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Righty ho, time I kept all you lovely people up to date. First op was 20th Jan. This was anterior lumbar interbody fusion and basically bangs a titanium cage between L5 and S1 vertebrae, spine and pelvis partial fusion. Done from the front. Can be dangerous but went well. Next up, spine reshaping and fusion from S1 to T10. That's a long way. During this op, I managed to effectively bleed out, most being recycled and put back in. Nine hours straight, in one position, so I have a collection of pressure injuries too, although fairly trivial. Couple of days in ICU, then to normal ward. Progressing well, then oopsie, leg turned into a blimp. DVT at top of leg/groin area. Further investigations show there are also one in each lung. Much imbibing of anticoagulants! This is sometimes addressed with surgery also, but they've decided against that. I'm pleased, I look like a badly patched rag doll as it is. What counts though, is that my spine has been restored to something like a normal shape - I can stand upright again! Weak as a kitten, and will be for months. Will effectively have to learn to walk again also, as those muscles are very weak after 3 years not doing a lot. Home on Friday, loaded down with dressings, anticoagulants, and pain killers. Even this is a trial, as home is 125 miles from the hospital. The tunnel end is approaching!

Well it’s here! And I can’t turn back! Sounding amazing in front of an amp & on its own. I honestly think I won’t use an amp again live

Yeah, another one of those threads, but with a big thumbs up to GAK. I ordered an EHX Bass Mono Synth pedal the other day from GAK. I'm not particularly in a hurry. It was meant to be delivered between the 7th-9th. Ok. On the 7th I got an email to let me know it'll be delivered on the 8th, by DPD. No delivery slot yet. I decided to work from home and just be there when it arrives, as my girlfriend was not going to be around during the day yesterday. On the 8th I get the delivery slot, around lunchtime: 19:56-20:56. No problem. It's 20:30 (time is important) and I am downstairs talking to my girlfriend and thinking about preparing some food. Since we're exactly in the middle of the delivery slot I decide to wait. I go back upstairs to finish something on the computer. I notice a text from DPD: "sorry you weren't in, we'll deliver your parcel tomorrow at your local DPD shop" Yeah right. It was timestamped at 20:26. It's a very quiet cul de sac and my house is at the very end. I can see and hear from upstairs any car/van approaching, especially at night. Double specially if I'm expecing someone. No, they didn't attempt delivery. We all know that. Interestingy DPD allows you to set actions if you're not in: safe place, deliver to neighbours... My default is to leave with one of my neighbours. We all know each other and it's a good bunch, I got lucky. No, of course they didn't try my neighbours. They just lied. Now, I was not in a hurry. I don't care if they deliver it a day later, three days later. It doesn't matter to me in this case. But it matters to me when they lie. It also matters to me that the DPD shop they chose is around 4 miles away. Can I go to it? I could. Not convenient at all, 'though. And they lied. That really annoys me So I write to GAK last night explaining the situation and I ask them to please contact DPD and get my parcel redelivered at my home address. It'll probably delay matters but what can you do: DPD to get parcel back, back to depot, another day out for delivery... I'm ready to not seeing the pedal until sometime next week at this point. Then this morning: Text from DPD: your parcel is ready to be picked up at some Argos 4 miles away from my home. And hurry up, it'll only be there until the 15th. I also see a flurry of emails from GAK. GAK has already sent me a replacement, due to be delivered tomorrow. I'm not to be bothered with the previous parcel which will make its way eventually back to GAK somehow. I'm not 100% sure I'll get it tomorrow, because... experience. But GAK have been great, which means that in the future when I buy online, I'm going to remember this and will be more likely to buy from them than I was before this. Mistakes will be made, problems will arise, it's unavoidable. What matters most to me is their attitude when dealing with issues... and GAK got top marks.

How about: There once was a trumpet player named Joe With a fish in his horn that smelled so He'd blow with such zeal That the smell was unreal Making folks run and hide down below

The 40th anniversary basses are fantastic instruments in their own right, irrespective of the name on the headstock. I don't believe I've played a better quality instrument at the price point.

Well I'm back in the Sandberg Gang and I'm loving it. I've recently had a cull of all basses over 9 1/2 lbs due to back/hip issues and was looking for something that would do lots of different sounds and was light enough for me to gig with comfortably. After spotting this at Bass Direct I went up to try it and took it home. It's a California II VT in an aged Gold finish with ebony board and blocks. It sounds amazing with the Delanos and the switching between active and passive has really no discernible change in overall volume. The slightly smaller newer body which I at first wasn't sure about is super comfortable and the overall weight is 8lbs 2oz. I'm really very pleased with it.

