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Yes, this is absolutely part of it. I did explain this to Dave over on TalkBass but I think it might be good to include the same information here. 1. It has nothing to do with Gibson period. The decision was made everybody involved because we are having great difficulty getting parts in sufficient quantities to fill the large number of orders we already have. Not just orders outside North America but also within North America. It makes no sense to try to ship a couple of amps at a time overseas, that's how products get lost and damaged. Especially tube amps. 2. Why are we having challenges with parts? It's not just us, it's the entire manufacturing world that is experiencing these shortages. Raw materials are delayed getting to our suppliers, our suppliers are delayed in their own manufacturing and some of our component manufacturers are experiencing delays from their suppliers. It's not our fault, it's not our supplier's fault, it's a global problem and no matter how much we wish it wasn't so, throwing money at it makes no difference when the parts simply do not exist. 3. In our case, we don't use a lot of generic parts. Many of our parts (like transformers, PCBs, pots, switches, sheet metal, speaker components, enclosures) are custom parts and have longer lead times than generic parts. These have been delayed by our suppliers, and not just suppliers from any one region but suppliers from France, Italy, Spain, Taiwan, Hong Kong, the UK, Germany, China, the US and Canada (I'm sure I'm missing some, but you get the point). This is mostly related to COVID, but because there are many steps in the manufacturing process, each step's delay adds to the total delay. 4. Then there's shipping delays... never have I seen the delays throughout the shipping world. Of course there's the shortage of containers, this was expected, BUT what was not expected was the ship getting stuck in the Suez Canal. It's not the week or two of direct delays, but the resulting suspension of operations at the ports because the ships they were waiting to unload and reload were all sitting out at sea waiting for passage. All those ships loaded with hundreds of thousands of containers that should have been unloaded and ready for their new loads. Combine this with the number of cancelled sailings (where a ship scheduled to depart is cancelled and waits for the next scheduled cycle. If you had containers scheduled for that ship, you were struggling to find alternative passage but often the logistics and global paperwork make it impractical. Containers with perishable goods, as well as livestock have priority, that's how the maritime laws are (and it makes sense). Then, the port delays, the inland shipping, the transfer companies, the rail companies, EVERYBODY is delayed. Oh, and the costs are out of sight too. This has not improved in the last 3 months, and may actually be worse. 5. We had our own factory delays, almost all of last year we had to operate in specialized "safe work cells" with all the necessary isolation and PPE gear. Because of the county we are located in, there were many weeks where we couldn't run ANY production due to stay at home orders. This applied to many of our suppliers too, and not just here, but much of Italy has been locked down pretty hard. Italy and the US are where many of our speakers come from, and THEIR suppliers were also locked down. Some of our suppliers simply didn't survive, we had to use back-up vendors and test sample parts in order to re-qualify the parts (especially where they are part of a safety agency approved assembly)... oh, and the safety certification agencies were also impacted, so there were delays in certifying the new parts so that the entire assembly could be re-certified. This impacts the EU specifically because of the change in EU market standards for legacy products (that do not apply to North America). It's a lot more complicated than "we just didn't want to ship outside of the US". The decision was more of what is practical, and promising something that we have almost no control over doesn't help the situation either. Nobody is happy about this, everybody shares your frustration and disappointment (including me) and we are all very, very sorry. When I know more, I will communicate it with you. Fortunately, there are a lot of good choices in bass gear these days, and if a manufacturer more local to you has stock, it may make better sense to move on for now and maybe revisit this at a later time. Hope this helps.

I love Stingrays but as my band aren't playing live I am playing a much wider range of music than in the past and while my old SR5 could do most things well it wasn't my first pick for everything. I wasn't really aware of the Stingray Special but spotted one when looking around PMT in Bristol.(see pic below). First impressions were that it was cool but maybe too bling for me. This one is a Jan 2020 model and had been in store for a while so it was still at the old price. I gave it a try and was blown away and suddenly the "blingyiness" didn't matter so much. Note: It had looked silver as it was catching the lights but is actually Ghostwood, a green, silvery/grey.😂 Impression? It was a stingray played like one, was lightweight and made the right stingray noises but there were loads of tonal variations. The sound of the 18V electronics combined with the switches and EQ is phenomenal. I could dial in all sorts of warm sounds that hadn't been there on my old ray and it just seemed to have more power under the bonnet. I was there for about an hour and remember thinking to myself "all these sounds from a bass with 1 pickup? Incredible". Now it is mine! Earlier this week I was having fun going through some of the old stuff from my defunct heavy prog band and it was like chopped beef and yesterday was learning some bass lines for a reggae audition and it was like beef stew with a rich gravy. What a machine. I may have found "the one", I feel blessed! PMT in Bristol were brilliant BTW!

