neepheid

Your English is excellent, fear not and absolutely nothing to apologise for! Tastes change. These things happen. Your tastes might come back around. I don't get the disconnect between other people playing your bass and yourself - that's your mind playing tricks on you IMO. It's the same bass - I think you are conflating the playing chops of the other player with tone and using it as a stick to bash yourself with in your head. They may be able to play things you can't (yet), but that's the player, not the bass. If they used different amplification, then it's the amp. It's not the bass.

Got a back of the headstock pic?

I think it's dangerous to deal in absolutes when dealing with a subjective, opinion based thing like what something sounds like. You're just going to pee someone off because they'll take it like you're calling them stupid for having an opinion. They heard what they heard, just leave it.

NJ coming in hot!

As some of you might have known, I had devised a project to build using only new parts a "giggable" (my definition) bass for £150, using only new parts. Unfortunately, the bass upon which this project was to be predicated was on back order from Bax, and last week they went bankrupt. Womp womp. So I had a bunch of parts (Entwistle PBXN neodymium pickup, Guyker bridge, comedy knob) with nowhere to go. This irritated me, so I had a quick poke around on local FB Marketplace ads last week for something cheap and not boring. As luck would have it, I stumbled upon a 2005 Epiphone Embassy less than an hour away - a bass which shares almost nothing with its 60s namesake or the modern remake of it. I quite liked the look of it, it's a bit more interesting than a typical P copy - reversed pickup, 22 frets, angled headstock with matching finish. So I took a punt. Well, it had had a life; it was pretty grubby, the bridge was rusty and the tuners felt (and sounded) like they had sand in them when you turned them. Time for some TLC! I stripped it down, cleaned and polished the body and headstock, polished the frets then oiled the fretboard, serviced the tuners (as in dismantled them, cleaned them, tightened them up then regreased them) and then fit the new pickup and bridge. The original bass I intended to put these parts in had a single volume control, so I bought a stupidly big knob for it, because I'm quite mad. Unfortunately, this bass has a tone control as well. I thought about getting another oversized knob to match, but someone on Lowendlobster's Discord server gave me the idea of having matching knobs, but wildly different sizes. I thought that sounded hilarous so I managed to snag a 16mm knob to match the 45mm one. Enough chat, here are some pics... I am very impressed with the Entwistle pickup - it's a punchy beast and frankly ludicrously good sounding for its measly £36 price tag. I'm really happy with how this has turned out. A cheap, throw around bass which isn't worth enough to get precious about, but sounds great, isn't too light or too heavy, and has a little personal touch which makes me chuckle every time I see it. I was worried about the tuners, but they have responded well to some love being shown them so hopefully they'll be passable - because the holes are 12mm so I'd have to ream them out in order to fit any replacements worth considering.

Well, I'm glad you were counting, but we forgot to set a maximum. We'll do better this time. Live and learn and all that.

It is a duty I take very seriously

Don't let me open it...

Anyone attending the bash next month fancy taking a free cab off my hands? BFM Omni 10 crossfire - tweeters don't work, but the main driver is sound. I got it for free years ago, but it hasn't been used since I moved to my current Markbass rig and it's just taking up room at the rehearsal space right now.

Is it the 90s again? Don't make me go through all that palaver once more

Pics or it doesn't exist

Oh, don't worry, I've fed back to them that I think they're banking wrong

Well, that was quick. Bank has refunded me already - but they say they might need to take the money back if they lose the dispute - WTF? Surely you should only refund if you've been successful? Now I've got to keep this £100 kicking around in my balance at all times until I hear yay or nay - it's not as if I can spend it, is it? That's really inconvenient, and seems pretty backward to me.

The only 4 ohm cab I've ever owned was a 4x10. I knew damn well I wasn't going to augment that with anything!

Well, I've given it a go. Because it's a bankruptcy I don't have high hopes of it succeeding, but at least I've tried.

Use the correct length strings - especially around small tuner posts. I've had an E string explode and unravel on me before trying to cheap out fitting long scale strings on a short scale. The problem is trying to get the fattest part of the string round the tuner - which is going to happen if you try to use regular/long scale strings. You need them to taper off after the nut - buying the correct length strings will help with this. You can usually find deals on D'addario XL strings of the appropriate scale length - I have some on my 32" scale Squier Jaguar H. EXL170M - can usually be had for around £20-22. If you think that's expensive, then I don't know what to tell you - inflation's a biatch! EXL160M - if you like your strings a bit fatter, seems less people do, so on a quick search found them a mite bit cheaper than the EXL170M

I don't like the "why should you win?" thing, sorry

But look at what it says at the top of the page...

LOL, Bax website is back online for some reason. Still can't order anything,

LOL, nope, you're screwed. If I don't get a bye for a bass which has been living rent free in my head for 12 years, you certainly don't get a pass for a paltry 4 years.

And if you want MORE padding, there's a TGI Ultimate Series, which is around £120ish.

Although that's into Mono territory (a place I refuse to visit because it's too damn much for a bloody gigbag), I say save your pennies - one of the many gigbags I use with my BB1200 is a TGI Extreme Series such as found here - https://www.bassdirect.co.uk/product/tgi-gigbag-bass-guitar-extreme-series/ (other stockists are available), it's well padded, can fit A4 paper in the front pocket and it's around £50-60.

What's your budget?

Dunno. I paid by debit card, so I'm boned. Thankfully in my case it was <£100, paid back in September last year and I'm over it already, but others may not be in a position to be so glib about it.

Well, that's official - if you had any pending orders with Bax, you ain't getting it. You'll be added to the bottom of a very long list of creditors. "According to the administration of the bankrupt companies, you have placed an order. Unfortunately, due to the bankruptcy, this order can no longer be delivered. We regret that we are unable to convey more favourable news in this regard. Consequently, you have a claim in the bankruptcy of Bax-Shop.nl B.V. amounting to <amount>. If this amount is correct, no further action is required from you, and this amount will be recorded on the list of provisionally recognized concurrent bankruptcy claims."