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This is guaranteed to boil my fosters. I'm not the world's most reliable man, but my reckoning is that if I can turn up on time, then anyone can. Persistent lateness is just pure selfish bullcrap.

Well actually a very old Sei, but absolutely beautiful none the less. Aquired recently in a trade on here, and just back today following a service, a refret and the installation of a new preamp. i would love to find out more of it's history, I really want to know exactly how old it is, I do know that it’s one of the first ones, judging by the exquisite binding around the fretboard, so it's at least 20 years old. i love the headless design. The ergonomics are fantastic. It balances superbly, and is an absolute joy to play. The different colour LEDs are a touch of pure genius.

Wind back five years and you’ll hopefully understand why this bass is as special to me as it is.... In Feb 2013 I was diagnosed with a massive tumour on my right kidney. It was at Stage 3 due to the size (an unbelievable 9.5kgs!) and I was told by the surgeon that it they didn’t operate soon it would kill me one way or another. On Thursday last week, I was given the good news that I had no signs of recurrence and that they were leaving it to me whether I wanted to continue under observation; in short they were happy for me to be discharged. To get to the 5 year milestone was something I wasn’t sure I’d ever get to, so to say I’m relieved is an understatement! After a few tears (something in my eye) my wife told me to treat myself and knew I’d been hankering after one of these: who was I to refuse! After an early morning start I picked this up from Bass Direct on Saturday. The guys kindly restrung it with TI Flats and it really is the best Fretless I have owned. It is more special to me than words can adequately convey. Here it is:

I wouldn't worry about the Fender v Squier decal - you need to get the shorts sorted.

Hi Basschatters! Just to let you know that the full line-up and timings for the Main and Masterclass stages are now on the website. We're sorry to see that a few of you are frustrated by the way in which we reveal artists and timings. There are several reasons for this - we're sure you can understand that it is part of our marketing campaign to announce artists one by one rather than in one bunch at the start, but also artists often want to change time slots, artists drop out and are replaced - and we wouldn't want anyone to plan their whole trip around a specific performance only to be told that it's been changed or cancelled closer to the time for reasons that are out of our control. Anyway we hope you're as excited as we are about the show this year - be sure to make use of your 20% off tickets code, we can't wait to see you all there! Best wishes The London Bass Guitar Show team

Two important things to remember. 1. Probably the most important factor in getting Mani's bass tone is being Mani. 2. The reason why his tone is so good is not the tone in itself (if you heard it on its own in one of those isolated bass tracks you'd most likely wonder what all the fuss was about), but the way it fits into the overall soundscape of the other instruments. So unless you are playing in a Stone Roses tribute band where the other band members had completely nailed the sounds of the people they are copying, you'll find that you are going to have to alter the sound to fit with what the other members of your band are doing to make the bass sound right.

I bought a super compact. Loved it so much I bought a second. Like dating Salma Hayek and finding out she has a twin sister.

Done!

@Osiris - The G55 comes in at under 3ms latency. I seem to recall that the specs are <2.9ms. So certainly up there with pro level wireless analogue to analogue. (ULXD for example, is 2.9ms) - so you have nothing to worry about on that front. Funnily enough, even on small stages I tend to use wireless just so that I have no cables under my feet. Use it - there's certainly no reason in your setup why you shouldn't. If you were telling me you were running a Smooth Hound, I certainly would be urging your edge on the side of caution as you would be within the realms of trouble with that (in fact, it annoys me that people keep banding around that it has no audible latency and is much better than the line 6 equivalents - when in reality, when using it in an IEM setup, it is useless.) Ha - my setup - yeah, overkill for most - but for me it's the result of somebody who probably cares about IEM monitoring for all gigs a little too much. I've used this setup in front of a few thousand... and a few tens down the local I think as soon as you have experienced a great monitor mix - which no doubt you will with your planned setup - you are reluctant to give it up. For me, the more I have pushed the dual desks and external plugins, the less I want to give it up. It all comes down to the final point - I just want the best monitor mix I can have within reason. My setup is actually pretty quick to set up - it's all racked and ready to go... so no real difference to plugging in just one desk! But yeah, people are probably going to be satisfied with far less! @jrixn1 is right - the 215s will enable you to do a job - but I would urge both of you to try and get into the world of quad drivers. It's the difference between running a single 10 behind you and a four ten. Just far more headroom, control, authority... and bass! I had a brief exchange with @thommydonutsabout driver count. He's just bought some high driver count IEMs - I think he concludes with me, there's a big jump from a single to a quad... and then as you go up in driver count, the returns do diminish... however, some of these 6, 8, 12+ driver count earpieces really are nirvana. Defo worth checking out if you can stomach the cost - but as I say to people, you need to stop seeing your IEMs as headphones but as a replacement for speaker cabs. If you have the FoH doing all your amplification FoH, then see your IEM as Bergantinos (or whatever) for your ears - afterall, they are doing the same job - your personal monitor on stage. Then, the cost makes more sense. Put it like this, I'm yet to see anybody who has invested in the higher end IEMs regret doing so. I think @dood and @tonyf would agree wholeheartedly with me. And both of them have been through some serious rigs. Ask them which rig has been their fave - their 64 V8s... or their cabs. I don't know if you are about to come to LBGS or Bingley Hall at the weekend but hunt me down and I'll get some top end stuff in your ears if you want to hear the difference.

