Beedster

Do some people use downstrokes then?

All good advice above, but to be honest I'd rent one for a few months so that your son really gets a feel for it and then do the rounds to buy one. £120 spent on 3-months rental could save you significantly more down the line if your son is better able to discriminate an instrument he likes and can play from one he doesn't and can't. I'm obviously unaware of how tall your son is but going straight to 3/4, which is the size played by most adults, might be quite a big step also. It might be what he's playing at school but that doesn't mean it's the best size for him to develop on 👍

I had the pleasure of 20 minutes in an audition room with Tina and an agent in the late 80's, a glorious lady with the most infectious laugh and energy. I still smile when I think about it, I was young and crap, she knew it but she still made me feel I'd done well. One of the all time greats, and what a life she had. RIP Tina ❤️

A decent luthier could build you something close to an SLB-100 for a whole lot less. I have a mate who's a carpenter and we were considering a 4/4 EUB custom build using commercially available neck, bridge, and tailpiece with a carved SLB-100 style body (i.e., removable treble and bass side bouts) using very high quality wood. It would have been passive, but let's face it the pre-amp has never been the selling point of any of the SLBs, even the 300. He quoted £1000 for the work (parts on top of that), but it was before lockdown and wood has gone up a bit since then (and I found an SLB-100 at £1200 used which made more sense than a 12-month lead time). But at even £2k it would save you £3k and probably still lose a lot less money if you needed to sell.

Wow, lucky you, not an easy amp to come by these days it would seem 👍

Suspect seeing if there's one you can borrow is the best starting point, what size does he need and where are you based. I used to know a guy who looked after orchestral instruments for the local education authority and he couldn't give double basses away fast enough, no one plays them any more apparently, so you might get lucky 👍

Details @Happy Jack…..?

Ah, I see, far too subtle for me 😀

Think I’m still missing it 🤔

?

Bought a lovely unit new last week which at £300 was around the same price it was being sold by two sellers here used Sometimes people pay over the odds new, sometimes prices drop especially digital audio, sometimes sellers are naive, sometimes they’re greedy, but I have noticed more of it here recently. Put another way, the days of unexpected -or even expected - bargains seem to be behind us, I hope temporarily 👍

Sad but true

Great minds 👍

Best possible advice. Can also be used when someone (like our old singer) says "I wish you played a ....... like our old bassist did", you can engage the '......bass switch'. They're amazingly effective, especially for some reason, with singists 👍

It is an outstanding instrument and significantly better than the 200 in my experience (the 300 looks interesting but perhaps doesn’t meet the criteria above). Whether it’s still the best option at close to £5k retail however is probably debatable

Looks lovely could be great, could be s*it, that's double basses for you. If you've already bought it I'd not worry about value, just get it set up and start learning how to get the best out of it. Ultimately with double basses it's like horse and rider, rider's gotta get to know the horse before the paring works, irrespective of the quality of either

My thoughts are as @lemmywinks above. Having somewhat painful personal experience of someone who i was close to move in a similar direction, I see no cynicism, only a (harmless in real terms) detachment from objectivity and reality

i suspect, and always have, that he lies more to the naive than the nasty 👍

i suspect, and always have, that he lies more to the naive than the nasty 👍

Yes but hardly the first or the last to come in on the off beat 🙂

Yes 👍

And vice versa 👍

OK let’s try again.. Rhymes with mice Rhymes with curls Go for it @silverfoxnik 👍

No you haven’t