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And finished! I've wired the electrics '50's style' to give a broader range of tone possibilities if Jane needs them in the future and added magnets for the cover with a thumbnail access: I know guitars - particularly slim guitars and fancy wood guitars - and gold trimmings aren't everyone's taste but, ladies and gentlemen, I present to you the 5lbs 4oz Swift Lite Mark 2 As always, many thanks for the encouragement and help along the way - always greatly appreciated!

must admit I found the sanctimonious bullying replies by the grammar nazi's a bit distasteful, wouldn't be surprised if the poor guy never darkens the Basschat forum again, wouldn't blame him

I had a similar experience at school, brings back painful memories. Bob Hitler.

Well said, and well played that man. This place is not the most welcoming place to new members sometimes...15 posts the chap has and the thread asking for advice gets turned into a bitchfest about gammar.

I communicated with Dave (the OP) through Feebay. The issue was a bloke bought his Rick, then started playing the disabled daughter scam. Dave has very little experience of selling stuff, but he is an oil industry engineer who I would prefer NOT to have an upper cut from. Our communication led to a flawless pincer movement on Carlisle station, him from Leven, Fife, me from Wigan, Lancs. Not everybody can, or indeed wants to communicate in a manner considered by some to be the only way. Frankly I'm disappointed in the perceived superiority and conclusion jumping that has gone on in this thread. Not what I would expect of some of the experienced people who I would have thought knew better.

So the bass player doesn't have any gear? If these guys were serious they'd have their own gear. If they aren't serious I wouldn't lend anything to them.

This is my fretless one. Full custom five strings FBass AC neckthru with redwood top 34" scale AAAAA flamed maple body. Sounds great and i love it!

The Status T-Bass has been reissued for about 10 years. This isn't anything new. At least it's better than cranking out a TENTH version of the kingbass.

Best way ! A quick chat, hearty handshake and the offer of a drink by way of thanks. I try not to touch any settings, even if I'm told I can - the minimal hassle for the owner when they take the stage later on is part of the thank you for the loan of the gear.

Quick review of the Mu-Tron Micro-Tron III (which I also posted over on TB). If anyone is looking for a Mu-Tron III in a small form 9v pedal the Micro-Tron absolutely nails it: It's good, in fact it’s really good. It uses the same type of opto-isolators (I think) to control the Micro-Tron III filter as per the Mu-Tron III and Tru-Tron 3x, which gives it that classic Mu-Tron 70’s dirty funk quack in LP, Low range, Up Sweep that other filters just don’t seem to have. The Down-sweep sounds lovely and chewy High range sound super squelchy but still retains bottom end. It’s perfect for finger style funk, & pairs really well with a bit of dirt or octave pedal before it. Small form factor (though a slightly bigger enclosure than an MXR M82 BEF for comparison), standard 9v DC power supply requirements. Very easy to dial-in, no issues triggering on passive or active basses, no bottom end loss or volume loss in LP/Tru-Tron jumper settings. No pop when engaging the footswitch which some other users have experienced (I’ve only tried via an isolated power supply though) An internal ‘jumper’ enables you to switch between Tru-Tron or Mu-Tron modes - there is a difference between the two sounds: Tru-Tron jumper is slightly cleaner/ Mu-Tron jumper is very similar to the original Probably the best & most flexible small form pure funk Envelope Filter around today. IMO the smaller form and 9v power means the Micro-Tron doesn’t have quite the same amount of headroom (or ‘oomph’) that the Tru Tron 3x has - understandably, the gain isn’t as loud, and the pre-amp on the Tru-Tron in comparison is incredibly powerful. The Tru-Tron is what I’d call the flagship all ‘bells and whistles’ ‘all singing, all dancing’ version of the Mu-Tron. The Micro-Tron is not that pedal (and to be clear nor would I expect it to be based on squeezing that much funk into such a small enclosure!). A couple of minor things. The internal jumper would have been great to have been set up as a switch on the outside (I guess this is a size or build cost restriction) There’s a slight volume drop in Mu-Tron III jumper mode LP pass/ High setting only, which can be gotten around by maxing the level and upping the Peak and Gain a bit more. Having a second foot-switch for the direction of the sweep is theoretically a good idea but you have to adjust the gain from around 10 o’clock to 2 o’clock which kind of defeats the intended purpose of changing the sweep direction on the fly. Lastly, the Input/Output jacks are very close together. Not so good if you use pancake cables. These are minor gripes though. Most important is how it sounds and overall it definitely captures the vintage Mu-Tron mojo in a small form board friendly pedal, (which is what I believe Mu-FX/Mu-Tron set out to achieve).

