jacko

I was hoping to see them later this year. Not sure that'll happen now

That second sentence suggests that in fact an acoustic bass is probably the MOST useful instrument to have. Certainly in my house, my kelly Dragonfly gets played a lot more often than any other as I don't have the faff of having to plug it in (and the amps all live in an outhouse anyway). Add a bung in the soundhole and the piezo on it means it will hold it's own against 2 guitarists when we do an acoustic set.

There's a link on the markbass website to all their international distributors. Not sure what else you'd expect? My experience with MSL was superb. Speaker in my TRV121 farted out and they replaced it under warranty in a couple of weeks turnaround.

Can't help thinking this would appeal to Compo Simmonite and Nora Batty.

I love this. I had the good fortune to visit the Alembic workshop in California in 2012. They have the ethic of 'waste not want not' and 'why buy a tool if you can make it yourself'. Here's a pic of their main workshop - you'll see all sorts of tools and vices that have been knocked up from offcuts of neck sandwiches.

Ditto 2 of my Alembics. The first one I bought at a shop in Birmingham but every other instrument I have has been bought online .

I bought Adam's Avalanche run. Somewhere between him and me, hermes have managed to damage the pedal enough to give it a pronounced hum. I was happy to take it to a tech to get it looked at but Adam has refunded part of my payment anyway. Can't get a better basschatter than that. Graeme

Just replaced my worn out wdwtwa with a nice 180gm purple vinyl copy

Just watched the rio vid. His drum machine is so loud i could barely make out what he was saying.

I've just dug a 3 foot deep hole which will eventually be filled with concrete to provide a nice stable base for my new observatory pier. Next I'll be building a roll-off-roof shed to go over it so I can sit in some comfort on the two or three nights of the year we get good enough weather to see through.

Ooooo. Can I have one too? Even though I work in IT in the finance industry and could arguably take a year off without affecting anyone, the govt has decreed I'm a key worker and I have a letter* to prove it . I do feel somewhat of a fraud when I see what real key workers are doing and do appreciate everything you're doing. * I'd have to print it off if i ever wanted to use it but because we're not allowed in the office and we can't use personal devices connected to work laptops I can't.

I hope my post didn't come across as a criticism, it certainly wasn't intended as such.

I have instruments in just about every room in the house (apart from the bog - there's a magazine rack in there ). Also, I'm married and Mrs J would rather see a nicely sculpted lump of wood than a tatty guitar case in her living room.

I meant in terms of being a stand. Obviously their quality control knocks them back a bit but when they're in good condition they function beautifully as stands. Very stable and the head clamp arrangement is an ergonomic miracle.

I've had that. lift the bass and the extension comes out of the handle instead of the head releasing. Gaffa is my friend here. The other common fault (on 3 of my stands) is the rivets in the head breaking. Luckily I'm an amateur mechanic so I have drawers full of nuts and bolts that can be used to replace the broken rivets. Haven't had sticky rubber syndrome on my stands but our guitarist provides the PA stands - they're Hercules and guess what? These faults shouldn't happen and it's a real shame they do as their stands are arguably the best around.

Mike Portnoy has been doing a lot of solo multi-instrumental stuff on facebook during the lockdown. 4 AND 5 string basses involved.

Gary Oldman is a fair player and he taught daniel Radcliff the bassline to come together on the set of one of the harry potters. Not sure I remember correctly but I believe he may have given young danny an instrument too

p.m'd

I do hope so. Some Scrote stole mine so It would make me really happy to know that whoever it ended up with now has a dud. Seriously though, I used a blue one for over 8 years, loved it and it was fine for the duration. However, when the insurance payout came I replaced it with a Tech21 Bass boost chorus which I feel is much better.

I was there. Went down from Edinburgh with a mate. We looked in on the markbass room for about 40 seconds and left in a hurry as the sound was appalling. Mind you, the sound across the whole of the excel was awful. Didn't seem to be any control over volumes. I'd recently bought some EBS NEo speakers from Bernie Goodfellow so we tried to have a chat with him and Dominique DiPiazza but it was a waste of time. Went to see Stanley clarke at the jazz cafe in the evening and had an interesting chat with some polish bass players who despised Wojtek ! Stanley didn't seem to be in a good mood and didn't play School Days which was a bit of a disappointment.

Are you willing to post this?

I was playing round with this set up in the garage for a while. Sadly never got the chance to use it in anger though.

I went to see Guy at the fringe about ten years ago. Almost the entire show was culled from his book which was a bit disappointing - a funny story's only funny the first time. I invited him to my gig at Finnegans wake that night cos he said he was free but he didn't turn up.

I've seen bass players slapping at their soundchecks at showcase events then not slapping at all during their set (and consequently sounding stinky poo for their set).