. Each luthier has their different approaches - I absolutely adore Schack's take on the neck join for example. You may find some of the luthier groups on facebook interesting - there's lots of novel ideas shared on there.

Oh yeah, I know they won't be "cheap" but using Shuker as an example. His entry level instruments seem to be priced around £1700 where as some lines start at £3000+ There were quite a few luthiers where their cheapest offering was over £5k, I'm not suggesting they offshoot into budget instruments but seeing what the baseline is can actually be quite helpful (as well as demonstrating what extra you get for their more pricey instruments)

Absolutely no problem driving the FR800. With the master volume on the helix at about 70% it's insanely loud. It's linear volume too so, unlike many bass amps, it'll continue getting louder all the way up to 100%. The cabs will protect themselves so there's no worry about damaging them.

But they were on display recently at NAMM n the Ibanez stand...doesn't sound like a leak...sounds like a launch.

? really? I haven't seen anything like it... do you have a link? I'm curious. edit: oh, Karlfer's 44-51! Yeah, that's nice... and I could meet him in person half-way (ish, in Carlisle... we've done that before ;)) But it's a very different animal really.

Here's the Motown guitar and bass preamp if you've not seen it before ...

I bought a neck off Mikan. It was well packed, dispatched very quickly and was just as described. Great guy to deal with.

I find Jim Dunlop jazz III the best picks, I've used them on bass, guitar, and mandolin. I get a good degree of control from them compared to bigger or thinner picks.

I enjoy a BSF but I believe my “dirt” needs are as different to the next person as is my taste in cheeses.. I enjoy the blue ones which make the tongue numb and the overall effect a bit heady!. I delight in what a BSF can do to the bass in the mix with just a couple of nudges around noon on at least half the controls. I’ve heard some awful demo’s most notably the actual EHX one but for the price used its worth a punt for sure and worth listening to over a couple of rehearsals and gigs before condemning. Think more Brilliant Sounding Fling rather the B*ll Sh*t Fad.

EBay, by comparison would charge 10% They won't be standing about in the shop, supervising people "testing" out your bass. They won't hang around after hours waiting for another punter to try it on the way home from work. EBay don't get sellers calling 3-4 times a week for a report on who tried it and why they didn't buy. EBay won't offer your buyer a 6month after sales warranty. And for the added 5% you won't have your buyer calling PayPal to say it never arrived/not as advertised... can I have a refund please?

I’ve been up since 4:30 so there!