M-Bass-M

I've arrived at this thread particularly late, but I wanted to pick up on this whole "online vs bricks and mortar" debate. The opinion seems to be that because internet retailers don't have to worry about paying rent/rates and staff costs for all their stores, then they have comparatively lower overheads and so can be more competitive on price. I work for a major online retailer, and I can tell you that we make lower profits than some of our key bricks and mortar competitors. Although we do not have any stores to pay for, we have other considerable costs elsewhere that are probably exclusive to online retailing. First, you have a website to pay for and maintain. To deliver customer service, you need to ensure that it's available at all times. Keeping it running requires considerable IT expense, but if it does go down, then you need to have a back up in place, so you have some considerable disaster recovery costs. Likewise, you need to ensure your product is uploaded onto your site. This is not just photographs, but also enough text to provide customers with enough information. Some suppliers will supply this to you, a lot of the time you need to do it yourself - as an example, I know Mark from Bass Direct spends a lot of time creating YouTube demos and taking photos of all his stock to load on to the website. Furthermore, Fraud can become a massive issue for online retailers. As an example, several high street shops stopped selling any form of electrical product online because the amount of fraud they were experiencing was simply too high. At my company, we have invested considerable sums of money safeguarding our website against Fraudsters...and it don't come cheap. Secondly, you have distribution costs to worry about. In a shop, your customers turn up to your door and usually take their product away with them. With an online business, you have to ship products to your customers. Now to a certain extent you can pass on this cost to your customers, but with prices so visible on the web, you only have to look at the number of online retailers who provide free delivery to realise that market dynamics mean that you may not be able to do this. I'm far from an industry expert, but I'm just trying to add some perspective to the notion that e-tailers have a lower cost base than bricks and mortar retailers. In my view, the success of online retailers vs local musical shops is probably due to scale and the impact that it has on cashflow. If you take a local music shop, their cash inflows will be large, but few and far between - basically, you'll get a good chunk of cash every time you sell a guitar. If you have a few good weeks, then you're quids in; a few bad weeks, plus having your regular rent, rates and wages bill to pay, and all of a sudden you're in problems. The same problem will affect the large online retailers, but their size and market reach will mean that sales will be a bit more regular, and therefore cash will be slightly more steady. Steadier cashflows allow you to make longer term pricing (discounting) decisions with comfort. Furthermore, as others have said, as a larger firm you will receive better terms with your suppliers. This isn't just restricted to a better price through higher volume orders, but also better financing terms: you're likely to be able to negotiate 30-60 days credit, as opposed to having to pay for stock up front. This can have a considerable impact on your cashflows. From a pricing perspective, if local music stores aren't able to compete on price, then they have to compete on something else - and again, others have clearly identified this as customer service / in depth knowledge. In this area, I look at the success of Bass Direct and the Great British Bass Lounge, and specifically the very tailored customer service that is offered by clearly passionate individuals. In my mind, the enhanced service that I receive more than justifies the fact that I may end up paying slightly more for a new guitar.

[quote name='pnefc42' timestamp='1421350469' post='2660308'] (along with countless others - intro to 'The Millionaires Waltz' anyone?) [/quote] I think you may have just provided me with my next transcription project! Not that I'll actually be able to play it once I've transcribed it...

Saw this too, and I'm somewhat giddy about it...try the experience of a Dingwall but without the premium price! Only one in stock, I suspect that may go very quickly!

...well, sort of! I've been transcribing the Queen track "Sail Away Sweet Sister", and found a nice little surprise from John Deacon waiting at the end of the track! Normally you wouldn't hear it unless you have very keen hearing, as it's right at the very end of the fade out. However, I've pulled together a sound clip which first has the unfaded version, and then one where I've increase the track volume as it fades out. Enjoy...I certainly did! [url="https://soundcloud.com/eschaton-studios/sail-away-sweet-sister-fade-out"]https://soundcloud.com/eschaton-studios/sail-away-sweet-sister-fade-out[/url]

The Twitter account suggested that this was just one of many new products that Ashdown were looking to announce at NAMM later this month. Personally I'm mixed on it. On the one hand I love the flexibility offered by the 12 band graphic eq, but then on the other hand it will be a bit restrictive - you won't easily be able to change your eq settings on the fly. The old trace amps had eq presets that were footswitch controlled, plus some of the other lightweight amps also offer other tonal shaping functions, e.g. a tube-sim pre-amp blend. I'm guessing that the "800" refers to the wattage, and if it's anything like the rootmaster range, then it should be very reasonably priced. Meh, I'll watch this space!

