Twigman

[quote name='DHA' timestamp='1474967617' post='3141822'] I would recommend nos valves in my pedals if you can find them. They do sound better then new valves but you pay the price. I fit the a very nice valve as stock that offers good tone at a good price. Dave [/quote] Thanks Dave...the tube you supplied with the pedal sounded OK but got smashed very early on in the pedal's life. Since then I've tried EHX, Sovtek, a no name chinese tube (£3) and they all sounded similar to my ears!!! I have now got a made in england mullard (i assume it must be an old one) and have some packing foam for the pedal - that'll do me.

[quote name='TrevorR' timestamp='1473631820' post='3131902'] The cream of the crop £500ish price bracket was a Faith Titan Neptune bass [/quote] Make that £845 - way over budget [url="https://www.andertons.co.uk/p/FAITHFTNE/acoustic-basses/faith-titan-neptune-natural-series-electro-acoustic-bass"]https://www.andertons.co.uk/p/FAITHFTNE/acoustic-basses/faith-titan-neptune-natural-series-electro-acoustic-bass[/url]

can't make it this year have fun

Just bought a Mullard ECC83 tube from Aidan. The packaging was AMAZING...a normal 12AX7 box (albeit for a JJ) some foam, cut out to seat the tube box and fully enveloping the valve in an old tesco mobile phone box then the usual brown paper and totally wrapped in sellotape. Bomb proof. In the past I've received tubes through the post just in jiffy bags....not Aidan - his was almost flightcased! hahaha - it's a good job I was in as no way would it have fitted through the letterbox. Thanks very much - you went out of your way! ian

[quote name='discreet' timestamp='1474014264' post='3134866'] Er... all well and good, but I doubt anyone would pay a premium for a bass that I've owned. The response is likely to be, 'who??' [/quote] Oh same here...I was joking Anyway I'm not selling

Why isn't everyone answering along the lines of "Buy a bass with provenance? I give basses their provenance" ? There's too much low self esteem around here.

OMG I met Colgraff in early March just before our USA tour. He was a very pleasant chap. I was aware he had some health issues but he seemed to be coping fine. And he was still young Sad RIP

That would depend what pickup is in the bass to start with if you're just considering adding a jazz. I added a jazz pickup to a P that was running a Fender Original P pickup and it never worked. I pulled both pickups out and replaved them with a PJ set by Aguilar and it made a world of difference. [url="http://www.bassdirect.co.uk/bass_guitar_specialists/Aquilar_traditional_pickups.html"]http://www.bassdirect.co.uk/bass_guitar_specialists/Aquilar_traditional_pickups.html[/url]

12AX7 / ECC83 tubes for preamps They're all much of a muchness aren't they? It's all snake oil, isn't it? Do they really sound different? Does a Sovtek 12AX7WA really sound different to a Sovtek 12AX7WC or a Philips 12AX7WA or a Mullard ECC83/5751 or a EHX 12AX7 ??? What are the differences? What do you pay a premium for - other than NOS original valves from the 60s/70s? Is there really any discernible difference when used in a DHA preamp pedal with a bass? Discuss

Or these? [url="http://bassdirect.co.uk/bass_guitar_specialists/Crafter_BA400_EQ_N.html"]http://bassdirect.co.uk/bass_guitar_specialists/Crafter_BA400_EQ_N.html[/url]

So nothing then? What are these like? [url="https://www.thomann.de/gb/ibanez_aeb8ebk.htm#bewertung"]https://www.thomann.de/gb/ibanez_aeb8ebk.htm#bewertung[/url]

I could be in the market for an acoustic 4 string. I'd prefer a 34" scale if possible but recognise this isn't 'normal' for acoustics. I like jazz width necks - my favourite neck is my Status Jazz neck. I'd prefer a fretted neck. I'd like it to be quite loud as an acoustic (no amp required in a front room say with acoustic six string and some simple percussion) I don't want the body to be too big nor for it to be a stretch around the body for the plucking hand. I'd like it to be well balanced and comfortable to sit without a strap without it sliding off... Budget around £400 max I suppose. What would you recommend???

