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I have a gig! Praise be. The eternal question arises; what gear shall I take? The answer is simple. The best of everything. Best amp, best cabs, best bass.

When a chance came to get hold of one of my old basses back in a trade I of course had to say yes. This arrived today: a 2014 Fender AV 64 Reissue Jazz in a FSR Daphne Blue with matching headstock. It's bloody lovely so goodness knows why I got rid of it in the first place. I have a love/hate thing with Jazzes but hopefully it will hang around for a while. We'll see...

Caveat: this is not legal advice. I think this comes down to whether there is a contract on the basis that you have already paid for it. If there is, and given that at the price you paid you reasonably assumed that was the correct price (and not an error), the company is bound to honour it. That does not mean they would. If the contract would depend upon delivery, then there is no contract and they must refund the money you paid upon cancellation by either party. It is unacceptable for them to pull this stroke, in my view. Were I in your position, I would give them a choice on the spot: supply the piano at the price you paid, or else refund the money immediately. But I doubt they have a valid basis for taking the money and then trying to shake you down for more. They might have a valid basis for cancelling the order, in which case you must receive an immediate refund. Personally, I would insist that they honour what you regard as an agreement (do not concede ground on the price-matching point), and point out their weak position in law should they prove reluctant. If they won't budge, get an immediate refund and call the other place quickly. There is no way I would pay extra money to these people.

The T2A fuses arrived today and the amp is now working just as it should, without blowing fuses. It draws around 0.35A (88W) from the mains when it has settled down, which is not unusual given how delightfully inefficient valve amps are - my Princeton Reverb draws 0.24A (61W). The steel bird cage gets quite hot above the valves, but my PF-50T did the same. I'm calling that a win. I just need a name now - any suggestions?

At last I have a matching pair.

Hardly adequate (dark, flash from phone), but I snapped this just after wiping down the body after 2nd coat. A little darker and deeper red, with the grain still nicely visible. It will not get much darker than this from the 4 additional coats I will add, so pretty close to end colour I think.

Did someone leave it on a radiator? It seems to have melted... One fugly bass.

Just pulled the trigger on a TMB30 on Ebay. Have been circling a shorty for quite a while now a have a few gigs lined up so really looking forward to this little stubby turning up.

Free Nissan Main Dealer - The Special AKA

Go to the CAB website and check your statutory rights but IIRC they sold you the item at the price you paid - they can't add money after the fact.

It begins... and very well might end badly!

Long time no hear, Yabby You

Before I bought my first bass, my band which was a writing and recording only project would borrow one of the two bass guitars owned by people we knew at school. One of these was a home-made thing put together by someone who'd seen a photo of a P-Bass once and then had tried to make their own from memory using only what was available from the parts box at our local musical instrument store. The other was Mosrite-influenced "Woolies Special". Neither were really worthy of the description "musical instrument". We'd got by with these for about 4 years until I actually went out and bought one myself in 1981 - a very battered and heavily modified Burns Sonic Bass which had appeared in the afore-mentioned musical instrument store. It cost me £60 including the OHC and the shop chucked me in a Fender-branded strap. For a while I wasn't entirely sure that it wasn't also home-made as there were no logos on it other than on the Tri-Sonic pickups. However I was able to get hold of "The Burns Book" by Paul Day which confirmed it was actually a proper Burns Bass guitar made in either 1961 or 1962. And that's what I used in my first two bands and on the demos my second band recorded that got CBS records interested in signing us (they decided to go with Wham! in the end), and them for writing bass lines in my synth band, until I bought my Overwater Original 5-string in the early 90s. I still had the Burns Sonic bass until 2 years ago when I had a ruthless pruning of my musical instrument "collection" and got rid of everything I wasn't using. Here's photo of me playing it live in 1982...

Many thanks to all for your words of encouragement, advice and welcome.

Interesting tidbit of information there - so Mr. Glover had got past his (deep) purple phase by then was more into the yellow/red end of the spectrum?

There's the GR Pure 800 if that's any use?

(B)Raking the law(n) - Judas Priest

That’s the one! 1983 (my YOB coincidentally) and one of the few white stingrays with non yellowing lacquer.

Genuine question: if you can't tell the difference between a cheaper P bass and a more expensive one, why buy the expensive one in the first place?

To bring some perspective my auntie used to live next door to Roger Glover in Richings Park, Iver, Buckinghamshire and my (then) teenage cousin Pete used to wash Roger's car to make a few bob. One time Roger was in his garden planting out some marigolds and my uncle leaned over the fence and said 'Rog, is Smoke On The Water heavy metal?' and Roger put down his trowel and thought a bit and said 'No, Norman, it's hard rock but played with a hint of heaviness'.

The Abyssinians 'Declaration of rights'

I can scarcely remember the borrowed basses I played on when I was a kid, but the first one I owned myself just set off on its journey to Bass Direct. I'm glad to have finally got round to doing something about it – it has scarcely been touched since my BB arrived in January – but I do feel a bit sad, comparing this moment with the excitement of its arrival. Guess I'm also feeling a bit guilty that such a beautifully-made instrument proved to be one I was not much interested in. Still, back when it was the only bass in my home, it got a lot of attention. And I shouldn't feel bad for rating sound+feel over looks+comfort. Bye bye, Hal PS explanation for its name: PPS bye bye humbuckers, see you on a six-string sometime

This just arrived after a six month wait and after a little adjustment seems rather nice. Anderton’s website indicates they got 2 in, so if yer quick 😉

Is Mr. G a known Dead Head? I bet he grows magnolias.

Getting there!

Bit blurry…but this is the business. Reidmar 750 and Vanderklay 212

It can be dialed in flat. You need to turn the Blend off. It sort of defeats the point of the product. I was trying to figure out if you didn't like the sound of it when using into an amp, into a mixer or both. This is why I suggested you might like some of our other DI's. The VT Bass DI can be dialed in pretty close to flat with the Blend up as long as you are using fairly low Drive settings.

Forgot to say a massive “thank you” to @Ricky Rioli for posting that link - the red Bb424x is what I’ve been chasing. Now… White Pearl is a maybe…but a dark red tort might be amazing on it…

Really? There is an issue with recreational drug use interfering with treatment for mental illnesses, but my dear old mum had bipolar and never went near a recreational drug in her life. Her behaviour was at times as outrageous and loopy as Jaco’s - although far fewer people saw it. We should beware conflating recreational drug usage and mental illness, and also demonising people for drug issues (there are plenty of people with gambling, alcohol and other addictions which also ruin lives). Im also very dubious of viewing these matters as greatly important when there are far more positives - after all some of the great composers of the classical genre had mental health issues.

Indeed. Horrible stuff. Although I’ve no room to talk. I clearly have problems of my own to sort out.....according to the BC swearing filter, I lick donkeys.

I don't know. But I hope someone beat it to death with an iron bar then set it on fire.

It’s happening

An Avon (Rose Morris) EB0 copy in a sort of dark wine red colour. Played and sounded ok until the tension of the flatwounds, literally pulled the whole bridge out of the body. Fixed it and last heard it was in Canada of all places. Here's proof it existed from 1975

My first was a Presto-Lang much like the one pictured (photo off the internet, I don't have any of mine), but sparkly red. It was a collab between a post-communist national factory and a proper local luthier. Good bass, if ugly. Bright, resonant and lively. Heavy ash body, 3-piece maple neck. I bought it from a studio that this metal band called Vader resided in, for 200pln (£40). Had decent hardware and passive "designed by EMG" pickups. It had aluminium monorail bridges which had rusted screws and couldn't be adjusted. I swapped it for a brass equivalent (which curiously was easily available and cheap in my local guitar shop) and the tonal difference was so massive, I became instantly interested in guitar building and modding. I later sold the bass for profit and bought the same model, but with Ibanez SR style headstock, beech body, ash (yes) neck and two reverse P pickups. It was an inferior instrument, dull and unresponsive. After that, custom Mensfeld (the manufacture that makes Maruszczyks now), some Peaveys, many Yamahas, a few Warwick, many Fenders and a couple of FSOs.

GAK selling a red 424x, same price on website and Reverb, £280 delivered RED (I really need to stop picturing that with a white pearloid pg)

Ahem…

@Hellzero I don't want to get involved in any argument about Jaco. I completely understand what you're saying. Certainly, Percy Jones knocked my socks off the first time I heard him (Brand X - Nuclear Burn!) but I still think Jaco was unique and maybe deserves a bit of donkey licking. After all, it's not often us bass players get our asses licked! I'm so glad you mentioned Toots. He's my hero. I unashamedly lick his donkey as I present the following video which I think demonstrates that Jaco understood the mechanics of music very deeply, and with sensitivity, and fully deserved to be on stage with Belgiums greatest export - yes, even better than Leffe and even Chips

Reigning in my heart - Buddy Holly

None more '80s.

To bring some perspective, Smoke on the Water was recorded 49 years ago. 49 years back from Smoke on the Water in 1923 the world was recovering from the Great War and Spanish Flu.

In reality I think the only people that would bring us anything close to the old TE sound is Ashdown. And I'm not sure they want to, or that there's a market beyond 3 or 4 of us on this site, who would buy one new. Reality makes me sad sometimes.

TBH this is probably the most iconic bass instrument from the early 80s...