I'd rather lend stuff to complete strangers than friends. It's a lot more trouble when you break a friend's nose. Just joking - I'd never do that to anyone, especially a friend. I'd leer at his girlfriend, though.

It's not something to be spread around too much, but since you asked... Shh..! Not so loud..! Walls have ears..!

Dave's a great guy, and a really honest seller.

It depends on what you mean by 'tracking'. Do you want to: a) generate a control voltage in proportion to the perceived pitched of the input signal? OR b) do a simple division (eg octave down) or multiplication (octave up) of the input signal? I did mix up these two in my previous comment, apologies. My understanding with the Pigtronix pedal is that they are doing a), and to the best of my knowledge this hasn't advanced beyond the level of the Korg MS20 (for one example); the technology here is a couple of decades old as the limits of what you can do with analog processing had been reached already back then. I'd be pleased to be corrected if I'm wrong, however anyone coming up with an all-analog pedal that does a) will do no better than what has been done previously in terms of tracking accuracy and latency. With something like the EH Microsynth, it has various stages that filter the input signal, and then what I guess I'd call 'mathematical' circuits that detect the pitch of the input signal and then divide it for the octave down or multiply it for the octave up; this happens in essentially real time, so the latency is as close to zero as you can get. So, yes, what you wrote is correct. The big 'but' here is also what you wrote, i.e. the tracking is not perfect and can track the octave (or other!) harmonic of lower notes instead of the note itself. With digital pedals, they are simply applying DSP to the input signal so there's not really 'tracking' involved, hence why pedals like the POG-series can deal with more than one note at a time and track more accurately ('perfectly') than (say) the MXR Octave pedal (and many other similar designs). An interesting design is the Future Impact pedal, which based on a reading of the manual has both a 'mathematical tracking' section (with very low latency) and also DSP-based pitch-to-frequency section (with higher latency).

I decided to face my fears head on. Like when I watch Heather Smalls on the Camino De Santiago, I've been singing 'You've got to search for the hero inside yourself', in a deep husky voice, as I photoshopped a mock up of the automotive incubus that haunts my sweaty nights. I'm hoping this will help me better come to terms with my irrational phobia.

You know that it's a remarkably good inbuilt security system though..... "Eeew.....it's a sunburst, i'm not pinching that"

Get the hair clippers out and give it a number one all over ("number one" refers to length of cut - I don't mean pee on it).

If you need to adjust the settings, take a pic of theirs first so you can restore them after you’ve been on. ( Obviously check with them first to make sure that’s okay.)

Marigold gloves are the business for getting rid of unwanted hair and fluff. Just wet the glove first A wet Marigold can sort a lot of problems

I hate TSB and also hate gold, except when they are together on a '57 P, when the sum is greater than its parts:

A couple of weeks ago I took delivery of a new Barefaced Super Twin. I liked the sounds that I got from my Barefaced Compact and Midget, I just wanted 'more' of the same in a one-cab solution. Barefaced cabs sometimes attract criticism for their hardware and aesthetics. Not this time - the black crinkle paint finish looks like the enclosure has been sculpted from living liquorice, and the handles and feet are firmly attached with captive fittings. I have now had four 1-hour sessions playing my 3 bass guitars (2 Precisions and a Mustang) through both my amps (Demeter VTBP800, Markbass Nano 300) into the cab. Solo playing tells you hardly anything about how a cab will sound live, so I played along to country and soul compilations at volumes I thought the neighbours could just about tolerate. So far, I love it! It has the nice fat and articulate mid-range of the Compact, it's much 'bigger' in the bass, and the treble is oh-so-sweet. I get the sense of notes just waiting to pop out from the strings, power flowing unhindered from the amp. Of course the real test is a live gig, which for me will happen this Saturday. I played the same venue a couple of months ago with my Compact-and-Midget speaker setup, so it will be interesting to see whether I can hear a difference. Hopefully my living-room sessions will have loosened the cones up a bit... Pics or it didn't happen - just excuse my flip-flop/slippers!

