Merton

Another wonderfully easy deal with Gareth, messaged on Saturday, met up Sunday and came away with a new pedalboard. As easy as it gets, as always!

Had an absolutely banging gig today down in Poole at Country In The Park with Katy Hurt. We opened proceedings and had an absolute blast. Interesting moments..: I didn’t read the set list so was almost caught out by the first song My (Dunlop) strap lock popped out during the first song so I ended up having to improvise til I could sort myself out (embarrassing photo below) Cris, playing lap steel/acoustic guitar/mandolin kept stepping on my lead so I couldn’t wander the stage as freely as I’d been trying to do. Ironically I drove home via @franzbassist to pick up his Rockboard Tree 3.0 so I can have a bigger board to fit my wireless receiver… needed more forward planning on my part! But on the whole, an absolute blast of a gig. Very hot, very fun, and I hope we made some new friends. Shoes were the lo top Soul Cals again. Me pretending to play djent when the strap popped out: The whole band just having fun:

That’s a banging rig @Salt on your Bass?

Yeah Alan put it in just in case I change my mind. Honestly can’t see that happening yet but better to have it ready to go than butcher it later

I’ll echo others - I’ve used an Elf in a loud rock band, no PA support, and it’s been a revelation. To the point I considered just having two, one as back up to the other, and nothing else. If the TE 1200 is too big and you do decide the Elf is too small, what about the Warwick Gnome 600?

Personally don’t find the Digbeth “weak” or “bland” at all - for me it added just a nice subtle “something”. I was getting tired of the BDDI and Darkglass models on the HX Effects and this is nice flavour of different which works really well for my Americana gig and my pop/punk gig. I guess a lot depends on what bass/amp/cab combo you have, what you’re playing and what you’re trying to achieve. For me, the Digbeth seems to be a good preamp with a voicing which works but I guess if we all liked the same thing the world would be hugely dull

Thank you for the share - that’s more than I’ve done so far 😂 Do we need to start paying a promotional fee?

Here’s a clip of a gig from just over a week ago - hopefully it demonstrates the bottom B well enough as I’m sat on a low C for a lot of the song 😅

Fantastic. It’s solid as a rock and doesn’t suffer from the shorter scale at all; I’ve had other 5s in various flavours of 34”, 33”, 32” and whilst all were perfectly fine, none of them have been as balanced as this one. All Alan’s basses are well enough built and thought out that you’ll never be wanting but this just adds “something”; Alan has a theory that the bigger body of this (vs some of his other designs which I’ve had) helps to solidify the bottom end that little bit more. In terms of the feel of the string, that’s helped by the custom wound Newtones which are brilliant. The tension is absolutely perfect for me; I don’t like too much flexibility/looseness in a string and these are great.

Oddly, where we were sitting, his bass sounded sh*t, almost like there was something wrong with it whenever he went high up the neck! But other than that - excellent gig, probably one of, if not the, best IM shows I’ve seen. Thoroughly enjoyed every moment of it, except the heat 😆

Me too, along with MiniMert and my best mate! Gonna be a warm one 😎

I thought the sound was bang on. Doug’s playing is just sooo damn effortless but sounds huge. Really enjoyed it!

Ah bugger, my bad. Good luck with Epifani - have you tried Talkbass? Pretty sure the owner/designer posts on there.

I’d put money on the power amp being an OEM module like the ICEPower units so prevalent these days. Open it up and have a look - if so, you probably wont need a schematic, just a replacement power amp board. Won’t be cheap but I doubt there are many chances of being able to switch out a couple of components on these modern PCBs

Not guilty your honour 😄

Shit journey to Sheffield - 2 hours on the M25 and then 4 on the M1. Great gig though, lovely crowd again, probably the best we’ve played on this tour. The drummer and I were very much enjoying our groove on many of the tunes. As always we are getting well into the groove as a band and the tour is nearly over! Shoes were Soul Cal & Co Converse lo top rip offs. Cheap and comfy and not too hot in this heat 🤓

Laney Digbeth, with just the FET channel. Lovely sounding thing.

Yeah I saw that and thought the same. Nuts. Half keeping an eye on it though, as @Bill Fitzmaurice says, low ball offer and re-tolex it. I’m not that far from BF so could get them to do one of their custom finishes… dammit I’m talking myself into something I don’t need 😆

❤️ It’s a great pic! Cris’ playing is spot on, really adds a healthy dimension to the songs and lets Gab do the guitar god thing without worrying so much about how he’s orchestrating his parts around the sparser songs. And yes the B on this ACG is quite the thing*, in fact the whole bass is quite special. Proper good craftsmanship from @skelf *(I’ve said to Alan that it’s the best B I’ve ever had on a bass - it’s so well balanced with the rest of the strings and just seems to sing better than any I’ve had before. None of the others have been *bad*, they just haven’t been *this good* 🤓

Just sitting at a car charger outside Cardiff (before my onward journey back to Surrey…) following a lovely little Katy Hurt gig at Acapella Studios. What a lovely venue! First gig of the tour where we’ve had Cris join us on lap steel, guitar and mandolin, and Basschat royalty @Rich in attendance. We had a blast (common theme on this run of shows I’m pleased to say!) and made a lot of new friends I think. I still can’t sing in tune for more than about 3 notes. Shoes were black leather Chelsea boots today, v comfy but a bit slippy on the stage carpet 😀

Just back to my hotel after a hot sweaty little gig in Manchester on the “Gimme A Tour”, er, tour. The band were great, I was average, the crowd were enthusiastic and the volume was a bit too much. But my bass (ACG RetroB) sounded ace through the Digbeth pre, Elf and Barefaced Two10. Shoes were brown suede Chelsea boots, I really should wear them more because they’re ace.

Give them an inch and they’ll take a kilometre…? 🤓 Sorry.