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I came across Washington Miniaturas on Instagram and had my own mini bass made. Great comms with the guy who makes them, it took a couple of weeks and only cost about £120. It’s about 30cm long and even comes with a cute little stand!! I highly recommend him if you’re looking for a miniature version of your own bass (I mean, who isn’t?). Check out his work on Instagram, they’re brilliant.

That's literally what it is... I keep my basses on a multi-stand in an old wardrobe. Keeps them out of the sunlight and away from the dust, safe and accessible.

No gig last weekend, and the other proto-band collapsed due to lethargy/inertia on the part of two of the members, but the good news is I'm starting Satdy on a run of 8 March gigs with the 'busy' band...

Cher has a pretty extensive and credible (even if now unfashionable) history way before the autotune malarkey.

Left to right….. Tokai, Greco, Tokai. I absolutely love my black Tokai to bits… so much so, that I bought a white one today, and a sunburst 1990 Greco yesterday. The Greco will have its proper truss rod cover back on soon. Bring on the gigs. 🤘🏻

Long time since I took this one out of its case and played it. I must've been crazy! It does it all...and it only weighs 7.3 lbs.

Speaking of Cadbury, here's another company that would be dead to me if they weren't so completely unavoidable: Kraft. Cadbury's had planned to close the Somerdale factory at Keynsham, but a key part of Kraft's bid for the company was a solemn pledge they made, over and over again, that the factory would remain open, not a single job lost, blah blah blah. A week after they took over, suddenly it became 'financially unviable' to keep it open, and all its production was transferred to Poland. 400 jobs gone. The lying bastids never had the slightest intention of keeping it going.

It certainly didn't start out that way, but when a distributor changes their tune and takes advantage of a customer in their region, the laws of the host country do not really allow the manufacturer to step in because of the required arms length relationship between the manufacturer (who acts as a supplier) to the distributor of record (who acts as the in country legal representative of the manufacturer, who sets the terms of sale and service in that region). It's not a good way to do international business unless both parties work together and not against each other. Unfortunately, when the relationship deteriorates, the laws of the host country limit what the manufacturer can do about it, and even the ability of a manufacturer to terminate the relationship before the agreement ends. Either way, I agree that it's bad for the customer for sure.

Cadbury post-Kraft takeover Take your Oreo cookies and shove them where they look like they came from, rather than crumbling them up into what used to be a nice chocolate bar!

...like a hole in the head

Oh I do hope so. Anything that pisses him off is fine in my book.

Michael O'Leary is still raging about the cost of that one 😂

Loads...

I stopped playing this for quite a while because the John East circuit developed an issue on the mid-pot. It all worked, but periodically the bass would just emit a theremin type squeal. The thought of replacing the full circuit was a bit of a costly ball ache. At my wife's prompting, I spoke to John, he sent a replacement part and bingo, back in the game.

Cadburys. What is this slop now offered under that name?

My old Mam gave me this , bought from Guitar Miniatures' stall at Cleveleys' Market 🙂 OK the colour is wrong but she's 88 so gets 10 out 10 for not only remembering I play bass but that I own a Tele bass 👏

For many years I use to play and love a Warwick Dolphin Pro2, it served me very well. I know they have an interesting heritage, best summed up as ‘The bastard child of Warwick’ (coined by someone else), I sold it on here years ago. Fast forward to now, I found locally on Farcebook marketplace a pretty much identical model, slightly different colour scheme but same vintage. Picked it up last night from a lovely chap at a reasonable price, so brought it home. Fair to say, I could see the potential but it obviously hadn’t had a lot of love over the years. I fully stripped it back removed all hardware, and deep cleaned it, polished the frets (which were not worn too much at all, result) oiled the fretboard, several times. Checked truss rod moved. Tightened up all the machine heads, which were loose. Adjusted the nut as it had a bit of card under the G string. The jack socket needed replacement too, again, luckily I had one in my spares cupboard. Luckily I had a new replacement bridge in my spares as the original was very manky and all the saddles were corroded. I then put a new set if Warwick red label strings on it and did a full Warwick set up, stage by stage, ( forgot how much I enjoyed setting up Warwicks). All in all, 4 hours work, a new bridge, set of strings, a replacement jack socket and a lot of lemon oil and cleaners and duraglit later, and I have a sensational bass to show for my troubles, it has come out better than expected. Very pleased with the result, a really playable bass, and a world apart from what I started with.

