Truckstop

Done 3 gigs and a rehearsal this weekend; knackered! Friday night in an Aylesbury Men's Club. Crowd were dreadful all night. Horribly static and literally no-one clapped, hollered or danced all night but after we played our last song and said 'thanks a lot, you've been great. Take care!' there were cries of 'encore!' ringing around the room and we ended up doing another 6 numbers. Bizarre. Got another 3 shows out of it and a bonus from the committee for playing longer than contracted. Really weird! Saturday was a lovely olde pubbe in Hoddesden. Went down really well and had a blast. I'm starting to find my feet in the band and we're starting to feed of each others energies now. Rather than concentrating on playing the numbers right, I'm concentrating on making sure the show's good. Starting to enjoy myself more! Sunday was a beer festival in Rickmansworth under and marquee in a pub carpark. Forgot to bring carpet with me so ended up on the tarmac. It was pretty terrible sound. I guess the tarmac reflects a lot of the mids all over the place and it being a breezy afternoon I struggled to hear the guitars or vocals and had a crappy show. Used a dep drummer for the gig also and he was just awful. Never played with a worse drummer in all my life. Felt ripped off when we paid him at the end of the gig! All in all a good weekend; same again for the bank holiday but with 4 gigs instead of 3. Should be fun. Truckstop

Ah, I see! Cheers guys! Alex

How would one run two combos without the use of a line out? 'send' to the other combos instrument input? Ext. speaker output to other combo instrument input? The combos have an effects loop and are identical. It's two SWR Workingman 10 combos. I won't want to be using it as a bi-amp rig, more because I couldn't find a matching cab and settled for identical combo instead! Cheers Alex

Couple of breeze blocks should do the trick I think. Truckstop

Well unfortunately I'm getting married in two months and I still have a lot to pay for! Also, my immediate bass gear needs stretch to needing an extension cab for my SWR Workingmans 10 combo (plug: need any sort of low wattage 1x10 cab). Couldn't justify buying another bass that I don't need at the moment! Disappointed that it's changing hands a lot; it's a great example of a Blazer. A lovely instrument! Truckstop

It's my old one. The very same one featured in my avatar! I wish I could buy it back Truckstop

I would have loved to have been in America in the 50's and 60's. All that great music! Blues, rock n roll, soul, surf, swing! Imagine seeing the likes of Etta James and Aretha Franklin in smoky clubs in the small hours! It's amazing to think about. London in the 60's would also be very cool indeed. I would have loved to have seen Cream. Truckstop

Had one, sold it, and then bought another one! Great little multi-fx that fits in the pocket of your gigbag, high quality effects, volume-wah pedal has a good continous sweep and it's very well made. I'd add on to your review that the ME-20b is very intuitive to use. The effect parameters are simple to navigate and the ability to save banks of effects comes in very handy! A good buy for anyone that wants decent effects in a small package. Tempted to buy the ME-20 for guitar too. Alex

Where are you based? Within 50 miles of St. Albans and I'll have it! Alex

Argh! Must...impart....knowledge...regardless!

Ooh very nice! I don't suppose you noticed there's another Grabber/Ripper/G3 in bits on the EBay? Body, neck, pickguard and pup surround. Maybe email the dude; might have some difficult to source parts? (it's not being sold as Gibson, just as 'bass guitar body' etc) Truckstop

Have you decided on a colour? Cos natural looks pretty sweet actually! It'd look great with an ultra-glossy finish I reckon. That or mocha. Truckstop

Ha ha, just noticed! Can't believe I spent ages typing out all that horseshit for some dude that probably hasn't been on basschat for 5 years! Truckstop