Dingwall and Darkglass.... You too can sound just like every other metal bassist!

In all fairness, @Silvia Bluejay was there too and she has much better ears than I do. 🧐 I tend to avoid these topics since they end up being so sterile but, seeing as I'm here, here's my tupp'orth. My hearing was never that great to start with, and adding pretty severe tinnitus has done absolutely nothing to help. I've never been able to distinguish between tonewoods or between active/passive or between cheap/expensive basses. I hear the output and decide whether or not I like it. I've tried compression, everything from one-knob pedals to DBX166 rackmounts. I don't know how to use such stuff properly, I hate devices with lots of knobs and switches, and I've never understood the attractions of "transparency" ... if I can't hear what it's doing then how do I know it's doing something? So that must put me in the Anti camp, right? Nope, not a bit of it. I am well aware that pretty much every serious musician, recording studio and radio station uses compression as a basic tool all the time, on everything. What that tells me is that compression is great, it's my lack of understanding that's the problem here. So I live with it, and stay away from topics about compression ...

Pickup cover and ramp cut and shaped ready for routing I had 4 ideas for this cover, solid ash or wenge, or reverse the ash / wenge splits but felt this option looked the best. Installed the inserts for the bridge in the bridge slot. Wiped the bass down with some white spirit before thinking about the next list of jobs to be getting on with! But for now the sun's out and I want a beer!

Oh dear Jack please don't restart the Tonewood wars. Most of those that believe in Tonewood are actively AntiVaxing at the moment and it would not be a fair fight.

When I got the Stomp I thought that I would go back to pedals in a year or less. Even my girlfriend told me that was going to happen. However, my interest in pedals is still 0. I kept some pedals I like, but I haven't used in a while. And the good thing is that. if I think about some sound that I want to try, I don't have to wait until I buy another pedal. It is likely to be already in the HX Stomp. It is not perfect, but for its price and the size of three regular pedals, it's now a must for me.

I've had so much trouble with band line-ups, organisation and attitude, and it's happened in so many bands, that I've started looking for the one common factor that explains it all. Turns out, it's me. 😎

I think they were called Cliff Richard and The Shadows 😉

Mr Diggins is in his seventies and basically semi-retired; he worked at John Birch for a few years before setting up on his own in '77. Jaydee Guitars is now run by his sons with a grandson doing a lot if not all of the finishing work. Why would they bother coming up with something new at this point. I think they sell as many SG copies to Iommi and AC/DC fans as they do Classic basses to MK fans.

I seem to recall there was an Irish rapper who went out under the name Duff Paddy! That one still makes me chuckle!

I spose Bauhaus came out of new wave... Loved David J's basslines!

Carlos, you came for advice on buying a new bass for £600, and ended up with a sponge, and your old bass, and £600 in change. Surely that is the last time that Basschat will save you from spending money! All the best on your bass journey - all the above advice is good.

My whole life has been a Bass fad.

Definitely a lot more detail in this explanation @agedhorse and some i wasn't aware of like the shipping around the globe problem. Some guys on TB touched on it and that was something i had not even considered as i assumed most items went by plane. Also the reason for not shipping individual items was a surprise but i see your point with items going missing etc. Your explanation here covers more detail and it is appreciated. With regards my own order i have been assured that price will be what i've already paid with no increase to me and for me it will be worth the wait as i spent a long time looking at the various kit to get what i believed was right for me. I've tried other manufacturers but have never come across the tone i get from the Mesa gear, its that simple for me. I have a great Mpulse 600 that will see me thru until the TT800 arrives. I appreciate others on BC have cancelled their orders as waiting doesn't suit them. Yes i was angry on the day i found out but that has turned more to disappointment and frustration than anything else. On the positive it lets me get some use with the Mpulse and SW 210 & 115 cabs. So far its a great pairing. Dave

Fingering your oilboard.

