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Finally they have addressed the Sire headstock controversy! 😂

OK new server is purchased and we're migrating everything in the next few days. We'll test it for a bit and make a switch over soon. This will involve importing the database. The site itself shouldn't be down/offline at any stage but I'll let everyone know.

But how will anyone complain about the ugly headstock if there isn't one?

After a longer than anticipated wait, I got the news that the neck is finished, the bass assembled and set up today. It's due to arrive tomorrow, I'll do an NBD post when I've had a chance to get to know it, but for now I'm really happy with the aesthetic.

It's fan fret time... as someone alluded to in a thread about fan fretted basses, Sire have unveiled their new M6 range: Looks like fretless is probably on the table also, dunno about lefties yet. Skeleton official pages (subject to change and probably removal when things go proper official) 4 - https://sire-usa.com/products/refn1ay3zbjam3bq-36831494282 5 - https://sire-usa.com/products/refn1ay3zbjam3bq 6 - https://sire-usa.com/products/refn1ay3zbjam3bqs So have at it - the headstock's gone, they're using their own body shape (adapted from the M2/5/7), so you're going to have to find new things to complain about

Years ago, I got a bit hot under the collar about an offer, which on reflection I shouldn't have. Not a musical instrument - a motorcycle. Me, vaguely attracted to some other bright shiny thing in the shop: "How much would you give me for this?" Them: "We're not really interested in that" Me: "How much?" Them: "£1000" At which I took umbrage (scrap value of said bike was about £1500), but on reflection I was really ignoring what they kept telling me, that they didn't want it. It did take me many, many months to get to that point of reflection though. I think (going back an awfully long way to the OP) there is an awful lot to consider in terms of a "straight trade". The shop has bought in an item with a certain level of mark-up. There's VAT considerations on this as well. It becomes a lot more complex in terms of profit and loss than "you're selling A for £x, here's B that I'd like £x for". There's a few on here that have actually worked in shops who could give a more informed view than me.

So the monthly jazz jam I go to has moved venue and whether it's because the 'stage' was on a hard floor and is now on carpet, or something else, I don't know, but I just can't hear myself through the house bassist's down-firing Acoustic Image combo any more. 'I know what' I said to myself, 'I'll bring my own rig next time, the compact transportable one, then I'll be in charge of my own sound. Job's a good 'un!' 'There's one problem,' I replied, 'you don't have a compact transportable rig.' 'Ah,' I said, 'fair point. Guess I'll have to get round to building that Basschat 1x8 then.' So then (and no more internal dialogue, I promise): driver and hardware obtained, timber supplies assessed, and a trip round the side of the house made to cut a bit off the length of spare drainpipe that's been lying around there ever since we moved in; deadline for completion, next jam on 13th Feb; let's go! I already had some bits of B&Q 12mm ply, and one of them was a strip I got cut 280 mm wide for some forgotten reason, so to save me a couple of cuts I've slightly adjusted the size to use a 280 mm wide baffle and back panel. Do not mix these two up Remaining cuts made with the handheld electric saw, using a batten or piece of board clamped to the workpiece as a guide, after careful adjustment (and checking the guide piece is actually straight). This could easily go wrong, but I seem to have got away with it. I cut the driver and port holes with the Dremel and circle attachment. This was very easy but in my excitement I forgot to properly allow for the cut thickness, so both holes have come out a couple of mm bigger than planned. Bit of a pain for the port, which will need packing out with something, but still plenty of wood left for the speaker to seal on as long as it stays properly centred in the aperture. To ensure that I cut some little pieces of a moulding I happened to have spare, and glued them to the insides of the cutout, and that seems to be just right to keep the speaker located. Now off to watch Phil's assembly video one more time…

Yeah - hope so; the shares and well wishes online show how much love there is for the big guy.

10 weeks actually. End of the financial year. Great. Spend more on an amp with someone's name on it and slightly different knobs. Neither of them will be any different from standard models I bet.

