scrumpymike

Not surprised, very similar look to my first Cazpar 4 (see below with the other 2 I've had). They're wee gems and generally under-rated it seems to me.

Nice NYE gig in Minehead (England's answer to the Maldives 😎). The crowd were up for it and so were we. What could possibly go wrong? Well, we had to find a dep drummer at the last minute, but all went so well that we played til 1am and the venue paid us more than agreed. Not a bad start to the NY!

I love the Cazzie! Had a few in the last 10 years and they're exquisite. They're the sister brand of Maruszczyk and although made at the same workshop they are far superior in terms of build quality IMHO.

Ash IIRC

Very promising but still finding my way round it. Did my quick basic set-up yesterday but still not happy with the action up at the dusty end. For now, I'll just throw out a few random things. My knowledge of 'Rays is limited to: playing a used standard-scale passive MM FS in a shop a few years back and quickly finding a tonal sweet spot that was to die for; buying a SBMM s-s when they first came out and being very impressed - but not enough to keep it; liking Gail Ann Dorsey's 'Ray sounds in Bowie's band. Mine is fitted with round-wound strings (not EB Slinkies) and I have opted for flats on all my basses for a while now. I've not had a fat lot of experience with active basses. When I've decided where to go string-wise, I may need to play around a bit with the pick-up height as the E & A strings are dominating the D & G (could be the existing strings). I'm getting some great sounds but am a bit concerned at how dramatically the volume level responds to changes on the 3-band EQ. I want to make full use of the East tonal palette without faffing around with volume control. More later 🙂

Was up at BCH's on Thursday trying - and buying - his modded s-s MM Stingray. I took my Mesa TT-800 along to play through Bernard's Monaco. In between chatting about the 'Ray and his other fine basses, there was much positive comment about the Monaco cabs that we have recently acquired. When it comes to cabs, we've both been round the block a few times, and we're delighted with what Stevie's done. Great job! 👏

It's very nice there at this time of year - allegedly 🤐

Should have credited BCH with the fine pic's he took and copied to me - thanks Bernard. Here's one of the East engine room:

Here's my new baby, bought from Bernard (BCH) on here complete with John East 3-band active mod 😊

Tried and bought Bernard's s-s MM 'Ray yesterday. Well worth the 6-hour round trip to Northampton! Super bass and never any worries when dealing with this top-class Basschat member.

I 100% agree with this great review and look forward to Lobster's modding video for adding pickup selector switch and flats.

... which is what I've always had. Only because I need at least 19 easily accessible frets. Mind you, if somebody wanted to gift me a JMJ I wouldn't say no.

The 'one cab solution' was a factor for me too. As soon as I found out that my Mesa TT-800 was more than loud enough through the Monaco for our rock gigs, my order was placed.

Really liking the HB Deluxe though only used it at home as it's a kind of backup for the backup gig bass. The lack of p'up selector switch remains the only thing I can fault but the tone pot gives a good range so perfectly useable as is. Massive value for money and as good as anything else I've tried in the <£500 range. Removed the bottom 'mushroom' strap button in favour of a Dunlop flush strap-lock to make it fit (just) in a nice Gator hard case (Jag IIRC) I already have.

Grabbed a couple of pic's while time and daylight permitted. Most comfortable carry handle I've ever used btw.

Looks just the biscuit too 😊

Sorry, that should read 'to 12 o'clock and 11 o'clock respectively'. I seem to have forgotten how to tell the time 🤔

In case anyone on here is interested, just posted a review of my LFSys Monaco, which I believe is the first-off production cab.

Hi Smanth! Can't bring anything to the 5-er party, but good to hear from you again 🙂

