Happy Jack

There's a video. Your ad-blocker (or similar) may have ... erm ... blocked it.

Well there's your problem.

Poplars Road in Buckingham does seem an odd place for a Nigerian Prince's palace ...

Somebody wins it pretty much every time. That's because "the whole thing is legit and closely monitored by official watchdogs." As to the odds, I'll just leave this here: The chance of winning the National Lottery jackpot is 1 in 45,057,474, according to the Lotto website, while there is a 1 in 7,509,579 chance of getting five numbers plus the bonus ball. To win the Euromillions jackpot there is a one in 1 in 139,838,160 of all your numbers being drawn

Erm ...why?

Just looked at the site. This is an insane idea and a guaranteed loser. At least when you buy a Lottery ticket (don't, please don't) you know how ridiculously the odds are stacked up against you, and you know the whole thing is legit and closely monitored by official watchdogs. This is a Facebook scam. You know next to nothing about the organisation behind it, or how many entries (more accurately according their homepage, "entires") there will be from how many people in how many countries. Above all, you have absolutely no idea whether or not there ever actually was a 'Draw' or whether or not it was rigged. (Hint: It was rigged.] Best of all, there's a "skill-based question". I didn't bother to look at what it might be, but I'll bet you anything that it involves a value judgement, which means that 'the answer' is whatever is most convenient to the shadows behind this scam. Walk away.

Mind you, the whole 'money issues' thing always leaves me chortling. I genuinely couldn't put a number on how many listings I've seen on Basschat over the years which cited 'unexpected bills', or 'car insurance', or 'new boiler', or 'need to pay hitman' as reasons for selling a bass. Does anyone seriously give a monkey's WHY you are selling a bass? If it's a bass that I want to own and the price is right, then I'll buy it. It wouldn't even cross my mind to ask why you put it up for sale. And before anyone else points it out, yes, I've occasionally offered my reasons for a sale, but they're always bass-related reasons! Right now I'm selling a lovely vintage fretless Precision and I don't have a problem with mentioning that I've just bought an even nicer fretless bass, which is why I'm selling this one.

My back. I've moved on several basses very rapidly because they were too heavy.

Conceivably it's derived from the Aria Sinsonido AS-690B.

<cough> Mike Lull <cough cough>

Yup, that's what Robert insisted on.

Looked a lot like a Robert Palmer video ...

Good grief, @Billy Apple, did you have advance knowledge of Covid-19? I think we should be told ...

Real wear = absolutely fine. Fake wear done well = pretty much pointless, but can work under some circumstances. Fake wear badly done (i.e. what we're normally offered) = utterly pointless and frankly a bit embarrassing all round. Spending five minutes with an orbital sander does absolutely nothing to improve any instrument, and will only fool a passing 9-year-old.

Nice to meet you Mike, and we never even got around to talking motorbikes ...

Am I allowed to turn this into a "why I hate relic'd instruments" Topic? No? Thought not. As you were.

Not sure if this helps at all, but @Silvia Bluejay and I were lucky enough to interview Marcus Miller for BGM in 2018. Strangely enough, we asked him pretty specifically about his involvement with the Sire range, and how he saw it fitting in to the market. Marcus was quite clear on this ... he wanted to ensure that there was A BASS FOR BEGINNERS that didn't require those beginners to cut corners on quality and playability; he wanted to produce the sort of bass that he would have bought when he was starting out, if only it had then been available. @Mudpup has this about as right as right can be. PS: He really does wear that hat all the time. PPS: I mean Marcus Miller, not Mudpup.

What does the manual say about splitting the signal like that? In truth, it's not immediately obvious why this would be a stereo output pedal so I'm not at all sure what each of the two channels would be outputting. Judging by the YouTube demos, it's a very nice pedal on guitar. Does it sound much the same with bass?

Glad to be of service.

Also technically speaking, the plural of "these" is "these". "Theses" is a whole nother thang.

Technically speaking, "these" are those but when they're over here. No need to thank me.