NickA

Transactions between businesses are pretty much unaffected, though there is more paper work to do. Sandberg can knock off Germany's 19% vat and the UK dealer can add our 20%. Difficult I guess for someone like bass direct who import a Smith, say, from the USA and then want to export it to a buyer in the EU ... It's not made in the UK, so EU import duties apply as well as VAT. Who'd buy from a UK company?

Just choosing that new 'cello bow from several sent in the post from Caswell's (all around £1k and the carbon one is best . so far): found this in the process though: at Bowspeed.com ANDREW McGILL England. Round pernambuco stick, silver-mounted ebony frog with fischbein eye and slide and triple adjuster.. 82.3gr. £2,950 And a nice video of Tom Martin and Andrew too: Tempting .. but £3k is a bit beyond my ability level ('cello or bass) I think.

Quite: I wouldn't recommend it. you may get unlucky with the customs people and lose an expensive instrument. A friend went to live in Korea and took a load of vintage port with him (bankers, honestly); told customs the wine wasn't worth much being a) old, and b) Portugese; Korean customs were fine with that! But much stricter on camcorders (as the Koreans made those). When I lived out there myself I used to buy cameras, laptops etc in Singapore, claim the VAT back at the airport and just carry them into the UK; but everyone has cameras and laptops; so they don't question you. A couple of Alembics might be more obvious!

So, Brexit. Big changes when buying a bass, or anything else, from the EU. As I import stuff for work, I had to look into this .. and here's what I found (corrections gladly accepted). Buying privately That last minute "no tariff" deal means that we avoid having to pay import (aka customs) duties, but we still have to pay VAT. There is no exemption for 2nd hand goods. The shippers will pay the VAT for you and then demand you pay them back before they deliver the goods; they will also add "a small administrative fee" and you have to pay VAT on that as well. So let's say you buy a Bass from France for £3000, plus £100 delivery. The shipper adds a £20 admin fee. Total Bill = £3120. Total VAT = £624. Grand total = £3,744. Buying from a company If you buy from a company they should deduct the VAT from the selling price. So that £3000 French bass should only cost £2500. Then you pay £2500 + £100 shipping + £20 admin + £524 VAT = £3,144. Not too bad. The VAT rate varies from country to country eg 20% in France, 25% in Sweden, Germany 19%. Buy from a shop in Sweden and it might be cheaper than you expect! BUT: there is this thing called the Marginal VAT rate for 2nd hand goods, whereby a company that bought a bass from a private buyer for £2000 and sells it for £2500 to another private buyer only pays VAT on the £500 profit (and in the UK only 16.66% VAT instead of the usual 20%); so they're not going to deduct more than £83.33. Ways around it? Not a lot! You can get the seller to declare a false value ... then you will pay VAT on the declared value. It's fraud of course. But does a customs grunt know the difference between a rare vintage precision and an "antiqued" squire. You can go collect the bass in person (post Covid!) and bring it back as hand luggage ... but if the customs people are bored or over keen they might want proof you took the bass away with you prior to bringing it back. The official proof is a thing called an ATA Carnet - these cost over £300 (I've used them for taking tools to S Africa and Australia); you don't "have" to have one - you can just argue the toss. But it only works if you take one bass out, bring another back and no-one spots the difference (my experience is that if you have a Carnet, they check the paperwork, but not the goods). It's fraud of course. Experiences I'm interested in hearing what actually happens. So it would be good if people buying from the EU (or elsewhere) can post their experiences below. How much VAT were you charged, how much "admin fee" and was the shipping delayed at all?

Bottom F#. That's erm.. 23Hz!! Can you hear it or does just do strange thing to your innards (sub sonic weapon style)

Taken me over a year to get used to a 5-string (also a Wal) ..and still sometimes hit the wrong string! The extra neck width (the Wal mk2 5 is quite chunky and my fingers are short and stubby), suddenly having to contend with right hand damping and having an extra string after 50 odd years of playing things with only 4 strings make things harder than I'd expected. Still have to look at my fingers now and then (BAD habit) but it's worth it to be able to stick in a low D and better still not change position so much. I think the recommended technique is to base your hand with the first finger on fret 5 ( ie play "bottom" Es, Fs and Gs on the B-string ) but on the Wal Mk2 at least, you get a different sound from when you play in first position (index finger on fret 2) so I still move my hand back along the neck, even if the note could be reached on the B string. So many options!! Don't think I'd every buy another four string.

Impressed with the thickness of ebony on that. After getting the board shot at Electric Wood, my fretless Mk1 has only 2.5mm left 😞 .... even new they only come with around 4mm.

Oooo Black Hardware!!! Beats scuffed gold lacquer any day.

Read a great article by two blokes who built a double bass with a fully carved maple back (https://maestronet.com/forum/index.php?/topic/328014-making-a-double-bass/). Initially they didn't want to use a router, but then realised that even Stradivarius had a router ... called the junior apprentice (apprentissimo). "Take this chisel laddie .... see that 4x 2ft piece of wood over there"

You know what? Pete Stevens never took such care. 😆

My dadarrio hybrid strings are 20 yrs old, my Spiro's came with the bass 32 years ago. Only last year I upgraded to a 2nd hand set of Spiro's from a basschatter .. those may be less than 10 years old! They last forever really; only change them when they break or when I fancy a change of sound.

Off topic .. I have often wondered if the traditional wooden things with all those fancy and expensively carved curly bits really is the optimal design ... But got to beat that instrument of torture!

Wtf?

Yup

Whichever one @owen has is pretty much as good an eub as you can get. Does the big fretless sound with the magnetic pickups and a pretty good dB sound with the piezos, very playable too. Forget which model, perhaps the man will let us know.

We already had this discussion . My 4/4 bass fits easily in A Skoda citigo ( neck in the footwell method ) with an amp ( pjb flightcase) in the boot. Any car will do.

Check the weight of the kk mind. Nothing baby about it .. if that's an issue. Big solid body on them. Re dots on the fingerboard ... . No dots on a double bass as they were invented for classical music, and when you're reading music you can't look at your fingers. You don't really need them as the heel of the neck gives a good reference to where your hand is and muscle memory kicks in with practice. Can be harder on an eub as they don't all have that reference point ( you can add one though). Even us classical musos add pencil marks ( or even drill tiny holes ) on occassion though; used for finding a difficult note after a 45 bar rest!

In the orchestra we make sure not to change direction at the same time ... doesn't work if you're the only bassist of course! Helps to ease the pressure at the end of each stroke too. A slight variation in volume being better than loud, silent, loud, silent ...

A better use for the necks IMHO. That twin 5-string must be unliftable (chambered or not).

True. I stand corrected. Looked it up. His Eflat Bari goes down to A, which is really a C , so my double bass goes a whole sixth lower and the 5-string ebass a whole 10th. Proportionately, that's a lot of Hz difference.