Skybone

Any P/J under £300, especially a second hand P/J under £300.

I bought a second hand Tokai T'Bird (FakerBird?) recently, which has a "High Mass" style bridge on it. When it arrived, I noticed that the action was pretty high, but didn't look too closely and then started to take it apart to give it a darn good clean (it really needed it!). Anyway, during the clean, I noticed that the string anchor part of the bridge had lifted. Never seen that before on that style of bridge! Amusingly, I messaged the seller about it, and he said that he'd never noticed anything wrong!!! You could limbo under the strings! Managed to find a suitable replacement for a reasonable price on Gear4Music, but I'm assuming that it is also going to made from cheese. So... Are there any decent replacements I can look at, that aren't going to cost a fortune (i.e. Hipshot, Babicz, etc.)?

The Tokai 'Bird landed today, very happy with it... apart from the bridge... tail lift! Yes, it's another Faker, but hey, it looks great. Thought the action was pretty high, took the strings off & gave it a good clean, then noticed the back of the bridge had lifted (High Mass style bridge). No wonder the action was high! Need to find an alternative that's not too expensive, but will look good & do the job required.

I too have been hankering after a T-bird for some time, however, that search has been hampered by the fact that I can't seem to get on with the narrow necks that all but a few T-birds have. On the plus side, there's a Tokai T-bird incoming. On the down side, I've not told the boss yet...

I was looking for one around the £100 mark, and I thought that was pushing the budget! I've seen a few octave mandolins around the £150 mark, which were tempting.

Overwater? Paul Everson? Feline?

TC Electronic Polytune or Unitune. The Unitune is cheaper, and probably better for bass players.

Each to their own. Some love them, some hate them, most are indifferent.

Another recommendation for ShirtySomething. Great to deal with, and the owner's a bass player as well.

Initial thoughts were straight to the Rumble 500 or the Ampeg BA210. If you look at Thomann, you'll see that Hartke do a similar combo, the HD500. If you look through the second hand market, either here or on eBay/Gumtree and the like, you could possibly find either the Fender or the Ampeg for a more reasonable price, or something like an Ashdown Rootmaster 420, or something else from a higher price range (GK, MarkBass, etc.). You can also look at different types of amps, like a combo, or a head & cab on the second hand market. Though very much like basses, you need to really try some out before you commit to buy anything, so I would recommend that you go and visit some of your local (and not so local) music shops, and try out whatever amps they have in stock. Talk to them and see what kind of thing they can get their hands on for you to try out. If you know the shop, take your bass with you too. Most important of all, use your ears.

It all depends on the amount of sweep you want with your sound. The MXR Phase 90 is good, but has a limited sweep (IMO), where the EHX Small Stone has quite a wide sweep pattern. For my money, it would be a Small Stone every time. Especially the "big box" Small Stone, not the Nano, because they look ace. Unfortunately, I've just sold my last "big box" Small Stone, so I'm feeling a tad nostalgic about them. The Small Clone (again, the "big box" version) is a superb Chorus too. Just sold one of those as well. The Red Witch Phaser and the MoogerFooger Phaser are both supposed to be great too, but I've never tried either.

There's also that company in America that makes guitars from recycled skateboards.

Instead of looking for an "App that can do that", sit down, switch off the electronics, pick up your bass and play. Remember all the scales you've painstakingly learned and practised, remember all the other tips & tricks you've learned, and... play. Play for 5 minutes, play for 5 hours... just play. Yes, it can be frustrating, but it is also rewarding. That's the whole reason why we play, the whole reason why we gather here to talk about playing bass. The easy way is simply to PLAY.

Does the Terror head have an effects loop? Plug your Helix into the Effects Return, you're bypassing the pre-amp completely and using the Helix as the pre-amp. Always thought that the 4 cable method was a real faff, where 1 cable will do the job. I have a HD500X, and do this on my amp and with the amp in the rehearsal room, sounds good to me.

I cheat and plug in to the Effects Return on an amp, bypassing the need to buy an FRFR (which will invariably be cheap & low end and therefore not much good for bass).

Wear ear plugs. Buy a Rickenbacker (they only get more expensive!).

Theoretically, the ABM500 will "only" be pushing 300-350w into an 8 ohm cab, and the full 500w into a 4 Ohm load (potentially 2x 8 Ohm cabs), where a valve amp will push all it's power into either. So the ABM into 1x 8 Ohm cab will be pretty much the same as the BTA200 (which is theoretically pushing 300w) into 1 or 2 cabs. You would potentially notice a difference between the two if you were running 2x cabs on both amps.

Agreed

Why break the habit of a lifetime?

Nowt as queer as folk