JPJ

Calling @Bill Fitzmaurice

You ‘could’ try burning it out with a soldering iron, but bear in mind you will still need to drill out the wood and fit a dowel. I had this happen to me once and I drilled a parallel hole up against the screw then pushed it over into the new hole with a punch, then redrilled a bigger hole and fitted a plug. BUT you need a drill press to drill the plug hole otherwise the drill bit wanders about. 
Having said all of that, a plug cutter is probably the safest and easiest answer.

Just my thoughts, but if you intend going down the diplomatic route with the maker, then I’d resist calls to ‘name and shame’ on here until you have exhausted that route. 

22 minutes ago, tom1946 said:

I'd buy this in a heartbeat but I'm disabled and unable to travel from Teesside to collect it.

If you decide to post it let me know.

Hi Tom, 

I’ve sent you a pm.

Wow, look at the weather forecast, perfect alfresco bass noodling weather across the country this weekend. Why not treat yourself to a beautiful acoustic bass setup and ready to go? 

49 minutes ago, steviedee said:

I bought this little M-Vave IR Box from Aliexpress .... £20. An IR Loader, an interface s di, with a headphone out. Comes loaded with mostly guitar IRs but a few bass options which are to my ears good! Loaded some Sigma Audio DB IRs and my EUB sounds great (might all be in my head 😄 may be no difference) I plugged the interface into cubase and it recorded fine. Controlled via buetooth. I mean even just as a tiny headphone amp its great for the price.

 

Bloke goes into some detail on talk bass https://www.talkbass.com/threads/m-vave-ir-box-review.1668489/   

 

I'm sure it's not a patch on more expensive devices but it was £20.

 

Sounds like a win to me. The way I would describe those Sigma Audio IR’s is that they add ‘air’ to your EUB sound. I did a fair bit of A/B’ing the various basses and microphones before I found a combination that had maximum effect (no pun intended) and in a pleasant way. Also found I had to open up the NXT’s tone control much more than I normally would on its own.

On 06/04/2025 at 21:22, Pirellithecat said:

Great!  That's the answer!  Works.   Having said that I think that the Ashdown preamp rather compliments the Ashdown power amp ...... putting the Digbeth in as a replacement, isn't as pleasant as using it at the front end, even with the Ashdown Pre flat or the EQ turned off.   But many thanks!

Don’t forget that the Ashdown preshape button works ‘the other way around’ I.e. you press it in to defeat the preshape not to enable the preshape. That caught me out for years before someone on here helpfully pointed this out. Press that button in to get rid of the inherent boominess.

Excellent stuff, thanks chaps (roll on order) 👍

Quick question, I’m a mild eczema suffer which unfortunately affects my hands. When I have an outbreak, it can make my plucking fingers painful if the keens are in the wrong places (which they annoyingly usually are). For gigs, when necessary I have been using both the white microporous tape and regular flesh coloured Elastoplast, but it seldom lasts a full set. I’ve seen a few double bassists using finger tape, so I know I am not alone, but what tape are you/they using?

Oh, and before anyone say’s “use a bow”, let me assure you the world is not ready for my bowing technique (or lack of)😂

@Beedster Chris I think you’d get a lot more success/interest if you stuck this in the Double Bass & EUB for sale section.

For anyone interested, these are absolutely top notch and perfect if you double on your gigs (or not of course). And Chris (Beedster) is a gent to deal with. 

Have a chat with Martin at @Stoneham amplification, he’s very busy but he might be able to help.

6 hours ago, Phil Starr said:

Your only problem is that at least one of your instruments will need a line level output, you won'e be able to just plug it in or mic it. Apart from the lack of gain on inputs 5/6 and 7/8 they are also not really high impedance at 10kohms unlike the Mohms of the combi inputs for guitar. This won't really be an issue if one of your guitars uses fx as many processors will give you a fair bit of gain and don't need impedance matching. If your db uses a pre amp that will probably work too but you'd need to check. It'd be a bit annoying if you saved money and space buying the Flow8 only to have to buy another piece of kit to get your third instrument connected.

 

Have you seen the offer at Andertons

The lack of a full eight channels is a drawback, but I will be using my EBS Stanley Clarke pre with my double bass, so I can control gain/eq etc here. But I would have been happier if Behringer offered a Flow 12 but then I guess this would compete with the X-Air 12. Thanks for pointing out the Andertons offer - I have pulled the trigger even if delivery is not slated until 20th June! I’ll report back once she gets here. 

This is going to look lush imho - very retro. I remember a guitarist friend back in the late ‘70s having a 40W valve ‘Bolt’ combo in a similar natural wood finish that I thought looked so classy compared to the usual dinged up tolex look.

Most of my double bass gigs are now amp less as we’re an acoustic trio playing small pub type venues where I can monitor via FOH. For my electric gigs I’m still amped up, albeit a much smaller rig than I used to use and whilst we’re all using IEM’s, our PA isn’t man enough to handle the whole band with authority in the larger venues we play. 
On my double bass gigs I share the OPs joy of turning up with just my bass and my pedal board and one day hope to do the same on electric gigs too.

