Happy Jack

... he's still The King.

At least he's OPEN TO TRADES. Now where's that unwanted Wal of mine?

Guns don't kill people, Guns make YouTube videos ...

I'm pretty much with Hooky on this, but I also note that you seem to be assuming that we all want to see the wood. Quite frankly I don't give much of a toss what wood a bass is made of, and most of my high-end basses (Fender, Mike Lull, Mosrite, Rickenbacker) have solid finishes which means they could be MDF for all I know. If your focus is solely on basses with a natural finish, then I'd suggest that the range of stains, varnishes and coatings out there is so immense that any piece of plywood can be transformed into something more interesting to look at.

Well if they put the Home Counties on lockdown they'd affect about the same number of people as in Northern Italy, which would mean that ... erm ... most people who live & work in and around London would carry on as usual, because most people who live & work in and around London spend most of their time doing that, rather than on travelling around the country/world spreading viruses. The virus is going to spread & we know that. People will die & we know that. Is it the end of civilisation as we know it? Nope.

Gosh, you're all so negative. Don't trample on his dreams. If you want something badly enough then it's bound to happen - I've seen it in loads of Hollywood documentaries. If you build it, they will come. They may fall about laughing, but at least they'll come. Bwahahahahahahahahahahahaha!!! By the way, has he got the Lego Pirate Ship set?

Reading Basschat. Next question, please ...

CORONAVIRUS FEAR GRIPS WEST LONDON SCENES OF DEVASTATION IN CHISWICK PUNTERS HUDDLE IN DREAD AT HOME Or maybe not ...

When your gig becomes the past, I hope you'll let us all know how it worked out on the night.

Run your drum mics through a mini-mixer of some sort, get the mix right there, then just bring in a stereo pair to the XR18.

Try plugging an acoustic guitar or a double bass through the Hi-Z input ... you'll be very pleasantly surprised.

Incidentally, WFT is a bit like WTF, only with added typos.

This was SO what we crashed into when we first tried to use the XR18. "Oh look!" we said, "They've already got the perfect configuration for vocalists - let's start with that!". So we held a technical rehearsal in a village hall to test everything. Cue an appalling evening of howls, wails and shrieks from the system while @Silvia Bluejay tore her hair out (I haven't any to tear) and we tried to work out WFT was going on. System reset, start all over ... greatly improved by keeping everything 'vanilla' until we had a clue what we were doing. In our defence, I will repeat Silvie's earlier point about the manual being the most hopeless piece of 5h1t I've ever seen.

Nah, I reckon she's played drums before.

I do hope you've registered that Flame logo ... much nicer than the original.

For home stuff, where how you sound solo is more important than how your sound sits or cuts through in a band situation, I chose to go vintage. For around £300 you should be able to pick up a WEM Dominator Mk.III, preferably the Dominator 25 model with the 15" Celestion speaker. Classic valve warmth and goodness, seriously old school, looks the business, and will go up in value instead of down. If there are no Mk.III 25s out there, almost equally good would be a WEM Power Musette ... essentially the same combo but intended for use with an accordion. Charlie Watkins (the W in WEM) started out making amplifiers for accordions in the 50s, and long after the accordion fad had died a well-deserved death he continued to make combos for them.

So just for once we have a bass that really is both a prototype and a transitional model? I was beginning to think that was just something I read on eBay listings for badly-modified Squiers and Encores ...

It's like that guy who nicked the bag containing my new trainers and my hi-vis vest ... he can run, but he can't hide.

Makes perfect sense ... after all, there are no cases in the USA are there? Oh no ... wait ...

Gavin, that's one helluva way to announce your arrival on Basschat ...

Thanks Russ, that looks like a website to add to my Favourites.