ChrisJaxon

I started off with a MAG300, on top of MAG 210 and RM115 stack. Never a hitch. Great Sound. Moved on to an RM420 head. A bit of a learning curve to get a good sound, but it served me well and never let me down. It is now my reserve amp, giving pride of place to a RM800 Evo which is superb through my Barefaced Super Twelve. No Ashdown product has ever let me down, so thankfully I have never needed their customer service, except for the one time I was sent the RM115 completely free of charge, as a Valentines day thank you for buying one of their products!! Don't you just love'em?!

Bought a pair of Beyerdynamic headphones. All as described, perfect. And quick postage too. .

I also have a 735A and didn't know about the function of the treble knob until I read that review. The first 50% up to the indent does indeed only control the passive treble, and the second half does only control the active treble. Before I read that, I thought it was 100% for both active and passive: but they are correct! The tone changes are quite subtle, but effective. I upgraded from a BB425 (which I highly rated) and now the sound of the sound of the whole (blues rock) band is much fuller and richer, thanks to the 735. A very well thought out instrument.

We played a pub gig on Saturday, which as some of you may remember was quite a warm day. The pub was a town pub surrounded by housing. Outdoor events have been banned, even though they built a lovely outside bar in the extensive gardemn. It never gets used! Whenever they have live music they have to keep all doors and windows closed tight. So there we were, in a complete sweat box! It made for an atmosphere but not sure how you would describe it....! Nevertheless we played pretty well and survived, and got paid. Anyone else get stuck behind closed doors on a balmy Saturday night?

Our frontman has a small ipad clipped to his mike stand, which has the set list in order so he simply swipes from one song to the next, you hardly notice it. Apart from the words (just in case!) it also has the song structures, any extra bits we flung in at the last moment, so it is a good aide mémoire and quite unobtrusive. He orchestrates the whole shebang from the front, so really, especially as we become prone to 'senior moments' it is almost an essential!

I am the proud new owner of Lorin's 735A, and it is gorgeous. It replaced a black 425X which I loved, very sorry to see it go, but boy was it worth it! Very comfy to play, lighter than the 425, very even tones everywhere on the fretboard. In passive mode it has the usual BB smoothness, and when flicked to active you can very gradually and gently mold that smoothness from a thick deep tone all the way up to a farty honk, in combination with the rotary pickup control. Such a well-thought-out design and execution, it is easy to fall in love with it! I have tried it with nylons, chromes and nickel rounds, and it is great with all of them, depending on the sound you want. With Chromes in the studio it will be gorgeous. I am going to gig it with rounds as that is the sound I want. A good demo of the 735A (and all good things Yamaha) is here:

With Pratt!

This morning I found this rather inspirational. Kinga is a great player of all styles, and if you can sit through the whole hour of this then there is some great playing from all three musicians, even if jazz is not your thang. And an old Gibson on flats singing, grunting, thumping and bellowing. Great stuff.

At a festival last summer I walked onto the stage with my bass and humble BDI 21 and was up and running, soundchecked, within 30 seconds. Admittedly it was a great sound system with good foldback and pro sound guys. Sounded fantastic out front too. It can be done.

This is why I love playing my Yammy BB, DI'd out of my Ashdown RM800EVO. https://youtu.be/99oDeSRRIHU

It looks like DR Hi-Beams are still on offer on Amazon at around £20 delivered from USA. You have to wait for them for a while, but it is a great deal. I bought a couple of sets and they are now my firm favorite...not only because of the price! https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B0009FJ1NS/ref=oh_aui_search_detailpage

Hi Nilebodgers! Yes, we would all like to pump up the volume, but it is sitting quite nicely in the mix without being in yer face.

We recently played at The Queens Head in Box (Bath), where they have facilities for live video and audio recording (24 track). It is a great place to play, lots of atmosphere. We remixed the audio, and for a live take, I must say it is not too bad. Warts and all! Here are a couple of samples.

We recently recorded a gig at The Queens Head in Box (Bath) with video, and here is our version of Tell Me I'm Your Man by Robben Ford. It is a great little venue. We remastered the 24 track recording and I think it sounds quite sweet.

I was intrigued to see this good fellow was giving slap an interesting twist around the 10:30 mark. https://youtu.be/TlQKFkGoRFo?t=413 Does anyone else spank as well as slap?

LOXX all the way for me. 3 straps, 5 guitars, and always swapping around, they are an ideal and robust solution, and have never failed...so far!

Hi Raymondo: I am playing with Route 61 ([url="http://www.route61.band"]www.route61.band[/url]) in the Star Inn at 9.15pm on the Saturday night. Come and see us and have a chat!

Here is our band website: www.route61.band It is made using WIX and was done in a very short time by my step-son who is anyway an IT whizz/nerd. I have been maintaining it and upgrading it ever since, and it is a doddle even for an old f@rt like me to add/remove/edit stuff. I would recommend the wix.com method. I would say that the website has got us a couple of festival/beerfest gigs, as well as one private party, and a couple of tracks played on a Dutch blues radio station. A good site does get interest, and Wix are quite hot on search engine optimisation, which is a real bonus when folks are looking for local bands.

I recently refinished my old Shergold Marathon from cracked and flakey blond to pure black. It now looks the business with the black binding on the lovely neck, and also somehow sounds better. That my be subliminal, but it really does sound like an improvement. Also having the neck off and out of tension for a month or so has improved the set-up. I left the truss rod as it was; I know the standard wisdom says to release it, but I felt that the way the Shergold trussrod works, it may benefit from remaining untouched...and it did! Also, where the right hand wrist/forearm rests on the body, I gave it a little shaping to avoid my circulation from being cut off, as it was constantly when resting on the right angle of the body! It is now more of a pleasure to play. All in all, very satisfied. I am never going to sell this, so I have no qualms about making changes. To boot, it has a new Kiogon loom, the pups rewired in series, and it sounds fantastic. Added a couple of ebony knobs. Cross between a P and Ricky in sound I would say. Nice. [attachment=253155:P1070471.JPG] [attachment=253156:P1070472.JPG] [attachment=253157:P1070475.JPG]