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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:

Sean came to my place today to try a Femder I was selling. He's a great bloke and the try ended up being a buy. Deal in confidence as he's truly one of the good guys. Enjoy the bass!

Afraid i don't have the same level of trust as others on here. I've had gear damaged when stage sharing and to lend gear when i'm not there is not something i would even consider unless its a very close friend or someone i know i can trust and that is a very very short list. Dave

Now, gentlemen, let’s stop this bickering, talk of bullying and have that beer. S*** does get deep sometimes and sometimes we get caught out before we got the waders on. The important bit is that when we find ourselves in the deep and any of us is uncomfortable there we should recognise we are having difficulties, hold out a hand and get back to shore as mates.

Smart derrière comment about grammar. Smart derrière comment about "generation snowflake" Like others, "oooh look what a clever stinky poo I am derailing this thread to my ego" instead of just moving on without comment. Not bullying but certainly sanctimonious & self important. And that flipping profanity filter is pissing me off as well!

Looks great! Love the curved back!

Stable door, after horse has bolted...

I always felt the deluxe/elite models with the noiseless pickups sounded a bit lifeless. If yours has those fitted I would be looking at changing those before the pre.

And finally finished this one ready for the SW Bass Bash.

Mind on second thoughts, the Bass has to be a copy, that control plate is all wrong for a single pickup and the string spacing is seriously wonky....

The action seems super low though! I bet it plays like butter.

I'm still delighted with my Stage 800! Another gig at a bigger pub in Manchester to try it out again tonight.

I use brown tape wrapped around my hand with the sticky side out. Just dab the hairs, etc off.

Sounds perfect to me. In fact where are you and the band based?

In addition to the above - Lint roller and a bobbleoff machine are great for making rat fur cabs look cared for again.

Ha, ha....that's my kind of self build

If you help the guy load it in then you can chat and gauge whats acceptable. Just be generally respectful (it sounds like you naturally are anyway) and if you adjust anything change it back when you're done. Don't put a drink on top or lean anything against it. Say thanks and, regardless of how it sounds, compliment him on a nice rig. If possible hang around and watch their set.

thank you for the welcome andy. i'm located in pennsylvania near the town of reading. and, yes, it is named after the reading in the u.k. it's the seat of our berks county. it was named by william penn. actually, we are surrounded by similar sister cities, e.g., lancaster, and york. guess what the baseball teams from these towns are called? you're right! (if you guessed the rose affair). we are about an hour from bath, also. and so it goes. honestly, i have visited your versions of these towns and find them infinitely more attractive, especially bath. i've been playing since around 1968. it has seen me through undergrad and grad school, and the summers when i was lecturing at university. good source of extra income, and more fun than waiting tables. now that i'm retired, i play for fun. so, what's the music scene like in Kent? michael

I played on the USAF bases in Spain in the late '70s We did 6 nights a week, 6 x 45 minute sets per night. Jeez, that was hard, not just for the band but for the equipment too. ......and as for the poor vocalist.....................

Have you got any 600 grit sterated aluminium oxide paper? It's ideal for final preparation of wood before applying finish and flatting off between coats. I got mine from eBay. If you apply paint too heavy you can always knock it back with a bit of flat sanding. I'd also consider drilling the holes before grain filling. You don't want to knock any filler out round the holes.

That looks a lot of guitar for the money. The quality of cheapish "starter" instruments is amazing these days. I'm in my 50's and I would imagine like me, many of my peers on here struggled on to beome bass players despite the desperately bad planks we had to start on.

Having just completed a very easy and pleasant bass trade with Grae (his Thunderbird for my Geddy Lee Jazz and G&L M2000), I can vouch for his reliability, integrity and manners. Rare things these days! Excellent communications from start to finish, and the bass was received exactly as described. Highly recommended and a top guy to boot Thanks Grae and enjoy the basses (or good luck selling them on...).