BigRedX

That's fair enough... But a load of those songs were released in 1979 (8 of them for sure and probably more if I could be bothered to check), plus Green Onions and a couple of others are even older, and some are covers of songs written way before the 80s.

In over 20 years of buying items form outside of the EU, I have only once avoided VAT and Import duty and was on something that was delivered to my work address by FedEx. It turns out that the company had bought from abroad before using FedEx as the courier, and they (at the time) had a system where once you were a registered customer, FedEx would bill the import charges retrospectively for large companies with a good rating. I made some attempt to enquire about paying the charges when they were billed, but nothing ever came of it. Everything else was pay in advance plus the handling fee before the goods were released. There are plenty of threads about import charges on here so it should never come as surprise to anyone. As I have said before allow an extra 25% of the combined item and shipping cost plus £15 for anything under £100 to cover the handling fee and you won't get a shock.

Selecting a DAW is a very personal choice, and no-one else can tell you what is going the right one for you. My choice was based entirely on the fact that when I bought it I was collaborating with another songwriter and it made sense for us to both have the same program. Other than that this down to having features that you need and presenting them to you in a way that is intuitive. All I will say is that on the whole the more expensive DAWs come with more bundled plug-ins, and that Cubase, Logic and Performer have better MIDI functions than the more recent competition (IMO Reaper is comparatively weak in this respect) as they all have their roots in MIDI sequencing rather than digital tape recorders. If detailed control of MIDI parameters is important to you for controlling instruments (VST or actual MIDI hardware) then I'm look at one of the above. If you are more likely to use it just as a digital multi-track recorder then anything that suits your work flow will be fine.

My experience has been that if you are buying something that is already available through an authorised dealer/distributor in the UK, but are hoping to save some money, it is never worth it, unless the item in question is second-hand at a bargain price. Everything I've bought from the US (or any other country outside the EU) have been items that are not available in the UK by any other method. That way I can evaluate the price simply on whether I'm prepared to pay it (plus all the shipping and import costs) rather than attempting to work out if I'm going to save a few £s.

I'd seen the price increase for sending to the US, but didn't know the reason. It will probably make selling bands CDs and Vinyl to them far too expensive to be worth while.

Thanks. I won't be getting one of those as based on those measurements it has the closest string spacing at both the nut and bridge of all the Bass VIs I've come across. Just have to wait it out for the Eastwood. Should be only a few more weeks... If you want flat-wound strings apparently Picato do a set as well as LaBella.

So who has it now?

Thanks for the update. Can I ask a favour? Could you supply the following measurements: Width of the nut. Distance from E to E at the nut Distance from E to E at the bridge Thanks! BTW if you want a decent set of Bass VI strings have a look at the Axion Bass VI set from Newtone.

IME with 8 string basses (I've owned two) the difference in saddle position between the main and octave strings is such that if you only have a single saddle for all the strings in a course it will never sound in tune above the 5th fret, and no amount of compromise between the ideal positions for each string gives anything workable. With decent strings you could get away with a single saddle for both the octave strings in each course on this, but the main string is always going to need it's own separate saddle for intonation.

When it comes to processors you also have to check the number of cores and whether or not your software can make use of multiple cores. Some music software doesn't.

I've bought basses (and guitars) plenty of times from the US, but never from TalkBass, as none of the sellers of basses I was interested in were prepared to go to the trouble of shipping outside of the States. If you do find someone who is prepared to ship it to you be prepared to pay an extra 25% (as a rough rule of thumb) in VAT, import duty, and handling fees on top of the DECLARED value of the bass combined with the shipping/insurance cost. So if the bass costs £1000, the shipping and insurance £300 expect to pay another 25% on top of £1300 which works out at £1625. Don't ask the seller to under-declare the value of the bass, should anything go wrong in transit it won't be insured for enough, similarly don't let them over-declare either, because this is the value that the VAT and import duty will be calculated on. Also when working out the exchange rates use the worst rate that you can find, so that you don't have any nasty surprises.

If you mean is Catalina the latest version of Mac OS, then yes. However unlike Windows, Apple make few concessions to backwards compatibility - it's one of the strengths of Mac OS but it's also one of it's weaknesses. For music in particular it is usually recommended to be one major OS version behind the latest - therefore IMO at the moment Mojave is the version to be running. You'll find that many of the smaller software developers - often those doing freeware - are slow to update their offerings to be compatible, and music software (VSTs and and software instruments) are often a long way behind. As others have said the RAM is woefully under-spec'd in that Mac. I couldn't recommend less than 8GB at the VERY minimum, and ideally for music you will want 16GB or more. The OS on it's own will take up nearly all of 8GB so on an 8GB Mac you're into swap disc usage as soon as you open you first program. The SSD size IMO isn't so critical. Ideally you would be using an external drive for saving all your music projects and save the internal SSD for the OS and applications.

Unless you are sold on the small form factor of the Mac Mini look at a second had MacPro. My current system is a (2010) 5,1: 6 core 3.46Ghz processor and 64GB RAM which cost me £600. Will run Mojave (so long as the graphics card supports "Metal") and is plenty speedy enough for my musical and graphical needs. Also easily upgradable - holds 4 SATA drives and has 3 spare PCI slots for extras such as audio interfaces and RAM drives etc. Also has digital I/O on light pipe connectors. If you can get away with an older Mac OS, then look at the 3,1 version which supports up to El Capitan, that'll be about £350.

TBH the only way you will really find out is the try both with your bass, ideally playing with your band.

At the moment bad news IMO. I've had an issue with my Burns Barracuda which resulted in an intonation screw and spring disappearing (it pinged across the room and no matter how carefully I have looked there is no sign of it) the last time I changed strings. Numerous emails, at least one sent before the Cover-19 situation, have gone unanswered. I'm perfectly happy to pay for a new screw and spring, or at the very least get a specification for a replacement so I can source them myself. Currently the saddle is held in place by a piece of twisted wire, but the proper part would be far more useful.

If it was me I'd go for a more traditional bouzouki shape - more a D and less and rounded corner triangle.

No. Both bands had a load of really fantastic gigs line up for 2020, and now nearly all have been cancelled or postponed until next year.

Unfortunately it doesn't appear to be running at the moment due to the Covid-19 situation.

So you like the headstock but not the boring P-Bass body?

As the owner of a bass that was originally matt black, I can confirm that it will eventually buff up to a semi-gloss with playing.

What sort of company makes a digital effects unit with presets and not include MIDI? A stupid one.

TBH any modern solid state or Class D amp is going to be producing a far higher output then the average power attenuator is capable of handling, irrespective of whether it is bridged or not. The highest power handling I have seen on a power attenuator is 150W and the accepted practice is for safety it should be rated at twice that of the amp.

I really liked it - it sounded great and was surprising easy to play given that the neck is just a square cross-section. However there are a limited number of songs that are practical to play on a one-string fretless bass, and I've been ruthless in clearing out instruments that I don't use so it's gone.

Have the prices gone up? I'm pretty sure mine was less than that new.

Stop! Before you download any free plug-ins or buy any of the commercial versions, make sure that you have explored all the ones that come bundled with your DAW. The most important ones generally are EQ and compression, so make sure you know how to get the very best out of the ones you already have, and then you'll be able to work out if they are sufficient, or if you need something with a more user-friendly interface or more sonic capabilities. Then move on to Reverb and delay. After that it very much depends on what you want to do and what comes bundled with your DAW. Personally I've stopped using 3rd party plug-ins, because these is already too much choice in my DAW (Logic) and TBH if I can't get a decent sound it's far more likely to my short-comings as an engineer and not the fault of the plug-ins.