basexperience

In use yesterday at the Dubs in the Middle festival (wicked stage, and the backline provided was an entire 1x15 / 4x10 Ashdown stack on castors - impressed!) - TBH I've seen promo shots of Absolution 5a Elwoods where the binding looks completely identical to this. The finish is impeccable! The binding is the most amazing job, and the bass performed beautifully!

I'd certainly ask what truss rod they're using now. This bass was made in 2014, I think - I bought it from Quent: manufactured in 2014, so it's an 11 year old bass now. I'd hope they have improved things since then.

I can recommend @Manton Customs - Robin just did an amazing job on my Maruszczyk Elwood 5a Absolution, truss rod replacement for the "soviet era" rod in there after it gave up (seriously, it's not a good design) - also put carbon rods in. Sourced, aged and replaced binding for the board which looks excellent. Now playing so nicely! There's a thread for the work over here:

Another update - THE BASS IS BACK! Arrived very early at 8am yesterday, and after a little time to warm up in the house and a couple of setup tweaks for relief and action, this bass is now 100% where I want it. Low, low action, fast to play, great tone, and looks amazing. Robin has done a great job of getting the finish right - you have to look really closely to tell it's had work done to it at all - the neck binding in particular is a lovely piece of work, blending back into the original around the headstock. Truss rod now works in the normal direction, with a seriously long key available (nice one!), the carbon rods are in there doing their job, and the whole bass just feels so much better. Thanks @Manton Customs!! If anyone would like to see some pics of the completed article on here, let me know. Cost was seriously reasonable considering what's been done here - the bass overall cost to me is still a lot less than a new one, and I can have confidence that it won't need work like that again. It really is a stunning instrument.

You’ll be fine. I’ve got 2 wicks with bell brass frets and a couple of basses with stainless steel ones, and I only use D’addario XL nickels, no worries at all. I’ve used stainless steel strings a couple of times and I don’t think you need to worry about excessive fret wear.

I recognise this feeling so much. I've played a lot of jam nights in the last 2-3 years, and they can be just like that. One particularly rough pub in Reading yielded occasional moments of inspired stuff, truly eclectic song choices and some hair on the back of the neck moments. Random people telling you they love the bass and normally it doesn't get a chance to shine - when I hear that, I just know someone really heard what I was doing. That's when the house band fee feels like it's worth the candle. I hope you get that feeling as often as possible - it's the feeling of having actually entertained someone. 🙂

Yep! I wound up finding him on Facebook via the FI group there. Blue case coming this week!

As it turns out, I can! I didn’t realise there was anyone still making them - but there’s a fella on Facebook who’s in the Future Impact group, and I’m now in touch. Yay!

Oh cool, not heard of that one, I’ll make sure the band know about it!

Christ, that’s a good idea

The fella who made them just stopped doing it, sadly.

I needed some weird reverbs and noises, so I took a £50 punt on the M-VAVE ANNBLACKBOX and I've got to be honest, it's better than I expected. I need to repair the FI again though, the output level pot has died just like last time. I'll have to take it off the board, the pot isn't solid enough to survive being in the bag. What synth do you think I should replace it with? Wish I could get one of the 3D printed recase kits to turn it into the mini version, then I could pull it into the board a little and off the back edge, which would protect that pot... replacing the pot is a complete ballache as well.

Hey, you must be somewhere near me! I'm based out near Newbury after many years near Maidenhead and I gig up and down the M4 a lot.

The wide ones look really comfortable. What's on the other side? Would it grip a little and counteract neck dive a little?