Matt P

@MoonBassAlpha @Geek99 Apologies, missed the line in the description that said it came with the piezo, just skipped to the package includes bit. as it looks like this is a clone/copy i'd consider it for a cheaper guitar but i think i'd prefer to go for a passive piezo or a soundhole mag straight out to an endpin jack and then an external preamp (behringer adi21 probably) as i'm really adverse to cutting holes in guitars if i can avoid it (even enlarging the endpin hole on my Jim dandy to fit the jack socket was nerve wracking)

Alan Dingwall in Sunderland (I think) supposed to be top quality. I've got his phone number somewhere.

I think that's just the preamp, without the piezo or the mic, looks far too cheap to me as well, I'd expect to pay far more than that for the preamp.

that's rather tasty! a brand new status neck is £374.40 delivered inc VAT, so the £320+25 that someone paid for this one is a bit high, personally not enough of a saving over a new one. Matt

I rather like that! what scale length is it? i'm not really a gold person but I think i'd be pretty happy to rock that on stage. Matt

@AndyTravis loving the blue, it looks fantastic, you've even got matching blue control knobs! i can overlook the football reference that's 2cm longer than either of my strat type cases, and 1cm longer than the internal dimensions of the gigbag that thomann suggest,i'm guessing that either the gigbag is a little longer than they say or it's got a bit of give and the bass is a snug fit. do you think that it would be possible to lose 2cm from the end of the headstock (along with a bit of a re-shape, possibly to a tele style shape?) i'd really like to fit it into a hardcase for travel (i have hardcases for pretty much all my instruments) but if there isn't room then i think i might look for a different Bass as a starting point, something with a 2+2 headstock and a modern styled body, or start with a clean sheet and build from scratch. (i've got a random plan for a 30" scaled 5 string neck through that might work)

@blablasi'm loving what you've done to create this collection of basses and am very tempted to get one for myself as i'm partial to a short scale and i've got a bartolini pickup in a drawer that would work perfectly. a small question though - what are you using to transport these basses for gigs etc? Thomann suggests an electric guitar gigbag, i'm wondering if they would fit in one of my strat type hardcases? Any chance you could measure the total length of one? it's a shame that they only offer black as a finish option would be great in some other colours (a sonic blue re-spray might be in order) Matt

provided that you encase it properly i can't see any real problem except that most combos with decent amounts of power (say 100W at the minimum) are often available as head versions as well so selling the combo (if you already have one) and just buying the head version might be a better option. If you want to hide it somewhere in the car then i'd be looking at some of the class D amps available, the Markbass F1 that i'm using would fit the bill, fairly small, not too expensive (i think i paid £250 for mine) and plenty of power, suitably protected (laptop bag and some bubblewrap) it could easily be hidden with the spare tyre under the boot carpet and no-one would ever suspect that it's there. there are plenty of excellent 250w-800w amps available that aren't that much bigger than a hardback novel. Matt

The uca202 is designed to be the link between a mixing desk or other device with line outputs and a pc, I was using the slightly more basic uca200 with my pc up till last week when I got a scarlett 2i4, it worked for me without any drivers on both Windows and Linux, if you want to hook a guitar into it then you need something with a guitar input and either line output or headphone output, a multi effect pedal would probably work with a headphone to 2 phono cable. Or a small mixing desk works well too, I was using a 5 input behringer one and connected the interface to the 4 phono connectors, gave me recording and playback. It's not a super high end interface but it worked well for me for a few years. Matt

currently $39 which works out about £28, i need all my spare pennies at the moment to pay for a shiny new interface though!

@thepurpleblob thanks! i'm not sure how i managed to miss the Linux version when i was sorting this at the weekend. i'm slowly getting to grips with linux as an os, still some teething problems with getting my Scarlett 2i4 to play happily with reaper but i think it's all user issues as i've been blindly trying stuff rather than following tutorials and help pages properly. i'm going to persevere with the alternative program for the moment as it hasn't yet asked for money and i'm super skint at the moment! Matt

my tutor @dodge_bassuses this to help slow down songs, it can also pitch shift and isolate sections easily to make short loops for getting parts nailed down. i have been using a cheap app on my tablet called amazing slow downer which has most of the functionality of transcribe (which isn't available on android) recently i downloaded another similar program to my pc but i can't remember the name and i'm not at home at the moment. i tried transcribe but i'm using Linux and i couldn't get it to run under wine. i thought that Transcribe was only free for 30 days then you had to buy a licence? matt

ooh, that's a new one on me! i was going on the info from the epiphone website that has the EB3 as 34", what year/country was this made?

