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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:

Hey folks, Decided to take advantage of GuitarGuitar reducing the prices on their AVRI range now that the American Original series have landed. Bagged this 74 AVRI for American Standard/Pro money. Couple of oddities though - tug bar below the strings rather than in thumb rest position and a tort guard rather than black. Everything else stacks up as it should (including certificate, serial number, neck profile, bridge pickup position, case candy etc). Any ideas? Just random change of spec?

This is why I won't post a bass, or anything really expensive or fragile. Often the insurance that they insist you take out doesn't cover instruments anyway.

That's one of the reasons I now ask buyers to arrange their own courier, meet or collect in person. I'm very reluctant to post and won't now accept responsibility for items after they have left my possession. I know it sounds a bit off and deters some buyers but I've had scenario's where things have been lost or damaged in the post. I really can do without that hassle of sorting all that out, refunding and losing out financially. I've even had folk (not on BC) claim they hadn't received items although signatures were supplied from the correct address (paypal refunded them their money too). Don't do paypal as a result either. Looks like you may have to call them again (if their website doesn't give you an option) about their complaints procedure. I wouldn't expect much to happen about it though. Was the bass insured?

Interesting info thanks Mr T

Truthfully i never read half the replys, the Free English Comment was enough for me then the smiley face, i never seen the Snowflake bit. I'd probably be barred from this forum if i replyed but i find it a good source of info. As for having a beer i'll gladly take you up on that as a Scot. Hopefully meet you @ London Bass Guitar show cheers Dave

Thank you very mutch gents its made my day, cheers for the good vibes.

Do you normally play unlined fretless? Happy Birthday...

I'm addicted to cake Happy Birthday !!!

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

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!

Yes. I remember them for crappy TV adverts mainly. (My one and only senior moment has not actually ended yet.)

Robobass

There isn't quite enough of that these days I find.

Welcome Jazzmatazz.

With you on Fiesta Red Japhet. Guitars can be hot and firey but basses shouldn’t be trying to play catch up, unless you’re in a Shadows tribute - then it’s all about matching gear, matching suits and synchronised headstock waggling. Bass is an earthy, primitive instrument and tobacco burst suits that, like an old pub table all polish and beer glass rings. My pet peeve is three tone bursts where the red hasn’t been sprayed under the pick guard. Looks horrible when the guard is removed, ooh hold on that’s another kettle of fish...

The greatest british soul music came from... a guy called Carl.

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

Its pretty rare that we do a set that is noticeably less than 3 hours

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 ..!)..?

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

Well I eventually got around to trying it after getting some LaBella Deep Talkin flats from @krispn . At first it did sound a bit too dark and lacking in clarity for my normal tastes straight into the amp but I normally use this bass through a Lomenzo Hyperdrive on a low gain setting to bring out the mids anyway. Increased the blend on the pedal a touch more than my previous settings and it sounded lovely in the mix at this week's band practice. Very much that flatwound thump and no zing on the top but still plenty of articulation. Lovely feeling strings too so all in all a very successful experiment!

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

I bought an Ashdown 500 amp. What a pleasure to meet and deal with such a nice, genuine and friendly person. Great comms on BC and we arranged a mutually convenient time for me to collect the amp. The amp was exactly as described and we had an enjoyable chat about gear. Good to have met you and thanks for the great amp at such a good price . I hope we stay in touch. 100% genuine and trustworthy to deal with.

I recently bought an item I have wanted for a very long time for BigSmokeBass and I couldn't feel much better about the whole transaction. Absolutely lovely guy, even before I wanted to buy something from him, he was more then happy to just to chat with me which i found lovely. On the day of the transaction, He had prepared me and my friend tea biscuits, which were also lovely! If you do get the chance to buy, sell or trade through BSB i strongly advise you to as you shall not be disappointed with how he treats you (also, even now, after the transaction, he's still helping me out with it so yeah! He's great ;D)

Did a nice bit of business with BSB over the weekend. Top communications throughout, very easy to deal - and, the clincher, provides biscuits with his tea. Top chap, great patter in person, and would recommend him to all on Basschat - deal with in confidence