Rex will be endorsing something else within 6 months 😉🤣

I got an immaculate P10 for 499! [OK not ss] Sires look gorgeous.

Have you seen how far the tuners extend beyond the confines of the bodies? They're only going to last five minutes etc. 😏

This is always the argument but it doesn’t hold. You get capital flight from people like Philip Green (remember him?), but the majority of people want to live in their country of birth and close to existing friends and family. I imagine a lot of this stuff is auction fever. People getting carried away and buying what look to me like pretty average guitars (apart from the genuine vintage pieces). When your £10k gig bag arrives, the big question of course is how you’re going to display it so all the guys at the golf club can wonder at how low the action is and how incredible the sound must have been when Jeff unzipped it.

To me these delirious prices paid are simply the proof that solutions to definitely solve starvation, poverty and in the end all problems in the world do exist: Tax these wealthy people a lot more than they are and redistribute everything as nobody needs to own millions of grounds.

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DFLB1L-Pqqo/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link They look lovely! https://www.gallien-krueger.com/rb-legacy

Any Overwater bass owners here? I have two Overwater bassess, both fretted and fretless. Been using it for gigs over the last two years and am very happy with them. I think Overwater is like the Fender Custom Shop basses in terms of build and quality. When I placed my order with Chris, initially I went for the hollow body series but later on I realized(or I think Chris told me) only both wings are hollowed. There is a centre solid block of wood in between. Well, that wasn't what I wanted as I was looking for a totally hollow body one in which 2 years later, I ordered a Stradi but that a story for another time! Anyway, so I changed to the J series instead. Don't think Chris was too impressed with the switch, sorry Chris! The first one was a fretless and I like it so much that I ordered a fretted one afterward! 😁

Chris and Martin built me an Inspiration in 2013, and I also have a J5 with a J-Retro and Bartolinis from 2007. They're both phenomenal basses. The Jazz was my number one for my whole career as a functions bassist. I've been to the workshop in Carlisle a couple of times and met up with them at the LBGS a few years ago too. Great guys (and girl) and terrific craftmanship; they've really set the bar for me as to what fit and finish to expect on a high-end instrument.

Meanwhile in my madness… gloss on Matt black - looks pretty good!

@ped & @Woodinblack Loving your work guys. ❤️

When I bought mine it was only a couple hundred more than the Fender artist range! So I was always going to opt for something hand made to my spec in the UK! Plus you can guarantee it will sound great with an Overwater, unlike Fender, even custom shop!

Regarding whether Alembic.basses are worth the money, whilst I don't want to set off the usual Basschat "is any bass really worth more than £7.50 and a bag of pork scratchings?" debate yet again, what I will say is that Alembics have something unique to offer in terms of sound. Most other high end basses, even equally expensive ones, don't. You're talking about elite level instruments with their own design philosophy, built by proper craftsmen. That isn't going to come cheap. No one needs an Alembic. You buy one because you want one, and because you can.

Reverend Triad 5 Strings. Nice.

I know its a small detail, but I wish Fender would bring back the early 70's headstock with the full size (Gotoh shape) tuning keys. I wanna see a nice TV script decal too, I really have no idea why they thought the newer shape looks better?

A Cort with a Fender logo you say? That'll be an extra £200 please!

There is a Barefaced Big Twin for sale for £800 in the listings. I have no connection with the seller but that seems like a fantastic deal, if you want something that is not going to fart out on the lows at volume. If you don’t need the highs, you can turn the compression driver down. I suggest it is all the cabinet anyone is going to need but might be eclipsed by my next suggestion. On the modular front, LFSys has been mentioned and I can second that, being the owner of a Monza (10”). The Monaco (12”) must be even more bullet proof. Rated at 600 watts AES @ 8 ohms it’s going to cope with all but the highest output amps at full chat. Don’t take my word for it though, search for the threads about LFSys on here and/or drop @stevie a DM to discuss your needs.

Wow!

