BigRedX

As has been said, it's all about attitude and what looks right. When I was in The Terrortones - psychobilly/punk - I used a Gus G3 and a Warwick StarBass. They would have stood out far more than a typical P-Bass where unless you know there is no visible difference between an "off-the-peg" MiM and a Custom Shop model.

No, it's the modern Eastwood copy based on Peter Hook's actual Shergold Marathon 6 String bass. Having played the real thing briefly in the 80s (the bassist in a local band I was a big fan of had one) it is, as far as I can recall, almost identical. Peter Hook thinks so too, because last time I saw him play live he was only using the Eastwoods.

Hurtsfall at the (Old) Angel in Nottingham. The sound is always a bit hit and miss in a room that is taller than it is wide, but by ditching the backline entirely and putting everything straight into the PA made balancing everything up much easier. Also the fact that we use very little in the way of massively overdriven sounds gave us a much better definition to the mix than the other bands. New song went (almost) flawlessly - I did have to stop the intro after out singer started talking over it as it's quite subtle if we don't get the downbeat we're all over the place for the first verse. Otherwise form a performance PoV this could have been the best gig we have done post Covid. A couple of action shots:

Here's mine from last night's Hurtsfall gig: Line 6 Helix straight into the PA via an EMO passive DI box. No amps on stage made for a much more balanced band sound and no problems with drowning out the vocals. My RCF cab is now reserved solely for rehearsals with In Isolation, and large stages with minimalist foldback.

There are lots of different ways to play the Bass VI, and some them will require it to sound like a bass guitar at least some of the time. I use mine with minimalist post-punk/goth band Hurtsfall and some of what I play is "standard" bass guitar and other times it much more in the guitar range and tone. As someone who also plays guitar, I've found that the necks on most Bass VIs are far too narrow for me. I would consider them narrow on a standard guitar and the wider/heavier bass stings only compound this problem.

For Fender-style instruments the only reason that "budget" versions would be inferior is because there is slightly less time and attention to detail spent on final finishing and quality control. Remember that these instruments were designed to be made cheaply and easily using 1940s technology operated by (relatively) unskilled labour. With modern CNC machines and a little bit of care at the finishing stage any manufacturer should be able to churn out perfect examples every time. The question we should really be asking is why the "pro" versions are so expensive.

For me there is a very important distinction between albums that are great when listened to as a whole from start to finish, and albums where you can listen to each song individually and out of context and think every one of them is a brilliant song. This has been very much brought home to me when I do my annual compilation of my favourite songs of the year. Many times there are albums that I have really enjoyed when listening to them as albums, but when I come to pick an individual song from any of them, there are none that stand out enough to warrant inclusion on my "best of" compilation. Often the songs that make it through are those from albums that that I rarely enjoy listening to from start to finish, but once removed from the surrounding filler are recognisable as great tracks. Therefore, for me, the "perfect" album is one which is not only brilliant when listened to as an album, but also one where you can pick out any track at random and think it is great on it own. Very few albums meet this criteria.

That doesn't sound very 80s authentic.

As someone who also plays the guitar and has owned several all-valve guitar amps I would expect to use the gain control to set the amount of "drive" and the volume control for the output volume. For an amp that didn't follow this method I would hope that it would be mentioned, along with the best way to use it, in the accompanying manual. I appreciate that with an all-valve amp some of the characteristics of the sound are produced by the output valves working hard as well as the pre-amp valves, but I would also expect for an amp with both gain and volume controls to be able to get a decent sound out of it at home practice levels.

Not my experience at all. In the days when I was selling A LOT of stuff through eBay, Discogs, and band merch through Bandcamp, pretty much everything (several thousand parcels over 10+ years) was sent by Parcel Force or UPS using Interparcel, which was considerably cheaper than dealing with either company directly. In all that time I had 4 problems - 2 with damaged items and 2 with parcels that disappeared in transit. In every case I was refunded without quibbles in full (both the value of the item and the shipping including any insurance I had paid for). The only time there was a delay was at the beginning of 2021 after all the new customs rules kicked in and the pandemic had further slowed everything down, and Belgian Customs managed to lose my parcel, and that was really only due the various processing delays at the time and needing to make absolutely sure that the parcel had definitely been lost and was not still awaiting customs inspection. However once the delay could no longer be blamed on Customs processing I received my refund within the week. I always found Interparcel's customer services easy to deal with either by telephone or on-line chat. It was certainly far more painless than trying to get compensation for a new album sent to Germany by Royal Mail (dealing with them directly), that was returned several months after sending damaged beyond the point were I could consider even selling as a second-hand item. Having said that, since a significant portion of my sales were to places outside of the UK, I have stopped selling completely as the UK's exit from the EU and various customs changes have made it totally impractical and uneconomical for private individuals to sell to locations abroad. Therefore I haven't sent anything anywhere by any method for almost 18 months now, so my information may be somewhat out of date.

