BigRedX

You shouldn't need to hope anything. The person responsible for doing this should be getting on and fixing it so that you would never know it happened in the first place. Maybe then they will take proper precautions when when soldering on other customer's basses in the future.

Is there actually anyone on Basschat in Oklahoma who plays C&W and desperate for a gig at this venue? We're a UK based forum. There are venues closer to home that are actually worth getting worked up about how they treat musicians.

And who cares? There are plenty of gigs that pay properly. Simply cross this one off your list and move on. They will probably be out of business before the end of the year. When I was in The Terrortones the only time we were asked to pat to play was when we were trying to get gigs in Manchester. In the end we stopped trying and concentrated on paying gigs elsewhere in the country. Even London venues paid us.

Personally, I think that if I am going to be earning money by playing other people's songs, then the least I can do is to buy the record or CD the song comes from. You never know there may be some other song on there that you enjoy listening to.

In the days when I played in a covers band, after initially starting out learning the bass parts exactly as they were on the record, I discovered that for a lot of songs this was a complete waste of time, as the recorded bass part was a combination of bass guitar, extra rhythm guitar, and keyboard left hand, and often the bass guitar part on its own was insufficient to drive the song along and fill out the bottom end of the arrangement at the same time. Once I'd realised that, I'd just learn the riffs/tunes and the chord structure , and work out what I needed to play based on what was already there in our arrangement, and what was obviously missing. You do need to be in a covers band that practices between gigs to do this, as I know many don't see the need to do this.

If you look at the TRC you can see it says "Series II". This is a lower-cost model made in the late 80s and early 90s. For me everything that makes the Pedulla Buzz special is missing from this bass.

If that's the result of work you were paying for, the person doing the work should fix it to your satisfaction for free. If that means a total re-spray of the body so be it. If that was my bass, and body was otherwise flawless I'd want it returned to the state it was before the any work had been started.

I could ask why you don't just set up your amp's tone controls so it produces the sound you want? If it's so you can get two different sounds you may find that the pedal is more convenient as it's a simple press to change.

The guitar amps are all-valve which makes a big difference.

I'm pretty certain my Wesley purple acrylic bass was just under 10lb. It did have a very small body and wooden rather than acrylic headstock. It was definitely more comfortable on the strap than the Squier VMJ that was supposed to replace it.

I assume you are thinking of fitting a J-Retro? The only thing you need to watch is that some of the cheaper Fender basses, savings have been made by reducing the body thickness, and the control cavity may need an extra mm or 2 carefully routing out to accommodate the depth of the pre-amp.

I don't know about the vintage ones being better than the modern ones, but I can definitely say that in 1979 anything with an Ibanez logo on it was vastly superior to any thing coming out of the Fender US factory.

I expect it is the same everywhere in the EU. The problem seems to stem from the fact that after many years of not having to pay VAT and import duty on items from the UK, some EU-based buyers have still not realised that things have changed, hence the number of parcels I've had refused and returned because they don't want to pay any additional charges. Hopefully in a few more years it won't come as quite a surprise and I can start thinking about selling outside of the UK again.

The bass sound in the video is hardly "transparent".

Bill Fitzmaurice has already given you the correct answer: Unless you rig is for personal monitoring only, in which case pretty much any modern cab will be fine.

While the tiny USB drive that comes with the Helix should contain a version of the manual, it will be the one that was current when your Helix was originally made. There is a new revision of the manual with each firmware update, so log in to your Line6 account and download the latest one, and update the firmware while you are at it.

All you need to do is read the manual. Most of it is fairly straight-forward.

Thanks. However as you say in the past the carrier used to do all of this for you based on your description of the contents of the parcel. Now not so much. This all appears to have started at the beginning of 2021, and for anyone coming across it, it can be a serious put off. There are also problems with VAT for private sales. If you sell through one of the big sites like Amazon or eBay, this appears to be handled for you. Last time I posted a Bandcamp sale to the EU, it cause no end of problems at the Post Office because Bandcamp wasn't on their list. The record ended up being refused by the buyer because they didn't want to pay the VAT on it and was eventually returned to me in a condition that made it impossible to resell. I assume that the postal service goes to the expense of returning items like this because it is cheaper than having to pay out insurance on it, if it was "lost". However for sellers it means that we loose out in both postage and item cost. As a result I won't be sending anything outside of the UK until I know for sure that the situation has significantly improved.

Boiling strings is a waste of time and energy.

It's a tube pre-amp with a class D power amp in "retro" styling with minimal controls. Tiny photos on the web site don't show any details, video demonstrates just one muffled farty sound which I supposed some people might like, but not me.

With the Helix you have the option to record both the effected and direct sound of whatever you put through it via the USB interface. This along with the Helix Native plug-in allows you to make changes to the sound of what you have recorded should the mix need it.

There are plenty of "tone woods" whose sawdust can be a serious irritant, and some where it is actually toxic. Just because it's "natural" doesn't necessarily mean it's better for you. And there are plenty of other luthier websites that are equally bad if not worse in failing to have moved with the times.

I don't have a problem with import taxes and VAT. IT's been an accepted part of buying from outside of the EU in the past, and I have probably bought more musical instruments from the US and Japan than I had from the EU. From my PoV I just have to accept that everything I buy from abroad will incur VAT (and import duty depending on the price). What I do have a problem with is the increased unreliability of shipping for anything coming into or leaving the UK and the increased administration/paperwork for anyone sending stuff abroad. @Steve Browning who hopefully has the relevant information: Are all these import/export item codes and EORI numbers something that was in the pipeline anyway for international shipping, or was it specifically triggered by the UK's leaving the EU? Even the mighty Thomann aren't immune from these problems, because while they may have sorted out the calculation and payment of VAT and import charges at source they are still insisting on using DHL for UK deliveries and returns, when it has been proven numerous times that the UK part of the organisation are simply not up to the job.

I'm only 5'6" and I can always find somewhere to stand where I have a decent view of the stage. Unlike at "seated" gigs where if everyone stands up and the person in front of me is taller, there is no possibility of moving to somewhere else.

Which reminds me that I missed Les Paul from my list of seated gigs. I went to see him at Iridium in NYC about 6 months before he died. Mr Paul was a great raconteur, despite arthritis of the hands he was still a better guitarist then I'll ever be, and his band were great, but everything else about the gig was horrible. We were packed in so tightly at the tables that it was almost impossible to eat your mandatory burger without assaulting the people sitting either side of you (and being assaulted in return). Standing other than to visit the "rest room" was forbidden. As soon as the "show" had finished we were ushered out so the next sitting could take our places. TBH the sorts of bands I want to go and see do not suit sitting down to watch them. I'm happy to carry on going to standing gigs until I reach the point when I can't do it any more by which time I'll probably also be too deaf to hear the music anyway. Similarly with the playing. I'll do it until I physically can't (despite being the oldest in both my bands I'm probably in better physical shape than any of my bandmates) and then I'll record at home and release the results on-line.