I use mine with a power amp mostly but sometimes I stick it in the fx return of the handbox WB 100 for a cheeky tube power amp section

Pick up the pieces - AWB

Pending a new family photo, here are the latest additions. A 2022 Fender Player Plus (white) and a 2021 Fender Player (black). The black one has an aftermarket pickguard and the hi mass bridge.

I'd suggest the matching Ashdown extension cab.

You'll get the best result with another cab loaded with the exact same driver. Otherwise you're creating a chain with a weak link. Comb filtering has nothing to do with the driver sizes. It happens in the highs when drivers are placed side by side. Doing so also halves the horizontal dispersion in the mids compared to a single driver, or multiple drivers vertically stacked.

There once was a trumpeteer named Rick, Whose friends loved taking the mick, In his horn they hid a gar, And from the boot of his car, The stench made him feel really sick

Visions of you. Jah Wobble

Worst limerick ever.

The best depth neck is the one that fits your hands. I've been down the narrow and slim route and it used to give me hand cramps (big hands, long fingers) I'm happiest playing a full fat P neck - the chunkier the better too!

Voice leading is hugely important for bass players to understand, because it's one of the main things that separates good players from great players; if you can find the path of least resistance through a chord progression using inversions then all sorts of interesting things can happen in your basslines. This is great to hear. There's a certain mindset out there that makes people think that learning theory* will destroy all creativity, but I think the reverse is true; I'm endlessly fascinated by pulling apart the music that I love to find out how it works. There's a great monologue by the late scientist Richard Feynman from an interview called The Pleasure of Finding Things Out that says it much better than I ever could. *FWIW, I dislike the word theory, it's a dead thing that belongs in dusty libraries. Harmony - the living, breathing, application of the rules of music - is much more preferable.

Near as dammit. The johnny Oates band

Yeah this happened to some frets on my Shuker and Jon simply filed them down - no problems since.

At last. How long has it taken you? ...Im not saying anything.

I have a Stentor Student bass, which I bought as a beginner. After a year or so I got a buzzing on the neck, so took it to a luthier. That was easily remedied, but at the same time I said 'do what ever you think it needs'. He moved the bridge and also the sound post - and its like a different instrument. I also had adjusters put in the bridge so that i could experiment with the action. Taking it to a luthier is the best thing i ever did, and i cant stress what a difference it made - I constantly get remarks about how good the bass sounds (and its the instrument, not the player !)

So this thing will be powered by the usb output on my DC7 and switches and shows preset number on my source audio c4 and it works!!

Also need to consider what frequencies are actually being produced and how audible they are. High pass filters do wonders for making sure power gets used in an efficient way. BTW, my WB100 replaced a valve-pre (Ampeg SVP) and a 460W Mosfet power amp. I play in a loud band. Two heavy guitarists. Tone is different with the WB100, but I don't struggle to keep up any more than I did with my old amp. In fact quite the opposite. Grit, grind and clank would be all too easy. I play a P with the tone sometimes rolled completely off and use flats. I like a good, thick, warm and meaty low end, with a little bit of sizzle on the top, which is a particularly power hungry tone. I sometimes use a high pass filter to get that little more juice out of it sometimes too, but not all of the time. If I put more mids into that and drove it, nobody would be hearing a drummer. It would be earsplittingly painful. One caveat is that when I changed amp, I also changed cab from a Gen II Barefaced Compact to a Gen III Barefaced Super Twin, so there would be a db increase there.

The Enfield basses I tried most definitely had the sorts of controls that you would expect on an active bass. After all what is the point of offering a pickup with the Stingray coil configuration and position if you don't also have something that replicates the sound of the Stringray pre-amp. My impression was that the the instrument had been designed to replicate the sounds of the four most common basses (P, J in both passive and active varieties, and the original Stingray) as well as all the additional possibilities given the pickups and their associated electronics. You bass looks much simpler. Since the original electronics for the Enfield basses were designed in conjunction with John East, it's probably worth getting in touch with him to get answers you need.

