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'Money probably.' - Nope, I think it's fairly safe to say money isn't a huge concern for Nate or any member of the Foo Fighters these days... Unlike many brands today we don't give any free gear to any Artists and Nate pays for his Ashdown gear the same as any other artist. Pic of their payment for Nates last rig attached for you. As you'll see that's money coming in not out... 'In the studio the bass will be DI'd and tracked via some esoteric vintage valve pre-amp' Nope again. Usually it's a mix of Mic and DI from his ABM 900 Head, an old B-15 combo thrown in once in awhile and his BTA 400 as well. It's been this way for the past 15 years. 'The choice of amp and cabs makes zero contribution to the sound either recorded or live' - Really?!? Wow that's quite a statement, if that's the case then I'm not sure what we're all doing here to be honest.... As for testing gear vs ours... The Foo's do this every touring cycle, as you can imagine being in one of the biggest bands in the world Nate is constantly getting gear offered to him, they usually get all the gear together from a multitude of brands for a week of testing during their pre production, after this Nate will pick what he wants to use for that tour. Always a nervous few days from our point of view to be honest but touch wood we have always come out on top. Not for reasons of money or support or promotional purposes but because that's what Nate chooses...

Great response from Ashdown, and what it says to me in a nutshell is that he simply prefers the sound of their gear to other brands. Which is the way it should be imo.

Is it better to jam on a Cream song, or cream on a Jam song?

Is this any help?

I didn't even know there was football on.

That's right - you can fiddle with them for a while, then leg it.

I'll lend amps, but the list of people I'd lend a bass to is very limited. To 1 person actually. And even then the amp lending will have a receipt and a signature. Bad experience means I'm cautious.

all photos will be attached in future, to keep things simple for everyone.

Gotta give Ashdown their dues, they're great at responding...

Ha! That was great fun. 😜 For those concerned about power handling, we smashed 530 watts at 8 ohms into it and it didn't compress at quite insane volume especially for a 1x10. Some manufacturers say things continue to get louder as you turn the volume up. Mostly this is just marketing crap. In the case of the One10, that's actually true.

i'll try and find time to weigh it. its smoother with the sealer, even unsanded.

Not sure if that question is aimed at me or Josie, so I'll give my answer anyway! I'm a huge Dead fan, and to do their music full justice, the sets need to be long. Some of the songs last 30 minutes plus! There needs to be time and space to allow prolonged improvisation, or it simply won't be a GD experience. Over to Josie...

After the recent North West bass bash, lurksalot commented that I should start a build thread for my small battery powered amplifier in case anyone was contemplating a similar folly. Some of this has already been posted on another forum, but since photobucket has blanked out all the images, it seemed to make sense to start at the beginning with a new thread. I play a lot with acoustic guitarists, either busking, or at open mic nights, and my existing combo, a Hartke Kickback 10, was adequate, but rather heavy, and limiting because I had to sit by the power socket so as not to trail cables across the floor. My initial specification was based on the Hartke, with a bit of Phil Jones Briefcase thrown in - about 100W, one 10 inch speaker, one 7 AHr 12 volt battery and 2-3 hours of use per charge. I had already built a couple of Jack 10s. so I had a 10 inch speaker to hand - an Eminence basslite S2010, and for a small box, WinISD suggests a volume of 0.9 cu ft (25.5L)and a port tuned to 58Hz. Eminence offer similar figures on their website. The Mk I was a simple reflex box with the preamp, amp and battery mounted on a plywood plate that could be carried separately, or bolted onto the back of the cab. The amp is a Kenwood car stereo module, containing a switch-mode power supply to give positive and negative voltage rails, and a 60W @ 2ohms pair of class AB amplifiers, so it gives a genuine 120 W into 4 ohms bridged. It was unwieldy and cumbersome to carry when bolted together, and a pain to work with in a crowded room when loaded in in bits. Also, the battery life was OK for an acoustic evening, but for a day of busking I needed more power, so I had another think. The MkII had the same volume and porting, but incorporated the amp in a recess in the back, space for three 7 AHr batteries in the base, and a space for the preamp in the front. The woodwork suddenly became a bit more complicated - And the final result. This one was easier to carry, but the amp, which normally runs cool to the touch, now runs too hot due the lack of circulating air. At this point I started wondering whether I could find a class D amplifier module, and redesign the cab around that. The Mk III used a class D stereo amplifier chip on a ready made pcb - readily available from ebay. Just for a change, I made the cab smaller to accomodate the amp and speaker in the same volume as the Mk I speaker. Having recently aquired an Ashdown MyBass 550 in a trade, I was keen to be able to use it with this pair of speakers, so I added extra speakons and switches to the back of the cab so I could connect either the internal amp or the external amp to the speaker, or connect the internal amp to an external speaker. Almost inevitably, while setting up in a hurry on a dark stage, I managed to connect the output of the MyBass to the output of the battery amp - the MyBass won. At that point I decided that I should go modular, and have separate heads that clipped onto the top of the cab. No more switching options to get wrong, just clip the head on before you leave home and you're good to go. This is the Mk IV - the current version. The Mk III cab was butchered to convert it into a MK I style cab, and kitchen-cupboard kick-plate fasteners were fitted to anchor the clip-on amplifier modules The battery combo: The mains combo: This is the battery powered amp and battery with an earlier version of the preamp. I need to take some more photos before I post the next installment. David

And handling charge by whoever sorts Customs and Theft ?

My three pence worth: whilst I appreciate your dilemma, in my experience people do not take care of borrowed equipment. Personally I wouldn’t not lend the Amp and certainly not the bass. Just state your case and neither a borrower or a lender be 🤓

Just bought a Fender Marcus Miller Jazz bass from Tonci, great communication, all the way though the sale, Bass was packed excellently with all tracking numbers gven, Bass was excellent as described, I love it!! Tonci is a great guy and I would recommend him to anyone Martin

Please explain this. I've heard it mentioned many times over the years, but a quantitive explanation would be most useful. What does it sound like, considering everyone's farts quite different.

