pete.young

Have you thought about trying a decent compressor on the vocals? Might be cheaper than a speaker upgrade.

I use a Shadow wing pickup with a PJB Briefcase, and I find that a good pre-amp makes a huge difference to both the signal and the sound quality. I have an EDB-1 which is a great bit of kit. The notch filter is especially useful for tuning out the odd growl. I originally bought the EDB-1 because I wanted a 2-channel pre-amp to add a microphone, but I find that I get a good enough sound for my needs with just the Shadow.

I was thinking more along the lines of Vintage or OLP, which come up second-hand every now and again.

That was a lucky break. No way is that heap of firewood worth 750 Euros. 75 maybe.

Well, the replacement we found in April has just resigned, so once again we're on the lookout for a banjo player, or a guitarist willing to learn banjo or play 6-string banjo.

Does this have to be a J-Retro? A decent pre-amp can seriously improve some of the cheap Stingray copies, although a decent pickup will have a similar effect.

If copper goes anywhere near sea water, it turns green, non?

Good spot, very nice. Think Ash is a member on here.

A Micro Thumpinator would sort that out, they come up used in the For Sale forum from time to time.

I think that's a great idea. Probably the most comfortable bass neck I've owned was the MTD Kingston, which is asymmetric - and that had a huge wide fingerboard but it still felt very effortless to play and just seemed to be right.

There are a couple of things that I think you might need to look at. The first is the bridge. Intonation and string height are matched to the instrument at the construction stage, so once you've made your initial choice of string, that's it? I don't like the idea of not being able to adjust the action or the intonation. Even with the same brand and gauge of string, you sometimes need to make minor adjustments.The other reason for the design, to allow the strings to 'interact' as much as possible through the shared saddle, is something that I don't believe is going to be desirable for bass either. The other thing I'd be looking at is the neck profile. It looks like a box with rounded-off corners. Will that work for bass?

Use proper vibrato technique, up and down the string: not sideways, like a string bend.

I could be mistaken, but this looks like the same bass, same photographs, in a different listing from a different seller? https://www.ebay.com/itm/BASS-COLLECTION-Fretless-Precision-Bass-Made-in-Japan-With-Hard-Case/183505730375?_trkparms=aid%3D222007%26algo%3DSIM.MBE%26ao%3D1%26asc%3D20131231084308%26meid%3Dfb3b43b149d048e3942579432173bbdb%26pid%3D100010%26rk%3D2%26rkt%3D12%26sd%3D283191488995%26itm%3D183505730375&_trksid=p2047675.c100010.m2109

I had a Jim Reed jazz for a while, sold it to someone on here so it may still be around. Neck pocket was an authentic Fender '70s fit (like a todger in a shirt sleeve)

Cool. There is also banjo hangout, www.banjohangout.org - it's fairly US-centric but there are some UK posters on there. Sorry, I'd forgotten about that when I did my first post.

All the above, plus get the kit tuned properly. All of it, not just the bass drum.

Either have a word with Phil Davidson to see if he will take it back as used stock, or put it on commission with Eagle Music in Huddersfield, https://www.eaglemusicshop.com . This is a very high-quality instrument but the case is not worth £400 on it's own - Phil's prices include the case. Difficult to price the instrument, best to get some specialist advice.

Some very interesting ideas here guys but please can I have my thead back? It looks as thought the OC-3 is the only game in town for the original requirement?

It kinda depends on the effects loop too. Many are set up to be parallel, so you get a blend of the return and the amp pre-amp signal. If you've got a bass plugged into both, you need to be able to turn off the bass you're not using. My preferred solution for this would be to use an LS-2, put one bass in one loop, and the other plus the BD121 in the other loop.

Yes - that's what the 'Range' control does when you're using 'Poly' mode.

So apart from the Boss OC-3, are there any octave down pedals on the market with an upper frequency cut-off, so that you can just octave all the notes below a certain frequency?

Depends how much of a hurry you're in - I'm going to buy the humbucking version for my lap steel, but haven't got around to it yet.

According to Fishman, it won't fit. 98.5 mm https://www.fishman.com/products/series/neo-d/neo-d-magnetic-soundhole-pickup/

Humble? A full set of Northumbrian small pipes costs thousands of pounds and takes many years to learn to play. I saw her band earlier this year and they were superb, I'd take that over Sting any day of the week.