At band practice last night I had to travel light so only my bass, no pedals, and used the rehearsal rooms amp. With my band I use a touch of compression and I really noticed not having it last night. It just seems to sharpen up the notes, or because it does that and they’re sharper and more defined that then makes my playing more accurate.

Proof yet again that what sounds really bassy and warm in the mix just isn’t.

Just because... 🙂

For what it's worth a compressor is definitely not a good first effect candidate in my opinion. I think you should have a license before you can buy one to prove you have an idea what to do with the bloody thing before you can walk out of the shop with it. Save everyone a load of hassle that would...

Happy Friday with a bit of Prince jammy and the upsetters

In These Shoes? - Kirsty McColl

Which is the exact opposite when it comes to cars. I'd take a red one over a blue one every single time. My current car is blue and it's an absolute pain in the arse, it's a total drama queen, every time you get in in something starts bleeping and sqwarking and having hissy fits. The f@cking thing is trying to be too clever for its own good. Maybe I should drive it into a ditch at high speed and see if anyone in the audience notices.

Well I have found the whole of this thread exceedingly interesting but it has not changed my views that blue painted compression pedals are far superior to red painted compression pedals, to my 70 year old Tinnitus ears. The blue ones sit much better in the mix than red ones down the Dog & Duck. (BTW I've had my 2nd jab)

This forum is dangerous. I had no intention of getting a Stomp but now I'm considering if it's worth selling my Tuner, Compressor, EQ, DI/Preamp to fund one. Basically they are the pedals that don't need too much switching on/off and are things the Stomp does well so they can be replaced without the need of buying additional footswitches. Edit: I'm about to put 8 pedals up for sale on here to get a Stomp, I wasn't planning on doing that yesterday! I'm getting a bit addicted to buying/selling/returning pedals for very marginal gains so I'm hoping to follow in the footsteps of @javi_bassist and simplify things and get out of the habit.

Surely there's a real logical fallacy that needs pointing out regarding @Al Krow's request for compression efficacy live? In order to attempt to show that a good compressor set up well is worth less than other FX on bass he needs to provide evidence that those other FX, at unity gain to them not being on, have a greater affect on audience enjoyment. Good luck with that, I've never met a punter who was enjoying a band who could differentiate between what a bass guitar and a keyboard players left hand added to the mix, let alone the importance of fuzz over overdriven over clean or a bit of chorus or an octave or, well any of it. So the assertion that compression is of less use in a pub band setting is rather difficult to prove without a more detailed scientific experiment. The irony being that compression was popularised by the loudness war between Motown and the Beatles in the mid 60's, given Al's preferred era to bang out down the dog and duck...

I had a Melody fretless years ago. I don't remember how it sounded but it seemed to be very well put together

There's a very VERY good all-girl Pistols (and punk in general) covers band called the Sex Píssed Dolls. We supported them at the Thekla a couple of years ago, they tore the roof off the boat.

Haven't you got some sound engineering homework to be getting on with?

Donate to a local school/ young band/ budding bass player? Or buy a corsa and stick it in the boot and buy a baseball cap to wear backwards.

Yeah feel for You Dave. I'm just pished off with the whole situation. The same is happening with Bikes & Cars too.

Mine's still getting gigged with it's original decal proudly on show. 😎 Punters don't care, musos love it!

Don’t tell me you can’t taste as well....

Does everyone have to agree for it to be true? Does it have to be a majority for it to be true? People can have good reasons for not wanting to use them/it - but to dismiss something as useless/not required etc. (In the fave of good evidence to the contrary, which was asked for and shown)Without proper knowledge of how to use it isn’t the correct basis to make that statement. I repeat tho, this is about misconceptions this thread - talking about how it is useful is trying to help those that want to hear about it deal with misconceptions, plus, it has been bumped because someone is demonstrating how they are trying to use it and listen to what can happen, trying to submerge it under false pretences is not correct.