Even some of my all-time favourite albums have one duff track on them. However these three are perfect all the way through: 1. "Parachute" by The Pretty Things 2. "Fakevox" by PlusTech Squeeze Box 3. "Violet" by The Birthday Massacre

Couldn't find any info regarding the scale length other than the Vintage & Rare website which states that the overall length is 102cm, which makes it shorter than my Eastwood Hooky Bass and given that the headstock on the Burns is 6 in line, suggests a scale length of under 30". It certainly looks that way. Does anyone have any more definite info?

This is what I was told when I posted my experiences on here after the lock mechanism failed, and AFAICS there was no way of repairing it. In my case I simply replaced both Dunlops with Schaller StrapLocks. Incidentally this was on a semi-hollow bass (MiK Warwick StarBass II) and I never had any problems with the Schaller locks buttons getting in the way or being uncomfortable.

Nothing wrong with laminate/ply. Even Jens Ritter has used it.

From a comfort PoV the Dunlop button should fit the bill. However be aware that the locking mechanism requires regular lubrication/maintenance otherwise it will fail. I don't know if buying an after-market set will include these instructions, but the bass I bought with them pre-installed didn't so I was unaware of this and within 6 months one of the locks failed just as I was fitting the strap before going on-stage. Luckily I was able to get through the performance by simply not moving about as much as usual, but it made for a nervous 45 minutes.

That's to the cost of the bass plus the cost of shipping.

The problem I always have with Eastwood is not the build or QC (both are excellent on my Hooky Bass) but the fact that the majority of their instruments only bear a passing resemblance to the guitar or bass they are supposed to copying, and are generally cobbled together using standard modern hardware, which might result in a more reliable playing experience, but loses much of the charm and quirkiness (and IMO the USP) of the original. Their "copy" of the Ovation Magnum bass was particular poor. However the Hooky 6-string bass simply wouldn't be possible with on-the-shelf parts, and therefore is a completely different proposition.

The flat fingerboard suits me fine, and IIRC is exactly like the Shergold original. Mine also has the tab on the top of the control plate. AFAIK the tab is designed to dig into the wood to stop the switch turning on instruments where the controls go through the body rather than being mounted on a plate. Normally, on a plastic or metal control plate you wouldn't bother fitting it at all. I haven't looked under the control plate but I would hope that there is a serrated washer stopping the switch from turning.

Exactly how I felt when I first played my Eastwood Hooky bass. All the parts that I had to really concentrate on not to mess up were suddenly simple to play. I won't be going back to a Fender style Bass VI ever. I've been looking for another one second hand to use as a spare, but as you say they never come up for sale.

The synth player in Hurtsfall uses one. Very nice and appears to be a Nord Lead with the ability to use samples (and user created samples) as oscillator waveforms. The Nord Lead is probably my all-time favourite synth and I even preferred it to the Jupiter 6 I used to own. If you have decent keyboard technique you should also look at the various Hydrasynth options. At least one of them has polyphonic aftertouch which is the "holy grail" of proper keyboard players' performance requirements.

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The general consensus over on the SOS forums seems to be that 8GB on an M1 is equivalent of having 16GB on Intel. This is because of the close integration of the processor and memory (and why the memory can't be retrospectively upgraded). If you've been able to make do with 16GB on your previous Mac then 8GB on an M1 should be fine.

The bass I have owned that had the widest string spacing at the bridge also had by far the narrowest string spacing at the nut (close to narrow 4-string width for 5 strings) which is why if I'm going to be interested in the measurements, I need to know all of them, and not just how far apart the strings are at the bridge. I had a similar situation when I was on my quest for the perfect Bass VI. The Fender/Squier has a fairly well spaced bridge, but (for me) an unfeasibly narrow neck, while the Burns Barracuda had much better string spacing at the nut but was standard "Strat" string spacing at the bridge (too narrow for me).

In the early 2000s after a band I had dedicated most of my non-working hours for the previous 13 years split up I took a break from bands. However this co-incided with my discovery that my very first band from the late 70s/early 80s had acquired a bit of a cult following and a couple of rather impressive review including one by Johan Kugelberg and as a result of this the Hyped To Death label were keen to release a CD of our back catalogue. Therefore I spent a very pleasant 2 years slowly working my way through digitally restoring about 5 hours worth of recordings and along with my old band mates deciding which songs should go on the CD and then designing the sleeve artwork to go with it. It was a pleasant low-key alternative to my previous musical activities; although I think having a definite outcome (having the music released on CD by someone else) most certainly helped. When I was ready to join another band, I looked for one where I could simply turn up to rehearsals and gigs and play bass, nothing more was expected of me, in terms of song writing, recording, organising gigs etc.

For me it's all about string spacing at the point where I usually pluck the strings, which is also dependant upon the string spacing at the nut and the scale length. Therefore string spring at the bridge on its own is meaningless for me.