Dan Dare

I suggest it's time to tell them that if they don't want to put any time into sorting things out, then they'll have to be content with what they get.

Me. People say I'm really crap, but I'm only mildly crap.

Yep. Christmas Is great when you're a kid and then when your kids are little, but apart from that, it's a massive PITA. And don't even mention bloody new year...

Is that the chain where you walk in and the sales assistant says "WHAT DO YOU WANT? CAN'T YOU SEE IT'S THE WROING TIME OF THE MONTH?"

Maybe put some clean, new screws into the holes?

This is what I did. I used hard white plastic to fill the slots, so I have a visual guide for intonation. It also helps in that the plastic won't compress as much as thin wood veneers (which helps to lessen the amount the neck will bow - the frets help keep it straight under tension and you don't want to run out of truss rod adjustment). It's very important to sand/smooth an accurate, even profile onto the fingerboard. You'll also need to file the nut slots as the action will be too high once the frets are removed.

They won't be making their own stuff. If the strings come from a half decent factory, they could be fine.

Four KT120s? Must have a serious power supply on board. Nice piece of kit.

If you like the PJB sound, why not get a power amp and additional cabs for when you need to make more noise and drive them via the preamp out on the Suitcase? I've become something of a PJB fanboi in recent years. Started with a Flightcase and liked the sound, so added a couple of C4s and a power amp for more of the same. Have subsequently acquired 3 of the older PJB 4B cabs (which I really like). None of the cabs, which were all used but mint - PJB stuff tends not to be bought by hooligans - cost me more than £250 (all but one were around £200). It's handy, in that I can take out as much or as little as I need and because the individual components of my rig are small, it's an easy carry.

At £6 a packet, has to be worth a punt. Getting what you pay for is relative. The price of strings at the factory gate is tiny compared to the retail price by the time the importer, wholesaler, retailer, Uncle Tom Cobley & All have added their percentages (standard retail markup alone on musical stuff is 100%).

Try Lab Gruppen, Camco, Powersoft or MC2. All light, all seriously nice and all seriously expensive.

If you don't have a speaker connected, you will need to use a dummy load for a valve amp, unless you like paying for new output transformers.

Exterminate. Exterminate.

Commenting about under-rated musicians is an over-rated pastime 😁

Remember it? I did it just yesterday.

Fever, Got the Rockin' Pneumonia and the Boogie Woogie Flu, I Don't Need no Doctor.

Those crazy prices on eBay usually mean an item is out of stock. It saves a seller from having to take their listing down and then reinstate it. The price automatically adjusts to something ludicrous once an item is sold out so people won't buy it. The seller will then revise to show a sensible price once he has stock again.

You may miss the slam you get from a big power amp and pre combination if you get something like a TH or similar mini head. Why not keep the Aggie pre' (which is a nice bit of kit) and look for a lightweight power amp - Lab Gruppen or similar? eBay often has Martin power amps (which are re-branded Labs) selling used for not too much money. I picked one up to use with my PA monitors not so long ago.

Just to add another suggestion to the expensive end of things, AER Amp One.

How much do you want to spend? Tiny + good bass sound can be expensive - something like a PJB Bass Cub or Double Four, for example.

A lot of those appear to have 4, not 5 bolt holes.

I think GHS's suggestion is sound. I had that problem when I tried Tomastik flats. The A is very skinny/low tension. I had to wind the bridge saddle almost off the thread of the adjuster bolt to get the intonation near correct. It still wasn't perfect, but the saddle would have fallen off the bolt had I adjusted it any further. I gave up in the end and swapped it for a D'Addario Chrome, which is slightly heavier. So if you're having to wind it in the opposite direction and the string is much heavier than the one it replaced, that would make sense.

I think Beedster has it right. The classic J bass sound I refer to is probably not hi-fi, especially with the wiring routing one pickup via the other's pot However, it just sounds so right, to my ears anyway. The J Retro turns the instrument into more of a competent Jack of All Trades, at the expense of that one sound that we love a J bass for.