Turning 50 does have its upside 😁

Bass Direct have a Helix up for sale: (ex-demo) http://bassdirect.co.uk/bass_guitar_specialists/XD_Line_6_Helix.html

I remember the TE basses. I guess Mark just wants a change. Perish the thought that he'd want a bit more financial mileage out of Status

Everything is better with cake. Happy birthday!

Lucky ol' Jason..! Happy birthday, wishing him many happy returns of the day.

Not in my opinion it won't - you're going to be pushing it to its limits

A fair bit of love for the FI on this forum. Guess I'm kinda hoping they are going to release a version 2 at some point... There's also a difference between subtractive synthesis and frequency modulation synthesis which the Iron Ether FMeron does. Maybe worth having a think about that also as a possible alternative to the PM2? The PM2 did seem attractive, precisely because it is analogue but if, as you say, it's 20 year tech then forget it - that's being crossed off my list as we speak! As mentioned above a couple of folk are quite positive about the Bananana Matryoshka although there have been some comments from others that some of its best sounds are in the 'bit crush' realm.

The knobs are a success. Elsewhere today, someone said something like; guitars should be fiesta red and basses should be understated. The sentiment still works here. Gold and burl suit this guitar. I'd take it down for a play if it was in a shop. It wouldn't be so attractive on a bass. I wish your client many happy years with this instrument.

All I can say is; holy smoak, what a beaut!

Robobass

Then of course there was the Gibson Thunderbolt... which was a brilliant TGM (The Guitar Magazine) April Fool's Day joke that became reality, in some people's minds at least, among them Billy Gibbons, Rick Nielsen, and the Hamer company. This link has (some of) the story... https://www.accordo.it/article/viewPub/72143

Good evening, JMT, and ... Plenty to read and amuse you here, and lots to learn and share.

It was less than 20 miles from me...so no customs highway robbery :-)

BL = Band Leader

I saw this earlier and was dubious, as far as I am aware Bakerlite was only used on the earliest basses and would not have been used on the later shape Precision, the fact it is 13 hole says it is a later pickguard, it could be a genuine custom shop order from someone wanting something a bit different but personally I wouldn't be buying it unless the seller can produce the floor traveler build sheet that would confirm it was a custom shop part

I'd lend 'em the gear and be glad for them for getting a gig. What's rankling with you here..? I can't see the problem. Am being too naive (hard to imagine ..!)..?

It's a job for a luthier or someone with some experience... unless you're ok with the possibility of ended up with a mess! Things to keep in mind if you have a go at it yourself: The truss rod rout - don't touch the centre if you want to play it extra safe, or do so with great care and a magnet. If you carve into the truss rod rout the neck will be irreparably knackered. How you're going to keep it even and accurate - I use facets drawn up on paper beforehand, then transferred to the neck. You need to plan ahead and know what profile you're trying to achieve (rather than just having at it!). Consider how you're going to refinish it afterwards, things like - What type of finish, if you're going to strip the whole thing, or how you're going to blend old and new finish. The concerns regarding stability afterwards might not be completely irrelevant but seem to be often over exaggerated, I've never had any issues with that, but if you got too close to the truss rod rout you could have issues. Small differences in the profile = a big difference to the feel so err on the side of less rather than more wood removal.

I was not, thank you attached everything to date

Valve/analogue/digal is a very poor and misleading spec to use. First valve is analogue, second many 'valve' compressors just have a valve preamp which is a very different thing to actual valve based compression which is properly called vari-mu. You would be better off with:- VCA Vari-mu Tube pre-amped VCA FET Optical Digital Just saying.... And yes it makes a real difference to the conpressor sound

John East, check out his site. www.east-uk.com/ G.

Hey guys, Here is the latest video with a killer exercise to build your double thumping chops with some cool permutations.

Just done an exchange deal with Grae. He is a really nice guy & great to deal with. We exchanged lots of emails & texts & it was a pleasure to actually meet up with him - it was a real shame that I was pushed for time so had to rush off. I would have absolutely no hesitation in recommending Grae to anyone, you can trade with him with confidence. Hope you enjoy the bass Grae. Cheers Steve

Super transaction with Grae who bought my Jaguar bass today. Great communications, absolutely no quibble (and I really mean no quibble) on price, and was so happy that I hand delivered the bass that he slipped me something to buy my lunch with as well as diesel money! I cant remember a deal with less hassle, and can recommend Grae without hesitation. Hope you enjoy the Jag! Cheers, Bob