I thought I'd bring this thread back up, since we're finally seeing some action in the mid-to-low price ranges: Gear4Music have rebranded their Coliseum basses as the G4M 972 range, in 4, 5, and 6 strings (link to 5) Andertons are stocking the HILS NEXT HNB5 in a few colours: here's the Rose Gold for £599 Yesterday, Sire showed their new M series multiscale headless basses at NAMM: so far, the only info I have is from a photo via Reddit, nothing official yet. There are 4, 5 and 6 string models too. No word on scale length, but I see they are highlighting low weight (under 8 lbs):

Decided to try my hand at a layout for the simple Alembic SVF that's been around for a while. I have yet to send the files to the fab house, so hopefully it works. I also changed the power supply to a ±9V supply which I nicked from Peter Rutter at VFE Pedals (brilliant designer). He uses a similar supply for some of his designs.

Any number of late '70s/early '80s post-copy era Japanese basses. Single P unit, usually (but not always) symmetrical body, 2-a-side headstock was a blueprint for dozens of the things. Westone, Westbury, Vantage, Washburn, Kasuga, Hondo - pretty much every brand did at least one. Prices start around £200ish, DiMarzio Model Ps used in lots of them, a good few with neck through builds. Got a couple myself, funnily enough.

So back in Dec I had moulds made of my ears and today I received two sets of custom IEM tips back from Snugs. For those of you who haven't followed this these are custom made moulds that are made to fit your ears one side and to fit your own headphones the other side with the idea that you get all the benefits of custom IEM's and a proper seal but at a fraction of the price. In my case I've been using in-ears for monitoring with my band and no back line for a couple of years successfully and had the usual journey towards them that so many people have experienced. I now have custom tips for my KZ ZS10 Pros which is probably the most popular choice for bassists here and also my Sennheiser IE100's another popular choice. OK they have arrived today and this is an initial impression, I'll do something with a proper write up after I've gigged them, all I've done today is try them out in my studio playing bass and singing along to recorded music. Let me say I'm blown away by how good they are and for £160 for two lumps of plastic they are absolutely worth it. The sound through both headphones is improved but one now just blows me away. More later about that. So I started with my Sennheiser IE100's They have to be mounted in the tips before putting the tips in your ears, a bit fiddly but get everything lined up and the buds just snap into place. Conveniently the right tip was marked in red as is the right bud from Sennheiser. The next thing is to push the tips into your ears, that wasn't easy they are a perfect fit when in place which means nothing fits until you get them there and they feel too bulky to fit. Eventually I wiggled them into place and they felt comfortable, really comfortable, like 'I could wear these all day' comfortable. Sound isolation was good but no better than the triple flange tips I'd been using whch are great but feel like a surgeon is enthusiatically probing up to my eardrum with a metal probe. The thing was that ten minutes later (looking for something that has a headphone socket) the isolation hadn't changed and didn't change until I took the plugs out. The sound when I finally found an adaptor and connected to my mixer was just stunning, bass was full and deep but just there not artificially enhanced, vocals were gorgeous and cymbals lovely and clean but with no jarring from over-presentation. I was hearing things I only get from my £200 open backed Sennheier over ears. Having that perfect fit to my ears meant all frequencies were there in the correct balance and it sounded lovely. Singing along with the music gave me a painfully honest reflection of my voice with a little bit of a peak from my old EV microphone, bass just sits in the mix where you put it. The volume goes to painful without distortion. The real glory though is that the IEM's stay put so the bass doesn't change and outside noises never intruded because whatever i did the seal remained intact. When the time came to remove them you need a real tug and a wiggle to get the plugs out. I replaced the Sennheisers with the ZS10's, this time I read the instructions and found Snugs had provided some 'IEM Balm' to apply to the tips which made fitting a little easier. IEM balm looks ly KY-Jelly to me I didn't like the ZS10's as much Having a perfect seal underlined the exagerrated frequency resonse of the KZ's Bass was a little overpowering as was the top end and the mids have a couple of resonances which make my voice slightly more unpleasant than it actually is (honest) . I'd bought the Sennheisers to get a better vocal sound which I've never got on with from the KZ's I suppose I'd hoped that the customs would cure the midrange issues but they didn't. Nothing bad happened, the KZ's just sounded like KZ's not exagerrated or toned down. So initial conclusions, custom tips will get the best out of your off the shelf IEM's I can't see them ever coming out during a performance and you don't lose the bass as happens when the seal is imperfect. I'd hoped for exceptionl isolation and maybe expected too much, these are as good as the better ear plugs but there is some ambient noise coming through, You wont hear normal speech if any music is coming through but a loud drummer would be audible. The big difference is that it doesn't make a difference what you are doing these customs just sit there. Custom tips v's custom IEM's? I can't tell you how close the custom tips get to the real thing but Custom IEM's seem to go up from £500 plus fitting. On a special offer I paid £125 for the tips and the Sennheisers cost me £85 so that's £210 overall. On top of that I've seen people unhappy with the quality of the built in speakers in £500-1,000 IEM's, that's a lot to pay for something you might not get on with. I'll get some picsup next week