Pet hate of mine. I am ALWAYS on time. The only way I have ever been late for something is if my extra contingency travelling time is used up by extreme traffic conditions, and I generally allow enough time for that not to be a problem. The way I see it, if someone is always late they can just as easily always be on time. It believe it to be arrogant and disrespectful to make others wait 'just because' they are always late.

Rancid's 'Time Bomb' is now in the ska band set. I'm a happy camper :-D

It was the first Vigier I tried as well but, it was a long(ish) time before it became mine. I ended up with a Mike Lull PJ5 and then sold that for 2 US Fender Precision 5 but every time I saw the Vigier I wondered why I hadn't bought it. One morning, seriously, I woke up and thought "that's it, I've got to have it" so, I sold both the Precision's and bought the Vigier. I haven't thought of buying another bass since, no GAS at all. I really have found my home hence the purchase of another Excess 5. It's taken me a long time, taken me on a cool journey of discovery and cost me a lot of money but to be here, has been worth it

I forgot “dancing Queen “with ABBA @4000 thinking on same lines I see

As if by magic... this appeared a few hours ago... I'm sure they didn't film it for me! (But it could be a buying omen...)

Dropping the action lower is also more likely to reveal other setup issues with a bass, such as uneven frets, sub-optimal amount of relief, etc. And how much clank you get will also depend on the tension in the strings (and obviously you playing style). Also - dropping the action by around a full 1mm in one go, if you've been playing with >3mm action before, is quite a lot - so not surprising that it would feel weird. Anyways - you asked for numbers, and insofar as I can tell, only @discreet mentioned any ... so here are a few more (all measured at the 24th fret / whatever is the last fret on a particular bass) I recall that Warwick's setup video specified their "standard" (= as delivered from the factory) action as 2mm on the hi-G, and 2.5mm on the low-E. I find that a useful "reference point for medium action". When the guys at Freedom CGR were doing no one of my basses, and asked what action I liked, I said "pretty low"... it came back with a bit under 1.25mm on the high-G, and around 1.75mm on low-B. Played beautifully with minimal buzz (which couldn't be heard amplified). So that would be my reference point for "rather low". Over a few weeks, I couldn't get my touch quite light enough for that action to feel natural on the high strings, so raised it a bit to 1.5mm/bit-above-1.75 on hiG/lowB - i'd still consider that "low action". Conversely, anything above 2.5mm on the high-G i'd consider "high-ish", and >3mm as "high". No idea whether these numbers for low/med/high would be shared by everyone, but it seems to match up well with what i've seen at my local bass shops (in Tokyo).

Here's some proper photos of the show and that... https://www.sundayforsammy.org/2018-photo-gallery

Thanks for all the kind comment chaps. You’re a lovely bunch xx

Mentioned on here before - Rick Wakeman famously ate a full Indian meal. "It was 1973 and we had released Tales from Topographic Oceans, which I didn't particularly like. The third piece in the show was a particularly long percussive piece and I didn't have much to do. Now, I used to have this roadie that worked for me, he would lie underneath my keyboard ostensibly to fix things, but mostly he would just mix me drinks and pass them up. So on this occasion he asks me if there's anything I need, but I heard it as him asking what I felt like doing after the show. I just replied 'oh, I'll probably go for a curry' and then he asked me what I would have so I started naming various menu items, 'onion bhaji', you know...and then, 20 minutes later there is this smell. Of course you know that curry is a smell that wafts, you detect it. And he's standing there under the keyboard rig with these bags of takeaway curry." The story, a classic pull-the-other-one, is "absolutely true". And Wakeman says he proceeded to "lay out the meal across my keyboards to have some." If you are thinking Spinal Tap right now, remember this is 10 years before that film. And Wakeman chuckles as he adds the coda, "I've probably been offered curry at gigs a couple of dozen times since, I don't have it on stage, but I'll arrive backstage to find that someone's sent a takeaway curry to me, or it's been ordered, or there's a takeout menu there. It's nice. It's funny.

