NancyJohnson

There's a lot of videos on You Tube covering repairs way worse than these. Pretty certain you could plough out the damage with a router and glue in new wood and clamp. It should give you a serviceable repair.

I've got an old Ibanez bass that was a bit of a project. All works, everything tightly screwed together. Truss rod doing its job, bridge springs not slack. Freshish strings. Irritatingly, it has what's best described as a resonance rattle; unamplified there's this rattling when strings are played. What causes this?

The business might have a stance of just producing set necks/neck-through instruments, but I'd take this comment by Dirnt with a pinch of salt. They're more than capable of producing bolt on instruments, they probably just choose not to.

I often wonder about import taxes, duties. Assume I was on holiday in Germany, I'm in my own car and I decide to swing by Thomann to pick up some gear, when I drive onto the ferry or use the Channel Tunnel, does anyone from HMRC inspect my vehicle or are there simply too many vehicles to do so? Anyone done this?

The wiring rout is the same on all Gibson/Epiphone Thunderbirds; this isn't anything about authenticity really, it's just convenience and laziness. When you think how the wiring snakes through a Les Paul body, there's an element of thought gone into it. With a Thunderbird, any holes for the pickup loom could easily be done before the wings are glued in; these Epiphone things are/were mass produced, multiples at a time. It's fine to mess with the headstock carving and body geometry, but the rout under the plate? Nah, leave it in.

Yup, had a lot of stuff: RBI (rack) VT Bass (rack) Geddy2112 (rack) BDDI (twice) GT2 VTBASS DI DP-3X GED 2112 DI ... there's probably been more. I'm kind of coming round to either a GSS Baby Sumo or finding someone to build me something. Small is the way forward; no more racks. If I need a trolley to get it into a venue, it's too big.

It's surprising how when you get an idea in your head how quickly you start accumulating intel. I've already skirted around the Profusion site.

I have a question (or ten). I'll admit that for a while I've not been 100% happy with my head (Darkglass AO900); I mean it's certainly got more than enough oomph, but the drive element is too aggressive. In my head, my ideal is a one box solution of a small chassis class D amp with a similar/adequate output to the AO900 with a Sansamp BDDI at the front end; following a thread elsewhere, I'm actually giving some thought to getting something built. Spec-wise, I'd be happy with all the controls and input jack on the top (similar to the Victory Kraken units) and round the back, 240v in, a single Speakon output and an XLR/DI output. As the pre-amp/BDDI will always be on and I don't use any outboard stuff, there's be no requirement for effects sends/return, aux inputs. As an afterthought an always on tuner might be nice. Looking around, there does seem to be a few BDDI clones about, but to be honest, if it's as easy to facilitate, I'd be OK butchering a Sansamp for it (so getting the top fascia laser cut so the unit simply bolts in and is always on). Obviously if the unit is having holes laser cut, it's a no brainer to get the control function laser etched as well. Is this all feasible? Where do I start?

Is building a custom amp actually a thing? Ooh. My head is racing a bit now. I have heard it said that the amp modules are all pretty similar (or only supplied by a couple of different manufacturers.

I want a one box that does that. I don't want a rack or multiple units.

My signal path was predominantly BDDi/RBI > Poweramp for years.

Bees (Are Better Than Wasps) DEMO2.mp3 Here you go pop-pickers. Recorded about two hours ago. Mike Lull into BDDI. This is what I want from a one box head, in a nutshell!

It's my intention to pick up and XB at some point, however it'll be off the back of my brother in law doing a US business trip.

While I'm certainly not in the market for any more basses, if I had a shortlist, the Bongo 5HH would be on it. £3.2k (Thomann)... it's a lot of swag, but not horrific. I'm surprised it wasn't more. I concur that something would need to be done with the preamp though; I did post here years ago about converting it to passive, but sold the bass on as stock.

The OP's RBI is three years old. The Tech21 limited warranty is 12 months. Nothing to reject. My GED was just out of warranty.

