tauzero

I misinterpreted the original post and thought the socket in the amp was wobbly. That's really good service from Eich - I had experience dealing with Thomas Eich with a couple of products from pre-Eich days and he was always very helpful.

I can get a reasonable sound out of any of my basses. The Seis, though, are the nicest of them to play. Does nobody else consider playability to be the most important aspect of a bass?

MN pots have tapers which go to 100% over 50% of the travel, so both of those are possible.

I've got two basses with V/V/tone bits, one Squier Modified Vintage Modified with an MM bridge pickup which I've modified to V/Blend with an MN500k pot, and an Ibanez SRF705 which hasn't yet been modified but will be, as I really dislike V/V and the fiddliness of adjusting two volume controls to change the overall volume. The piezo volume stays though.

So he was behind you?

Your thumbs of doom have produced a true dilemma - would you "love" to, or would you merely "like" to?

I bought my expensive (although < £3k) basses because I wanted them, not with any great regard to what I would be doing with them (other than playing).

I would return it as it seems like it's faulty.

Is the app expecting by default to operate wirelessly? Is there anything in the app settings to make it use a wired connection? And which app are you using?

My Thumb NT cost £900 in 1988, which apparently is the equivalent of £2750 in today's money. The equivalent would be a Masterbuilt, €8900 plus shipping. That's wildly outstripping inflation, and shoots past "too f*cking expensive" into "you've got to be f*cking kidding" territory.

Is the stage big enough for me to take a headed bass if I want to? Do I really need frets?

"That's an expensive bass" "Why, how much is it?" "£1000. That one over there, that's a cheap bass" "How much is that then?" "£2500"

There's far too much overthinking going on for my original question. Put it like this: a box contains a completely unidentified bass which is to perform a completely unidentified function which will fall within its capabilities. You are not buying it[1]. If someone said to you "the bass in there is £x", how much would x have to be for you to think it was an expensive bass? [1] But you could make me an offer.

It doesn't really put a new perspective on it. If I was in that situation, I'd buy the Hooky but I would regard it as an expensive bass (my threshold being £1000). I have several basses that cost me over £1k but none that cost me over £2k, and the ones that cost me over £1k I regard as expensive. Just because a bass comes over the "expensive" threshold doesn't mean I won't buy it, although I do have a nebulous "too f*cking expensive" threshold that's somewhere round £3k beyond which I almost certainly wouldn't pay that for a bass.

Is the amp new?

Rat Charles

Do you have to remove the rim from the grill first? It's going to somewhat constrain the flattening if you don't, isn't it?

Well, you never know... I thought I'd have a look at a Vintera Bass VI and see if that inspired me, and it did occur to me that it would be the right size to put over the retaining nuts for the pots so that when you put the knobs on, they'd be spaced a card thickness away from the control plate so they'd be a consistent height and have adequate clearance.

I'm happy to take expensive basses (or what I consider expensive) out to just about anywhere. I just happen to have some basses that I categorise as expensive and others that I don't.

I've seen quite a few times people saying that they wouldn't want to take an expensive bass to the Dog & Trumpet, but what is an expensive bass? I've got several basses that I class as expensive basses, but maybe my idea of expensive is calibrated differently to other people. To me, the threshold is £1000, which may just be an indicator that I'm rather old and my Warwick Thumb cost me £900 in 1988, and that was bloody expensive. I think most of us would agree that a Fodera Yin Yang at £7kish is expensive. But where does everyone else place that marker? This isn't about what you get for the money, or any sentimental value, it's purely a monetary thing. What is the minimum price for a bass to be considered expensive?

It should. Also, you could get to answer 1a) by using something like https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/303990422806 - step down buck converter to a USB output, or https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/176692251941 with solder pad outputs, or https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/397239175045 which is cheaper but uses a 12V input (which you happen to have).

1. Yes. 1a. Why not use a USB PSU? 5V is much closer to 4.5V than 9V is. 2. If you're going to be cutting the wires, mark one of them with a sharpie both sides of the cut BEFORE cutting, then after cutting determine the polarity using your multimeter. However, as the LEDs are diodes, they should be fine with reversed polarity.

Looks like it's 14mm across flats - were you making a spanner for the tuners?

Glad to hear it. My second-hand Space 5 had a strange pickup issue - when I picked it up, I only tested it with the blend knob at each end of its travel rather than in the middle. When I got it home, I found the B, E, and A strings were out of phase but the D and G strings weren't. Replaced the MK1s with MK5CBCs and all was well. So maybe there's also a bit of a QC problem with pickups.