Of course mate, especially in the jazz venues ;-)

Ouch! Seriously though, I've always included my location since 2010, but like most members, it disappeared when the site was upgraded and I keep telling myself I will have to re-add it, sadly being an old git, my memory is not what it used to be, but I will actually do it now before I forget. Now what was it I was going to do?

These photos are definitely food for thought. I’ve toyed with the prospect of a 6er of late. Though I already have a 5er with a low B and a 5er with a high C so technically I’m covered... It’s not the same though is it?

Yeah we’d like to have a better more baked in system but the software is pretty much an off the shelf item. We wrote our own marketplace software by adapting what the software provides so tying in something like this whilst possible would take quite a lot of work to make sure it is stable and to ensure nothing ended up getting lost due to general software updates. It it is however in our list of things to develop in our test environment along with other plans such as a location field for sellers and a better format for the reviews section. For now, best thing to do it to make yourself feedback thread and ask people to leave comments there. Cheers ped

Grinding to a halt now till i can fit edge trim, so made a badge.

yes ..I...did!

With a name like Bubby you just know he’s got chops

Ok I just had to go look that up - it's bonkers! The demo on the Roland site is crazy, damn. I've never heard of Bubby Lewis before, how the freaking hell does he manage to play that fast?? And the fact that it's picking everything up nicely - awesome.

Good thread ☺ Right now, my choices would be either; 'Moonage Daydream' with Ziggy Stardust and The Spiders from Mars, or 'Under My Skin' with Frank Sinatra and The Woody Herman Band (circa 1974) or 'The Light Pours Out of Me' with Magazine Ask me tomorrow though, and there'd be three completely different choices. 😁

Buy this immediately and then get the gold hardware. https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Fender-Japan-PB70-70-BLK-Made-in-Japan/183049189614?hash=item2a9e94f8ee:g:7ecAAOSwDVtacy8I

Ease of use: I read the instruction manual before going to guitar center just a single time, and i didnt have any problem setting the b3n up. Switching patches is much better, as you clearly see what patch you are switching to. Editing effect is also easier, cause you see all parameters at once. When adding or changing an effect, you don't have to scroll through all of them to get the desired one, they are categorized. Only thing that changed to (anyhow) worse, is that you don't see all selected effects at once, and have to scroll through them, but thats easy one-button operation. Worth to mention that springs on footswitches are not as hard as on b3, so they are comfortable for both foot and hand operation. Menu navigation with this pressable knob is as easy as total and global menus from B3. All that ease of use improvements make up for a downside: the PC/Mac software no longer allows editing the patches, only moving and renaming. So all your editing will be on B3n now. Build quality: B3 had full aluminium housing with only plastic elements at the display section. B3n has almost no plastic on the "dashboard", but instead unit sides are black plastic. Despite that, unit seems as sturdy as B3. The lower plastic footswitches function way better that similar hinged switches on some low end pedals, like behringer. They have the same nice "click" as the upper, chrome-looking footswitches. Parameter knobs are smaller, but click as nice as on B3 and were comfortable to use for me, i have medium sized hands. Displays are of course smaller, but backlight is closer to white. Features: I'll be short on that one. Tuner works as well as on B3, but displays on screen, not on dedicated LEDs, so visibility is slightly worse. Looper and drum machine are now separate effects to add to the chain, didnt test if you can put in multiple loopers, but i know that only one drum machine can be used at a time. There are 4 variants of looper: stereo/mono and single/dual unit. B3n is missing some features from B3: - separate balanced XLR out - usb bus power - usb audio interface - possibility to reverse order of effects (to right to left) - possibility to change dry/wet blend on patch level - possibility to power it with batteries But they are some added features too: - master level knob - aux input - possibility to install and remove effects/amps/cabs to the unit - and up to 7 effects in the chain of course! Tone: Compressors seem to be same quality as in B3, didn't notice any difference. Amp sims... there could be more to choose from. I couldn't get my favorite GK tone, but they are as good as on B3, especially after some tweaking and getting used to. Overdrives/distortions/fuzzes. I got surprised by those. I tried to get my frequently used Big Muff to sound same as on B3, but it changed drastically. Maybe a little closer to original one, but to my taste worse. In my opinion, darkglass gear make up for that, they sound really good. Tube screamer is pretty much the same. Thanks to the introduction of 2-unit effects, you finally can use distorted channel of MXR DI+. All other effects from this category sounded more harsh, somehow mid-lacking, but i suppose they just need more tweaking and combining with other effects to get good results. Potentially better than on B3. All effects are now having 4 or 8 parameters, so some effects lost the blend control that i am using all the time on B3. Refer to the effect list for more information https://www.zoom.co.jp/sites/default/files/products/downloads/pdfs/E_B3n_FX-list_0.pdf. Synths didn't change much. They seem to track a little better, but sound pretty much the same. Sadly i didn't test Octavers. In my opinion, Reverbs, Choruses, Wahs and Delays sound same as on B3, but i don't use them too often so it's possible i just missed the difference. They removed the Bit Crusher! Tone overall seems a bit diffrent. On B3n all preamps/amps and overdrives have a bit larger tonal range, but mid frequencies are somehow less defined. It were a barely noticable difference, something that is rather felt than heard, and is not really easy to describe. I hope that my amp's graphical EQ will be enough to build up the mids. Worth to mention that B3n seems to be more sensitive to the instrument's tone. Is it worth upgrading?
 In my opinion, none of them is better. They are just different units with different purpose. B3n is more tone focused, as you can chain more effects and switch between patches easier. Use it, if you already have external DI-box and USB audio interface (or you don't need them). B3 is all-in-one utility, get it if you are sure that 3 fx slots will be enough for you. In other hand, when i were buying B3, i didnt thing i'll use all 3 slots, and now it turned out that i need much more! And for the tone, i think its a matter of taste, you can guess how it feels to play basing on my review, but i highly recommend trying it out at local musical store, if possible.
 