i might be wrong but i thought that the EB3 was long scale (34") the EB0 is short scale? an easy way to spot the difference is that the eb3 has 2 pickups and the eb0 just one.

i saw this a while back whilst browsing, looks interesting to me, a 2ohm option would be nice but isn't a deal breaker. the feature list is pretty good too, 4 band eq, switchable from active to passive input and a switchable onboard compressor. and it's got 2 speakon connectors. if you compare to the quilter then this has (to me) a much better spec list, eg. headphone output and an aux input with a volume control makes it a great practice tool at home. and a mute switch is one of the things i miss on my markbass if this had a different badge (Fender/Ampeg/gk/etc) and was 100 quid more i'd expect that we'd be buying them in droves and raving about what a bargain they were! matt

Not the cheapest option but what about a peli case with a custom foam insert? these guys offer a few options for custom cases as well as custom foam inserts for peli cases and dave cases (their own brand peli type cases) https://www.thecasefarm.co.uk/ another option might be these guys who build flightcases to order and I believe can do the custom inserts as well, the cases will be super tough but not as light as the dave/peli option http://www.flightcasewarehouse.co.uk/ if it was me i'd probably go for one of these https://www.thecasefarm.co.uk/shop/dave/dave-800/ with a custom cut or homemade insert, I think you would have a fair bit of space for di boxes and strings/straps etc as well, it would possibly also work as a hard shell case to take the bass in a gig bag with di boxes etc and some clothes as padding which might cancel out a separate hold bag for shorter trips. Matt

It wasn't actually a bad guitar, it played pretty well and sounded fine, I can't remember if I ever gigged it but it might have been a backup on a gig or two

I've never seen that advert before but I did actually own one of the crackle Black guitars, my uncle found it in a junk shop and bought it for my nephew, I then had it for a while and set it up. I've played worse instruments, I ended up giving it back to my nephew once it had been sorted.

yes croakies were the original sports ones, i've worn glasses for over 20 years now and have tried most of the options available, croakies do the arc system (which i haven't tried) but it looks like it can be adjusted to suit the wearer, i found that the original style croakies would catch my glasses if they got knocked but wouldn't hold them on my face. (these are very similar to the ones posted above. these are the arc croakies; https://croakies.com/product/arc-endless i've got some adjustable neoprene ones at home which sound like they might be similar to what you are after, i'll take a look when i get in and see what make they are (I don't think they are croakies) matt

this^ mine broke but i repaired it by drilling a hole in each of the 2 parts and gluing it back together with a steel pin inside, it's been fine ever since, i expect the other end will break at some point but I've got plenty of glue and steel pins. i've got the snark with the metronome built in, auto chromatic tuning etc, i've yet to find an instrument that it can't pick up. (4 and 5 string bass, EUB, uke bass, electric and acoustic guitar, banjo, mandolin and ukelele) Matt

How is the access for string changes on these? My kala has an access panel on the back for string access but these don't, do you have to reach through the sound hole?

Most of my kit is in the study/man cave/box room (all the same room unfortunately) i've got hard cases for almost everything (about 15 instruments in total) and i've modified some Ikea shelving to hold it all, there's a wall hanger which usually has something on it, and a regular stand next to the desk with a bass setup and ready to go into my headphone practice setup. the cabs (2 x Barefaced Midgets) are on the bottom shelf of the unit with my pedalboard/amp case alongside. there is a single acoustic guitar on a hanger in the living room and a couple of guitar amps and the power amps for the PA are stashed in the cupboard on the landing. the room is actually pretty small, if it wasn't such a mess i'd take a picture to show how much stuff can be squeezed in but i think i'd get in trouble at the moment due to the state of the room.

i did exactly the same thing to fit a Neo D to my Gretsch Jim Dandy, didn't take much filing, it sounds pretty good to my ears.

was the total cost 135? or 135+70 for parts? how does the amp sound?

I had a similar repair done a few years ago (actually about 9 years ago), replacement mosfets in a trace gp11 ah250, i seem to remember the total cost being about 150 including parts, they guy said that i was lucky as he had the right mosfets in stock and they were very difficult to get hold of (this may or may not have been true) so accounting for inflation and the stupid cost of everything right now i'd say that the quote looks about right. there's a good chance they are replacing some of the big capacitors while they've got it in bits. the gp11 sounded awesome when i got it back. Matt