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Yes, this is absolutely part of it. I did explain this to Dave over on TalkBass but I think it might be good to include the same information here. 1. It has nothing to do with Gibson period. The decision was made everybody involved because we are having great difficulty getting parts in sufficient quantities to fill the large number of orders we already have. Not just orders outside North America but also within North America. It makes no sense to try to ship a couple of amps at a time overseas, that's how products get lost and damaged. Especially tube amps. 2. Why are we having challenges with parts? It's not just us, it's the entire manufacturing world that is experiencing these shortages. Raw materials are delayed getting to our suppliers, our suppliers are delayed in their own manufacturing and some of our component manufacturers are experiencing delays from their suppliers. It's not our fault, it's not our supplier's fault, it's a global problem and no matter how much we wish it wasn't so, throwing money at it makes no difference when the parts simply do not exist. 3. In our case, we don't use a lot of generic parts. Many of our parts (like transformers, PCBs, pots, switches, sheet metal, speaker components, enclosures) are custom parts and have longer lead times than generic parts. These have been delayed by our suppliers, and not just suppliers from any one region but suppliers from France, Italy, Spain, Taiwan, Hong Kong, the UK, Germany, China, the US and Canada (I'm sure I'm missing some, but you get the point). This is mostly related to COVID, but because there are many steps in the manufacturing process, each step's delay adds to the total delay. 4. Then there's shipping delays... never have I seen the delays throughout the shipping world. Of course there's the shortage of containers, this was expected, BUT what was not expected was the ship getting stuck in the Suez Canal. It's not the week or two of direct delays, but the resulting suspension of operations at the ports because the ships they were waiting to unload and reload were all sitting out at sea waiting for passage. All those ships loaded with hundreds of thousands of containers that should have been unloaded and ready for their new loads. Combine this with the number of cancelled sailings (where a ship scheduled to depart is cancelled and waits for the next scheduled cycle. If you had containers scheduled for that ship, you were struggling to find alternative passage but often the logistics and global paperwork make it impractical. Containers with perishable goods, as well as livestock have priority, that's how the maritime laws are (and it makes sense). Then, the port delays, the inland shipping, the transfer companies, the rail companies, EVERYBODY is delayed. Oh, and the costs are out of sight too. This has not improved in the last 3 months, and may actually be worse. 5. We had our own factory delays, almost all of last year we had to operate in specialized "safe work cells" with all the necessary isolation and PPE gear. Because of the county we are located in, there were many weeks where we couldn't run ANY production due to stay at home orders. This applied to many of our suppliers too, and not just here, but much of Italy has been locked down pretty hard. Italy and the US are where many of our speakers come from, and THEIR suppliers were also locked down. Some of our suppliers simply didn't survive, we had to use back-up vendors and test sample parts in order to re-qualify the parts (especially where they are part of a safety agency approved assembly)... oh, and the safety certification agencies were also impacted, so there were delays in certifying the new parts so that the entire assembly could be re-certified. This impacts the EU specifically because of the change in EU market standards for legacy products (that do not apply to North America). It's a lot more complicated than "we just didn't want to ship outside of the US". The decision was more of what is practical, and promising something that we have almost no control over doesn't help the situation either. Nobody is happy about this, everybody shares your frustration and disappointment (including me) and we are all very, very sorry. When I know more, I will communicate it with you. Fortunately, there are a lot of good choices in bass gear these days, and if a manufacturer more local to you has stock, it may make better sense to move on for now and maybe revisit this at a later time. Hope this helps.