@SamPlaysBass, I'm going to rain on your parade with a few practicalities. I play in a couple of bands that do slightly smaller gigs than you appear to - mostly 100-500 capacity venues with the occasional 500+ venue. In the days when I still had a conventional bass rig I can honestly say that my choice of cab(s) made a absolutely no contribution to the bass guitar sound the audience heard. They also made very little contribution to what I heard on stage, as the moment I stepped away from being directly in front the cabs I could hear more bass guitar from the foldback than I could from my rig. Some gigs we played I was being asked to turn the rig down to such an extent so as to not affect the FoH sound, that could hardly hear anything from it even when I stood directly in front of it with the higher speakers right next to my ears! The bass always goes through the PA and IIRC I've had my rig mic'd up on less than a handful of occasions, and since there was also I DI feed from the amp and the driver that was mic'd was chosen seemingly at random rather than spending the time listening to each in turn to decide which was the best sounding, I have no way of knowing exactly what contribution this mic was making to the FoH sound. That's before you deal with the fact that one driver close mic'd in a 6x10 or 8x10 cab does not sound the same as the whole cab from several feet away. Sure the conventional rig looked great and everyone in the bands pulls their weight when it comes to loading in and out, but I could no longer justify to myself taking up all that space in the van and on stage with equipment that made no contribution to what the audience heard and very little contribution to what myself and the rest of the band heard on stage. I'm lucky in that the genres of music I play these days having a conventional backline is not an absolute requirement from an image PoV. I also play a lot of gigs supporting fairly well-known bands from the 80s and 90s and there seems to be a fairly even split between those that still use the same conventional amps and cabs as they did "back in the day" and those that have ditched the backline entirely (occasionally the guitarist may be using some tiny valve combo). I certainly don't miss having to lug big heavy bass amps and cabs about. These days the heaviest items in the load are the drummer's hardware box for one band, and the synth player's over-engineered K&M keyboard stand in the other! And even if I was still using a conventional rig, I certainly wouldn't want to be dealing with the hassle of carnets etc. for using it outside of the UK. I'd be looking at hiring something on the European mainland for that part of the tour. So if it makes you happy, go ahead and agonise over which cab(s) to get, especially if the van space, stage space and the load in and out are no concern. But don't kid yourself that it is making any contribution to the bass guitar sound the audience hears at most of your gigs or even what the rest of your band can hear on stage. Is it really worth the effort?

Fingers crossed for a boring recovery from this point then. Do the physio, even when you think you can't, it's not fun but it's absolutely essential.

If you bought with a credit card, it’s time to phone them and make a claim.

I am doubting 100w can give enough heft to go along with abrasive clanky grit fest if you are doing that with 400w currently. That's some full metal jacket bass going on and you would have lost 6dB of headroom, sounding more like another guitar. Maybe that works for you but unlikely. Cue the "I play metal with my LAF drummer and my 100w does just fine" comments. Everyone's drummer is loud and some are louder. 6dB is 6dB everywhere every time. Assuming the cab you were using was handling all the 400w, that power deficit is literally fully the difference in heft between 100w going into a 410 cab vs two 100w amps going into two 410 cabs. Let that sink in. Same difference as your guitarist trading 50w + single 412 for 100w + stack of 412's. For me tubes do the effortless warm thing when I can be bothered. None of my tube amps are bigger than 200w and I am not trying to rearrange innards. There's pedals for aggro. I had a 50w one that was lovely at low volume and disappeared when push come to shove. Same 6dB down on 200w. It's a similar effect comparing an additional cab on a solid state amp that pretty much doubles output at 4ohm. If you want to be royally rowdy without the weight you're looking for a nice preamp and a class D power amp.

I don't know about the guitarist, but the bassist would find a 5 string handy, so he could learn the song in closed position and just shift up or down as required. In Texas, we have a lot of guitarists that play detuned to Eb ala Jimi Hendrix and SRV, especially for blues, I usually keep a detuned bass for those fellows, but a 5 string works better for jam sessions.

I wouldn't, since my 112 goes as loud as a '69 SVT 810 would. 😉 It's a form factor that we really haven't needed for some thirty years now, thanks to both driver technology and PA. It remains the staple backline rental cab, since you won't find anyone who can rightly say that it's inadequate.

Clicked the TI Jazz flats and thought bleedin' 'ell that's cheap. Nearly bought some in my excitement before I realised it was a single string. 😄

Copper is a good enough conductor of heat that you can solder a bridge across a join withiut damaging the wood/plastic underneath. David