Sorry, my dry humour once again appears to have been too dry

I have a 36" 6 string. It is quite the machine.

Just seen this pic from the GK booth being set up..... new BIG amps, based around legacy front panels?!?

I was hoping for more granularity from Fender, it's long overdue 😁

Oh, very cool! If they could make a more compact chassis, but keep an old school power stage, that would be marvellous! I have a Legacy, and I actually like it a lot, since getting the right cab for it, but I do yearn for some old school power goodness, although, my back does not. Having grown up playing through the 90s and 00s, I miss the comparatively effortless power that we took for granted back then, from properly powerful old school solid state units, Trace and Peavey in my case. Class D is OK, but what we had before was better, way better actually, just bigger and heavier. Whoever can really crack the proper power stage in a small box puzzle can have my money!

We're running out of room on the server. I'll look into an upgrade - a quick look at current offers shows we can upgrade to one which will be 3x faster with double ram and storage... It'll happen in the next few days, all being well

I've got something to complain about! Why do we have to totally oversaturate the market? 😅 There's so many of these types of basses now and I swear they're all made in the same factory.

This is the stock response to any thread like this, and nobody is going to disagree. I spend £8 on coffee, for example, which is excessive when I could but instant from Lidl for £2. However, people are paying preposterous amounts of money for things that Jeff Beck ( a great artist but hardly a generational talent who’ll be remembered forever) may not have ever touched or used. The second thing is that these amounts are huge. Gross displays of wealth - like paying £10k for a gig bag, for example - are shocking.

Peavey might make them, but the Trace team at Peavey are all hardcore Trace fanboys/fangirls. They know and love that sound and have done a great job at reproducing it in the TE-1200. Just much, much louder. It’s the first amp I’ve had that’s really stretched the limits of my Barefaced Big Twin II. I just wish they’d make some more practical cabs to go with it - they’re either too small (the 1x10” or 2x8”, the ones meant for the ELF) or enormous and heavy. We need new versions of the old 1153 and 2103H - ie, something that’ll actually fit into a normal-size car and not break your back when moving them!

Even though I'm on the other side of the Atlantic and I've never found these in stores, I have to buy 36-bar boxes of them from Amazon, there's nothing quite like them!

Any shape you like with a P shaped pickup in it. Not P sounding enough for you? Change the P pickup.

Here's my starter for 2025. The teddy bears have met up for a picnic and a bit of a dance. Led by Ted and Ginger, they gently two-step all their worries away. Extensive use of the Ableton sound library for this one with drum samples from Looperman and some Strat copy guitar with a Daphon wah-wah pedal. Wavepad and Audacity, natch.

Not being the target market for anything teddy-bear related, I done some funky stuff featuring slap ACG and DOD filter. POW! (or not...) Loud guitar stuff is by fellow Weed Johnny Boy Sultrypants... Rest by me!