lemmywinks

Did P basses have the original contour body decal?

I do some more delicate work than the usual bass related stuff so the pen style irons are great, just much nicer to use than the big clunky irons I used to have. You can go nuts with soldering equipment and spend hundreds (like any tool if you're using it a lot it's worth it) but the ~£50 stuff now is great. Hakko and Weller both do extremely well priced cordless irons too so they're worth checking out, may take a while longer to heat up than the TS100 though.

The USB port is just for firmware updates and editing as far as I know, not for power. A lot of people use generic 19v laptop power supplies (it can work with a variety of voltages) with them but the variable one I linked to works fine and gives it the full 24v. No experience of the TS80 but it looks smart, has the same boot screen as the TS100 so if it's basically a lower power (guessing ~20w?) version then it should be adequate, may struggle with bigger blobs of solder for grounding pots etc. Looks really convenient for use with a power bank or something, looks like they've made fitting the tip tool free too - on the TS100 you have an annoyingly tiny hex screw.

I have a TS100 which is great, they're usually £30-£40 on sale: https://www.banggood.com/MINI-TS100-Digital-OLED-Programmable-Interface-DC-5525-Soldering-Iron-Station-Built-in-STM32-Chip-p-984214.html?rmmds=search You'll need a power supply for it though, here's what i use: https://www.banggood.com/Excellway-9-24V-3A-72W-ACDC-Adapter-Display-Adajustable-Power-Adapter-Switching-Power-Supply-UK-p-1304491.html?rmmds=myorder I also have a silly cheap (ie £4 off eBay) USB powered iron for small jobs when I can't be bothered setting up the proper one which is surprisingly good, better than a lot of cheap irons and I can plug it into any USB port and be soldering in under a minute. Recently soldered a Micro USB port onto a board with it and it was easily capable of delicate work, spare tips are about £1 too and they're actually nice to use. I use this much more than I intended to do purely down to it being so convenient and me being lazy! A lot of those cheap solder stations have really poor quality tips which are fine for a few leads etc but quickly deteriorate even if you look after them, I've had two of those generic (branded under a million different names like Silverline etc) ones fail on me. In the long run it's more cost effective to just get a better iron, those £40 TS100 ones are the first cheap iron which has been genuinely good. Tips are cheap and you can get really fine ones too.

He had a stint in Cambodia and Vietnam too and has been found guilty of raping underage girls as young as 11. I had no idea people were still covering his songs, that's genuinely odd.

I think paedos and nazis is probably a good place to draw the line personally.

Aerosmith or The Who?

The amp module in the FR800 is this btw: https://www.hypex.nl/product/psc2-400d/67

Christ somebody actually bought those other ones: https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Headless-Precision-Bass-Guitar-/163534898108?item=163534898108&ViewItem=&nma=true&si=Qj9EQi%252BhleQ5CrneNMEnfVKOey8%253D&orig_cvip=true&nordt=true&rt=nc&_trksid=p2047675.l2557 https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Headless-Jazz-Bass-Guitar-/163534900607?item=163534900607&ViewItem=&nma=true&si=Qj9EQi%252BhleQ5CrneNMEnfVKOey8%253D&orig_cvip=true&nordt=true&rt=nc&_trksid=p2047675.l2557 £175 + £20 p&p, what is wrong with people?

The main point of contention for me is that I would rather see any R&D go towards improving the weak links to make the V series even more of a killer proposition than they already are. Smaller bridge saddles, moving the through body holes back a touch and using more durable intonation screws would fix the bridge issues for example. Btw Harley Benton are doing roasted maple necks and stainless steel frets on sub £350 guitars which is crazy.

We have a pair of 735 cabs (same deal aside from the voice coil I think?) and carrying one in each hand with my arms straight down using the top handle is no problem, this is how I usually get them into gigs. If I'm carrying just one I use the side handle and hold them a little higher, they aren't particularly heavy. My old Markbass cabs were actually more of a pain to carry despite being very light as they were cube-ish with one recessed top handle in the middle which meant they had to be held away from my body. Plus on the Barfaced that handle will probably fall off or disintegrate after a few gigs so you'll have to cradle it into the venue like a newborn baby! 😁

I'm pretty sure your bass rig isn't putting out 31hz either. I don't know where this idea that an RCF 745 is somehow inferior for bass than a dedicated cab comes from, they'll blow most setups out of the water in terms of sheer power and volume. We used a pair of 735 cabs on their own in good sized venues with the entire band going through them (inc bass and fully mic'd up kit) and they didn't struggle one bit, just lots of clean power and fat low end. Using one as my bass amp would be total overkill, I use a K10.2 and it doesn't struggle with a 5 string for monitoring even at volume. I went from a 2x12 Markbass rig and haven't sacrificed anything, a K12.2 would be more than enough for pretty much any bass player I think.

