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SO chuffed! I was the only bidder and won a Maruszczyk Elwood L 4A and picked it up this afternoon. Couldn't be happier! Super lightweight but perfect balance, insanely good build quality, Delano pickups, Glockenklang preamp and in a gorgeous natural finish that feels fab. All for under £600? Very happy with that! Came with the case and all the candy including a set of strings too. Pics to follow in the morning. Can't wait to crank it through my gigging rig - first low volume noodlings are very promising indeed. Cheers, James

Will the excitement never end?! Bridge is on. Don’t ask about the black screws...so mundane is the story I cannot even be bothered...in a side note, chrome screws on the pickup now...as it should be.

Here’s some pics, though...

And you don't want to buy from a dealer with a bad Attitude.

My first self built bass. I bought a fretless neck and a loaded body from here and sourced the other bits from ebay. Finally got around to building it today but made a school boy error. I forgot to buy the strings. Our own Gary Mac is doing the honours so I should be up and running next weekend. I've not played fretless since the '70's so it will be interesting to so how it goes. Anyway, there's the picture.

I've cut a new fretboard for this bass and this time I measured twice and cut once!! The previous neck was 31.5" with 24 frets, for the new neck is 29.5" and obviously has to fit in the same neck pocket and the bridge has to be in roughly the same place. So this works out as the replacement neck being 22 fret for it to fit correctly. As the chance of me getting the intonation exactly right having not tried this scale length before I think is minimal, I'm removing the original brass inserts for the bridge and filling the holes so I can repositioning it later. I'm also going to redrill the holes for the string anchors as I have a better version I'm going to install. This is done by widening the top 4mm of a 10mm hole to 12mm diameter. to do this I have a small piece of mdf with a 12mm hole in it that is placed over the original hole. One of the string anchors is used to centralise it before clamping the template in place. This is the body with the brass inserts removed Then this the body with the holed infilled The body had also picked up a very small dent which I sanded out. I tried refinishing but couldn't get it to match so I sanded the finish off the walnut and started to finish it again. Fussy, but I want it to be right This is the body with the topped sanded and the string anchors holes redrilled.

Good choice.

john martyn some people from grace and danger easy to learn and super expressive

Is possible that your band mate may be even less keen on that scenario than you are. 😐

Mine arrived Thursday too, best £16.50 I’ve ever spent. What a collection - I thought the John Entwistle book was good, but Geddys is amazing!

My SB2 is shod with thomastic. I tried my newly aquired SB1 with flats that were on the bass and in the end changed to rounds. Theres soomething nicely aggressive about the sound with rounds.

There's more to the story which is why I had no problem taking the money. Blue

And here be pics:

yeah, ain't gonna work with my ELF mini rig with one or both 1 10"s hehe

Slick stuff from Cory and his band. B Slade with the amazing laid back Sharay on bass. He reminds me of KRS1

Great guys and we've been using their stuff for about a year now: Map Bass, Airline 3P and Rivolta Mondata in the band. We do have a casual non-endorsement relationship with them so feel free to take this whole post with salt to taste, but I'm happy with the quality on all the stuff we got and none of it was special order or anything. Wouldn't be using or defending it otherwise. General thoughts on the Map Bass are that it's incredibly heavy but also possibly the deepest bass I've ever played. Get a lot of other players asking if I'm using a sub octave or something but it's just a very strong fundamental and a lot of output and low end. In fact there's so much low end that I struggled a bit to start with but after lowering the pickups it's now got a nice vintage growl to it. Still very high output and I have to severely rein the gain in on my pedals to keep it clean. We went up to the demo day they did last year with most of the range in and I was impressed with all the higher end stuff. Lot of nice decorative touches across the range that you wouldn't find on a Fender of similar price but the lower stuff definitely felt like it could do with a setup. They're very interesting guitars and get a lot of attention - lots of other players and audience members asking what they are.

Things have really picked up out of nowhere with all these acoustic gigs. Well, not really out of nowhere. I have a suspition about why I started getting these acoustic offers. I played Cafe Soeurette Saturday night from 7-10 ,great hours and a nice engaged crowd. I'm playing a Sprecher Micro Brewery gig this Saturday night. I also found out my primary band will be opening for a national headliner at a large country festival this summer. 3 weeks ago I had nothing. Blue

Their lacquer is different to most basses though, I saw a video review of a 4003 stating that the chemicals they use are strictly controlled, so they had a choice to change their instruments, change where they're built, or just build fewer of them, and they opted for the latter. Whether that means the finish is higher quality, or just more environmentally unfriendly and/or carcinogenic is anyone's guess!

And a 2013.

That's a common misconception, even among those who really should know better. The size of the driver does not determine how low the speaker will go. A dozen or so other factors, Thiele/Small parameters, along with the cabinet design do. A 115 might go lower than a 410 but it also might not. That would be revealed by the measured SPL charts for the cabs in question, if there were any, but sadly there are not. In any event, Hartke lists the low frequency response limit of both the 4.5xl and 115 xl as 30Hz, although they don't say if that's down 3dB, 6dB, 10dB or more from the base line sensitivity, which is another bit of critical information.

