geoham

Yes, with a definite focus on the experience rather than the finished bass.

That's an awesome looking bass, love the finish. Thanks for sharing your experience. I have no experience of routers or bandsaws.... sure it'll be fun learning!

Amex is certainly a bit of an enigma. (Apologies for the slight tangent...) My understanding is that they can charge higher fees as they avoid regulation of interchange fees due to them acting as both the issuer and aquirer. I use one of their cashback cards, and am due around £160 in cashback in the next few weeks, earned over the course of a year. I've paid no fees or interest for this. So presumably this is all passed on to retailers via higher fees - which I guess is the reason why plenty of businesses don't accept it. This even goes for some larger businesses like Game and TK Maxx. They've run a 'Shop Small' promotion a few times, where if you spend £10 at a small business, you get £5 back. I originally thought the small business would be eating this cost - but after chatting to a friend who runs a business, they just pay their usual fees. I found it quite surprising - it seems like a genuine attempt to support smaller businesses. (Although the cynic in me would suggust they are trying to increase their penetration in the small business market) Anyway.. back on topic now. It seems this is a reputatble business, and I hope the OP enjoys his new purchase!

Certainly is! Beautiful.

Wow, that's different!

I know nothing about the company, but as others have alluded to - I suspect the reason is that the reason is that card fees for a small business can be expensive. However, I'd personally be reluctant to pay for anything of value via bank transfer and always prefer a credit card due to the added protections it offers. Bless American Express for refunding about £700 worth of cancelled flights that Ryanair said they'd could only do once COVID was over!

I'm planning ahead, in the hope that the COVID restrictions will be relaxed enough to allow this - and for bars, restaurants etc to be open. Otherwise, we'll wait until this is the case.

That looks a great bass indeed, an unusual pickup combination but I bet it's versatile. Appreciate the advice too.

Ordinarily I'd agree, but my guitarist friend is very keen to attend too - and we normally go a few weekends away each year with our better halves, which has obviously been impossible lately. Hopefully the situation improves by summer and we can at least get away in the UK this year, I reckon it'll be towards the end of the year before I even consider a foreign break.

There is a more expensive 1 on 1 course (about £1700) where you build whatever you like.

Hi guys, Has anyone ever gone on one of Shuker's guitar/bass building courses? Considering booking it along with a friend as a bit of a staycation once restrictions allow... Plan so far is to book some nice local accomodation and bring the families along too. It'll give us something more constructive to do during the day than continually pour booze down our necks! Anyway, to the matter at hand... if you've done the course, how was it? What about the end result? I'm looking at the three person, £1000 to build a P or J course. I realise I could buy a quality P bass for £1000, but I quite like the idea of building my own, and learning some skills along the way. I've got zero woodworking skills, but I do understand the electronics side of things pretty well, and I can set up a bass too.

Assuming the entity purchased from was "MUSIC STORE PROFESSIONAL UK / DV247 LIMITED", then this is a UK company, presumably fully registered for UK VAT. I would argue that this transaction does not involve an import by a UK based purchaser, despite the fact it may have been shipped from Germany. The importer is the UK DV247 entity, and probaly involves an intercompany sale by their German parent entity. A UK based company can't sell something to a person in the UK without charging UK VAT. There' is no way that this should have been stopped at customs, nor should UPS have charged you anything. There may be an argument that the goods should have first come to DV247's UK site, rather than being shipped to you directly - I don't know how that works these days. ( There's also the scenario that if you've purchased from Music Store in Germany rather than the UK subsidary, then UPS have done things properly. Although in this case, the retailler should not have charged VAT. My advice - check the order confirmation and query the VAT charge with DV247. Then you may need to deal with UPS... George

As I understand it, they'd have to pay the VAT in their country and probably a UPS type handling fee - but no import duty.

Certainly does appear that it's vat-inclusive. Foreign retailers shouldn't be charging UK VAT for invoices exceeding £135. It's probably worth clarifying with the retailer, though I suspect it may be a system issue due to rushing through the new changes.

