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Some good efforts there but I've decided to bring out the big guns.

I don't know you Andy, other than reading some of your posts on here but I suspect that although you are asking this question, you already know the answer- the time has come to take a break. I've done this before- I've been playing the bass since school in the 70s and at a point just before the millennium, I had had enough. I wasn't enjoying gigging, wasn't getting a buzz out of original material so I wrapped it in. I did no gigs for about 5 years and the break did me good. If you feel that you need to liquidate the value in your gear then plan it carefully so as to avoid regret later on down the line. For me, amps, cabs and effects would be the first to go - you won't need them and if you ever do again, the gear you'll be able to buy will be louder/ smaller/ lighter than the stuff you got rid of. If you don't have one however, get yourself a good practise amp - ie one that really does sound like a big rig only quieter - if it takes headphones and an aux input that's all you'll need. Basses to me are more personal and I form a greater attachment to them. You may be the same so work out the one(s) you would save first if the house was on fire and keep them. If it was me, I'd need to keep a fretted and a fretless - you'll have your own criteria. Also bear in mind that older instruments are likely to retain their current value or increase whereas newer instruments will still generally be on a depreciation cycle. Life's too short to be unhappy. I wish you well.

Fixed it...

One of them actually was crucified. Harsh but fair - nobody's ever late for rehearsals now.

Likewise, I've been there, seen it, still got the T shirt that is about 3 sizes too small for my middle aged spread and saggy man breasts. Like you I had completely lost all interest in being in a band or even making any music on my own. In fact it's happened to me twice over the 32 years or so since I first started playing bass. What killed it off for me on both occasions was people; either not pulling their weight and wasting my time as well as that of the others who were trying to make the band work, or other people with their various neuroses; arrogance, back stabbing, ego, drama queenery, etc. There's no cure for being a thingy, as Bron son of Bron says . Anyway, a different set of reasons to you but the same endpoint, so I completely empathise with your current situation and get the fact that you think it's all behind you and is never going to happen again. On both occasions I went through it I did eventually come out on the other side and get back into music, but the second time took about 6 years before I was ready. My advice, for what it's worth, would be to liquidate some of your unused gear and take the family on that holiday. It sounds as though you need it more. The sight of the unused expensive jazz bass is kicking you while you're down so move it on out of the way, it'll be one less thing weighing on your mind. But I would suggest that you hang on to enough gear to noodle/jam/gig with so that in future if that pilot light ever reignites, as mine did, you are able to jump back in without necessarily having to buy a load of new, expensive gear (although if you're as bad as the rest of us you will anyway )

This made me laugh http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ouOKCgdMz4

Mr C has been busy as ever in the workshop and has just sent me this pic of the neck/ fingerboard. Side/ top partial fretlines and position dots are in some kind of metal alloy and look great to my eyes. You can also see the 5 piece laminate of maple/ wenge that the neck is made from at the "headstock" which of course will be disappearing as this bass will be headless.

So, thanks to @andy67 for selling the Little Bastard to me, and thanks to @eude for bringing it all the way daan Saaf from Edinburgh. A nice little collection of Essex’s finest; old school valve, slightly newer old school class AB and modern class D. What more could a boy want?

Had two this weekend, which is a rarity. Played a pub ten minutes walk from my house on Friday, so took the new preamp pedal I made in order to go through the PA and not have to use my amp. It worked a treat, meaning I was able to walk instead of drive and have a few jars during/afterwards. So I enjoyed that one, although my fingers were killing me the next day from having carried my heavy bass case all the way home. Swings and roundabouts I guess! Last night's was good, but I spent five minutes in a mad panic when we were setting up. I wasn't getting any signal when I put my guitar through my tuner. I borrowed some leads from the guitarist to make sure it wasn't that. Nothing. Damn it! Why was it not working? It switched on ok... Then I noticed I'd put the guitar jack in the output socket and wired the amp up to the input. "Is everything ok?" "Yeah, don't know what was up but it's working now. Must have been a dodgy connection or something..."

I've had a similar experience. I was in bands a lot 2006-2014 until my son was born, then not at all until my marriage ended. I dipped in and out of bands for a few months after the divorce as I had more spare time, spent a lot on basses that were in and out the door over the course of a year but generally wasn't fussed with playing. My current position is i'm quite busy with work, have just moved in with my partner and have £3k of gear not doing much. I have the time perhaps now for bands, but not the energy or commitment. A few jams here and there every month would be perfect, but nothing that dips into my time significantly. I know I won't stop buying/selling, but it'll be far less frequent that it has been. @AndyTravis I feel you should sell anything you aren't using that has a significant potential financial benefit, certainly keep a bass or two for to scratch that itch you will inevitably get. Having less stuff is quite liberating.