I love Stingrays but as my band aren't playing live I am playing a much wider range of music than in the past and while my old SR5 could do most things well it wasn't my first pick for everything. I wasn't really aware of the Stingray Special but spotted one when looking around PMT in Bristol.(see pic below). First impressions were that it was cool but maybe too bling for me. This one is a Jan 2020 model and had been in store for a while so it was still at the old price. I gave it a try and was blown away and suddenly the "blingyiness" didn't matter so much. Note: It had looked silver as it was catching the lights but is actually Ghostwood, a green, silvery/grey.😂 Impression? It was a stingray played like one, was lightweight and made the right stingray noises but there were loads of tonal variations. The sound of the 18V electronics combined with the switches and EQ is phenomenal. I could dial in all sorts of warm sounds that hadn't been there on my old ray and it just seemed to have more power under the bonnet. I was there for about an hour and remember thinking to myself "all these sounds from a bass with 1 pickup? Incredible". Now it is mine! Earlier this week I was having fun going through some of the old stuff from my defunct heavy prog band and it was like chopped beef and yesterday was learning some bass lines for a reggae audition and it was like beef stew with a rich gravy. What a machine. I may have found "the one", I feel blessed! PMT in Bristol were brilliant BTW!

Dingwall and Darkglass.... You too can sound just like every other metal bassist!

In all fairness, @Silvia Bluejay was there too and she has much better ears than I do. 🧐 I tend to avoid these topics since they end up being so sterile but, seeing as I'm here, here's my tupp'orth. My hearing was never that great to start with, and adding pretty severe tinnitus has done absolutely nothing to help. I've never been able to distinguish between tonewoods or between active/passive or between cheap/expensive basses. I hear the output and decide whether or not I like it. I've tried compression, everything from one-knob pedals to DBX166 rackmounts. I don't know how to use such stuff properly, I hate devices with lots of knobs and switches, and I've never understood the attractions of "transparency" ... if I can't hear what it's doing then how do I know it's doing something? So that must put me in the Anti camp, right? Nope, not a bit of it. I am well aware that pretty much every serious musician, recording studio and radio station uses compression as a basic tool all the time, on everything. What that tells me is that compression is great, it's my lack of understanding that's the problem here. So I live with it, and stay away from topics about compression ...

Pickup cover and ramp cut and shaped ready for routing I had 4 ideas for this cover, solid ash or wenge, or reverse the ash / wenge splits but felt this option looked the best. Installed the inserts for the bridge in the bridge slot. Wiped the bass down with some white spirit before thinking about the next list of jobs to be getting on with! But for now the sun's out and I want a beer!

Oh dear Jack please don't restart the Tonewood wars. Most of those that believe in Tonewood are actively AntiVaxing at the moment and it would not be a fair fight.

I spose Bauhaus came out of new wave... Loved David J's basslines!

When I got the Stomp I thought that I would go back to pedals in a year or less. Even my girlfriend told me that was going to happen. However, my interest in pedals is still 0. I kept some pedals I like, but I haven't used in a while. And the good thing is that. if I think about some sound that I want to try, I don't have to wait until I buy another pedal. It is likely to be already in the HX Stomp. It is not perfect, but for its price and the size of three regular pedals, it's now a must for me.

My whole life has been a Bass fad.

I've had so much trouble with band line-ups, organisation and attitude, and it's happened in so many bands, that I've started looking for the one common factor that explains it all. Turns out, it's me. 😎

I think they were called Cliff Richard and The Shadows 😉

Mr Diggins is in his seventies and basically semi-retired; he worked at John Birch for a few years before setting up on his own in '77. Jaydee Guitars is now run by his sons with a grandson doing a lot if not all of the finishing work. Why would they bother coming up with something new at this point. I think they sell as many SG copies to Iommi and AC/DC fans as they do Classic basses to MK fans.

I seem to recall there was an Irish rapper who went out under the name Duff Paddy! That one still makes me chuckle!

Carlos, you came for advice on buying a new bass for £600, and ended up with a sponge, and your old bass, and £600 in change. Surely that is the last time that Basschat will save you from spending money! All the best on your bass journey - all the above advice is good.

Definitely a lot more detail in this explanation @agedhorse and some i wasn't aware of like the shipping around the globe problem. Some guys on TB touched on it and that was something i had not even considered as i assumed most items went by plane. Also the reason for not shipping individual items was a surprise but i see your point with items going missing etc. Your explanation here covers more detail and it is appreciated. With regards my own order i have been assured that price will be what i've already paid with no increase to me and for me it will be worth the wait as i spent a long time looking at the various kit to get what i believed was right for me. I've tried other manufacturers but have never come across the tone i get from the Mesa gear, its that simple for me. I have a great Mpulse 600 that will see me thru until the TT800 arrives. I appreciate others on BC have cancelled their orders as waiting doesn't suit them. Yes i was angry on the day i found out but that has turned more to disappointment and frustration than anything else. On the positive it lets me get some use with the Mpulse and SW 210 & 115 cabs. So far its a great pairing. Dave

Fingering your oilboard.

