BrunoBass

⬆️ Spot on

Maybe... Definitely an overreaction, and as today has worn on and I’ve had time to think about it the more angry I am about how he reacted. If someone has a problem we deal with it in a mature manner. Being called a **** by a bandmate is unnecessary and unacceptable. I’m pretty easy going usually and I’m normally happy to work things like this out and move on, but being the character he is I think this will fester to the point that the continuation of the band is probably untenable. I don’t need the grief - this is supposed to be fun.

Well, that escalated quickly... We had a decent gig, really rocking by the second half, the whole pub up and dancing. All good. But then with about four songs to go the pub practically emptied, we finished and got no encore. The first time ever we haven’t heard ‘more, more’ at the end of the set. Oh well, no biggie, it means I get home quarter of an hour earlier. After loading out we were outside by our cars, discussing why the pub emptied like it did. I mentioned that we were very loud (we were, something about the room made the drums sound very, very loud). The drummer only hits things with one level of velocity, so the obvious answer of not hitting the drums quite so hard doesn’t register with him. Consequently me and the guitarist had to turn up a bit, but nothing drastic. Drummer then starts getting defensive, saying he had to play loud to compete with the amps, ignoring the fact that we were loud to compete with him. He’s a difficult character at the best of times but he then started acting like a stroppy teenager and getting pretty het up. It ended by him getting in his car, calling us a pair of ****s and speeding off. So as of this morning I don’t even know if we have a band anymore. Guitarist has tried to contact him this morning but no response. The sad thing is I’m actually not that bothered if it’s over, I don’t need that kind of hassle.

+1 for Jack - top man, great service.

Wow. I gig regularly in rowdy pubs where beer gets spilt and mic stands get knocked etc, but I’ve never had anyone grab my bass by the neck. I’d be grabbing them by the neck if anyone ever did that...

I don’t mind a bit of artificial wear if it’s subtle and looks like it’s the result of many years of use. I look after my stuff and despite years of, er, energetic gigging it’s still clean and pretty much ding free. I often wonder how people’s gear gets into the state it’s in. Similarly, when I see other people’s gear at gigs or rehearsal studios I’m often struck by just how dirty some it is. Build up of gunk on the frets, greasy finger marks... some people must never clean their stuff.

There are a couple of guys active on the Facebook Rickenfakers group turning out some high quality stuff, including 4005 copies. I won’t mention their names here but have a look, you’ll soon figure out who they are.

That’s more like it!

Interesting to read all the posts on this thread. I started playing bass in my late teens in the late eighties but I never visited The Bass Centre. I remember seeing the ads in the magazines and viewing it as some kind of mythical sanctum of dream gear with myriad pro players casually hanging around. I probably found the idea of visiting a bit intimidating if I’m honest. I do remember my mate Alex making the trip down for some kind of New Year sale, it must have been 87-88 time and he told me he’d camped out on the street outside so he could be first in the queue to nab the Jaydee Supernatural he had his eye on when they opened up, he got it too.

My RMI Boomslang Jive has a mini toggle that does just this.

From my experience, I would never again use or recommend Hermes for anything, bass or otherwise. There are only so many lost / missing parcels, ignored email / calls to customer service and faked signatures I’ll accept.

Yes caught that last night, good stuff.

Great, thanks.

That’s brilliant, thanks so much. One last thing, it sounds like the low end is preserved well when the overdrive is engaged on the Fender (from what I can tell from YouTube demonstrations I’ve seen) - is that the case?

I was just about to order one of these when I saw the Fender Downtown Express, now I’m undecided. The TC wins in as much as it has Aux in / Headphone out, but the Fender’s overdrive sounds better to me. But then the TC will have more overdrive options available in their Tone Prints. Has anyone tried both of these? What did you prefer?