tauzero

The ugliness.

"Not now, Arthur!"

Next step up from a didgeridoo.

I ordered an A-B switch on July 16th, and it arrived on the 23rd in time to use that evening. Which was nice. I've had to return a couple of items, it's great being able to return them to a UK address - the most recent one, I got the refund before the returned item could have got to the return address which was excellent.

Rip it off and start again, as somebody sang a long time ago. Skinning it and applying Tuffcab would improve the looks and probably take a kilo off the weight.

I'd be inclined to get a better bass first - there are a lot of inexpensive basses which will be a step up from the G4M one. Does the amp have a headphone output? If so, try using that rather than the speaker and see if it gives an improvement. The amp upgrade is going to depend on what you intend to do - if you're just going to be playing at home, you won't need huge amounts of power, and portability won't be so much of an issue, whereas if you want to go gigging with it, you'll want a fair amount of poke and you will probably want reasonably lightweight gear. For the time being, as others have suggested, a Nux Mighty Plug or Boss Katana Go, or a Zoom B1 or B3 or similar would give you a better listening experience with the bonus of being able to play with effects.

Just sold a BC 112 Mk3 cab to Sean, all a very easy transaction. Hope it serves you well!

Yes, which is a little sad as the Ray5 or OLP Tony Levin (also 22 fret neck) would be good inexpensive donor bodies.

Got the news that Ozzy had died soon after the open mic night started, so we of the house band did an impromptu version of Paranoid. As it happened, the band of teenage girls was missing their bassist, so I stepped in and we did Iron Man as the last number, admittedly somewhat imperfectly.

Ten basses for a band? Are you a U2 tribute?

Yes - when playing in my bedroom, the strap came off my Les Paul copy guitar and it hit the kickstart of a bike engine that was also in my bedroom, putting a big dent in it. Then in 1988 I bought a Warwick with Schaller straplocks, and every instrument that can be fitted with them since then has been. At last night's open mic, the strap came off the guitar of the guy who was doing house band duty with me for the final number. It was a straplock failure, a Fender one that had come unscrewed from the strap. Fortunately he had hold of it and was able to sit on his amp to finish the song.

It took my former bandmates a year to realise. I play fretless the same as fretted for some things, for others I play it with a more, well, fretless feel to it - depends on what I want to accomplish.

The girls that I was accompanying have found a drummer and a bassist (also teenage girls) who have played at the last two open mics in Tamworth. And last night they did Iron Man, which Phoebe had said she wanted to do a few weeks ago so I'd learnt it, before she recruited the new bassist. Oh well. Anyway, they are good.

I got told off for saying something similar on another thread.

Neck pocket - 93mm long Distance from 12th fret to end of heel pocket - c 203mm

Nut width 45mm. Width at 12th fret 61.5mm. Width at 22nd fret 69mm. Depth at 1st fret 21.8mm. Depth at 12th fret 23.6. Heel thickness c 27.8mm.

I'll sort out the measurements.

I like the way you've concealed the control cavity. Blends in nicely.

Do you know how the neck profile compares with a SUB Ray5?

It's impossible to overplay bass. I've found it's not so much an instrument as a person. There's always someone who's got to be making a noise all the time. Candidates from my experience have been percussionist, gob-iron player, and acoustic guitarist.

I got a set of those (from Ebay). They aren't any degrees, they're just flat. Same thickness at both ends. For that reason, I don't trust them, although I'm sure some are properly sloping. I finished up using these: https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/167307833531 (brass guitar neck shim, if that doesn't work). You need to either experiment or calculate the thickness you'll need. To work out the thickness of a shim, you can do that by considering the positions of the shim S and the fixings about which the neck will effectively pivot P (the front edge of the neck pocket). Then given the nut position N, the ratio NS:PS is also the ratio of thickness of the shim to the height by which the nut is to move (similar triangles). I think, anyway, my own pure maths O-levels were over 50 years ago.

The company is currently being run by Linda and Dennis Drumm (how appropriate) - I don't know if they're family. If not then I assume that JHS himself wanted his family to profit from the company and may not have anticipated that it wouldn't find a buyer.

An interesting arithmetic system you have there.

In passive mode, you may find that the treble control works as a treble cut, just like a passive bass. It's not a certainty though.

Number of controls: does a push-pull pot count as two controls (one pot plus one switch)?