As everything said was fact we look forward to it. Hope the gig goes well.

I agree but if your gear wasn’t to hand what would they do? And definitely make it clear you break it you replace it!!!

Being a Bauhaus fan, I used to use exclusively Maxell UDXL2. Not that advertising ever worked on me!

That looks a lot of guitar for the money. The quality of cheapish "starter" instruments is amazing these days. I'm in my 50's and I would imagine like me, many of my peers on here struggled on to beome bass players despite the desperately bad planks we had to start on.

Just seen on Facebook - Origin FX are going to have a very limited number of "blemished" pedals on sale from 30th March with 20% off. No idea what compressor models yet, but for 20% off it has to be worth a look on the day.

I hope this is allowed outside of the buy/sell forums (if not, please let me know) but following a bit of interest I'm putting an order together for a batch of Helix floor/LT protector screen assemblies. If anyone wants one, they are £20 incl. UK postage - either PM me or email : [email protected]

For reference, you probably won't get much from Fender UK. When I was looking at the USA Geddy Lee Bass with the wrong neck on it, I was dealing with a guy in the US Consumer relations dept. called Bryce Wells. Email - [email protected]

Early symptoms of seller's leaver's regret? - What you've written above, doesn't sound too bad to me and I'd trade that for not being in a band at all. Must admit I'm with @blue on this. Making music is all about, well err...making music, whether that be playing live or studio recordings. For me bass was never intended to be a solo bedroom instrument; it was always meant to be in with a bunch of other musos, playing 'cos you all love making great music. As long as some of us are engaging with the audience and they're having a good time, doesn't matter to me that a couple of band members are less extrovert / 'shoe gazers' than others. Been plenty of times when I've got fed up with my bandmates (as I'm sure they have with me!!). But the fun / good times have far outweighed the bad. When that stops being the case, it will be time to move on, but until then the grass definitely isn't always greener, right?

It's the same in the Kemper world too. Everybody trying to flog profiles... alot of them absolutely dire... and with no evidence of them actually being their own profiles, or even profiles of what they are reputably meant to be profiles of. The good thing about the Kemper though, is that there are the established folk out there that have the supporting evidence and great sounding profiles that back up their business. MBritt is probably top of the class for that... and in this country, theampfactory.

Every time you buy a deko instrument from Thomann you take a gamble on whether or not it is actually going to be usable. And while a lot of people have been very happy with their bargain purchases there have also been some instruments that really were for decoration only. If this eBay seller is taking the risk and effort out of buying a deko instrument then what is the problem? If there was something wrong with anything you bought from them then it could be returned for a refund under eBay's "not as described" policy, so there is not risk to anyone buying one of these other than a little wasted time. Since the seller is taking all the risk is it not right that they should also make some money at the same time? I own two deko instruments. One has a design fault with the bridge that means it is less adjustable than it should be, but it does't render it unplayable, and in fact it's been used on a commercially released recording. Also there are plenty of guitars and basses out there with far worse design faults that are sold as perfect new instruments. The only thing wrong with the other deko is the fact that someone has stamped a "D" into the back! To me the whole thing smacks of sour grapes on the part of the OP who seemingly can't be bothered to take the time and effort to grab themselves a bargain directly from Thomann, and want to have a bit of a moan on the internet about someone who is making the required effort and also making some money out of it. Besides we don't know how many of those instruments being sold as dekos are actually only suitable for decoration. It might be that the eBay sellers prices reflect the extra time and money they have to put into making some of the instruments playable and covering their losses on buying instruments that simply aren't worth fixing.

I've been known to jam on a Cream song, but there were no scones involved as far as I know!

Any fan of the correct dimensions, voltage and air flow should do the job. They are usually pretty standard parts, but to source a replacement you are going to need to know the specifications of the existing fan. If you find those out, I'm sure someone will be able to direct you to a suitable replacement

If the same criteria were applied by Fender in the 70's, a significant proportion of highly sought after instruments now would have been sold as decoration only then

Haha! Just showing off my fancy inlays 😅

Joe Dart all over it as usual - lots of E7 vocabulary to steal from the solo! The Fearless Flyers - 'Ace of Aces' bass transcription pdf

If you can play those tupe of bands then youre more than capable of joining a band. Youll never feel ready to join a band, but as soon as you do join one, your playing will improve 10 times quicker than having lessons. Youll naturally push yourself harder, have to play songs you wouldnt neccessarily pick and learn to gel with other band members and what they play - all stuff that you cant get from having a lesson - and far more valuable.

Sure @Cosmo Valdemar just pm me and I can get you on the list.

Good man. There's a topic somewhere on the forum where you can show your material. Sorry I wasn't able to think of its correct title but have a look around if you've not found it already.

This is awesome! Beautiful looking and sounding work!

I was out with Darren on Saturday night. It's very, very clear that the guy is very passionate about music (although we agree to disagree on when Rush's golden period was) and he metaphorically knows his poop, but t hat said, the station operates a playlist, so he is tied to what the station want played.

And as promised, some fancy pics

There are a number of builders on this forum, @Bastav , who are my inspiration and act as my aspiration to improve certain aspects of my own building. To do carves like this without a single lump or bump evident is what I presently strive for. I haven't got there yet and will look at these photos as a reminder of how close I'm getting - or, looking at them here, how far I am away.

Iacopo recently bought reverb pedal from me. Instant payment and great comms. Top basschatter !!!! Deal with confidence

It doesn't play well, but looks cool: