molan

He lost me at "beat maker". . .

"A new speaker of this nature costs £900 online" Or £499 if you can be bothered to look. . . Maybe the speakon lead is worth the extra £400?

I think I've got three that I swap around - There may be another couple in my 'spares' box. Aguilar TLC tends to sit on the board for gigging as it happens to fit my tiny board really well and I like it for live work. I've also got a Diamond bass comp which is very 'musical' and a Demeter Compulator. The latter pair sound great but maybe take a bit more care in setting up, well, for me anyway! Ovni Labs is great review site for loads of compressors - well worth a read

The closure was announced around 20th September with a final closing date of 31st October. It was a very public closure announcement and widely reported at the time. Definitely worth contacting them if you're a creditor. The two guys who set up on their own are here: http://www.richmondguitarworkshop.com

[quote name='FinnDave' timestamp='1478691674' post='3170934'] It's not always so bad, I joined the Wirebirds nearly four years ago through a wanted ad and I now consider the other members to be my closest friends. [/quote] Similar situation for me. I auditioned via a recommendation from a singer I was in another band with. I didn't know any of the guys and they'd all played together in various bands for over 20 years. I got the gig and we soon became good friends. There's no 'politics' and lots of good natured banter and simple respect for each other's role in the band. I really enjoy rehearsals and gigging with them. Generally my favourite days of the weeks are when we are playing together. Wouldn't change anything at all about the setup. I play at home as well, generally just having a go at learning songs I like. I rarely play completely 'solo' though. For me, the bass doesn't work as a solo instrument.

He turned up at my house one day - I had no idea who he was! Bought a pedal on eBay and the seller said he lived nearby so would pop it over. We were chatting on the doorstep and he mentioned how many bassists there were locally. I said that I knew a few and mentioned Paul Turner as being one of the higher profile ones. He said, "oh yes, I know Paul, he replaced me in jamiroquai"! I immediately realised who he was and felt suitably embarrassed at not recognising him, lol. Nice guy, has been over to our shop a few times since

[quote name='BassBus' timestamp='1478557181' post='3169948'] I wish everyone would stop the panic about Brexit. It is in Europe's interest as well as ours to do a good deal. Take the motor car industry for example. Mercedes Benz, BMW and VW have a vested interest in there being a good deal. VW in particular has more to loose than most. Not only are jobs in Germany under threat but also those at Seat in Spain and Skoda in the Czech Republic. As I understand it Volvo's biggest single market is the UK. That's Sweden as well. [/quote] Volvo's largest market, by a fairly large margin is China. Sweden is second largest followed by USA. U.K. accounts for less than 10% of their volume sales. Volvo itself accounts for onyl about 1.5% of total car sales in the UK so probably not all that important. It's a global trend though. China is rapidly becoming the biggest market for many brands - even major high end 'esoteric' brands like Bentley sell more in China than any other country. BMW is the same, over 20% of sales in China last year and growing rapidly. Britain is still a decent market for the big boys but it's certainly now what it was and we're way less important than we were even a few years ago. Edit - forgot VW. There were some really recent figures for 2016 that showed China going over 50% of VW sales!

I'm pretty close to all the current market pricing issues and, from what I've seen, the latest batch of price rises are being affected by three principal elements: Firstly there's the exchange rates. This is a really simple factor that has pushed prices of all imported goods up. Secondly, and closely tied to the first point, many distributors have been trying to hold price increases off in the hope that the £ might recover. However, they can't afford to keep doing this and a swathe of increases kicked in over the last couple of weeks. Lastly, and quite interestingly, a lot of retailers (aided by distributors) have had enough of heavy discounting. Margins in music retail have been screwed and ever decreasing over the last 3-4 years. I've seen 'everyday' items in the £400 - £600 bracket turning over at just £10 profit. Most extreme example was new basses that cost £3,200 to import being sold for just £3,250 - these were new stock, not sale items or things that had been sitting on the shelf for years. A few people have simply either stopped selling things like this or just put them back up at margins that will allow them to operate at a basic working profit. There's a few specific brands that have been affected so far - I expect more to follow. . .

[quote name='wateroftyne' timestamp='1478351829' post='3168550'] As we know, amps like this are loaded with all sorts of power management bits and bobs, so you can't compare volumes based on watts alone. [/quote] Totally agree. From having tested both I'd say the tiny 200w GK MB200 appears to be a lot louder than the Eden. The most obvious example is the TC heads. The RH450 is only actually a 236w head but appears to sound a lot louder because of the, hard baked, compression in the circuit. So much so that TC decided to just call it a 450w output, lol.

I've owned both, including a GS212 and I'm pretty sure I ran an AG500 into the GS as well. The GS does deliver a very strong low end but can also hit great highs. Paul Turner uses the GS cabs for his major gigs and gets an amazing slap tone from them paired with a DB751 head. The DB is a bit more traditional 'old school' sounding but can still work with all kinds of music. In general I'd say the DB range are a bit more adaptable than the GS but you really need to try and hear both together if you can.

Not a bad price, about £50-£60 off regular street price They are very low output though. Never really understand how some people's 'watts' are quieter than others, lol

[quote name='timmo' timestamp='1477812772' post='3164515'] Maybe it was one of those, if it looks too good, it is a ripoff scenario [/quote] He was quite genuine and a nice guy. Simply didn't realise how valuable the bass was. I nearly bought it purely to sell but felt bad about it so alerted him and he got the extra £1,500 for it. I then bought something else from him that he gave me a good price on to say thanks

i wonder how people feel about the reverse situation? It's just as common on eBay for people to sell things way below market value because they don't understand the working mechanism of eBay or haven't researched enough. I've seen lots of amazing bargains that have been snapped up quickly (some by me!) but we rarely see threads bemoaning the plight of the seller who may have been hit with a big loss on his sale. Quick edit - I saw one of these recently. A genuine 66 Jazz priced at least £1,500 below market value. I contacted the seller and he increased the price and told me he actually got a lot more interest at the higher value, lol

The baby GK combos are surprisingly loud and sound good too. The MB112 is my favourite of the bunch at 200w. It's not a huge difference in footprint from the 121P though. Maybe the 110 might work better. It's smaller, lighter etc but half the output wattage and only about 15% cheaper.

[quote name='Lee-Man' timestamp='1477567770' post='3163004'] Agreed. I've got a couple of them (AC 121 lite) for when I'm flip-flopping gigs. Occasionally I use both at the same time. Lovely sound. One by itself is a beast. I can do a one trip lift from the car with two basses in a Mono bag, amp and another bag of bits/pedals no worries. Also it takes pedals quite well. For example when I want a more Ampeg tone I can pop a VT Bass in the front end and it sounds great. The AC feels like a nearfield studio monitor, but much louder. [/quote] I own one of these as my 'go to' combo now. I'd been toying with getting one for quite a while and tried lots of different alternatives from all sorts of brands. Never really found one that offered as much as the AC for lots of different situations

[quote name='toneknob' timestamp='1477490690' post='3162561'] Shame the 12 Bar had to go though. . Last time I asked when they'd be taking over the hairdressers. [/quote] Is that where the lead guitarist demos will be held?

I'd still advocate giving Joe a call in person. Often a lot easier to understand what's going on by speaking direct than relying on email

We don't use them but it wouldn't bother me so long as the core band sound is live. As a side note - we once auditioned an X-Factor vocalist who'd got fairly far in the competition. He simply could not sing in time - turned out he'd been singing 'live' for a few years but always to a complete instrumental backing track. He had no idea how to 'listen' to a live band and work out his timing. This was on really, really simple stuff with relatively sparse arrangements.

A friend of mine used to have a great haggling technique for his used car business. He'd advertise stuff on a fixed price best offer basis. If anyone tried to haggle him down he'd respond by haggling up. E.g. He'd off something at £5k, potential customer would offer £4,500 and he'd go back with £5,500. Drove some people away but was actually really successful in the long run. He became known as a guy that just offered a fair price for things

Makes a lot of sense for a retailer to just quote a genuine price instead of wasting time haggling. In the haggling marketplace all most people do is stick 10% on the price and then 'allow' the customer to haggle that 10% back off again. In fact it's not uncommon for some people to add 15% on the price they need to sell at and if they then knock 10% off they are better off than simply selling at a genuine price in the first place.

I genuinely have no idea of how many basses I own at the moment but there's three that are my 'go to' instruments for gigging. #1 is unquestionably my white Ritter Cora with alder body and maple board. It's under 8lbs so that helps for longer gigs, pretty flexible tonally and, with the slightly shorter 33.3" scale, it's really easy to play. #2 is a tobacco burst flame maple Sadowsky NYC with a chambered swamp ash body and Amazon rosewood board. Again it's very light weight and it just 'works' really well in a live band setting. #3 is metallic gold flake Lull P. Alder body (I think) and maple board. Only passive bass of the trio and the 'showiest' because of the gold sparkly finish. Probably 2nd lightest after the Ritter and another one that just sounds good in a band mix. After these three there's a few others that get gigged, especially recently as I've been using a pair of Fenders - a Flea J and a Clayton CS P. The Clayton has more low end punch than the Lull and is also gold sparkle so may grab that #3 slot soon. At home I tend to grab a Ritter R8 or my Fodera Monarch. The Ritter because it weighs nothing (6.5 lbs) and sits really well on my lap and the Fodera for the super clean and clear tone