Valencia bull ring I suppose, not sure how many it holds but it was full

At 16 it was The Clash I remember going to the last of 9 nights they played at The Lyceum in Oct81 when I was 16...the ticket cost me £3.50 !! I remember coming out of Charing Cross tube and being offered £50 for it.....no way was I selling.

Entwhistle

I have flown with my SKB iSeries case a couple of times now. At EVERY customs I get pulled > they think it's a firearm. Be warned.

I thought I’d write up my experiences on our first ever tour in USA. Sad Lovers and Giants have been going on and off for 35 years now and only now got the opportunity to play in America! The tour started in Austin TX at SXSW, the band having been invited by Michael Stock, LA DJ and proprietor of Part Time Punks, to appear at his showcase in the backyard at The Barracuda on the opening night of music week. On arriving at Austin we were met by our ‘superfan’ Mr Fred Jaggi, a Dallas resident who created our original website and maintained it for many years. He drove us about in his 7 seater Cadillac. After getting our wristbands we were good to go. SXSW is a strange setup. Each stage hosts about 5 bands a night. No sound check and a strict 40minute set length is stipulated. Our songs being around 6 minutes each meant that we were limited to a 7 song set – by far the shortest gig we’ve played for a very long time (perhaps ever!). The back yard looked fairly full from the stage but after our performance, within 5 minutes the place had emptied. That suggests most of the audience had come to see us rather than just be passing trade. [media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GriIQnAMB9c[/media] We were lucky to get a review in the Austin Chronicle. When one considers there are 110 stages at SXSW each hosting around 5 bands, to actually get a review is amazing, And it’s not too bad! [url="http://www.austinchronicle.com/daily/sxsw/2016-03-16/sxsw-music-sad-lovers-and-giants/"]http://www.austinchr...ers-and-giants/[/url] Austin during SXSW is a mental place. 6[sup]th[/sup] Street is just full of drunken students on spring break, lying in pools of their own vomit! We were quite glad to get out of the 90 degree heat and high humidity and fly up to Oregon (albeit the long way round via Phoenix AZ). We were met in Portland OR by our driver for the remainder of the tour and found ourselves in a fairly small Ford E350 van with 2 bench seats for the duration. We collected a box of tee- shirts we’d arranged to pick up from the manufacturer in Portland and the tour proper started. After a night in a cheap hotel in Portland we drove up to Seattle WA for the first proper show of the tour at Chop Suey. The scenery was fantastic with several volcanoes visible en route: The atmosphere of Chop Suey was fantastic. We had around 200 punters show up for this one. We played around 1hr 20 minutes and the audience loved it. We were signing vinyl and CDs after the show. I couldn’t believe that so far away from home there were folk who’d actually bought our records back in the day. From there it was off to Canada to play at The Hindenberg in Vancouver BC. This place was challenging. There was a water leak above the stage apparently from the plumbing upstairs. There was huge barrel on the stage, right where I would normally be, that was half full of water. It had apparently been there over a year! During the show I felt drips on my head and arms. We had a puddle develop on the keyboard too. Luckily nobody was electrocuted and no electronics were broken. There are no photos of this gig and bizarrely no video on youtube…the same is true of the following gig in Portland OR….. Despite the difficulties the Canadians gave us a warm welcome and seemed to enjoy the show. The next day we had a long, wet drive back to Portland, Oregon. The gig here had been moved a few times. Initially we were supposed to play at Dante’s then that was moved to Star Theatre…in the end we played a place called Blackwater Bar. Soundcheck: The daughter of Al Jourgensen from Ministry came along…she seems like a ‘superfan’ ! Next day was the longest drive of the trip, to Sacramento CA. This was weird! Having played ‘proper’ venues to this stage we were a little underwhelmed to find ourselves expected to play a disused shop with no stage and just the feeblest of vocal PAs. The cab I had been using all tour was a home made 2x12 which farted out in the lower registers and was frankly awful. It hadn’t been a problem until now as I had had decent PA support all along. It was like having 80 people in your rehearsal room with you! See this video: [media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gQlVljsBkXQ[/media] The next day we set off for San Francisco. And had a little time to do some sight seeing This venue was proper. The Elbo Room. The audience was a decent size: [media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wwx89eLAghM[/media] We then had a couple of days off so headed to LA And took some promo shots in the Bradbury building ( - Bladerunner) and found we had our own section at Amoeba music: So then we had a long drive into the desert to Phoenix AZ The Phoenix show, despite being small, paid well. The audience all seemed high as kites! After Phoenix we returned to LA to record a radio session for Part Time Punks. And then the following day play the biggest gig of the tour. Between 600-700 turned up at The Echoplex. We had been originally booked to play at The Echo upstairs but that had sold out over a week before so we had been moved to the bigger venue downstairs. [media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OaZkt8x04qo[/media] [media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=grqEBdPAIYg[/media] And so the tour drew to a close. And we got a brief review in the LA record: [url="http://larecord.com/photos/2016/03/28/sad-lovers-giants-vaadat-charigim-nite-fields-the-echoplex"]http://larecord.com/...ds-the-echoplex[/url] Oh and then look who we bumped into in the security line at LAX on the way home: We really enjoyed it. We didn’t make any money, in fact it cost us but what an experience! Best fortnight’s holiday I ever had! Edit - just thought I'd add that we had one couple drive from Cleveland Ohio to Sacramento CA and then to SF to see us! That's over 2000 miles ! Some of our fans are a bit mental!

