chriswareham

I don't understand the people saying an Ampeg fridge is hard to transport. Negotiating stairs with one yes, but on the flat theyre easy to wheel along and mine fits in a Ford Ka along with two amp heads, a flight cased pedal board and two bass guitars.

Another Hondo, this time a very good condition Fame series: http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Hondo-Fame-SERIES-830-Bass-Guitar-White-Hard-Case-/201628899011

Beautiful restoration! Did you source new corners for your cab? I have 140 and 370 Acoustic heads that are in dire need of some new ones!

Ah yes, cats and carpet covered amps. Not a good combination if you like your gear to stay pristine :-)

(Re)build diary!

Trace Elliot BLX 80. Pulled out of a skip at the local recycling centre and still going strong. Must be lead lined judging by the weight of it though.

Posted this in the Jap crap thread earlier on and only just noticed this thread :-) Sorely tempted but managed to resist since I already have an Avon EB0 copy.

And finally a Hondo II Precision copy: http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/291810689337 There's been a few of these on lately, all in black, good condition and for about £195 BIN but offers accepted. I actually own on of these that I paid considerably less for and which had been upgraded with a Seymour Duncan pickup. Did these have Di Marzio pickups originally or are they from the more bargain basement Hondo era?

An almost mint Westone Thunder 1A. It's been up at what looks like a decent Buy It Now for a while, not sure why someone's not snapped it up yet: [url="http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/172264391504"]http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/172264391504[/url]

Been a bit quiet on here so I'll post a few things from my watch list. First up an Eros Gibson EB-3 copy. Almost finished, but it's a brand I've not seen before: http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/401150549831

If it's the same as the violin basses, then I'm guessing the original Verithins were completely hollow bodied, while the "Contemporary" series have a block of wood down the middle for a more modern sound. I love semi-acoustic basses, and now have GAS for one of these or a black Midtown Standard!

Google a firm called Hammond Hire. They specialise in restoring Hammond organs, Wurlitzer pianos, Rhodes pianos, and have done loads of work on my old synths.

Mmm, EB3L. I acquired one of these earlier this year: http://basschat.co.uk/topic/280502-ndb-early-1970s-gibson-eb-3l/ Suffers from terrible neck dive, but i don't really mind as it sounds fantastic :-)

To be honest, the SWR cabs are more practical as they're easier to shift about than the fridge. As for using a valve amp for the dirt, I'm planning on trying my modified Sound City 120 in place of the Acoustic 140 next week.

Are they order only rather than regular stock? If so then it could really be a reflection of the pound falling in value after the referendum.

Oh my God, that is my bass - the one I wish I hadn't sold. Just to correct something in the listing, it didn't have a new truss rod fitted. I had the worst "dings" in the body professionally repaired, new scratch plate, new truss rod cover (the original was missing when I got it) and the original truss rod repaired since it had become jammed and couldn't be adjusted. It was relatively light, but that's relative to my other basses which are quite heavy. Paul - if it's too heavy for you or you don't get on with it for ant other reason, then I'd love to buy it off of you.

This doesn't happen very often, but I'll have to correct Jon The Jolana D-Bass is 34" scale, and you can find a little information about them on my [url="http://www.rickenfaker.info/jolana.html"]website[/url]. I've owned two and deeply regret selling one of them. The first one had neck with a moderately wide fretboard, a little curving across the fretboard width (radius?) and very shallow width from fretboard to back of the neck. Lovely bass to play, and I can't entirely understand why I sold it. The second one had a much flatter fretboard, more like a Rick, and it was a much "chunkier" neck from fretboard to back of the neck. It was comfortable to play, but I found it much easier to move around the neck on the first one. Based on the differences between the two I had, I'd suspect Jolana hand made their guitars rather than using CNC machines. Either way, they were both very well made and had excellent hardware. If you don't get on with the one you've bought, please, please contact me as I'd love to have another one. I scan eBay listings regularly, but they crop up very rarely (and the Rick police get them taken down usually).

$5,000 is about what the original 360 and 301 cab cost new in the early 1970s, when the original list price is adjusted for inflation. I've read good things about the repro amps and cabs over on the unofficial Acoustic Control forum, but the Guitar Center stuff is just badge engineering - sticking the Acoustic logo onto generic Chinese built amps. The guy who masterminded the repro stuff is a bit idiosyncratic, but it's pretty impressive how he got the rights and managed to get them into production. Sadly he's been inactive for a while, which I understand is down to serious health problems.

[quote name='Westenra' timestamp='1466548842' post='3076785'] Are those acoustic amps really all that? [/quote] The 370 and previous 360 model were the de-facto standard for many top bands and often provided as backline at the big festivals in the late 1960s and early 1970s. They were much more powerful than most of the valve amps of the day, considerably lighter and being solid state were very reliable. Acoustic used very good quality components, and actually offered a lifetime guarantee on them! They are very loud, and have a great tone but lack the versatility of modern amps. The 360 was actually just a pre-amp, with the poweramp in the accompanying Acoustic 301 speaker cab or cabs.The 370 combined the pre and power amps in a single unit, and the accompanying cabs lost the power amps. With two cabs the load is 2ohms, which the 370 was designed to cope with. I'm running my 370 and 140 into 4ohms (Ampeg) or 8ohms (SWR) but they''re still astonishingly loud.

[quote name='sblueplanet' timestamp='1466542342' post='3076716'] Looks great. I have always regretted selling my Acoustic 140, albeit around 25 years ago! I really like the look of those tiny pedals, what are they exactly? [/quote] The 140 was my first Acoustic amp. Imported it from the US and had it modded with a new transformer for UK/EU voltage as well as a few tweaks to bring it up to modern safety specs. The 370 is a recent acquisition from someone in the UK, and the voltage conversion had already been done. The pedal board is actually one I use for keyboards, I was just mucking about with the echo pedal when this picture was taken. The pedals and board are made by Mooer, and are amazing value clones of classic pedals such as the MXR Phase 90 and EH Electric Mistress.

Got tired of losing the bottom end of my sound when engaging my chorus pedal and, on drop tuned songs, when I engage my distortion pedal. So I decided to go the "bi-amping" route, since I use either a pair of SWR cabs or an Ampeg fridge that has separate inputs for each set of four speakers. I'm using an MXR switch pedal in a setup like this: The result is perfect - with the chorus and distortion pedals off I can use the 140 as a "boost", and with the effects pedals on I still have an enormous bottom end (ooh err missus):

Thanks for the details of the Allianz insurance - seems well worth it. I always take bass and head into the hotel or B&B when touring, and consider my cabs as either too heavy to steal or at worst expendable.

Another vote for the Hofners - bought them because they were cheap, but turned out to be very nice and "zingy".

[quote name='zero9' timestamp='1465651573' post='3069954'] Or get yourself a multitrack recorder. You can always transfer the files to a computer afterwards. [/quote] Exactly what I use - a Tascam DP-08. Records to SD cards which can then be read on a computer, or you can connect to the recorder via USB.

The problem with using an older machine is the life expectancy of the drives, and the availability of replacements. I've had both spinning rust (magnetic) and SSD drives fail catastrophically, so I always use a RAID configuration where data is on two disks. However, a lack of parts meant I recently had to upgrade from my trusty quad G5 Mac (running Linux).