 Some tips: - Refer to https://www.zoom.co.jp/sites/default/files/products/downloads/pdfs/E_B3n_FX-power-chart.pdf to check if all effects that you want to use can be selected at once. - To tighten up your sound and make bass more clear and readable, use the splitter to remove all signal below certain frequency. For my mahogany bass, 100 or 125hz is just fine. It works best for me if put at the front of the chain. - You can also use splitter to get rid of that hissing, digital sounding high tones from distortions. - If you're not really good at timing with the looper, you can set it to end after certain time, based on the tempo set on the unit. Feel free to ask me any questions.

And finally, with KING RALPH, the guy who originally got me into playing DB:

With the JUNKYARD DOGS:

Aha...I rather like the neck. I chose a 1.75” width one though. Not too chunky at all for me. I measured my Ibanez and worked out that the Warmoth one was about the same size.

well, if I'd said "phwoarr nice ti..." I could understand the fuss and as the father of two stunningly pretty little girls, agree, but I didn't. if you type @ and wait a moment you get a list of users to suit and you can drill down. Make sure you click on their avatar and the link goes orange. They then get a nudge to look. Bit like facebook

Didn't he use the Marshall VBA rig for some time? That, and the infamous Ric 4005 semi.

............ and Rickenbacker. Ok, I made that up.

I bought a G1 Compact pretty much as son as they came out. Before that I used enormous Trace Elliot cabs that sounded nice but were too much for my poor old back. The Compact was no only light but sounded immense - perhaps lacking a bit of top end clarity. I added a G1 Midget, which by itself lacked bottom end, but together with the Compact made what I considered to be the perfect rig - the two cabs complimenting each other perfectly in that it was full spectrum, lightweight and a pretty transparent output. I didn't see myself changing, tbh. Then Alex brought out the Supercompact which was claimed to sound exactly like a combination of the Compact and Midget - the perfect one cab solution!. I bought one and was blown away with just exactly how full range, lightweight, transparent, loud, small to load in and out etc. it is For my particular requirements the Supercompact represents such a perfect one cab solution that I, er, bought a second one. Simply because this one cab does what two cabs did before in a smaller single unit and with a touch more transparency I would say the Supercompact is a better cab to aim for - if the sound is what you are looking for. Some people prefer the more coloured sound of the Retro range. I have a One10 for its extreme portability but haven't tried any of the rest of the range to compare.

I'd be amazed if this was true ^

Huge double congratulations Nick, so pleased to hear you are in the clear and love the Ray John

Here's something I pondered upon one day whilst thinking about impedance problems when driving certain sorts of fuzzes. How about putting something with a less-than-ideal output impedance in front of the fuzz ? Something like an EHX LPB-1 ? The output impedance EHX quote is 10k...in the same ball park as a pickup. So off I went and tried it - I added an LPB-1 circuit to a Woolly Mammoth clone I'd built and, well....gone was the thinness (also an extra gain stage....cool !). I've done the same trick with a Fuzz-Face a friend gave me....stick an LPB-1 in front at unity gain, it fattens it up nicely.

I dig in hard on some notes, and lightly stroke the strings like a frail old lady on others. I like the contrast you get from combining the 2. Bit of compression helps to even it out.

A flask of tea and a corned beef sandwich these days.

No, but then how many 800w combos have you seen?

I think you’ll find that quavers in the real world are a processed food snack flavoured with cheese.

Well there's more nonsense in the thread now