A pair of RCF 745 cabs can do a decent sized venue with a full band going through them, they are very powerful full range cabs.

I can't remember the last time my on stage rig had any effect on my FoH sound so the point is moot for me. It's a question of wanting something which can produce a clean bass signal, points directly at my ears and takes up barely any room on stage with the absolute minimum of setup faff. Having a small powered PA cab does that in one package with power to spare and IMO sounds like a better bass amp than my old Markbass rig (LMII with 2 x Club121 cabs).

What, discussing basses on a bass discussion forum? Whatever will we think of next? Crazy times indeed..........

The new line of GPDs with Core M3 and replaceable M.2 drives are fantastic but a lot of money. They also have the MicroPC which has just finished crowdfinding - quad core N4100, 6gb ram and a 128gb M.2 SSD. More for IT/network pros with it's I/O but cheap at under £250 and outputs video over USB Type C. https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/gpd-micropc-6-inch-handheld-industry-laptop#/

There's also the original version of the Onemix Yoga (Cherry Trail 8gb ram) for around £350 + import fees, sometimes rebranded as Voyo for the same price: https://www.techinthebasket.com/catalog/product/view/id/6657?gclid=EAIaIQobChMIj8funr_14AIVSpztCh1rjwVdEAQYAiABEgI9BfD_BwE I love tiny computers btw, still have my old PSION S5 and 5MX as well as my original Dell Mini 9 and numerous ancient ultraportables. EDIT: Just noticed a Pocket 1 for £250 BIN, way less than what they usually go for: https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/GPD-Pocket-7-Inch-Aluminum-Shell-Mini-Laptop-UMPC-Windows-10-System-CPU-Silver/303090421611?epid=12017624044&hash=item469198cf6b:g:WogAAOSwEP9cg8kk

The GPD Pockets are ace, I had an opportunity to buy a cheap Pocket 1 (the Cherry Trail one) for £200 and passed it up which I still regret as one sold on eBay recently for £370. Currently have the original Win and the XD 64gb, fantastic little things. They do a cheaper version of the Pocket 2 now with a Celeron and 4gb ram for £399. https://droidbox.co.uk/gpd-pocket-2-celeron-edition-amber-black-4gb-128gb-touchscreen.html I currently use a Toshiba Click Mini 8.9 hybrid which is tiny (much smaller than the Asus T100 etc) and can be picked up pretty cheaply - I got mine for £70, I use it with an HDMI to Type D HDMI cable so no adapters plus it's so lightweight that it can be used as a proper tablet for reading etc which is horrible on most 10" Windows devices. Has a 8hr+ battery and a 1200p screen too. Even the old Bay Trail chips with 2gb ram are enough for me but YMMV.

I have a little Behringer Xenyx 302USB mixer which is USB powered, functions as a USB sound device and can also play audio over the USB connection meaning it's just one cable for power, data and audio. Something like that with a small powered speaker would be a nice compact setup with the bare minimum of cable runs.

One of his negative feedbacks on a 4 string bass definitely sounds like one of the admittedly rare write off dekos: Private Not as described. Needed new strings & a set up. Possibly needs a new neck too! Seems like he isn't even checking them, just using stock photos and flipping them, naughty.

Didn't know Wood & Tronics were Italian, every day is a school day!

Would it have killed them to put a tuner in there?

The new one has the Premium version of their tuners so it would be interesting to hear your opinion on those especially if you can compare them to the standard ones.

The tuners are functional, just not great IMO but nothing worse than what you find on any decent budget bass. I have Schallers on mine and they are far better. The bass I was using beforethe SIre was a Cort B5 which I got on sale for approx £235 IIRC, that had Licensed Ultralites and going from those to the Sire tuners was night and day which I think is one of the reasons I was keen on replacing them. Just bang average cheap tuners which do an adequate job if a little loose feeling, if it's your main gigging bass and the opportunity arises to upgrade for a good price then definitely look into it. I paid £50 for a 5 string set of Schallers on here - no brainer really. Again the bridge on mine wasn't an immediate problem, just something that was obviously not particularly good. I didn't like the almost 90 degree angle when stringing the B through body and from what I can gather on the 4 string version (at least on the original Sires) the E saddle covers the string hole when intonated!