I've just taken delivery of a BQ500. Tested it briefly in the garage (just to make sure everything's working) and it's chuffin' loud compared to my Hartke HA3500. Will keep you all updated to the finer nuances of sound quality after a rehearsal. In the garage it rattled everything :p The aux in sound wasn't great, although I'm putting a lot of that down to a 410 cab not being designed to play music from an iphone. The knobs on the front do not alter the aux-in sound, only the bass guitar.

Top of the Pops 1986 is doing the rounds on BBC4, featuring a Ricky toting Richard Searle in Dr & the Medics.

"With your Elvis Presley and wasp-waist and swivel-hippy, show you had, and I must say it showed it first self in pictures with the rhythmic contrapole of the wobbling of the hipper, sideways with the head and tilty, gave him that expression both also with a little doggy-lublike in the eyebold which he conveyed to the smaller femailode of the specie, coupled with his music because he did trittly-how fine on the strims, helped him along the roamer [....] I heard it first of all on a record in the early mordy: I was doing the shavit-huff with my razor blade, which of course is a safety one, and suddenly, suddenly he did a little syncopole or a drop-it and how, or something he did and caused a jerkit over a pimplode and I've been suffering ever since!" Stanley Unwin, Comedian 1911 - 2002 A stark warning about the dangers of shaving while listening to that new fangled Rock and Roll. Gird your pimplodes folks. You will know you have broken one if you hear a squarnch.

I stopped playing for about 4 years. From about 2000-2009 I was in a band and we played a lot. Recorded a lot. Funnily enough I didn’t play bass, I played a whole heap of other instruments in it. Eventually I quit it as tbh the leader was a bully and my confidence was shot to pieces. I sold pretty much everything musical I had. 4 years later and I was frankly miserable. Mrs B said it was because there was no making music in my life. I told her it wasn’t that, but she persisted. So, eventually I bought a bass - the instrument I hadn’t played for probably 15 years or so. Sometimes we need a break to see what it actually means to us and how it fits into our lives. That’s natural. For me, the process was cathartic. I still have massive confidence issues - despite many telling me they are unfounded. I played my fretless at rehearsal tonight. It was the first time in front of anyone. I pulled it off - just about - the buzz was incredible, but I know perfectly well that only about 3 years ago I wouldn’t have even entertained having it in the house. Do what you think is right for you right now. Life is too short to worry about it. Your kids will grow up - there will be a time when you have more spare time and more spare cash - and opportunities aplenty to play if it’s right for you then.

But there's only three of them!

A small but important step today. So I don't lose the interesting figuring of the top with the bits you end up cutting away, I took off 15mm from the width so that the two 'eyes' weren't off the edge of the waist. Having done so, I had to re-jointer the mating faces. For this I used the offset fence technique again on the router table. It needs careful set up but works a treat: Then the two halves were glued and clamped: And we had a piece of joined top wood: Seen through a paper template and dampened a bit, this will be the broad look. Once it's been sanded and finished, it's going to look v good :

Hello folks! I've just decided to join up after my uncle-in-law (if that makes sense) mentioned the forums. I'm a bit of a newbie as this is my first post but I have stumbled on various forum posts in the past when looking for tips and advice. Gear wise I'm a bit of a hermit. I have a very...ahem, interesting Peavey Milestone III. Which is delightful and very resonant but could certainly do with a rewiring I think. I also have a double bass, which is my true baby but it certainly does not get enough love. It is a Paesold 590P, its big and German and beautiful. Laminated tone woods and really hefty strings. I've slapped it and bowed it and plucked it and it always sounds lush but that might just be because it is a double bass. I don't own any bass amps as yet because I have never had the financial position to get own and happened to be in bands with folks who I can borrow them from. I love playing the bass in bands and probably favour it over my other instruments (which are also delightful but I feel I ought not to mention them here). Anyway, that's me. I look forward to getting to know the community more. P.S. The podcast was quite an interesting listen this morning :D

I’m the same (but a it earlier). I’ve got somewhere near £15k worth of gear, but at times it was up to around £40k. You can see the old pre cbs basses I sold. I have cleared it all out and only now have the 66 candy apple Jazz (that took me two years to buy) and a Paul Bryant double bass. The rest are all on their way out slowly. I run a business and when I get home and have put the kids to bed I’m just shattered. Everyone I know has told me to wait a few years, so I’m planning to do that. A hobby should be something to enjoy not feel guilty about.

I suppose that means I'd have to take it somewhere pretty, then! (I'm in the top right hand corner of Wales, where even the dragons won't go.)

