Al Krow

In collaboration with his mate from Leicester, right? Although after 4.5 years what's a few weeks between friends eh - he managed to get it baked before the curtain fell...and, besides, still likely to be released sooner than the promised DG mutlifx we've been waiting for?

Boris and the Basschatters...now there's a thought 😁

Yeah - I've read the thread. I think the concerns have been overblown - perhaps other than Fender are saying they can't sell some basses to the UK from Europe, so we will just have to buy them from Andertons, G4M, PMT etc instead. I'll continue to be buying stuff from Thomann particularly HB gear and Minatour straps (which are excellent). If it takes a couple more days to get across to me, well it's not like I've got any pressing gigs right now...

@stewblackwhat's the concern with getting kit from Thomann? I thought it was pretty much business as usual?

Fixed And we are. 😁

@bassbiscuits well I totally applaud the fact you're being creative!

Love the fact you've been putting your time to creative use! What set up are using in terms of recording ideas and building up your song lines? Any finished / uploaded material to share?

I'm just gobsmacked that DP are still on the road! Respect! I guess I was more of a Ritchie Blackmore fan and his departure in 1975 and formation of Rainbow followed by the DP line up breaking up in 1976 was it for me... The current "Mark VIII" lineup of Gillan, Morse, Glover, Airey and Paice is a bit Fleetwood Mac like with drummer Ian Paice being there from the start.

Amen to that! And that is perhaps exactly why the article is "uncomfortable" reading - it comes from the economics editor of a news source that was typically leaning the other way. Highly recommended reading.

Interested you say that - I didn't get that message at all from what he wrote. It really is a very good article and worth a read.

I sold a BF SC to a chap in Norway recently and had to fill out a customs form (in triplicate). It had exactly the same information as I had to provide the courier. Really very straightforward.

Zero. Nil. Nothing. Zip. Not a penny of customs duty for anything bought from any EU retailer, such as Thomann. If you are buying a new piece of kit from Thomann the 20% UK VAT will be EXACTLY what it was before. In other words for new goods from the EU this is just a:

Managed to pick up an used CMD 121H from the forum last year which would have been comfortably within your budget. The high end roll-off Lozz mentioned is pretty easily sorted with an EQ pedal and boosting (I'd recommend +6DB) at around 6kHz (treble) and 1.5kHz (high mids). The "bite" or presence button on a Tech21 VTDI preamp will do something similar. You're not able to add "presence" on the amp itself on the older Markbass LM2 / LM3 heads as there is a huge gap on the amp EQ between its high mid centre of 800Hz and treble centre of 10 kHz. If I had known about this fix a couple of years back I would have held onto my AC 121 Lite (which can be had used for around the £600 mark). This is still one of the best bass combos available: it will deliver its full 500W without an extension cab and also has an aux in and headphone out which the more budget MB combos, such as mine pictured below, don't have.

Well that's going to be plenty of treadmill time sorted isn't it! 😊 Do you have a link to the article for your magazine?

Exactly the same number of gigs as I had last year! But in a weird sort of way I had quite a gear focussed year -sold more gear than I bought for the first time in 6 years, but ended up with a set of bass gear that I'm really happy with. Completely echo your final sentiments - fingers crossed.

You are funny. For me Project Fear finally died with this article. Of course, feel free to argue if you consider that you're more expert than the guy who wrote it (he happens to be the economics editor). Either way, I'm not listening to any more claims of "this or that doomsday scenario is going to be the result". It's been mostly tosh so far. Let's see what actually happens eh?

Well, Douglas, I'm biased: I think the album is a superb piece of creative song writing and I'm full of admiration for anyone who can craft something with such catchy melodies, some excellent bass lines and will get people up and dancing.

Do you prefer / really like the actual album then?

It's not entirely clear, but I don't think you're a fan 😁

Liking this already!

2020 was very possibly the worst of years many of us have lived through. But it didn't stop some great creativity by musicians around the globe. What new release in 2020 particularly blew you away? I've been very very impressed with Future Nostalgia by Dua Lipa - so many great tracks on one album. Here she is with her band, performing 4 of the tracks from the album in a stripped down set. Lovely version of 'Love Again' - third track. The bass line on the album version is a lot of fun - I'm gonna see if I can persuade my band to add it to our set this year.

Yup, thanks I'd spotted that 😁 Trade deals are definitely a good thing, no question. It's win win. Alongside the UK do you know who the EU's largest trading partner is?

Come on, that's bordering on plain silly. We already trade more with non EU nations than with the EU. There are plenty of small retailers who are geared up to import from outside the UK eg Mark at Bass Direct will happily source you a 3 Leaf pedal or a Mesa amp. He's hardly a "large corporation"! Yes, I'm sure there will be an initial learning curve, but if we can learn a new song we can surely cope with a new form to fill out which is pretty much the same as what you do for a courier. YMMV

Missing the point big time. No changes in tax when buying new - so yes, we will continue to buy new goods from the EU and EU manufacturers will want to continue to export to their most important export market, the UK. It would be seriously daft to think otherwise - can you imagine BMW or even Thomann saying "screw that we have a 10 minute customs form to fill in?". The key change is when buying used goods from private sellers - we now have UK VAT when we import these just as we do with new goods and just as we have always had with used goods from the rest of the world (USA, Jersey, Japan, India, China etc) However, there may be a work around for the used goods issue too - we're just looking into that on the thread Bunion linked into above.

Well, one things for certain no more 2020 purchases possible now! So you should definitely know by now what your best purchase of last year was! 😎