Recently set up by Basschat member Stevie, LFSys is a new name in a market that’s already pretty much saturated. So what can Stevie bring to the already crowded party? The first part of the answer is ‘loads of experience’, given that he’s been the driver (excuse the pun) behind the long-running and successful Basschat self-build cab project. But there’s more to Stevie than being handy at DIY, as you can read for yourselves in the ‘ABOUT ME’ section of his https://www.lfsys.co.uk website. The second part of the answer to ‘what’s new?’ is the bit that really motivated Stevie. As a bass player, he was unhappy with the sound quality of what he was hearing while standing in front of his rig at gigs. He wanted to improve not only the audience’s listening experience but also his own. Having already done so much cab design and build, following some additional development work that took the self-build design to a higher level, Stevie found himself just one step away from becoming a manufacturer. A big step maybe but – spurred on by the number of people who had seen the self-build cabs and said they’d pay him to build them one – he decided to take the next step into small-batch production. The LFSys bass-cab was defined a couple of key decisions. Uncompromising sound quality was top of the list with other considerations such as lightweight construction following on behind. Stevie opted for the ‘FRFR’ approach and set about creating a couple of cabs capable of delivering full range and flat response. The reasoning was that, if you make cabs that faithfully reproduce what’s being put into them, you’re giving bass players a kind of sonic ‘backdrop’. This lets us overlay the ‘sounds in our heads’ without first having to overcome any cab-induced ‘colouration’ that gets in the way of what our imagination, fingers, picks, pedals, modellers and amps generate. The next key aspect is mastery of the cross-over technology that is all-important in the performance of multi-speaker cabinets and a pre-requisite of achieving the ‘flat response’ half of FRFR. There aren’t many who really know what they’re doing in this highly-specialised field but Stevie is one of them. That’s all very well, but what does it mean to us? To be honest, it didn’t mean that much to me at first. I believed my existing cabs were doing the business and wasn’t considering replacing them. Until I heard Stevie and Phil Starr’s ‘blind’ cab shoot-out at the S-W Bass Bash, where one of Stevie’s Silverstone cabs was pitted against some of the best of the rest. When asked which sounded best, nearly all of us (me included) opted for Stevie’s cab. However, Phil finished the session by stressing the limitation of the shoot-out: the musical test piece was an electronically-generated, bass-heavy demo recording chosen only because finding a skilled bass-player capable of doing a professional, multi-genre demo had proved to be a step too far in the time available. Being a bit of an ‘old school’ rock-‘n’-roll luddite myself, I drew some comfort from Phil’s warning. My hunch was that Stevie’s bass-cab recipe wouldn’t translate into my preferred ‘classic’ tones but rather into something a bit too bright, clinical and soul-less. Plus, I’d never got on with the HF-enabled cabs I’d tried in the past. Nevertheless, as a fully-GASsed-up member of the Basschat fraternity, I resolved to try both the already available Silverstone cab and the soon-to-be-released Monaco for myself at the earliest opportunity. Fast-forward to our living-room a couple of months later. I’ve got a Silverstone and a Monaco side by side on the floor with my Mesa TT-800 straddling across the top of both. First I try the Silverstone that came top in the bash shoot-out. I haven’t changed the amp controls from my normal gig setting and I’m instantly preferring it to my existing brand of cab! A few minutes later, I find out that the more expensive Monaco sounds even better, a result that is later replicated in Silverstone owner Phil’s much larger sitting-room. But STILL I cling on to my scepticism: how will it perform under real live gig conditions?! To cut a long story short, it’s the end of our next gig and my band-mates are coming over to slap me on the back. They don’t know (or care) what the new box is or what it does, just that it works. So I tell them. It makes the bass sound much more clearly defined and articulate than before so it cuts through the mix and enhances the whole sound of the band – even on stage. Before I’m even half-way through my short explanation, they’ve turned their backs on me and are packing their kit up. It’s worth adding that, courtesy of my wireless system, I nipped into the front of the audience at the beginning of the first set for a quick check that all was well – which it was. The only tweaks I made to my amp were to back-off the bass and treble a touch (to 1 o’clock and 12 o’clock respectively) on both channels, use the DEEP boost a bit more often and the BRIGHT hardly at all. With the LFSys Monaco, I now have killer-sounding, 600W (AES)-rated, 8ohm cab that handles the reduced power from my 800W (into 4ohms) amp with headroom to spare while still being PLENTY loud enough to cope with any of our indoor gig venues AND compete with my decibel-junky band-mates. More importantly, it feels like the music we make has kind of more room to breathe. Last but not least, this single-cab solution to my needs comes in at only fifty quid more (and a couple of kilos heavier) than ONE of the matched pair of 12” single-driver cabs I’ve been gigging with. What’s not to like? 😊 PIC'S TO FOLLOW

IIRC, it won an Olympic gold medal for diving.

Nice gig last night in one of our fave venues, the Esplanade Club by Watchet harbour on the West Somerset coast. As well as the easy load-in with parking outside the front door, we had the pleasure (?!) of watching a crucial football game before we 'kicked off'. When we arrived, in addition to the big projector screen there were lots of big tellies dotted around the place and I said "We're stuck for choice here, which one are we gonna watch?", "None of them!" was the quick response from our guitarist's girlfriend. Which explains why she had a much better night than the rest of us - enough said. Sadly, the knock-on effect from Harry failing to notice his loose boot-lace before taking the second penalty was that we didn't get the usual big Esplanade crowd. Presumably those who were planning to watch the game at home and come out for a few celebratory bevvies afterwards were instead hanging by the neck from some handy tree or lamp-post by the time we started at 9.30. We did get a few French tourists in though (only kidding 😊). But I digress. There was still a decent turnout of appreciative punters and we were at the top of our game - unlike.... (never mind). As always, my evening was rescued by the gig money, and somewhat unexpectedly by a new piece of kit that I was gigging for the first time. Not a new bass or amp (the things I get most excited about) but a new speaker cab from a new manufacturer - who happens to be a Basschat member!! The new brand is LFSys and the designer/builder is our Stevie, already known to many from the self-build cab project on here. I've followed the DIY project with interest including demo's at our S-W Bass Bash over the last few years but what Stevie has done with this production version is amazing. Sod the football! A killer new cab is much more important.