Who knows when I'll have to drop out of the gigging band scene. When it happens it won't be my decision or choice. My enthusiasm for gigging and being in a band is the same as it was when I was 12 years old. Couldn't be higher. I'm not married, no family, and I don't work anymore. So no responsibilities. I'll be tossed out due to the lack of gigging bands in my area and my age. I fully realize I'm part of a very small minority. Blue

Only been using Ashdown for the past 2 years, Dave, and my Rootmaster is a 500, 800 is just showing off imo 🤣 , but my opinions are pretty much the same. I`ve bought/sold a lot of Ashdown gear to get the "right" set-up for me - all have sounded great, just wanted to find the most efficient set-up for my needs and now have it. The sound, reliability, value for money, I just can`t think of buying a different brand of amp/speaker now.

Ah, Ashdown amps, a conundrum if ever there was one. They really don`t get the kudos they deserve imo. Sound great in the mix, are easy to get a variety of great sounds from, and are very reasonably priced new, let alone second hand. Ok, some of the amps/cabs/combos are heavy in relation to some of the other modern gear that`s about, but when you hear the sound in the mix, well that weight is worth it, certainly to me. And they`re not stupidly heavy anyway.

From reading this in your position I think keep the two you helped design as prototypes, they`ll be irreplaceable, and keep the Jazz. Comments/sentiments like "kick yourself forever" show that bass really means something to you, and you may well come back to bass playing - like many of us on here who have taken breaks, keeping at least one bass is a wise idea, but given the design aspect of the other 2 I think they have to be kept as well as the Jazz. And taking a break, why not, I`ve been in that position, left music completely for about 4 or 5 years, didn`t play, go to see bands, or even buy any music, I just had no interest, like the spark had gone. But it came back, with some it never does, but don`t feel bad about wanting to take a break, nothing says we bassists have to be playing all the time, and buying and selling even more (well maybe some small print on Basschat does say the latter, lol).

That's a lovely bit of work from Steve. Seller's asking price is well OTT,shame or I'd make him an offer 😎

A guitar machine - like a drum machine, but for guitars. With a volume knob. And a mute button. And an off switch.

Ace, I expected little else from him. Hope to see you soon Tom.. Totally love EFSB, love the guys from the band - I've depped bass with them on more than a few occasions too so they're always on my 'good' list, ha..

Interesting reading Andy.... I know from recent conversations that you currently have a lot on your plate....however when I read your initial post I was constantly adding "currently" to the points you were making. Like you, and many others who are contributing to this thread, I got to the point where making music meant little to me. However there were times when not having instruments around left a huge hole in my life - I find that playing a musical instrument is what satisfies the creative part of me - without this I feel "not whole". Sometimes a 15-20 minute "noodle" can be priceless for my soul. I'm currently not gigging or playing with other musicians. I don't care...I often don't play for weeks at a time, it doesn't really matter...but when I do pick up an instrument it fulfils a part of me that very few other things do - maybe drawing/painting to some degree, perhaps walking the dog - but I believe that the thing that drives us as musicians is the creative outlet we get from it. Yes, there are times, when our commitment to playing is low. I think this often runs parallel to the other shite that's going on in our lives. What I regularly fall back on is picking up a bass, plugging in and tuning out the rest of the world. Playing, for me, can be really cathartic - a place I escape to when the rest of the world is shite... Personally, when I feel the way you are currently I too think about unloading everything I own. Fortunately, for me, the market is weak at the moment so it's unlikely that I'm going to get what I think my gear is worth - this puts the brakes on - now is NOT the time to sell. I also remember how I felt without my creative outlet, another reason to hold on to my gear. Many of us here have an excess of gear - if you can unload some of it and use the proceeds to make other aspects of your better than by all means do that. What I wouldn't do though is be without a bass. Instruments, to me, are more than the sum of their parts. They aren't just bits of wood and metal - they are the thing that make me whole again and recharge my inner being - possibly not today, but one day, the thing that you may need to be "Andy" again. As others have said, take some time off, free up some cash, concentrate on some of the other aspects of your life - but don't turn your back on what I know must have been one of your true loves - making music. Hang in there...

Bit of paint on it now, starting to take shape.