I thought I’d write up my experiences on our first ever tour in USA. Sad Lovers and Giants have been going on and off for 35 years now and only now got the opportunity to play in America! The tour started in Austin TX at SXSW, the band having been invited by Michael Stock, LA DJ and proprietor of Part Time Punks, to appear at his showcase in the backyard at The Barracuda on the opening night of music week. On arriving at Austin we were met by our ‘superfan’ Mr Fred Jaggi, a Dallas resident who created our original website and maintained it for many years. He drove us about in his 7 seater Cadillac. After getting our wristbands we were good to go. SXSW is a strange setup. Each stage hosts about 5 bands a night. No sound check and a strict 40minute set length is stipulated. Our songs being around 6 minutes each meant that we were limited to a 7 song set – by far the shortest gig we’ve played for a very long time (perhaps ever!). The back yard looked fairly full from the stage but after our performance, within 5 minutes the place had emptied. That suggests most of the audience had come to see us rather than just be passing trade. [media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GriIQnAMB9c[/media] We were lucky to get a review in the Austin Chronicle. When one considers there are 110 stages at SXSW each hosting around 5 bands, to actually get a review is amazing, And it’s not too bad! [url="http://www.austinchronicle.com/daily/sxsw/2016-03-16/sxsw-music-sad-lovers-and-giants/"]http://www.austinchr...ers-and-giants/[/url] Austin during SXSW is a mental place. 6[sup]th[/sup] Street is just full of drunken students on spring break, lying in pools of their own vomit! We were quite glad to get out of the 90 degree heat and high humidity and fly up to Oregon (albeit the long way round via Phoenix AZ). We were met in Portland OR by our driver for the remainder of the tour and found ourselves in a fairly small Ford E350 van with 2 bench seats for the duration. We collected a box of tee- shirts we’d arranged to pick up from the manufacturer in Portland and the tour proper started. After a night in a cheap hotel in Portland we drove up to Seattle WA for the first proper show of the tour at Chop Suey. The scenery was fantastic with several volcanoes visible en route: The atmosphere of Chop Suey was fantastic. We had around 200 punters show up for this one. We played around 1hr 20 minutes and the audience loved it. We were signing vinyl and CDs after the show. I couldn’t believe that so far away from home there were folk who’d actually bought our records back in the day. From there it was off to Canada to play at The Hindenberg in Vancouver BC. This place was challenging. There was a water leak above the stage apparently from the plumbing upstairs. There was huge barrel on the stage, right where I would normally be, that was half full of water. It had apparently been there over a year! During the show I felt drips on my head and arms. We had a puddle develop on the keyboard too. Luckily nobody was electrocuted and no electronics were broken. There are no photos of this gig and bizarrely no video on youtube…the same is true of the following gig in Portland OR….. Despite the difficulties the Canadians gave us a warm welcome and seemed to enjoy the show. The next day we had a long, wet drive back to Portland, Oregon. The gig here had been moved a few times. Initially we were supposed to play at Dante’s then that was moved to Star Theatre…in