MartinB

Gear4music have them for £349, which is £50 more than Kenny's but still a damn sight cheaper than anywhere else

Very cool! I'd be a bit concerned about the breakability of the Timing and Mix controls.

If you want to test the waters before splashing out on a boutique pre-amp, these are some budget options: Behringer MIC100 / MIC200 Art Tube MP

True... the crap ends up stuck to the much larger surface area of your pedalboard instead 🧐

So much 80s songwriting was ruined by naff-sounding production that you're almost certainly doing it a favour by rearranging it!

If you're feeling spendy, a Turbo Tuner Mini is as about as fast and accurate as you're gonna get: https://www.turbo-tuner.com/index.htm

Good to know! I guess the moral of the story is "check the measurements"

I have one of these in Satin Pewter Metallic. It's only got 13 screw holes. Haven't tried an official Fender scratchplate, but a generic 13-hole one needed quite a lot of filing around the neck and pickups, and a couple of screw holes had to be moved slightly. Another fun thing about it is that the bridge J pickup is actually a (shorter) neck pickup, so you can't swap in a standard PJ set without routing 🙄. Still a great bass though!

If everyone already has a Google account, then Google Calendar is probably the first thing to try. Otherwise, Teamup Calendar (https://www.teamup.com/) is great because it doesn't require anyone to create an account - you can just generate a unique link to the shared calendar for each band member.

Can't find a band? Start one! You never know how many drummers/guitarists/etc. are out there in the same position as you - waiting for the right band to come along.

The brownest... Dr. No Turd Fuzz

I use an Arturia Microbrute (dinky analogue synth) for Ain't Nobody. Even if I could get a convincing sound using pedals, it's beyond my abilities to play those octaves cleanly on the bass guitar - they need to be really sharp and staccato. Even agressive noise gating didn't help. If you're playing an interpretation rather than following the original, you've got more options.

It's got miles of headroom, and then a brickwall floor limiter 😉

Can I interest you in some magic beans, Al? 😁

Keeley Bassist. A lot of money for a pedal - and they've gone up by another £50 since I bought mine - but it does its job extremely well, doesn't alter tone, and is dead easy to dial in. I also started using it for general compression (instead of limiting) when I joined a second band. Since I was going to be playing with a pick most of the time, and that's not something I'd done much before, I thought it would help to smooth out my level a bit while I got the hang of it. What I've found since then is that I actually really like the extra punch that the compression gives - the initial attack effectively gets emphasised, because the rest of the note gets de-emphasised.

If I didn't use a limiter when playing live, then every time I got to a bit with slapping/popping the audience would be deafened by massive volume spikes.

A decent office chair. It took years of sitting in front of the PC on a crappy Ikea folding chair for it to occur to me that I should get something with some actual padding... and lumbar support... and adjustable height... etc.

Seems like the Standby switch is labelled backwards, which is why the the "Quick Start Guide" in the box: appears to contradict the "Owner's Manual" on the Ampeg website (https://ampeg.com/pdf/PF-50T_PF-20T_OM.pdf): If the Standby switch has "O" depressed, that means the amp is on standby. Easy enough to tell once the amp is powered, because the light is red - but hard to guess before you switch it on! 😆

Worth noting that although I asked for it to be sent to my work address, it actually came to my home address. Crossed wires since it's coming from the distributor rather than the retailer I guess. No big deal. When you get the "out for delivery" email from DPD you can check this and divert it to a different address.

My PF-20T has just arrived. I've only taken it out of the box so far - anything else will have to wait until after work. But I can confirm that it is real, and we haven't all been scammed with a box full of bricks 😄

There are definitely people out there gigging with them, but whether or not it'd work for you is hard to say - there's so many variables. How many speakers do you have, and how fancy/efficient/boutiquey are they? Are they just for monitoring? How loud is your drummer, on a scale of jazz whisperer to shed builder? How many guitarists are on stage? Do they get along? Do you always have PA? It is any good? Does the engineer know what he's doing? And so on. It's got a line out, so in theory any gig with adequate PA and monitoring should be fine. But if the only source of bass noises in the venue is your amp and cab(s)... 🤷‍♂️

Yup 😊. I've just had the email to confirm. It's being sent direct from Ampeg. Maybe the new management (Yamaha) are planning to discontinue them, and they're clearing out the warehouse? 🤷‍♂️

When I work up this morning, I didn't think, "Today I'm going to buy a tube amp!". And yet, here we are. 💸

Love the idea of a little PF-20T for recording... if only I ever did any recording! 😁 £299 seems like a good price (https://www.kennysmusic.co.uk/ampeg-portaflex-pf-20t-20w-bass-amplifier-head), though "Available to order" might mean "no chance".

I haven't had any problems with the EBS ones, but I've seen a few people saying the Warwick ones can be noisy.