So I am being attracted to the diminutive Behringer Flow 8 to use with my little acoustic trio, as the XR18 is a bit overkill for the tiny venues we play. Ideally the Flow 8 would have had a couple more XLR/combo inputs but I think I can make our two mics, two guitars, and one db work within the Flow 8. I’ve watched a few videos online and it seems like it can do everything I want it to but I thought I’d ask on here whether anybody has any real world experience?

3 hours ago, steviedee said:

Can anyone recommend an IR loader to use with my NS Design EUB with the Sigma Bass IRs? @JPJ looks like he has done the same thing I'm thinking of. I could use the stomp but apparently it's better to have more milliseconds. The TC Electronics looks good but ideally I'd like a headphone out to double as a wee practice rig. Looked at the Tonexone but not sure if it will be better than the stomp .... or if I'll even notice 😄  

@steviedee I first tried the Sonicake IR loader but it couldn’t handle the file size of the Sigma IR’s so I moved it on and bought the TC Impulse. I didn’t need the headphone out as the TC lives on my doubling board and I have the headphone functionality via my EBS Stanley Clarke pre

Having owned my XR18 for just over ten years, mixing from the side of the stage whilst playing, last night was a first for me as I went out as a sound guy, working for a mates band who had just bought their own XR18 (albeit v2). So before the gig, I created a new scene file on my XR with all the basic settings I could pre-gig (channel layout, hpf’s, global effects, stereo combinator etc and then took my Surface Go to the gig with the scene file loaded and simply transferred the scene to the their XR. I did update my firmware and X-Air Edit to the latest versions first so there were no difficulties between the v1 and v2 hardware and all worked perfectly. 

Being able to sit with a live band going for it really taught me a lot about my mix, particularly around eq’ing. Making space for each instrument is vital, and gating all those horrible open drum mics is essential to stop your whole mix becoming a mud bath. I really enjoyed the experience and the only complaint was they were too loud 😎 I also managed to multi-track record about 75% of the gig for them so will have fun over the coming days mixing that lot down. 

Interestingly, they were using a TP Link router with both 5GHz and 2.4GHz channels. I was using the 5GHz channel for the Surface Go, but my old 2012 MacBook that I was using as a back-up and to do the recording was connected on the 2.4GHz channel. The Surface Go suffered three drop outs over the course of the night whereas the MacBook stayed connected throughout the whole evening. The venue POS system was running on a 5GHz network albeit separate channel but I guess this was the culprit. 

Still available, possible trades with cash either way for a small form factor reverb pedal. Hit me up with what you’ve got. 

I watched it on iPad using the link in NickD’s original post and I didn’t get any adverts 🤷‍♂️

Calling @Blartfactor10 a man with the necessary skills to rebuild him

2 hours ago, Raslee said:

I've got a Harley Benton Mini GS Bass (Taylor copy), arriving tomorrow. Looked at the Taylor & Guild models which look absolutely great but opted for the cheapy HB to try it out firstly…my first HB venture too. 

When I was working in Holland I had a black Harley Benton 5 string acoustic out there and it was a very good instrument especially for the price. A few rough fret ends and a high saddle but easy fixes that made for a really playable squeeze.

Right, straight off I should say I love acoustic basses. I currently own two, although one - my Tanglewood 4 string is currently for sale on here, as my recently defretted Warwick Rock Bass Alien 5 string is my main acoustic squeeze and having recently moved into double bass ownership, I need the space.

Acoustic basses vary greatly. At the lower end of the market you are getting basically an acoustic guitar with a longer neck so don’t be surprised if it can’t keep up with a couple of aggressively strummed acoustic guitars. The more you pay, the better they become. There will always be those happy exceptions and I remember playing and being very impressed by a parlour sized short scale Ibanez a few years ago. Most come with an adequate pickup and/or preamp. Higher end models like the German-built Warwicks and the legendary Takamine B10 are a thing of musical beauty and something I aspire to. 

Strings-wise, I cannot abide those phosphor bronze strings that acoustic bass manufacturers use. I have always swapped these out for flat wounds as soon as I could and I find that the La Bella low tension flats work great on acoustic bass. 

Don’t be put off by the neigh-sayers, acoustic bass guitars have their place. Buy one and enjoy it. 

I think it’s more of an issue when manufacturers do not keep their software up to date for current products. There have been a few instances of Behringer’s native apps for the X-Air series mixers not working on the latest versions of iOS that have taken Behringer way too long to address (yes I know, Mixing Station, Android etc etc).

Thanks for sharing, as a relative newby to the world of double bass I found this fascinating 🙏

Don’t forget, if you go Behringer you have the option of using Ultranet for your monitor mixes saving all those aux outs for other uses. Yes it means more outlay to buy the P16 personal mixers but it gives each band member a physical control of their IEM stereo mix.