the end we played a place called Blackwater Bar. Soundcheck: The daughter of Al Jourgensen from Ministry came along…she seems like a ‘superfan’ ! Next day was the longest drive of the trip, to Sacramento CA. This was weird! Having played ‘proper’ venues to this stage we were a little underwhelmed to find ourselves expected to play a disused shop with no stage and just the feeblest of vocal PAs. The cab I had been using all tour was a home made 2x12 which farted out in the lower registers and was frankly awful. It hadn’t been a problem until now as I had had decent PA support all along. It was like having 80 people in your rehearsal room with you! See this video: [media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gQlVljsBkXQ[/media] The next day we set off for San Francisco. And had a little time to do some sight seeing This venue was proper. The Elbo Room. The audience was a decent size: [media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wwx89eLAghM[/media] We then had a couple of days off so headed to LA And took some promo shots in the Bradbury building ( - Bladerunner) and found we had our own section at Amoeba music: So then we had a long drive into the desert to Phoenix AZ The Phoenix show, despite being small, paid well. The audience all seemed high as kites! After Phoenix we returned to LA to record a radio session for Part Time Punks. And then the following day play the biggest gig of the tour. Between 600-700 turned up at The Echoplex. We had been originally booked to play at The Echo upstairs but that had sold out over a week before so we had been moved to the bigger venue downstairs. [media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OaZkt8x04qo[/media] [media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=grqEBdPAIYg[/media] And so the tour drew to a close. And we got a brief review in the LA record: [url="http://larecord.com/photos/2016/03/28/sad-lovers-giants-vaadat-charigim-nite-fields-the-echoplex"]http://larecord.com/...ds-the-echoplex[/url] Oh and then look who we bumped into in the security line at LAX on the way home: We really enjoyed it. We didn’t make any money, in fact it cost us but what an experience! Best fortnight’s holiday I ever had!

[quote name='CamdenRob' timestamp='1457698947' post='3001049'] I have a very very yellow bass.... [/quote] so do i

Nickel hardware Matching headstock Satin nitro neck finish on wood Narrow necks Babicz bridge - and yes I have one of the very very few nickel ones (produced as a prototype, I'm told) Low weight - ie under 8lb Graphite neck Passive Maximum 4 strings

[quote name='bootleg' timestamp='1457701716' post='3001102'] Does the lack of a case diminish the value in people's minds significantly, or raise any questions of the provenance of the bass? [/quote] Yes and Yes to me...that said I wouldn't use the original case - I'd prefer a gig bag for day to day and my SKBiSeries for travelling...so the case would stay at home unused.

I have a Roberts internet radio. I've found it great when we're booked to do a gig in some far off place, say Athens for example, and the promoter is telling us that such and such a radio station is helping promote and wants to interview etc....rather than taking his word for it I can check to find out if he's BSing or not by having said radio station streaming into the kitchen/office all day... Promoters can't get away with jack anymore.

I have a pair of Rokit RP-6 Many say they colour the sound but I love mine.