Happy Jack

Sounds a bit pointy to me. 😆

The usual lack of any helpful information about the bass. I'd only consider buying it if I could spend 15 mins with it first.

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/166933130243

Entirely in line with The Law Of Unintended Consequences I too bought a Trace Elf some years ago intending to keep it in my gigbag as an emergencies-only fall-back rig. This was after seeing one of the early ones being used by @Mike Brooks at The North Star in Ealing with @Silvia Bluejay. Unbelievably, it very rapidly displaced several £000s of high-end amplification and became my first choice head at every gig with both my main bands ... just as much for DB gigs as for those using a Rickenbacker 4003s5. Who knew? Modern amplification is so unbelievably powerful and useable that those 750W / 900W / 2000W heads we all lust over are simply a load of willy-waggling. Any gig big/loud enough to need that sort of amplification and you'll have full PA support and a sound engineering team to take care of it. For me, the Elf has never once skipped a beat in the last eight years (that's >400 gigs, even with Covid slap in the middle), it weighs next to nothing, and it's built like a tank. Game Over. Insert New Coin.

I run DB -> Trace Elf -> Crazy 8 cab on an old speaker stand at ear height AND Trace Elf -> DI Out to FOH The Crazy 8 is tiny (clue's in the name) and for my purposes any decent PA top would do just as well. I roll off some bass on the amp to avoid overloading the cab and I can hear myself clearly pretty much regardless of volume levels either on stage or in the venue. The combination of Gain & Volume controls on the Trace Elf give me all the control I need on stage, everything else lies with @Silvia Bluejay out front. Having the tiny cab (with effectively an HPF) four foot off the ground means that I never get feedback issues. I routinely play with four different DBs according to what's needed for the gig, and this system works equally well with all of them. Here it is in action a week ago:

Bizarrely enough I had a leaflet through the door this week saying I could still have good sex at 67. Which was nice. Because I live at no.78 so I won't have far to walk afterwards.

Back in the 70s I lived in big shared flats & houses with loads of wannabee musos. Almost invariably guitarists, they routinely stood 6' tall and weighed 98lbs, wore ripped denim and leopardskin prints, had spikey peroxide hair and played a Les Paul. All they lacked was talent. The best of the lot was actually a pretty close friend for over 10 years and By God! did he look the business, but at every rehearsal he had to get the bass player to tune his Flying V.

In similar vein, if you con a bunch of 30-year-olds into accepting a 50-year-old as a band member, how long will it be before (a) the deception is discovered, or (b) you realise how little you actually have in common with those youngsters ... they grew up listening to different music, watching different TV shows, wearing different fashions.

On the lookout for a Bass VI just now and I saw this advert from the South of France. The price seemed low enough to justify the hassle & high cost of importation so I took a closer look ... https://reverb.com/uk/item/83299896-fender-bass-vi-pickguard-custom-shop?utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=20304708451&utm_content=campaignid=20304708451_adgroupid=_productpartitionid==merchantid=747424674_productid=83299896_keyword=_device=c_adposition=_matchtype=_creative=&gad_source=1&gclid=CjwKCAjw5qC2BhB8EiwAvqa41lWD_ZlVVCVr_JCIyClKWSk112_NcsENjLbP2_zlDX_nDzmuL2AM_BoC7gwQAvD_BwE

Did someone say "haggard"?

Either that or a lack of basic numeracy.

What method did you use to weigh this thing? The heaviest bass I have ever owned (for about two weeks 🙄) weighed 5.5Kg.

Pah! Call that blue? Huh - when I was a lad ...

Early Cheap Trick carries an absolute truckload of great memories for me, but you just don't hear their stuff played any more. I suggested to my covers band that we should do Surrender and was met with blank, puzzled stares ...

Is it a drone?

If I start a petition, d'ye think I could get this thread locked permanently?

Paging @Owen ...