Dan Dare

You're an evil man, posting tempting photos... Expect you'll report that it sounds fab, too.

My late missus varied. Loved my Martin 00028, was indifferent to the basses ("planks"). Liked a nice grained piece of wood.

Fair point, Hubrad, but at least you can get a refund if a name brand malfunctions. Good luck with that if you buy Chinese.

Stingray Pete's spot on.

Great basses those Thunders. For the money, there was little to beat them at the time. Agree with others about avoiding cheapies. Gotohs great value for what they are. CD Guitars in SE London v good for Gotoh. Google will find them. Get all my bits from them.

Stop it, all of you. I'm a weak willed man and love new toys. Was happy with my Basswitch until I started reading this thread...

Just to add a further complication, a decent, accurate hi-fi sub is not cheap. Rather than get a cheapo, if you put the money you would have spent on it towards upgrading your hi fi speakers, the result will almost certainly be better.

Rehearsal 8 - 3 out of 5 arrived with no money???? Surely they knew there would be a room fee to be paid. Notice 2 were the singers, presumably the same singers who also missed your most recent to "take daughter to an audition". The p1ss is being taken, I suggest. Time to move on, imho. Don't bother to complain - they've heard it before and know they can continue to mess you about. Just say "See yer".

A piece of thickish foam between amp and cab will solve the handle problem and stop the vibrations marching the amp off it too.

Have to agree with Alex that isobaric arrangements are not necessary with modem driver and cabinet design. The considerable extra weight and cost does not translate into a proportionate increase in performance.

Phil's right. Your NAD won't drive the bass cab in addition to the regular speakers and you'll have no control over it. You need proper sub (which in itself will be something of a compromise in a modest, low powered hi fi)

A 1x10, no matter how good, will struggle in all but moderate volume situations. The AER is astonishing for its size, but that sort of money will get you something good and larger and still light enough to carry.

Instrument manufacturers don't make strings anyway. They have them made/branded by the likes of D'Addario.

Hilarious, isn't it? Like the bedding from hotels famous people have stayed in being sold to the sad. "See these stains? They're not just any old pee stains, you know"

Wonderful player and never overcooks it.

Good man Brig. Remember, everyone is "just a pub band" in the beginning. You'll be grand. All the best..

Have you tried holding a long metal straight edge against the frets (whilst the neck is under tension/strung up) and attempting to rock it lengthways? That usually reveals any high frets.

May not need to buy new to get it on instalments. If you buy used from someone/somewhere where you can use PayPal, you can put it on your plastic and pay it off monthly. A couple of decent looking TC2x10s on Fleabay at the moment.

If North London isn't too far, try Malcolm Hine. He designs, builds and repairs valve amps. Google MPH Guitars to find his website. Nice bloke and very knowledgeable. Good player, too.

Er, no. A genuine observation, based on my personal experience. Used to have a HD350 and replaced it for exactly the reasons stated. "Gain weight"? Can you translate?

Know what you mean. Kit has a habit of multiplying. I'm wondering about that little Soundcraft tablet-controlled digital mixer at the moment. Very tidy size and have read a couple of favourable reviews. More expenditure...

Agreed, Pete. Same result, different routes to achieving it. EBS Freak - where did I say I could "compete with digital"? I didn't. I carry a modest outboard rack - couple of graphics, couple of multi FX and a couple of stereo compressors. It more than does the job. One rarely needs to compress more than 4 voices/instruments and you can always group things like backing singers or brass sections. Global eq is taken care of by the DSPs in the PA. The point I was making about eq was that most desks have fixed/shelving low and high frequency eq and two sweepable mids, ranging between about 50hz and 12 kHz - around 6 octaves. The Q/bandwidth of the mids will be wide as a result and unsuited to making subtle adjustments to a bass. Even a digital desk with typically 4 sweepable bands of eq covering the entire frequency spectrum will not be ideal. The eq on a dedicated bass head/pre-amp will have half a dozen or so turnover frequencies (more if it has a graphic) which will be concentrated at lower frequencies better suited to a bass and will be more usable as a result. That's the reason, incidentally, that I replaced my EBS head (I note you're a fan). Effectively, it had low and high frequency eq and one sweepable mid - not a lot of use, especially as I had to use it to get rid of the built in peak EBS seems to build into all its products (presumably to make them sound bright and in yer face and give them sales appeal in the showroom). I could never get a less than aggressive sound from it. Have a nice day.