Obrienp

I had the same problem with my Guild Starfire but it was sorted by some stick on foam edge protector. The stuff you stick on sharp edged furniture to stop toddlers braining themselves. Available for not much from various online sources, including Bezos’ cash cow.

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Enjoy! I’m very happy with mine. As @pete.young said you do need to experiment a bit more with your eq than you might with other cabs that have a baked-in sound. The Monza will reproduce everything that goes into it. I found out how top biased my Warwick Gnome iPro was. @Phil Starr pointed out that the Gnome has anything but a flat response when the EQ controls are set at 12 o’clock and you certainly hear it with the Monza before adjusting the EQ. That lesson learned, I have really grown to love it. It pairs extremely well with my Blackstar u700 that has a number of preamp and power stage voicings. Most of the time I am using the more classic valve amp voices (covers and blues) and that is exactly what I get out of the Monza. If I want a more modern “hi-fi” sound, it’s there too. This is unlike, for instance, my BF Two10 that can only really do vintage (by design). The U700 classic voices with the Two10 can be too old school and a bit ill defined. Volume wise, I don’t have an amp that is ever going to push the Monza anywhere near its peak but TBH, even with 250 watts @ 8 ohms, I have not yet needed to have the master much above 12 o’clock for most pub gigs. I find I can hear it even when I’m really close to it, which you can’t say about a lot of other cabs. I did try it on top of my Two10S at an open air festival gig: 700 watts @ 2.7 ohms but that volume level was completely unnecessary because of the excellent foldback provided by the organisers. It was also somewhat unbalanced with the Two10 getting 2/3 of the oomph and struggling to cope. It did make me think how good a 3 x Monza stack would be though🤟😀. I’ll have to win the lottery though, at the moment I’m aiming at another Monza when my piggy bank is full enough. Sorry for the word vom. Enjoy your new cab day!

Guitar-Guitar did this with the end of line Vox passive Starstream basses about a year, or so ago. Going by the posts on BC, most of them were obviously B-stock/returns. Most BCers who bought them sent them back. They were selling for a massive discount (annoying for me as I was trying to sell an A1 version at the time) and there was no mention of them being B-stock. Like @Burns-bass said, if it’s too good to be true, it probably is. Guitar-Guitar seem to be serial offenders in this respect.

Just use EasySetlist on a tablet or phone. Cheap as chips and not complicated. I’ve converted 4 out of 5 in the covers band I play in to use it. It will store your chord sheets and allow you to create play lists on the fly and share them. No printing stuff. As they say, other set list apps are available.

My bitsa medium scale P bass with 2 x Tonerider pickups and Jazz neck. Neck side pickup reversed. Stacked vol/tone and single blend.

Thanks. I’ll look out for that. I’ve got to go through with it now, as I have ordered the varitone. It’s pretty big though, so I think I might have to remove the pickup to get into the body; I don’t think the f-holes are going to be wide enough to get it in. 😬

Thank you for sharing that. There are some good tips in there. I hadn’t thought of the tailpiece ground wire complication but it makes sense. I wouldn’t wire up a solid body bass without grounding the bridge.

Another good one! Thanks.

That’s good to know.👍 Yeah, it looks like FleaBay, or the dreaded Amazon can oblige with the tubing.

Thanks for that! Great idea! I will definitely use that. Wonder where you can get the surgical tubing without having to buy a massive quantity 🤔. I hope I don’t have to remove the pickups but I guess it depends on whether I can get the pots through the f-holes. P.S. It looks like Amazon is a good source of the tubing.

I’m thinking about fitting a varitone style tone pot to my Guild NS Starfire 1. I can’t afford/not prepared to pay for a Stellartone Tonestyler but I found this on eBay: https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/256589834315?mkcid=16&mkevt=1&mkrid=711-127632-2357-0&ssspo=kOM5mf7iTRe&sssrc=4429486&ssuid=4_PGIYs4SqC&var=&widget_ver=artemis&media=COPY. I’ve used this guy’s stuff in the past and it was good: much easier than doing it myself and I can’t see how I could do it cheaper buying the components. I have done plenty of wiring myself on solid bodied guitars and basses but I have never tackled a semi. Has anybody replaced pots on a Starfire or similar bass? Apart from putting pieces of string through the mounting holes, how do you ensure you don’t lose the pot inside and how do you get the shaft into the mounting hole without being able to put your hand inside? Am I going to be able to change the tone pot without having to remove the volume pot and jack socket? (TBH I don’t mind removing the jack socket as I was thinking of changing it for a Puretone while I am fiddling with the wiring.) Are there any tools out there made for this purpose, or has anybody come up with their own hacks? Any experiences and advice gratefully received.