I'm with @Chienmortbb on this, probably. you won't get the theoretical 6dB extra as the Elf won't deliver double the power into 4ohms but you will get close to that, around 5dB is likely. That's the equivalent of almost four times the amp power but sharing the task of shifting air between two cones means each won't be working so hard. You already know that the speaker will distort if you just double the amp power, do it for any length of time and they will break. Generally speaking two tens will get you where you need to be, but i don't know your band of course. There are two ways to go on this, put your bass through the PA and just use your 'rig' as a monitor for you to hear or if your PA isn't up to bass then you need to get your sound levels matching the drummer. You have the luxury of a drummer with a volume control. It's nice to have the second option as you can always turn down from maximum but you can't turn up if your system is already flat out. Adding a second identical 10 is going to preserve your sound and give you much more headroom for the lowest cost and preserve the sound you have. Anything else will change your sound and be more expensive, then you are into auditioning different gear and looking for a new sound. If you are newly back to this I'd keep it simple, within a year you will have a much clearer feeling for what you want to do and the same GAS for new gear most of us here suffer from If you don't like your sound then...... have fun looking

We still do, mainly because they were fantastic value

When see the videos of worship music in the USA, bands playing with Gospel choirs with vocalists that can belt it out like Aretha, and I think back to my church which occasionally had an acoustic guitar jangling along to 'Make me a channel of your Peace'...

Two female tributes - Shania’s Twin Amy Housewine

Fox On The Run ～ Sweet

I understand where you are coming from, let me explain my view on this band. One of the biggest stereotypes we have as bassists is that we play it because we are failed guitarists, or that it's an easier instrument to play with less strings. Now my view is that he is in general playing the bass as if it was a guitar. Before everyone rushes to slate me, its only my opinion and I'm more than happy to accept that I'm probably wrong.

Can't believe I missed all the fun of this thread 😆 Oh hold on, that's right, it's threads like these rehashing the same old stinky poo from the same entrenched positions that keep me off basschat. So, Al, do everyone and yourself a favour and go do a sound engineering course. Seriously. Learn to mix. Learn how to use compression for real. Until you do that you haven't got a hope in hell of keeping up with the "compression fanboys" (seriously condescending term, like bass playing troglodytes or technophobic under achievers). You rehash your argument over and over again. But it's clearly absurd. Are you saying that compression can't change the sound of a bass in a mix enough to warrant it at a gig? Seriously? Because we've gone over that enough times, people have demonstrated before. You just keep coming back to compression as some peculiar bug bear. I tell you this, compression will make a bigger difference than neck through construction or tone woods in a mix. Not pick up choice though in my experience. Can a punter hear it. No. Can they perhaps better experience the mix because of it? I reckon so. But, and this is a killer, you need to understand how to use it and to get it right you do need to learn effective ways to set it up. So go do that. I do bugger all gigs to not many people. So obviously I know naff all about compression, am some lunatic swivel eyed fanboy and can be effectively dismissed as such regardless of over thirty years being fascinated in sound engineering starting out in studios where your 24 track machine was your got to compressor and saturation plug in. @Happy Jack is about the only BCer who has seen my band in play, ask him if we sounded ok as we happily spent an evening making music for a paltry audience in a tiny pub for the joy of playing music we like, and almost only we like 😆

Finger puppets on machine heads? 😉😉

This: A whole chain of events lead to me being parted from this beauty which is actually green NOT blue as the photos suggest. Firstly I traded this with Marcus (of Bass Direct fame) for his GB Spitfire after I bought a Rumour which I was (rightfully) very impressed with, thinking that the Spitfire would be a great acquisition. At the time I knew that I shouldn't be doing the trade. I was having sellers remorse before he even left. Even though the Spitfire was a nice bass it was nowhere near as good as the Rumour or the Status. Marcus then traded it with Snook even though we'd agreed he'd give me the chance to get it back if he was moving it on. He didn't. Snook advertised the bass here for more than I'd originally paid for it. I couldn't bring myself to pay MORE to get it back. Snook advertised it at a time when I was working on downsizing - basses that I didn't want to get rid of (but eventually did). Despite wanting the bass back, at the time I was determined NOT to buy more basses. Snook eventually sold the bass to a buyer abroad thus taking it out of my reach - probably forever. I don't ever expect to have this back but if the current owner is reading this - PLEASE PM me!!!

Strictly speaking you will get 6dB of increased speaker sensitivity, which is the equivalent of a quadrupling of power. You don't get anything 'extra' from the amp, because what determines loudness is cone displacement, which is determined by voltage swing, which is the same into either one or two cabs. Level voltage into twice the displacement gets 6dB. Where the OP is concerned if one 110 seems nearly adequate then the additional 6dB of sensitivity that will result from adding a second identical 110 should be fine.