Just sold Rich my GB Shuttle 6.0, absolute pleasure to deal with and would happily trade with him again!

Saw them last night in Liverpool, and it was indeed an amazing gig! Bass monkey is spot on - Baba O'Reilly and 5.15 were incredible, as was most of the set really. One of the few gigs I've been to where every song has been a belter - none of this "songs from our new/obscure experimental album" nonsense! Pino Palladino made bass playing look absolutely effortless, but I was disappointed with how little he featured. Kind of understandable, but on the other hand Zak Starkey got plenty of time on the big HD screen behind the stage, and was overall incredible - even playing along in perfect time to the Jon Entwistle bass solo! Loved the gig, hopefully I'll remember more of it than the last time some 14 years ago.

Just bought some pickups from Les, which was a totally seamless transaction. Great communication and speedy postage which is always greatly appreciated!

Thanks for the info - struggled to find that same data on teh Intarweb, so you clearly have better skillz than me! I'm looking for a concentric 250k/250k pot for a stacked vol/vol which matches the Aguilar supplied pots. I then want some matching shiny chrome knobs for all 3 pots (2xstacked, 1xsingle). Cheers

I'm in the process of upgrading the pre-amp in one of my basses to an Aguilar OBP-3, wired vol/vol, T/B, and push-pull mid as per [url="http://www.bestbassgear.com/wiring-diagrams/vvstack-tbstack--mpp.pdf"]this[/url]. The T/B and mid stack are provided with the pre-amp, which means that I'll have to source a vol/vol pot from elsewhere...as well as some knobs! Unfortunately I can't seem to find what size the pre-supplied Aguilar pots are, and hence don't know what size knobs to buy (oo-err!) or what vol/vol pot to get to match. Does anybody have any previous experience and can point me in the direction of somewhere to purchase said pot and knobs? Ta! Mark

I'm seeing them next Thursday in Liverpool...cannot wait now!

In my last band, the two drummers that we had were both guilty of being generous with their timing, both on stage and in the recording studio. The thing I found frustrating about it is that I found myself being the rhythm "anchor", in that I had to massively simplify my bass lines while the drummer went off and added intricacy to his drum lines. As per the post above, it largely had the result of making me sound a bit crap, as I'd spend most of my time playing behind the beat in order to slow everybody back down again! The attitude of the band was that the change in tempo was part of the "energy" of the song. Towards the end I started to enjoy gigs less and less because I knew it would always be a fighting battle to sound good while keeping the rhythm in check.

There was a Facebook Group I was a member of called "The Hendrix Rule", which stated that as a general principle, cover versions are never better than the original, with the exception of Hendrix - specifically All Along The Watchtower. The purpose of the group was to propose other exceptions to this rule.

Thanks for all of the comments - glad I used BC to sense check my crazy ideas before actually going ahead with them! Regarding the East mid control pot, I guess the main problem is that as I understand it I'd need to put a 9v battery somewhere...I'm currently completely passive.

I've got a passive PJ bass that I'm thinking of upgrading. The current set-up is a straight forward 3 knob vol/bal/tone. To give me some interesting tonal options, I was thinking of the following: - push/pull knob that reverses the phase on one of pickups; - push/pull knob that changes between parallel to series wiring. First off, has anybody attempted this before? I'd be interested to hear your thoughts. Specifically, if was to do this then would I need both pickups to be humbuckers? As I understand it, if I wired a P and J in series, then the noisy J would remain noisy...which clearly I don't want! Finally, would it be better to retain the vol/bal/tone configuration, or would it be better to go vol/vol/tone? Cheers! Mark