lemmywinks

Funnily enough spotted one of the el cheapo range Lodestones on Facebook just now (while looking for less hideous basses obviously) for £175: https://www.facebook.com/marketplace/item/504336910485159/ Gonna assume the seller is paying you the £175 to take it away rather than the other way around. Not too far from you @AndyTravis

On Facebook, don't see these often and there's someone on here who plays these I think? https://www.facebook.com/marketplace/item/523501651624436/ Seems like a decent deal considering the pickup upgrade and hard case.

I like 'em! Kinda a GB Spitfire built by Fender vibe going on with them.

Have you stuck a multimeter across them to check resistance? Bartolini list it as 8.5/7 for the neck and 9.8 for the bridge.

His were masterbuilt instruments, I think Jason Davis made one of them so they'll be as good as anything, he actually built a few interesting basses. Not your run of the mill Fender or even the custom shop series. Edit - here's some Fenders built by him:

That's a perfect case in point - Fender made a high end custom shop bass to the spec of a talented player in a popular (at the time) band and it never got off the ground. IIRC Tye Zamora struggled to sell his own personal ones.

I've always thought it's perfectly acceptable for Fender to just make Jazzes, Precisions, Teles, Strats, Jaguars etc. It's what they do and if there's one company that should be making the original classic designs that everybody and his uncle wants to own then it's them. Never really saw the demand for them to be groundbreaking in this day and age when there's plenty of companies doing that and producing great instruments the world over and we've never been more spoilt for choice - let Fender be Fender and make those boring old designs that sound pretty good and sell like hot cakes. That's why it's all the more disappointing when a company like Ashdown announces they're collaborating with a well known bass builder to produce a new line of basses and they turn out to be more Fender copies. Boooooooooooooooooooring.

Reminds me a bit of an Esh.

The Lodestone is a crummy old Fender shape though, like they wanted to design some super modern instrument but didn't have any ideas so just took a router to a J bass!

I swear every time I see a pic of a Lodestone they look worse than the last time, such a clumsy design IMO.

Yeah there's a switchable crossover for adding a sub, think it can go as low as 80hz which wouldn't make a particularly usable bass HPF for most I would think. Seeing as the DSP is already cutting everything under 57hz (don't quote me on that, my memory is rubbish!) it already has the HPF thing going on. Haven't got the speaker here with me now to check so not sure if you can just select from a few preset frequencies or pick your own with the jog wheel, been looking at selling it since using in ears tbh.

There wasn't an option for that last time I looked IIRC, just different frequencies to set the crossover. The K10.2 has a cutoff at 57hz I think regardless of whether the crossover is engaged.

Hunt for an used Yamaha, Cort, Peavey, Bass Collection, Aria etc, much better and will have decent resale value if you don't like it. Your best bet is the Facebook marketplace, just had a look and there's an old Yamaha BBN5 for £120, an Ibanez BTB for £150, an Ibanez SR370 for £110, an Epi Toby for £120 and an OLP MM5 for £140. All of those will likely be head and shoulders above the G4M cheapy, particularly the Ibanez.

We're looking for something smaller as for pub gigs we just use two bars with LEDs on each side and want them to communicate with each other, anything bigger and we hire someone to do all that for us. Just checked tonight and our lights seem to have an IEC passthrough built in so a USB converter box should sort it, ideally we want something we can leave rigged up and just plug a small transmitter/receiver in. Just looking for ways to make setup and pack down even more streamlined really, we're already pretty efficient and have slowly been eliminating backline and monitors.

I had hoped the fad for bulbous singlecuts with janky headstocks would have died down by now.

I think you're seriously underestimating my dislike for long cable runs! There's a few venues we play where we put one set of lights a bit further from the stage, one is in an empty DJ box and the cable run has to go over a door so wireless would be handy for us. Was looking at IEC to 5v USB adapters with a passthrough so we could power them from the same plug as the lights but haven't found anything suitable yet, seen the clover leaf style IEC but not the bulkier one we need. Just one of those cable tied to each bar would be fine for us - plug a USB cable in and it's ready to go.

Conversely I think bass players and bands in general sound miles better these days than they did when big old Peavey etc rigs were the standard. I've always enjoyed playing through old rigs (carted around a Hartke stack for years) but every time I've changed amps it's been for clarity and being able to hear myself better with light weight and compact size as a bonus. I don't use any backline now and get the clearest sound I've ever had. We also have a very good PA so I sound better out front too.

If you're on big stages then surely you'll have decent monitoring provided anyway? I wouldn't use an amp at all!

Cool, would be disappointing if there was some horrible routing under there.

Incidentally what is under the bridge (on the bass, not the RHCP song)? Love the figuring of the wood but the big 'orrible bridge spoils it.

Useless for me as the Windows app doesn't work on my Windows 2in1 (probably a 32bit issue or doesn't work with the Bay Trail chip) despite there being no system requirements to speak of other than needing Windows 10. Works fine on my 2in1 Ultrabook (Core M7, 64bit) but that doesn't fit in my gigbag, may try installing 64bit Windows on my smaller one and seeing if it works. Our guitarist linked me to their announcement post on FB and there were a lot of angry customers on there. Seems like a really bad move.

Well that's a debate in and of itself! Quoted ratings are stated as 200w for both I think, no idea if they are realistic numbers or marketing trickery though. If this is going to be pedalboard mounted I wonder if it has any splash proofing as the risk is far greater on the floor at the front of the stage.

It's a fair bit bigger than the Elf and also the BAM200: AE Ant - 21 x 11.8 x 6.2 cm TE Elf - 17.1 x 10.4 x 3.4 cm TC BAM - 16.6 x 13.3 x 4.3 cm

Actual legit "lawsuit" model as well.