At band practice last night I had to travel light so only my bass, no pedals, and used the rehearsal rooms amp. With my band I use a touch of compression and I really noticed not having it last night. It just seems to sharpen up the notes, or because it does that and they’re sharper and more defined that then makes my playing more accurate.

Proof yet again that what sounds really bassy and warm in the mix just isn’t.

Just because... 🙂

For what it's worth a compressor is definitely not a good first effect candidate in my opinion. I think you should have a license before you can buy one to prove you have an idea what to do with the bloody thing before you can walk out of the shop with it. Save everyone a load of hassle that would...

Happy Friday with a bit of Prince jammy and the upsetters

In These Shoes? - Kirsty McColl

Which is the exact opposite when it comes to cars. I'd take a red one over a blue one every single time. My current car is blue and it's an absolute pain in the arse, it's a total drama queen, every time you get in in something starts bleeping and sqwarking and having hissy fits. The f@cking thing is trying to be too clever for its own good. Maybe I should drive it into a ditch at high speed and see if anyone in the audience notices.

I used to be a FOH and monitor engineer. I was more than happy to call myself an engineer, because not only did I think I had a bit of a talent for it, I also had been to university to study audio and theory,. Although I came away with a BSc and not a BEng, I felt I was "engineering the sound". I also made sure I knew how everything went together and could make up cable looms, repair certain bits of kit etc. I think a good example is the corporate audio visual world where I now work. We have staff who can go to a room, dial up your call, connect your laptop and ensure your mics/speakers are working and do very basic diagnostics. We call these AV Technicians. The staff who can go to the room, read schematics, strip the relevant bits of kit out of the system that may be faulty and replace with/set up spare ones are the AV Engineers. I would probably say the sound persons are similar - there are some who twiddle knobs but have no real grounding or experience as to why they are twiddling them. I would call them Techs! I agree on the bit about doing the sound for the room and not the sound desk. This is another reason I used to not understand engineers in wide rooms trying to pan everything in the mix - it might sound great at the sound desk in the middle of the room, but what about the poor lot on one side of the room that only hear half a keyboard or toms etc?

Well I have found the whole of this thread exceedingly interesting but it has not changed my views that blue painted compression pedals are far superior to red painted compression pedals, to my 70 year old Tinnitus ears. The blue ones sit much better in the mix than red ones down the Dog & Duck. (BTW I've had my 2nd jab)

This forum is dangerous. I had no intention of getting a Stomp but now I'm considering if it's worth selling my Tuner, Compressor, EQ, DI/Preamp to fund one. Basically they are the pedals that don't need too much switching on/off and are things the Stomp does well so they can be replaced without the need of buying additional footswitches. Edit: I'm about to put 8 pedals up for sale on here to get a Stomp, I wasn't planning on doing that yesterday! I'm getting a bit addicted to buying/selling/returning pedals for very marginal gains so I'm hoping to follow in the footsteps of @javi_bassist and simplify things and get out of the habit.

Surely there's a real logical fallacy that needs pointing out regarding @Al Krow's request for compression efficacy live? In order to attempt to show that a good compressor set up well is worth less than other FX on bass he needs to provide evidence that those other FX, at unity gain to them not being on, have a greater affect on audience enjoyment. Good luck with that, I've never met a punter who was enjoying a band who could differentiate between what a bass guitar and a keyboard players left hand added to the mix, let alone the importance of fuzz over overdriven over clean or a bit of chorus or an octave or, well any of it. So the assertion that compression is of less use in a pub band setting is rather difficult to prove without a more detailed scientific experiment. The irony being that compression was popularised by the loudness war between Motown and the Beatles in the mid 60's, given Al's preferred era to bang out down the dog and duck...