Have a look at your EQ. I've never heard of a Peavey 450 running out of volume! I can only surmise that you've got a tone that doesn't lend itself very well to being heard over a live band. Mid frequencies are key here. Mids are your friends! It takes a lot of power to make low frequencies loud enough to be heard and less power is needed to make mid frequencies heard. So, the head is running out of juice because it's trying to push all these low frequencies, hence, you're running out of juice earlier than if you had a more mid frequency-heavy tone. Try running the amp with a flat EQ and you should notice more volume. Also try bumping the gain up in partnership with your mids; you should hear a lovely bass growl poking out of the mix. As someone said earlier, don't lose the head. Keep it, learn how to use it effectively and in the future pair it with a better cab. Peavey TKO and BW cabs are awesome. Also look for Trace Elliott cabs. They tend to cost around the same, maybe £100 for a 4x10/1x15. You'll see a lot of Ashdown cabs going cheap; personally I wouldn't recommend them because I'm not keen on their tone (ABM's and the 'Deep' range in particular) but plenty of volume you'll get! Hartke VX cabs are good and cheap but big and heavy. Good luck! Alex

For a more polished look, you can always top off 10 coats of oil with a few coats of beeswax. You'll get a lovely deep sheen and if you invest enough time in the buffing process you can get a wonderfully glassy finish. Truckstop

Likewise I give everything a once over whenever change my strings (every 6-8 months or so I guess). Fretboard gets cleaned with lemon oil, body polished with...polish, and I quickly brush the machine heads, bridge and control plate with an old toothbrush to make sure there's no gunk or dust building up anywhere. I don't think it makes a massive difference to the playability or wellbeing of the instrument but I just think it's nice to take care of the things you own! Truckstop

Just 'BASS' in massive letters across the front in a really bold font. Could do it in a million different colours. Yellow on blue, red on White, blue on green etc. I'd buy that! Truckstop

Yeah the 1024 and 2024 have nickel nuts I believe? Truckstop

I own a 424 and a 1024. Theres not much difference between the two except that the 1024 simply feels higher quality. A little more weight, neck finish slightly smoother and I'm convinced that the J pup sounds a little smoother and less aggressive than the 424. I think the main difference is that the body of the 1024's are one or two piece rather than multi-lam like the 424. The 1024 also has higher quality machine heads. I would happily buy another 424. IMO the 1024 doesn't have enough on the 424 to make it worth buying. The 2024 on the other hand is a fully craft built instrument of incredible quality and well worth the money. The vintage sunburst looks gorgeous! Truckstop

Yamaha BB424. Can be had for just over £200 second hand and really are tremendous instruments. Cracking build quality, slim necks, they look awesome (especially the x versions) and the PJ pups both sound as they should. Plenty of meat from the P, loads of burp from the J. There's my 2 pen'orth! Truckstop

Done! Good luck with it all buddy! Alex

Do RedSub or HB make 1x10 cabs? Truckstop

I just wouldn't bother. You'll never be able to properly replicate the sound you have in your head. The only reason I've ever used Ampeg gear is because it looks awesome and, yeah sounds good, but never really achieved what I wanted out of a bass rig. Just go out there and try everything you can. Eventually you'll settle on something you like! Why do you need a 'stack' anyway? Markbass combos sound great, weigh nothing and are furiously loud. If you need to go louder, the room should have a PA that you can plug into. Even the 1x15 conbos have a tiny footprint. And if you did want to expand there's a ready supply of second hand cabs floating about. Truckstop

After my amp blew up on Thursday I was very worried as to how this weekends gigs could have worked out using borrowed and unfamiliar gear. However, I needn't have worried as the SWR Workingman's 10 I borrowed did very well on both nights! I had a matching 1x10 cab but simply did not need it. Fridays gig was a bar on Eton Hugh street (Eton's a wonderful looking place, well worth a visit if you ever end up in Slough or Windsor) and we went down very well. Luckily a couple of birthday parties were in and decided to stay. Great crowd full of very lovely ladies! Last nights was a Sports Club near Luton. First set went down very well but because the club was full of wedding revellers that had been beering it up since 2pm, the place emptied during the interval! Ended up finishing to the bar staff and a few laggers. Oh well, good pay and got another couple of gigs out of it. Tempted to find and buy a Workingman's 10 now. Perfect little amp for the gigs I do at the moment when I need to use my own gear and takes up absolutely bo space at all! Can't believe I used to lug around 4x10's and 1x15 cabs and heads to use at the same volume as this little 1x10 combo! Truckstop