Russ

I don't use mine either - no rack, everything apart from the head leaves the house in one laptop bag. But rack ears with green stripes and UV LEDs in them would fit the bill, I think.... would fit the whole Trace aesthetic.

Those old Peavey cabs as basically indestructible, as are their old amps. Shame they sound like bum. If you want an amp you're never going to have to repair, get an old TKO or TNT. It won't sound good, but it'll last for ever.

No new cabs though. I love my TE-1200 through my Barefaced BT2, but I'd like to see them come out with cabs that don't require an American-sized SUV to transport.

I never had the good fortune to meet Nick, but I'm well aware of just how well thought of he was, both on here and out there in the real world. RIP mate. Do we know what happened to him yet?

I’m a big Ashdown fan, but I must admit I don’t like the garish branding of their signature amps - they might be amazing (I know the Geezer one is excellent) but I can’t get over the huge, ugly graphics they put all over them. The new Shavo amp is a perfect case in point. They had the right idea with the old Mark King head - subtle branding, but a distinct feature set, with the 12-band graphic, etc.

I did, a while ago. They said no, basically. Even when I offered to buy two! You'd think that might be worth their while. I also mentioned it on the EB forums - Sterling is known to reply to comments on there from time to time, but tumbleweeds, alas.

Peavey might make them, but the Trace team at Peavey are all hardcore Trace fanboys/fangirls. They know and love that sound and have done a great job at reproducing it in the TE-1200. Just much, much louder. It’s the first amp I’ve had that’s really stretched the limits of my Barefaced Big Twin II. I just wish they’d make some more practical cabs to go with it - they’re either too small (the 1x10” or 2x8”, the ones meant for the ELF) or enormous and heavy. We need new versions of the old 1153 and 2103H - ie, something that’ll actually fit into a normal-size car and not break your back when moving them!

I had a ATK405 years ago. And it was one of the best sounding basses I've ever played, and it recorded beautifully. Neck was a bit chunky, and it was quite heavy, but it's probably one of the best basses Ibanez ever made. If nothing else, Ibanez need to revive that pickup set. Most of the newer Ibbys I've played have looked and felt great, but they mostly sounded incredibly anaemic, even with the Nordstrand or Aguilar pickups. Better than the Bart Mk1s, but still not exactly a "big" sound. The ATK MM/J set had some serious cojones. I always wanted them to make a BTB with those pickups.

Agreed. Just making the point that that's how the SimS pickups were sold - that one pickup could do the job of three. There are many other pickup manufacturers who offer switchable humbucker/single coil/split coil pickups, but, for the most part, they don't sell them as a "these can do it all" sort of solution. The original Enfield Cannon bass, with the huge single Super 8 pickup, was actually a much better solution than the later models with the two separate pickups.

I remember playing a few back when they first came out. Gorgeous looking things, but, despite the promises, the pickups couldn’t really nail P, J or MM in a way that was satisfying or particularly authentic. They had their own great sound, but the big selling point - that they could ape all those other sounds - just didn’t ring true for me. YMMV, but I wasn’t convinced. To get an authentic MM sound, you need the active electronics to work on specific frequencies, which are different to the frequencies you’d use on an active Jazz for that Marcus tone, or the frequencies you’d want to use to bring the bark out of a P pickup (all mids, and the basses had no midrange control).

There were two tricks with his recorded sound. First was that the Ibanez he plays, an old SR1305 (which his K5 was based on), had the old Ibanez Vari-Mid circuit, with a parametric midrange EQ control - he set the frequency towards the upper mids, and dialled it all out, leaving the low end and that “clack” that he’s famous for. The earlier versions of the K5 - the version with the mahogany body/padauk top combo - also had this circuit. Not sure the newer versions do though. Secondly, he recorded through a big Hughes & Kettner rig, taking a direct sound and a miked sound, but the mic was pointed directly at the tweeters in the cab.

I’m considering a 5-string as a project bass - would be a good platform for a Turner/Lusithand electronics setup, tuned EADGC. The pickups look like standard-sized MM humbuckers so it should be easy.

Used Bongos are quite rare, and not cheap. The people who like them REALLY like them and tend not to part with them. I sold two of mine for the same money I paid for them. This new SBMM version is probably down to the Bongo having somewhat higher visibility in recent times, with the likes of all-bass Australian prog outfit The Omnific using them.

As a bit of a Bongo aficionado, I'm definitely interested in seeing what these are like. I do like a bit of Firemist Purple - I used to have a fretless Bongo 5 in that colour. My big wish is for MM to add the Bongo to their customisation tool. They make far less of them than they do Stingrays, so surely offering them in custom colours should be much easier?

Envelope filter. Lots of two-handed slap (ie, using the fretting hand to make percussive ghost notes in between the thumb slaps, a la Mark King). Mark (TalkingBass) tells you all about it here:

https://www.basscentre.com.au/ - brilliant shop on the south bank. Loads of stock, and a lot of lovely high-end stuff too. As an added bonus, if you like acoustic guitars, the upstairs of the shop has loads of lovely stuff. I am partial to an Australian Maton acoustic...

I've never bought something that I hated outright, but I have had basses that I've loved when playing them by myself, or in the shop, but then I got them into a band environment and they just didn't work in context. A bit of an expensive lesson, but every time this has happened, it was definitely a learning experience for what I look for in basses. I'm a lot better informed and better prepared these days.

Alembic make Wal look cheap. But they probably have slightly better lead times. They are absolutely stunning instruments though, and sound like nothing else. But I have yet to play one (with the possible exception of the little Stanley Clarke model, which isn't particularly heavy but balances awfully) that wasn't a complete boat anchor in terms of weight. It's all that brass and maple.

What a stunning collection you have there, @ziggydolphinboy. I've never had more than two Seis at a time.

No - the bass was actually pretty light. The body was swamp ash, and I think it weighed about 8.5lbs altogether. The amboyna is just a top.

It'd be easy to blame the ICEpower Class D power modules, since they're something most Class D heads have in common, but it's never the power amps that go. It's always something in the preamps. The rehearsal room I go to has several Darkglass AO900s, and they seem to stand up pretty well to the rigours of rehearsal room life. If you don't kick on the distortion mode, but use the "bite" and "growl" controls, it can actually get quite SVT-ish (although the Microtubes does a better job, I think).

Did a gig just before Xmas with a guy I know who is a bit of an Ampeg fanboy. He was telling me he had bought the V7 a month or so previously, and it crapped out on him the day before the gig. He ended up bringing his old Portaflex 500, which he's had repaired several times, and he's starting to rethink his Ampeg fandom. He did like my Ashdown head.

Since Ziggy isn't coming up with pics, here's a pic of the nice Sei Jazz fretless 5 I had about 10 years ago: That was a stunning piece of amboyna burl that we used on the top. I sold this one to @adamhiggs ages ago, and The Gallery actually had it up on their site for sale a few years back, but I wasn't able to get it back that time.