The UK distribution company I dealt with (Rocky Road) were useless. All they were doing was moving boxes and had no idea what was actually in them. If it's them you're dealing with, it's no wonder you haven't had a toot out of them. When my GED rack unit lost its clank (see elsewhere here), I sent it to them for service/repair and they pretty much said that it's working because it's making noise. They didn't have a clue what the unit was actually supposed to be emulating. I think Andy @Wolverinebass also had issues with Rocky Road as well.

On the OP, if you want to split your signal and recombine, you could do this with a pair of ABY boxes (they work both ways). The Great Eastern XO will allow you to split, loop effects and recombine in one box.

Had a Bongo 5HH...while it played like a dream, the preamp was ridiculously hot and overwhelming. You'd start a rehearsal with everything at noon and just tweak continually; by the end of the session tonally things would just be mush. Never actually went under the hood to see whether there was any way to roll things off, in hindsight, perhaps I should have.

I've got a pair of M-Audio speakers that run off a Focusrite Scarlet. They're delightfully loud. You could easily find a pair close to your budget. Going back in time somewhat, about 20 years ago, I bought a Dell PC from the Dell Outlet store. Back then, Dell would make hundreds of PCs for deals in computing magazines; once the promotion was over, they'd discount the remainder and allow you to customise things when shipping. The PC came with a frankly fantastic 2.1 set up...powered sub and two satellite speakers. It sounded awesome, loud, totally great. Stupidly dumped the whole setup when I bought our current computer as the connections were incompatible. In hindsight, I'm certain I could have hotwired it somehow to work with our TV in the extension.

While I can understand the appeal of one of these (powered) cabinets, the overriding things would be chucking money at something I neither want or feel I need and the hassle of actually freeing up funds to purchase, so read that as flogging all my gear! In truth, I don't like the look of stuff like the Headrush/Alto style of cabinet; frankly would prefer to simply stick with what I have enclosure-wise, unload my Darkglass and purchase something that better suits from an amp perspective.

As I've posted elsewhere, after years of playing clean, my first bit of outboard (and tone heaven) was a BassPOD, shortly after it was a BDDI (and all the other Tech21 stuff). I honestly thought the AO900 was going to be an ideal solution; I'd used a Alpha pedal and didn't really have an issue, but the head itself is pretty gnarly. By way of observation (with this head), if you want consistency you need to concentrate on just using a single bass, or set up your basses so they all produce identical tonal characteristics to each other. The amp is undeniably a great bit of kit, but it's stopping me from using anything aside from my Spector, which it's set up to use. Emulation of valve overdrive/distortion is an odd one. I used an Ashdown ABM for a while and the valve gain stage just added this nasty crackle (like a loose connection) rather than a bit of creamy/cranky, so I just stuck a BDDI into the effects return. At present, I just need to move the AO900 and I'll throw the swag from that towards something else. Like I said, it's difficult to go somewhere and just try out a load of stuff...Bass Direct, maybe, but not before the head is sold.

I've got a Barefaced Big One, a pair of Darkglass 1x12s, and currently, an intact pair of testicles. Give my wife's propensity of asking when I'm going 'to get rid of some of the speaker cabinets' I don't need/want a powered cabinet I'm afraid. And I'd prefer not to be wearing my balls as earrings as well! 🤣

I owned a Landmark head - the 300. I'll admit I liked it a lot (here's the but), but when you're playing these little venues where you have to park miles away or even go up on the train, carrying a 4U/5U rack and a bass is nutso; this is where the appeal of a lightweight head is; sometimes it's necessity over choice. A lot of UK venues offer tired/worn out backline - I'm sure this is the same in the US - or you have headliners that won't let you anywhere near their stuff, so at least with a small head (that you're happy with) you're kind of assured that at least a decent tone off an XLR will go to FoH. @Tech21NYC You do make some outstanding kit and I've haemorrhaged enough £££ on it over the years. I've gigged with enough bassists over the years that love the BDDI (I recorded this afternoon - engineer insisted on me using one!); many have expressed pity that there's not a class-D amp with one in the pre-amp.

Drive over to Julian Mullen in Reading.