Has anybody tried the Positive Grid Spark Cab? https://uk.positivegrid.com/products/spark-cab?variant=47614717657321 I have a Spark 40, which I use a lot for practising to the recording for songs we are going to cover. I find it very convenient, especially as the Bluetooth connection is very reliable for streaming from phone or tablet. The bass amp voicing is pretty good but the built in tiny speakers do not do it justice. I have on occasions hooked it up to one of my EV active PA speakers (12” woofer) and it sounds great but it is a bit of a faff setting it up and the sloping top of the speaker means you can’t put the Spark on top. The Spark cab looks like a pretty good solution: plenty loud enough for home practice and can also be used with any pre-amp, not just a Spark amp. The Spark 40 sits on top nicely, making it look like a mini stack. It might even be loud enough for a quiet band practice (140 watts, 110+ DB max). Plus it makes an OK acoustic and electric guitar amp (my other interest). There aren’t many reviews about though. Plenty say it has enough power and tends to be a bit bass heavy but there were a lot of complaints about the initial batch being noisy on idle. It’s not clear whether that has been sorted out in later batches but I don’t see any complaints about it in more recent reviews. There are plenty of complaints about Positive Grid’s customer/after sales service though. Anyway, I was wondering if anyone has tried the Spark Cab with a Spark, or preamp for bass duties and what it was like?

Wow! There must be some considerable value in your collection there! Which one day you dare to play out?

Sorry to muddy the waters further but if you are looking at these kind of cabs, I would recommend you check out LFSys as well. There are several threads and reviews on BC and @stevie might still be offering a discount to BCers. https://www.lfsys.co.uk/bassguitarproducts.

Interesting: https://www.basscentre.com/british-bass-masters/bbm-snakebite.html

I had to have a look at the Thomann website, so now I have GAS again. Thanks guys! Must resist the temptation. Fortunately, it says not available for about 9 weeks. I notice they are offering a bundle deal with a semi-rigid case. I couldn’t work out from the dimensions whether it is a bespoke SS case, or just a standard case. If the latter, I imagine the bass is going to rattle around in it. It would be nice if they were selling a SS case. I would buy several. I can’t understand why nobody is offering a reasonably priced SS case, given the popularity of shorties at the moment.

Well I have four of them at the moment and I don’t feel like selling any but I might have to. I would find it very difficult to decide which one to cull, as they all have their own distinctive sound. Current favourite is the Guild NS Starfire 1. Least used is the Acinonyx, after being my “go to” for a couple of years but I don’t feel I could part with it. Apart from any thing else, it is probably the bass I will be able to continue to play the longest, despite creeping arthritis in my left hand. P.S. A friend is on the look out for a Sandberg Lionel, if anyone wants to part with theirs, I can put you in touch.

You can spec a Maruszczyk Elwood with a wider nut width. Someone was selling one on BC recently. I’m guessing it was a P profile neck, as on their Jake. Probably cheaper to put a P neck on a Jazz, or make a bitsa.

Dangerous place to visit! I went there 10 years ago looking to PX my Martin D28P for the (then) recently released Martin 00018 with the performance neck, which was about £1,700. I walked out with a Taylor 712 Fall Limited Edition 12 Fret, which was way north of £2K even then. Reality hit me on the drive home when I started to think about credit card interest! I have hardly played the Taylor for fear of marking it and would never dream of playing it live. I don’t think I would have had the same qualms with a 00018. Good salesmen are dangerous for your wallet!

I wish I could but being a lazy s*d, I never learned to read traditional music notation. At pushing 69, I fear it is now too late to learn. Are you going to put us out of our misery?