So about 20% VAT, plus a £12 handling fee by the sounds of things. Previously, you'd have just paid the 20% VAT directly to DV247. But not the extra £12 from UPS.

I have a Gary Moore, Live at Montreux DVD. Jonathan Noyce is the bassist on the main show, but if I recall correctly there are some bonus tracks of another year's show with Guy Pratt on bass. I think!

Beat me to it!

Last time Gibson were in the news, was because they were bankrupt. Surprising they've turned things around enough to be in the acquisitions market.

Certainly a departure from designing Pink Floyd album covers, what would Roger Waters say? I know it's an entirely different company, though I'm astounded they've chosen to them themselves like this - it's not like Hipgnosis isn't already a well known name in the music business.

I'm absolutely not sure of anything... an interesting read. The points about VAT being charged at the point of sale for goods under £135 is massive and should prevent delays and handling fees on these. However, based on my quick read of this, I think what I described will still be applicable for goods exceeding £135. It'll be interesting to see how the likes of Thomann deal with this, since the £135 is per consignment - so a £120 bass shipped alone would require them to charge UK VAT, but add on a £20 of strings to the same order and VAT will instead be charged upon import. I think I'll be buying locally to avoid problems, and I suspect this may be their intention. George

You'll notice now that Thomann are selling items without UK VAT. VAT of course is still payable. What will happen is that it'll be held at customs, your courier will likely pay the VAT, along with import duty (around 3% I believe), then deliver your parcel. They'll bill you for VAT, duty and most likley a handling charge for their service. Realistically, the VAT will remain the same, but the import duty and courier handling charge are new. A £500 bass would probably be £25 more expensive in total. (Approx £15 duty at 3%, plus a guessed £10 handling fee) George

I'm terrible at practicing. Back in the days when gigs were a thing, I'd learn whatever new songs we were going to try in the set. More often than not, we'd agree a few new songs at the weekend, give them a bash at rehearsal on Wednesday and gig those that worked out on the Saturday. Practice would start by listening to the songs on Spotify which travelling to work, then I'd spend some time learning the bass part as closely as possible before rehearsing with the band. I studied music as secondary school, and learned a reasonable amount of theory back then. But I can't remember the last time I worked on scales, arpeggios or anything. I honestly feel that gigging regularly (25-30 times per year) has done much more for my ability than any specific theory, scales or technique exercises ever did. In saying that, I've often toyed with getting a tutor or signing up for a Scott Device course or something similar. I've no doubt plateaued, but I tell myself that my playing's good enough to get me through three hour sets a couple of times a month without stress, so what more do I need? Perhaps if I find myself financially stable enough to quit the day job my perspective will change. George

Does this count? Very good...

I've favoured Jazz Basses all my life, and I opted for a narrow necked Ibanez. I was convinced it was ideal for me, but after a while I realised the string spacing was too tight for me and I moved it on. These days, I have a Lakland 5501. The width of the neck and 35 inch scale make it seem like a bit of a monster, but the string spacing is just so much better for me. Obviously it's difficult to try things out these days, but without trying a five string it's hard to say what will work for you. In my case it took me months of living with one. Perhaps take a punt a used one, and at least you won't suffer too much if you need to move it on.

Pretty poor by the BBC, though their statement is interesting "Had they performed they would of course have been paid for their appearance.” I performed on the now defunct STV Glasgow with my old originals band around five years ago. No suggestion of any payment, though they provided some tea and biscuits while we hung around... Before going on air, we had sign a waiver which basically said that STV have full ownership of the recording and can do what they like with it until the end of time. We didn't really mind - we were going on the telly! They put out a Twitter link to one of the two songs. We asked them to do the same for the other, or just give us copies of the recordings - and were told no. They are a commercial operation, and not in the business of giving away their content! Many of the better local bands played went on the show - STV will have built up a nice wee catalogue. I wonder if any of the bands went on to commercial success?