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I do agree with this statement, and that is exactly why I have a very low opinion of BD. I'm glad you had a positive experience, but your experience is not my experience by a long long stretch. Write your positive review, this is a fair thread that needs both sides of an opinion, but don't write it in such a way that demeans those of us that haven't been as fortunate to experience what you have. Trust that we are not children and that our poor experience is valid as we trust that your positive experience is valid.

They would be more like Apple if you could only play one through a Fender amp used a different jack lead to everyone else and you couldn't tune a Fender to any other make of instrument.

You’re on tour with a bassist who doesn’t carry a spare set of strings 🤔

The problem with a telephone conversation is that there is no record of it having taken place unless both parties record it (which has its own separate set of privacy problems). That's the last thing you want when trying to resolve a problem. Form personal experience with BD I would want a full record of everything that has been done for any order over £25.00. I certainly wouldn't want to buy a bass (or have a problem with one resolved) from just a phone call. As someone who runs their own business my position has always been (and most of you on here will probably be sick of me saying this) that if you are not prepared to deal with your customers by a particular means of communication, then DON'T PUBLICISE IT! All my customer's emails get answered within 24 hours of them sending it, and usually a lot sooner; even if all I am able to say to a particularly complicated request, is that I am currently working on it and will be back in touch as soon as I have the required information to answer them in full. I have no sympathy, no time, and no business to give to companies who cannot respond in a timely manner using a method of communication that they have published.

Spotted online on the Bax website, a 'B' stock Precision for £490. I expected scratches in addition to the damaged packaging that was listed on the site but I have yet to spot any. My first Precision style guitar and so far (about 90 minutes in) happy with sound, feel, neck and weight.

Digging the curtains matching the drapes 😉 This thing kicks. V4b + SVT 212av.

Nah. 95% of customers are OK, and they will get their answers either in the shop, by phone or by e-mail, and everything is fine and dandy. The last 5% though can ruin your whole business unless you're careful. I'm still talking about everyday consumers - not B2B or similar. In a local hi-fi shop the percentage of tyre kickers was so high (my estimate is roughly 25%) that the shop owner had to wisely wade; in my own line of work (mostly high-end sea kayaks, but locally we also catered for beginners), the percentage of loss-generating customers was felt to be well below 5%. Sfunny you should mention this about an initial enquiry possibly leading to them one day being your biggest and most important customer, as your words are nearly verbatim what I said to my wife before starting our last firm. I wanted to also cater for people who only asked for information, cater for undecisive types who use literally 40 of your hours before maybe buying ... the works. BUT: not cater to everyone all of the time. Some examples then from the kayaking firm: - a boarding school harshly demands we set up an offer for 15 cheap kayaks as well as a maintenance plan and budget. It's obvious to me the school wants to use my firm and my time so the school is better prepared when talking to the next firm, who sell enormous amounts of cheap kayaks cheaply. No go. - a customer living close to my brand colleague in Sweden (who can deliver the same kayak well under my Norwegian cost price) phoning me in the early hours on a Sunday and demands I spend several hours on giving her all the info she wants in Norwegian before she heads off to Sweden where that shop is open on Sundays. No go. (Or rather: Go that once, but I never repeated it.) - an anonymous, quite entitled, e-mail of which the full text literally (but in Norwegian) is: "<Competitor's boat> vs. <your boat>. Advantages and disadvantages. Discuss." No go. Pick up the phone and call me, and we'll analyse your needs, and after that, if I think you're best off with the competitor's boat (if I can without having seen you paddle), then I'll send you to that competitor. - most regular enquiries, including time consumers and people just after info: Go. It's not as if we hated customers. I only wish to express that the coin has different sides, not just the side of the customer-to-be, who can also sometimes act quite entitledly. In general, these things are not black and white, and your previous post seemed. to me. to describe that they are. In case: they may indeed be that way in your line of work, but then I don't get the impression everyday consumers are your main customer base.

SO36 in Berlin last night supporting Crass. The first night of our tour and it was crazy! I didn't expect so many people, or for us to go down so well with a crowd who don't know us. They were there to see Crass who are a lot more Punk than us but they loved it! Our bassist broke a string in the last song. Great timing as he's come on tour without a spare bass or any strings! What a pillock Hopefully tonight in Hamburg will be as good!