I've owned this old P bass for 34 years this summer but have only gigged it once in probably 6 or 7 years. It's still my favourite bass but I (like Lozz) have gone JMJ Mustang due to neck/shoulder issues. It hangs on the wall in my studio

To my utter shame and embarrassment, up until last year this beautiful, extraordinary Shuker custom build had spent a good 2 or 3 years shut away in my bass-drobe while my Sire V7 got all the 5-string gig action. I felt that the sound of the Sire suited the gig best, but it wasn't until I sat down and properly experimented with the coil taps and eq that I realised this beauty worked even better. As you'd expect. I mean, as great a bass as the Sire is, it's not this. So now, the Sire is the one sitting in the bass-drobe. I occasionally wonder about selling it, but I won't for the moment because a} it's bloody good and b} we all need a Jazz in the armoury.

Yep - totally hacks me off; it's like they're looking you straight in the eyes whilst they're ripping you off! I've taken to shopping at Costco, where things are BIG! It may or may not be cheaper, but try finding that size in the supermarkets. (I haven't bought a tin of those, BTW.)

Foreigner should be in. Ozzy maybe. The rest, nope....

If ever proof were needed, then here it is. Mondeléz own both Cadbury and the Kraft/Jacobs/Suchard brands; Hence the Toblerone debacle in which they put greater spaces between the triangles. May sound trivial, but such was the uproar that they relented and went back to the old Toblerone form factor.

I put a set of NYXL's on my Sadowsky Jazz in 2019. I was going to change them but Covid came along and the gigs stopped. I have a new set of NYXL's ready to go, but there is still enough top end in the old set to give good definition and the mids and lows are now sounding nice and mellow. I currently have no plans to change these strings, even after 6 years!

My Ellio Martina Forza was my absolute number one for a few years, and still is one of the finest basses I own. For my bands however (mostly metal), other instruments were more appropriate tonally so it's mostly sitting in my rack unplayed. In or around 2013 I bought a Warwick Streamer LX5 that has been my live bass ever since up to about 2020, and currently it's a Status Graphite S2 Classic. Every time I do play that Forza, though, I am in awe of how nice the neck (and neck profile) feels, how great it sounds and what a wonderful range of tones I can obtain from it. I'm not a huge fan of the Aguilar OBP3 preamp that's in it, I may want to change it to something more basic and add a passive tone control.

This topic has made my mind up what bass I'm taking to rehearsal tonight.

I'm afraid so. Mondeléz have been running them into the ground in the name of increased profitability.

Spent the last 2 days in the studio recording with this setup 😍 Ampeg V4B into the 810av. Thankfully the V4B is already mine but playing through that cab has really made me want one, but my back says no.

Because I play in a Joy Division tribute act, so it's expected that I play something that resembles a Rickenbacker 4001. Peter Hook played a Korean made Hondo copy, and I did the same for about five years until the neck snapped near the heel. I now play a genuine Rickenbacker, and the Hondo was a far better instrument to play even if it was made from plywood.

It's been that way a long time across so many retail sectors, cars, clothing, furniture, it was only a matter of time before it hit music, and in fact has been there a while with some music brands e.g., the Yamaha store in the West End. But why is a brand store selling to the wealthy while Thomann are not? You can spend some serious cash in Thomann et al? Music is, and always has been an expensive game And that's part of the problem, like you we all miss the local music store, but they went under for a reason, we all wanted more choice and lower prices.......