I had a similar one once, gigging with a backing track running through my mixer, the soundman is asking me why there's no output, I can hear it in my headphones and just assume he's got something patched wrong. He checked all the connections then looked at my mixer, pressed a button to patch my track through to the right bus, and all worked. "Don't worry about it mate, I've got lots of experience as an engineer" he said. I told him I run a recording studio to which he replied "oh dear, that's embarassing!". I was amused and embarrassed i equal measure

Because you don't create a pure, constant sine wave with your bass. The average power draw of that amp is 30W due to the fact that a typical bass duty cycle is around 1/8 power. As in, the average output of your amp is around 1/8th of what it's capable of. Imagine what fuel consumption figures you'd have to quote when selling cars if you measured their fuel consumption driven flat out. You don't, you measure the car in something that approximates real life use rather than full-tilt-boogie.

Personally, I'd sell the majority of your gear. It has some sentimental value but, at the end of the day, it's just stuff. The happy times they will buy with your kids will be worth more than money. Keep one bass, flog the amps and other gubbins and buy a wee practice amp off here. That way you can have a little noodle around if the mood takes you. One thing I'll say above all else - please don't stop posting here just because you're not as musically active as you were. You're a valued poster and I'm sure many of us would miss you. We've lost too many good guys recently - don't be a stranger!

Nice to see some familiar faces here 🙂 My gang:

Sounds like starting a new journey away from the " band thing" isn't a bad idea. Plus it's something you can come back to even after a long absence, lots of the older guys here have. Blue

We all know what he REALLY means...

I forget occasionally just how uniquely good 10cc were, but I’m rewatching the BBC4 documentary just to remind myself...

I'm happy to give our Canadian friend a free hours tour of London in my cab. Just PM me and hopefully we can sort it out a convenient time.

Just my take on it - I think there’s nothing fundamentally wrong with streaming music replacing previous formats, but the money aspect has to change. The current model that’s in place has worked well as an alternative to torrenting, but it has completely fkd up how much financial value the world places on music. If the current system continues, music culture will completely disappear, and we will be left with a nice library of 20th century music and very little else of any genuine cultural value. Musicians, like anyone else, have to be able to make a living from what they do in order to dedicate time to creating meaningful things. Without that, it’s always going to be a part-time occupation for those who don’t want to follow the clickbait model. Currently we have nothing but clickbait garbage driving the ‘industry’ forward, and that’s not good. So for me streaming is good, but the Spotify model is shïte. And btw I have a paid subscription to Spotify because it has most of the great jazz records within easy reach, but I would never use it to find new music, soundcloud and bandcamp are better platforms for that.

An incredibly kind offer, that man (doffs cap) I tend to hang around various bits of Cheshire, also.

Wow, if you're sure? I can then drop it in with someone. Either Trevor in Staines or someone down south. I guess it also depends on how long @TrevorR wants it. As I see it, some folk are going to need to ship it by courier. It's only a matter of who. After all, petrol/diesel isn't free either.

I'll keep an eye, maybe it'll be relisted for less.

That is because it is almost impossible to get it to do 180hp for a sustained time. However, if you stick a big distortion pedal on your bass and turn everything up flat out, or put a keyboard through your amp, you can easily make it match that output power for a sustained time. So as analogies go, it kind of sucks! On the back? I would have thought it would be obvious that you should write what you mean, ie: "Maximum 300W". or "Average 40W" - anything else makes no sense. Who cares when they look at the back of an electrical item what the average or idle current is? All you care about is that the source you are plugging it into can provide the power necessary. When you buy a cooker hob it doesn't give you the power rating with only one hob on does it? that makes no sense at all. I bought a psu for a PC the other day. It was specified as a 300W power supply. Should I now take it back because it is only using 40? If I look on the back of a TC RH450, here it says above the plug 85W @ 1/8 of max output. That is clear and unambiguous. Proper labelling. If it said just 85W it would be a lie.

I'm back in as of Weds, so yup, see you on Saturday! 😀

I've got this one... Very fond if it. It's a bit frustrating to know its got tasty laminated wood under the paint that you can't see. Unless you look really close up.

Sorry to see you've been experiencing issues with your Ric. I bought a 2018 4003s a few months ago in Midnight Blue and it's a fantastic bass. I tried as many as I could get my hands on before committing to purchase the one I ended up with. Based on that experience, there are noticeable differences between each instrument. I'm happy to say that I found a good one - i'd go as far as to say it is flawless unlike every other Ric I tried as part of my search. The rear pickup isn't wonky, the finish is perfect, the neck is dead straight with a low action and no fretbuzz, it intonates perfectly and yes, it has THAT tone. I've left the pickup guard on. It took a while to get used to it being there but following some adjustment of my playing style i'm happy with it being there and to me it looks right! BTW, the earthing wire on the rear pickup on my bass isn't visible. It looks like someone's been messing around. I'm wondering if Reidys removed the pup cover for some wanting to try the bass out without it and didn't replace it correctly? Hope your replacement bass meets expectations. Let us know how you get on.