....which for a lot of people buying gear constitutes the largest audience they're ever likely to play to

Not in my flat earth world 😂

Depends on the 95%. If I am in the 95% then I am happy, if I am in the 5% then obviously they don't want my trade and I go somewhere else. My wife runs and online shop, I know timewasters, who generate a large amount of the traffic, so it isn't a linear 95% of traffic you deal with, if you feel that something is not going to pan out (you could be wrong obviously). Not saying there is, but it doesn't bode well and there is an element of "If they don't care before I give them money, they sure aren't going to care once they have it"

4.2 billion years? That's a lot of Bass Bashes but I expect Fenders will still look the same then.

MIJ 62 JB reissue. Came with a black plate but so much nicer with it off I think.

Something like this? 24: 25: @sprocketflup 26: Son of @Pea Turgh 27: @GrahamT 28: @Chienmortbb 29: 30 : 17: @Norm 18: @BreadBin 19: Mrs. @Stub Mandrel @fiatcoupe432 21: 22: @Richard R 23: @Pea Turgh 9: @yorks5stringer 10: @Stub Mandrel 11: @Smanth 12: @JohnDaBass 13: @wrinkleygit 14: @BassBod 15: 16: @Mottlefeeder 1: @Andyjr1515 2: @TheRev 3: 4: @stevie 5: @scrumpymike 6: @Phil Starr 7: @Jabba_the_gut 8: @basstone I've only put names above where people have identified themselves or you can read the pass. If others want to own up, or prefer to remain unidentified on a public forum, either is fine. PM me if you want me to update this. (Though I'm not sure for how long after creation I can edit a post)

Well it looks like Stew made the right decision in the end! My last leaving a band take was roughly a year ago. The five of us had become good friends and two of the lads had the band logo tattooed on themselves so it was a tough decision to go. However, five and a half years of playing roughly the same set and to the same people became too much for me. I was having a lot of stuff stack up causing me stress including the band which should have been more fun than stress. Taking a step back I realised a few things about how certain people were using the band as their way of being centre of attention amongst their group of friends, rather than being in a band to make music and play in new places. There were many small gripes but it all came to a head when I was criticised for taking three days away to go to a Wedding, "pretty long f'ing wedding!", and a gig was booked for a weekend I was away and played without rehearsal. Needless to say it was a disaster. Walking felt tough but I knew I had to do it and I'd already been looking at setting up my own side project anyway. I'm now in a much busier and much more professional band but it's nowhere near as stressful because the other people in the band are so level headed and we're all pulling in the same direction. It's taken a while to find it but I'm doing more gigs, more varied music, better venues and taking home more money, all of which = more enjoyment.

The car won’t start. Roger Glover (no vroom)

IMO it's fingerstyle and not overdubbed. I think this is the same guy I saw playing on their UK tour on the early 70's, when they were touring Yes, We Can Can, he's a little white guy with great chops playing a Precision bass. 5 mins on Youtube and I think I've found him. I think this is the guy I saw. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MFYMtwqAfnA&ab_channel=GeneSantiniJr.Drummer https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IzZkjjENj_w&ab_channel=Soultube

Don Quixote ～ Nik Kershaw

Axe Victim - BeBop Deluxe (it's been a while).

Now that's what I call a good slap sound. None of yer Mark King plink-ity-plink nonsense.

I’ve put a set of radio knobs on my Old Smoothie stingray.

Yes it was. The clue is in the phrase "he was offered either a flat fee or a percentage".

I do feel sorry for manufacturers, they have to do these things even if their engineering instincts tell them not to. Though to be fair a 'sounds good when practicing' button isn't a bad idea Below is the response of the Ashdown RM500, you can see the rest of the measured responses we took HERE So when looking at this I ask three questions. Is there a low end roll off/HPF (where and how quickly)? Is there a high end roll off (same questions)? Are there any irregularities that make the amp non-flat. So roll off I take from the -3db points and the rate of roll off I calculate over 2 octaves from there. The highest sensitivity of this essentially flat amp is around 13db so the minus 3db points are where it crosses the 10db line and the roll off is more or less 6db/octave. Ashdown clearly know what they are doing, -3db at around 50Hz and a gentle roll off is going to give you plenty of bass without overpowering and offers a little protection from idiots blowing speakers. Bass output is almost all in the 100-4,000 Hz range and that is flat with another gentle roll off above that. If you want a midrange dip there is a button and tone controls. The top end roll off will also tame one of the problems with single driver cabs (as opposed to ones with horns and crossovers) where most cone drivers have cone s breaking up in the low KHz region

100 times this - get so fed up with listening to people say 'oh well if they don't respond to your email, just phone them'. If they don't respond to my communication via a channel they have provided, then they don't want my business, simple as that. Maybe to be sure I will email them again. I will not phone, I will almost never phone.

And on tour with a bassist who doesn't know what strings he has on the bass...

I'm bloody glad of "sleeper" brands like Yamaha and G&L. I get to play great instruments and feel like I'm part of a wee, exclusive club, the membership of which swim in a slightly different direction to the mainstream - my kind of people.

I’m sure you mean the angle at which the Sun is to your position on Earth as it rotates through it’s elliptical orbit around it 😂

This. Isolated bass tracks often sound awful on their own, and magical with the rest of the band. Some of the bass sounds that sound the cleanest / flattest / whatever in the mix are actually a real farty mess when heard alone.

How about picking up the phone and speaking to them ? Always helpful . And its not beyond the wit of man to do the conversion yourself if you are that bothered . Just bought a bass from them and decided to go in person . Without going into details , there were problems with the bass that were nothing to do with the guys at BD . 12 hours from finding the problem to picking up new bass , strings , straploks etc . And they did a great deal for me . It's easy to criticise . They will have my business for a long while . The measure of any company is how they deal with it when things go wrong . Hats of to Mark and the chaps from a happy customer .

For what it's worth, I tried a number of amps side by side several years back when I decided to give in to advancing years and go lightweight. I spent an afternoon at a well-known shop that sells most of the name brands. Among those I tried was a Glock Steamhammer. It was a fine sounding amp and turned out to be my second choice. It was clean and powerful and I liked it very much. I bought an AG700 in the end, because I felt it had a little more warmth when I wanted it than the Glock. I should point out that I use PJB cabs, which are clean - some would say hi-fi - sounding and I made sure I tried the amps with PJB cabs. Had that not been the case, I may have gone with the Glock. It was a close call. Do test amps with your cabs of choice before buying.

We've got a saying in the States about sphincters and opinions, I've got to assume you have a similar one on your side of the pond. That's especially true of Talk Bass. I had to leave there ten years ago lest I lose what was left of my sanity completely. 😳

My new ‘small’ rig. This started as the quest to find a small powerful gigable combo that wouldn’t break either my bank account or my back. Basschatter FunkyDoug was selling the rather tasty ABM NEO 400 1x15 combo locally, and then I spotted that Sharkfinger was selling the matching Neo series 1x15 cab for a very reasonable £75. So this is now the go to small rig for tight stages 😎

Clear acrylic worked a treat on mine. It's one of these: https://www.bax-shop.co.uk/pickguard/boston-m4v-110-tr-1-ply-pickguard-for-sire-marcus-miller-v-transparent But be warned - it's a poor fit & the pickup hole & heel cutout needed lots of careful filing to get it to fit. Looks great now but took hours of fiddling to get it right.

Harder Than Your Husband Zappa

Row Row Row your boat - The Countdown Singers

Tarquin The Tobogganist - Billy Connolly

I'll be honest, as I approach 50 getting a "proper" Fender becomes more appealing, and the Ultra range is definitely on the list.

And from the PoV of a business owner every customer is equally important, and you simply never know when an initial enquiry one day will lead to them being you biggest and most important customer a year down the line. That's certainly been the case for me on more than one occasion, and why I ensure that every email gets a reply with in 24 hours and ideally within the hour, even if it's just to say I'm looking into it.

Funnily enough, this week, I've had an agency contact me about doing a carnival 3 and a half hours way. 7 piece band. Fee? Free. I politely declined. The band would be heavily in debt for petrol costs for the 7 hours round trip for starters before we'd even played a note. Interesting enough, I went to the carnival page, and there they are, no surprise, asking for donations to fund it. I found it interesting that the ask for anybody freebies, musicians are the first to target. I wonder if they paid to go through an agency to avoid the onslaught from the bands.

Armageddon Ready Michael Kiwanuka

I don't see anything demeaning towards the unfortunates who have had the poor experiences.

I think the bigger issue is how have Fender, who were started on the basis of producing instruments in a cheap and innovative way, managed to promote themselves as a high end maker while having innovated almost nothing since the 50s. They maintain a premium price by continually moving the lowest end product to a cheaper location, and rebranding the previous base model at a higher price. I am not anti Fender, but we should be honest about what they are actually producing. Fender is the Ford of musical instruments - and we shouldn't think about paying Ferrari money for them

The P5R is pretty tasty in natural..... If they did that body with the roasted maple neck then I'd be very tempted!

Do you know what? I'm not even sure which band it was. Time it seems does heal. I'm in much better bands now.