Not sure how much longer i'm going to be able to successfully complete fine-detail work, so i'm going to try for a bit of a blitz to round off a few legacy projects... This one is to upgrade my DIY JFET preamp for my Aria Sinsonido travel bass (which i use as an EUB). I bought a small CNC kit a few years back, which i've used to make PCBs for a non-audio application, and i thought i'd see if it could produce a more professional-looking module than my rather scrappy-looking attempt on veroboard:- Schematic for the JFET Pre Photo below shows an initial test mill of the PCB v0 (Laid out using PCB Designer on a Linux-type platform). After a bit of a shaky start, i managed to complete the mill run and all signal traces show good continuity between pin pads (and importantly - no continuity to the infill copper!). I copied and hand-edited the Gcode drill-file to add a 3rd pass which increases the connector pin sizes up to 1mm (from the default component pin diam of 0.8mm). Hoping to do a full, clean run (without the initial glitches) next week Now waiting on delivery of new parts to populate the board - then test my eyesight, and hand-steadyness, with soldering and installing in the bass for test

First gig with the band this evening. Played the first heat of the Bristol Metal 2 the Masses competition, where we had a chance to play at Bloodstock. The last gig I played was probably 2019 and was with a function band, so a very different thing tonight. Didn't get through, which has bummed me out a bit. A thrash band and the first one with the bunch of early 20s went through. I think maybe doom is a bit of a harder sell. I also had a couple of clangers too, so that might have had something to do with it. I need to practice with my multi fx. I can play the songs, but I don't use it at home. It'd help iron out a few things. Good fun though being back on stage mind you. We decided that the singer shouldn't be in the middle, so we flanked me with the guitarists and I got to throw lots of shapes.

I watched this video as well and thought... I want another 734a. That pre amp sounds excellent, different to the BBPH. More vicious.

I take exception to Epiphone being categorised as being simply a trade name for budget gear. I'd hardly call a Jack Casady Signature "budget", and right now they're making better T-birds than Gibson have managed to since the 60s. Furthermore, Gibson bought Epiphone in 1957, so they're taking an awfully long time to kill them off...

I was going to mention RyanAir, but unfortunately for me, they are a necessary evil for visiting relatives aboard. So as much as I want them to be dead to me, they are still alive... for the time being.

Positive attitude. That's the way to go. Dave

Is there anyone who doesn't believe Ryanair is just a massive cash grab? Michael O'Leary is pretty damned mercenary.

The Cadbury family for selling up to Kraft. Bastards.

It’s not about the kit though it’s the spirit behind it all. I went to a “church” (basically someone’s front room) where there was only 6 of us singing along to a CD and that was a great time of worship, I’ll always remember it.

Mine neither. But I do like the ABM600 - just not the compressor.

Procter & Gamble. Massive amounts of unnecessary animal testing and a global mountain of plastic pollution.

And if that is not enough information, I only use Duracell batteries to power the active EMG pre-amp and active pickups running to a Mogami Gold 6ft cable with one straight 1/4 inch end into the pedal chain and a 90 degree 1/4" end into the bass. The Voodoo Labs pedalboard which powers all my pedals ( no 9v batts in pedals) which are all all connected by Mogami Gold 3" patch cables. The Mesa amp power cable is stock. I run all this through a Furman RMI/EFI/Surge protected power conditioner. I keep my bass in a Gator hardshell case. I use a Franklin black leather strap about 4 inches wide with some nice padding over my left shoulder with some nice brass conchos in the empty adjustment slots that hang on my right side behind my ass. Play mostly two-finger style, but can make do with a plectrum if a song requires more "bite". Usually wear jeans and boots and a t-shirt to rehearsal and gigs. I have more hair on my face than I do on my head, and usually wear a cap, but how all this info will help me determine if a particular Barefaced cab will work for me is beyond my comprehension...just trying to supply all the info I can...

What doesn’t it do! Ha. At its core it’s a distortion pedal and bitcrusher, but allows for incredible manipulation of the signal by slamming it into one of a bazillion wave tables. This Pro version also has saveable patches that can be recalled. Multiple expression control and a blend (which the original badly needed). It’s basically a noise makers dream come true with near unlimited noisy, digitalised, overdriven and low fi sounds, as well as really great drive and bit crushing/sample rate reduction tones.