John Hall is looking well 🤭

I thought the addition of Lowe was fantastic. I've know his solo stuff (under both Robert Aiki Aubery Lowe and Lichens) for a while before he did stuff with OM. He's a super nice guy too. Al is definitely an end of the neck player.

Fair point!!!

Yeah but if you make the cab 16R then it'll get half the power the 4x10 gets, so is it worth bringing for the tiny amount of volume it'll create? I know metal is loud, but do you really need more than that 4x10? They're LOUD! If I really needed more I'd just get another matching 4x10, they can be had for quite cheap these days as people don't want to move them.

Played The Cider Barn at Draycott last night, not many in for 3 acts as it was so hot and people were away. Only the second time I have used my Chowny Hollow Body and the guitarist had not seen it before.. he asked what it was like for feedback, I replied most who had seen and heard it thought it was very nice😉

I'm using a Mooer Firely M6 case. It is very compact, in fact it packs away inside the tool case I use for my cables. They also do 4 and 5 pedal options. They seem to be out of stock in many places however there is currently a Firefly M4 on Ebay at the moment which might suit you well. https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Mooer-M4-Firefly-Case-Micro-Mini/223484707520?hash=item3408ba02c0

I would take a fair guess and say that most bass players have never owned or played an alembic bass. Probably most have never seen or heard one live on stage outside the big named pro users like like Stanley Clarke or Jimmy Johnson. A lot of the negative views I have come across regarding alembic be that on line or in person conversations with other bass player are centred on cost and not the sound or playability. Although some find the ergonomics less than suitable like for instance the stanley clarke style basses are neck heavy but that can be compensated for with a good strap and time getting used to the instrument. Personally I don’t gig, rehearse or record with any other bass than an alembic. For me they give me the sounds and the playing experience I want. For some owners they find the sound is not for them and sell them on and that is fine we don’t all have the same tonal requirements. In the past I did swap the electronics in one of my alembics with some ACG filter based electronics but I found whilst they were extremely good I somehow lost the punchy power in the lower mids that the alembic gave and the upper frequencies I found a bit harsh so for the music I was playing it didn’t work out for me. I have since put the alembic guts back in that bass and it suits me better. Over the years I have since tried a number of other high end basses like Fodera, Ritter, Wal and some custom shop fenders which all sound great but I haven’t found anything in them that I feel would make me choose them over my alembic. Of course we know they are not cheap to buy new even the entry level basses but if that is an issue there are used bargains to be had on the usual internet sale sites. One crucial thing to do if buying used amongst other things is to get the serial number and check it out with Alembic, there are a few fakes/copies around especially the Epic basses and also ask for photos of the electronics cavity as some have non alembic innards that the owner may never realise and the cost of getting a new set from Alembic ain’t cheap. When you get them post them on the alembic site www.alembic.com and ask form verification, there are lots of members there who can save you hassle. Contrary to another poster on this thread, I have found them really easy to set up even though it has two truss rods, and have never taken mine to a tech to have a setup done for me. There is some good information on the Alembic website forum.

Wow!

I know. I think it’s a sign. After all of this, my preferred dremmel attachment for cutting which was missing yesterday (and why I opted to hand cut which I’m certain lead to the breakage...) just magically appeared in a box of parts. so. It’s being left as it is. in other news. Bridge and Machine heads arrived.

One of the reviews actually said that the E and A string appear thicker than the D and G!

Beginner? prob not but just damn...

I own both an EEB-1 and a Flying V. Both are really good instruments and I am not feeling the need to add "for the money". Tonally the sound great, they are well made and look cool. I like the vibe of the company and a lot of their range appeals. The only downside is that away from the big hitters like Fender, there is not much resale value if you decide to sell them on.

More exotica here! 😊

Finally found one. I bought one of these from Peter Cooks shop in Hanwell (from Peter himself) in about 1986/7. Traded it in at my local store a few years later and missed it so much that I bought it back. Finally traded it in London in 1990 for an old white P bass (that I've still got). I decided that I wanted another but they weren't made for long and they really are few and far between. Of course I've found one, literally, on my door step. Previous owner did his last gig 10 years ago and removed the batteries to stop them leaking. So it's been in its original case, unused, for the last ten years. It's in incredibly good condition. neck pickup not working (not when I tried it but it's ok now) and not checking the actives means I got it for £440. He was happy that it's gone to a good home. Pics to follow, (it's still a bit dark) It plays like butter. Seriously low action. It was last given a set up and fret dress by the late Tony Zematis. Can't think when I'm going to get any chance to gig it because it won't work in my Police Tribute!! (perhaps I should start a Duran Duran tribute, I know a bloke who looks just like Simon le Bon and can't sing, so he'd be perfect---it's a joke BTW , I love D/D)