I had a Melody fretless years ago. I don't remember how it sounded but it seemed to be very well put together

There's a very VERY good all-girl Pistols (and punk in general) covers band called the Sex Píssed Dolls. We supported them at the Thekla a couple of years ago, they tore the roof off the boat.

Haven't you got some sound engineering homework to be getting on with?

Donate to a local school/ young band/ budding bass player? Or buy a corsa and stick it in the boot and buy a baseball cap to wear backwards.

I have calculated that the time spent sawing cursing, asking for help, etc. building the Elf into the cab, you could have plugged and unplugged the speaker to amp cable 958,326 times. Even as a combo, you'd still have the effort of plugging in the mains lead and the input lead from your bass. My laziness refuses to start considering the work involved in sawing up a cab in order to build a tiny amp into it, and if you do decide to do it I shall have to protect myself form any text or images showing or describing any such work. I am far too delicate to be exposed to such an idea

Mine's still getting gigged with it's original decal proudly on show. 😎 Punters don't care, musos love it!

Does everyone have to agree for it to be true? Does it have to be a majority for it to be true? People can have good reasons for not wanting to use them/it - but to dismiss something as useless/not required etc. (In the fave of good evidence to the contrary, which was asked for and shown)Without proper knowledge of how to use it isn’t the correct basis to make that statement. I repeat tho, this is about misconceptions this thread - talking about how it is useful is trying to help those that want to hear about it deal with misconceptions, plus, it has been bumped because someone is demonstrating how they are trying to use it and listen to what can happen, trying to submerge it under false pretences is not correct.

An accomplished bassist friend & I blind a/b'd a Super Twin against my Genz Benz Neox 2x12 with identical bass & amp set up and we were both surprised to find that we both agreed that the Genz sounded better and punchier. Saved me a lot of money in what I thought might be a potential rig upgrade.

Here’s a cracking 80s new wave bass line ...Steve Sevrin banging one out on his wal in 83 ... simple but so powerful. https://youtu.be/EYJOq6VnV2U

Aren't ALL band names made up?

My gig wagon is a Jap import (Toyota Alphard), and a very sophisticated thing it is. When I turn the ignition key, the satnav shows Yokohama harbour and the dash starts talking to me in Japanese. Seriously. Wakarima-sen.

On the subject of The Eagles, I’m firmly in agreement with the Dude.

But maybe Amy Crackhouse might have been better? I'll get me coat....

We still do, mainly because they were fantastic value

He's the Dude.

Can't believe I missed all the fun of this thread 😆 Oh hold on, that's right, it's threads like these rehashing the same old stinky poo from the same entrenched positions that keep me off basschat. So, Al, do everyone and yourself a favour and go do a sound engineering course. Seriously. Learn to mix. Learn how to use compression for real. Until you do that you haven't got a hope in hell of keeping up with the "compression fanboys" (seriously condescending term, like bass playing troglodytes or technophobic under achievers). You rehash your argument over and over again. But it's clearly absurd. Are you saying that compression can't change the sound of a bass in a mix enough to warrant it at a gig? Seriously? Because we've gone over that enough times, people have demonstrated before. You just keep coming back to compression as some peculiar bug bear. I tell you this, compression will make a bigger difference than neck through construction or tone woods in a mix. Not pick up choice though in my experience. Can a punter hear it. No. Can they perhaps better experience the mix because of it? I reckon so. But, and this is a killer, you need to understand how to use it and to get it right you do need to learn effective ways to set it up. So go do that. I do bugger all gigs to not many people. So obviously I know naff all about compression, am some lunatic swivel eyed fanboy and can be effectively dismissed as such regardless of over thirty years being fascinated in sound engineering starting out in studios where your 24 track machine was your got to compressor and saturation plug in. @Happy Jack is about the only BCer who has seen my band in play, ask him if we sounded ok as we happily spent an evening making music for a paltry audience in a tiny pub for the joy of playing music we like, and almost only we like 😆

Kinda early 70's Flea versus King thread this