Old Fakir

Hi, Tony - is your NXT a 4 or 5 string? If it's a 5 string - would you consider a swap (there'd be some money in it for you as well) for my Big Kydd 5 string? The Kydd is more-or-less a standard scale instrument. It has a radiused finger board so you can bow it. I've fitted it with top quality Thomastik strings as well. PM me if interested. S

Hmm. OK. You sound an awful lot like Mark from Bass Direct - that's more or less the rig that he's tried to sell me on both occasions that I've visited. He didn't like GK combos either. thebigyin: I guess you'll just have to go and see. Decide on your maximum price. Go and try it out and if you like the sound it makes. See if you can lift it. Ask lots of questions about durability and willingness of the manufacturers to service it. Best of luck, mate!

Oh, well. I've been a GK MB150 fan for yonks (a 'yonk' is about ten years). Not too expensive (about £1,000 for the complete set-up: combo plus extension cab), light (about 30 pounds), small, good sound. However, I've just retired it. Replaced it with a stonking great Trace Elliot 1 x 15 500W combo. Yes. 500W. Weighs about as much as a blue whale. If possible, my wife hates its presence in my life even more than the GK combo. The reason(s) are simple: this is the second GK combo that I've had. The first blew a transistor and GK couldn't have cared less. Eventually an amp tech fixed it, but I could never trust it after that. This one began to rattle. I tightened every screw I could find, and took it to an amp tech for a speaker check - no problems there - but still rattling away like mad. I play in a jazz orchestra - not exactly the loudest band in the world - and the little GK stack was always cranking away at about 90% just to keep up. OK through a PA, but really only just good enough for even moderate volumes. Quite hopeless in the soul band. The Trace Elliot is just magnificent. I'm not quite so happy with the tone without a lot of modification from all those sliders, but the amp has loads of 'headroom'. I've never got the volume control above '2'. Lifting it is likely to cause a double inguinal eventually, but the conclusion is this: you just can't beat all that extra mass and that whacking great speaker, or the brilliant amp technology. It sounds great, it is reliable, it is loud enough (and it was cheap because I got it second-hand nearly new). If you're seriously thinking about lightweight gear do a few checks about longevity first, or resign yourself to only playing at low to moderate volumes. If you want advice: go and listen to a few amps in the shop. Make sure that you hear them at the volume you want to play at. Check the online reviews beforehand. Stick with a tried and trusted name if you think you might upgrade it later - it's much easier to sell old high-quality gear than stuff that nobody's ever heard of. best,

Hi, As a matter of fact I have: like many bass players I started with classical guitar (self taught) about 40 years ago. I got to a pretty creditable standard on-and-off over the years, even though most of the opportunities to play have been on the bass. I taught myself to sight-read on bass about 30 years ago and if I chose (and had a complaisant enough wife) I could work every night. Anyway, I digress: about a year ago I finally got round to engaging a classical guitar teacher. He visits once a fortnight and we crank away at the various exercises. I took Grade 4 performance in April, Grade 5 theory in June and we are working towards Grade 5 performance this November. Has it made a difference? I think it has. The theory test has confirmed that I understand the basics of music theory (it's about the same as a GCSE apparently). The various exercises have definitely improved my control and timing on the classical guitar - and the vital thing is that the fingering exercises: you know, [i]i, m, a, p[/i] have made a real difference to my control when playing the bass pizzicato (which is what most bass playing turns out to be.) I would definitely recommend that you get a teacher for something technical like learning to use a bow. The other stuff will definitely help you in unexpected ways in my experience. Best of luck with it, anyway. OF