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David kindly answered my plea for a hard case for my P Bass. It was at least as good as described, really well packaged & he was an absolute pleasure to deal with. Thanks again David, appreciated👍👍

I bought a used Encore P bass for £30ish. I put decent strings on it and sorted the action, so it plays nicely. It's actually perfectly useable. I've occasionally taken it to gigs in iffy venues where I don't want to risk something better. Amen to that. Plenty of people don't wash their hands after a trip to the khazi. Just wipe away and sod what they think.

This bass is not exactly an Alembic, but it is my son's very first one he got as a sprog. It used to sound not too bad for what it is, but then the strings gave out. It's currently strung with some short-scale brand (forgotten which), but the E string sounds really awful - dead and lifeless. The strings it originally had from the factory all sounded fine and I wonder if any of you chaps and chapesses out there have any thoughts on what might work? As you can see, it's a 27" length from ball-end to nut (oo-er!), and no doubt, lighter strings might help solve the 'dead' E string problem. Any suggestions gratefully received. Obs, this is purely for sentimental reasons. 🥹 Images for scale length and comparison to a normal sized Jazz (I know the wee one is a P.) Thanks in advance.

A sticky or sweaty neck after someone has used one's instrument is never pleasant. I've got a bar towel stashed away for my EUB's neck, though I fear that one day someone will take offence when I wipe it.

I was there when my friend brought it home new from the shop (probably Tiger Music in Brighton) then later it passed to me - who has had it since - so I know it wasn't swapped for the amp module from a standalone head, at least not since ~1983 Presumably they wanted to minimise the number of variants manufactured, although the printed instructions on the back panel next to the sockets are tailored to the combo case at least. The wording always seemed rather eyeball-crossing though, albeit correct, since it doesn't mention that socket B disconnects the internal speakers which would have made it more immediately obvious... IIRC it just says "If socket A is not used then a 4ohm cabinet may be connected to socket B otherwise use 8ohm only." Re heat/fans - yes this was/is an issue. When my friend first got it, it kept cutting out after a while due to the thermal cutout. He took it back to the shop and it was modified by their tech "Oh yes sir, we do a lot of these". So they fitted the aforementioned horrendous papst fan which can definitely not be put in the 'quiet fan' category. When the amp passed to me I immediately removed the amp from the combo case, removed the fan, and installed the amp in a small separate flight case with more natural ventilation, where it was perfectly happy. Some years ago, wanting the flight case back for other purposes, and irritated by hole in the top of combo cab, I fitted it back in its proper place but with a quiet 12Vdc Nexus fan run at 6V from it's own small PSU piggy-backed on the mains transformer.

I was willing to give this the benefit of the doubt and see what the reports were after it had taken place, but I do wonder how long this 'postponement' will be...

I'd be aggrieved having to buy a cheap bass off Amazon for the drunk greasy dipsticks to play. I'd sooner scour charity shops or car boot sales for something with 2 strings and a bowed neck with 1 inch action and a flaky pickup that only works half the time.

Finished my 5 stringer........ And the new Short Scale Punkcoustic Bass is coming along nicely.........👍🏻🤟🏻

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I think there are a number of reasons for this, bass was almost seen but not heard in the past, but now even us oldies expect to hear more bass. Just try learning the bass part of a 60s song on an old car radio. To some degree, we have gone power mad. In the 90s, 300 watts was considered a monster. However, you only have to read how many people are using the micro amps, Elf, Gnome etc to gig with. These output about 100 watts into 8 ohms and will keep up with two 30 watt guitar combos and an acoustic drummer. The difference between 90 watts and 100 watts cannot be heard. Of course, some might respond that valve watts were more powerful than solid state, nonsense. Valve amps compress nicely but can only output around 40% more power at maximum distortion, the same as a solid state amp of the same power. So why are all my three amps 700–800 watts? Strangely, I use one of them as a spare that can be used either for bass or PA. The main reason is that they are there, and I can afford them. If we think back to the good old days when guitarists had 100 watt valve stacks, 300 watts were not enough (tell that to your ears) and 300 watts either Valve or Trace was the minimum you needed. However, playing with a couple of Fender Twins, AC30s etc in a pub/club, 300 watts are more than enough. As my cabinet is 8 ohms, 350 watts is comfortable with headroom (remember, solid state amps are usually quoted at 4 ohms. At 8 ohms, they will usually output 50-60% of the 4 ohm power).

I've been extremely skeptical since it was first announced and how slow the information being shared was. Then when we got more detail the organisation on the day didn't seem to have any logic of clarity to it. Plus the shocking use of poor quality logos in the website just added to how unprofessional this was looking. The informal bass bashes organised by people voluntarily on here seem to have more thought into things.

Good thread revival, 15 years! I have a Kustom Defender (pre-mod) that I used as a practice amp at home.

I occasionally played a gig where jammers were allowed to get up during the interval. I never did like people using my bass (you never know where they've been...yuk ).

Welcome!

Easter treat from Thomann. NS Dimension 4 for £1,222 (incl. VAT, free shipping). I am not into multiscales, but someone here may be: https://www.thomann.co.uk/spector_ns_dimension_ms_4_walnut.htm

I remember being in one of the bigger guitar shops in New York and the new Gibson Thunderbird had come out (this was the one below with the different pickups and the switches). I was using a variety of other 'birds at the time (see elsewhere). Plugging in, you couldn't really hear anything different going on. I mean, if anything was actually happening tonally, it was on such an infinitesimally small tonal swing that you couldn't really identify any difference.