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Andy is a top guy and I never expected to see the bass again after 2 years - to say it made my week would be an understatement! My lesson learned is always unload the car post practice and gig regardless of whether you're knackered and it's chucking it down and get insured..... the other guitar, an ACG, was returned in similar circumstances a year ago by a great guy in Hebden Bridge As Andy says bass players are a fantastic community of like minded souls - my faith in human nature is reaffirmed! Cheers Justin

Hi everyone, I'm posting this story because it reinforces what a close-nit community that we musicians, and in particular, bass players are. Some of you might have noticed recently I advertised on basschat a lovely Paul Everson Caiman bass for sale. I acquired the bass through a trade about a year ago with a guy who advertised it on Facebook. We met in a service station. I swapped a very nice 4 string Shuker bass for the Everson, had a nice chat with the fella who bought it and returned home. Whilst we were talking the lad confessed to me that he had found the Everson Bass in one of those second hand chain stores that have 'cash' in the title. He knew next to nothing about basses but had liked the look of it and bought it. He then tracked down Paul Everson on Facebook to get some info about the bass. I loved the bass. It appeared to have been treated quite badly. The electrics were shot and it was covered in a weird thick dust. I had it cleaned, sorted and set up and quickly picked up another Everson that appeared on Facebook. That was around a year ago. I recently decided to sell the caiman. Id always had a little niggle in the back of my head about 'Cash _________' and wondered if I'd been a little naieve in my trust. So to put my mind at ease I contacted Paul (Everson) who told me he had sold the bass through the great British bass lounge. I then contacted Drew who was running the lounge and asked them both if any Everson basses had been reported stolen. They both did some digging and came back with a resounding no. Drew had a record of a sale to a lad called 'Justin' who lived near Bradford (I'm in Macclesfield). So back to present day. After advertising said bass on Facebook and BC I received a message from a lad called Justin who explained to me that this was his bass and that he'd had it stolen in early 2016. I immediately phoned him and we discussed at length what to do. Now the dilemma. Justin hadn't been insured and had lost the bass along with a whole heap of equipment. He had been scouring the Facebook sites to try and recover the bass for the last 2 years. I had essentially swapped a 900 quid Shuker with it. The lad who had bought the bass oringally had moved the Shuker on. We were all victims of crime and it was a difficult puzzle to unravel. Justin had contacted Yorkshire police for advice and they had said it was a civil matter. Anyway the final result is that we met the following week and Justin got his bass back. It was a great end to a saga and needless to say Justin was chuffed! Just a big shout out to Paul Everson and Drew for caring enough about this story to help me with my clumsy detective work and a big shout out to Matthew who contacted me on behalf of (current) BBL. The photo below is of Justin (on the left) recieving his beloved bass back! Moral of the story. Cash ___________ are a store I like even less now and Bass players are awesome folk. Andy

The OP made a comment in reference to politics, but it does bring up some interesting parallels. On one hand you have uninformed opinion based on 'belief' and a lack of ability to comprehend simple facts (about compression), and proudly shouting about it. Meanwhile on the other you have a rational explanation (of compression) from people who know what they're talking about, which gets completely ignored. It's an interesting reflection of divisions that exist elsewhere.

3 to 5 coats in and things are looking satiny

I think from a legal perspective you’re okay with that statement unless it’s leopard print

Only just received this 92 thumb.

I can only see your fingers

Sure it's overkill if you only play at home, but if said 800 watt amp is still cool to the touch at bedroom levels, then there's no reason why the cooling system couldn't be designed to be as silent as possible up to a certain temperature threshold, only kicking in the loud fan when it's really needed. I need to store my amp and cab in my room regardless, so I use it for low volume practice instead of having to buy a separate practice amp that takes up more room and doesn't sound as good!

Oh man I laughed so hard at that, a worthy choice for quote of the week methinks!

Saw this one for sale in Chichester on Gumtree. Under @Elfrasho's budget and looks like a lot of bass for the money but more importantly has a slimline neck...

Please lay off the politics and religion, folks. Ta. 👍

I thought of adding some inlayed swifts instead of the dots but then figured life is too short...

well, I changed my mind. I'm keeping it. It's just too nice to play. The Yamahas have an interesting look and sound good but they've never felt "right" when I tried them.

Why would you say such a thing!!!!! The example looks nice......

One Control pedals are built by magic elves. I don't know how else to explain how they can cram in so much into a 1590A enclosure and still have room for a 9V battery!

Ive said it for years - change the names of these pedals from 'compressors' to something like 'sound balancer' and people would get it more and know what theyre aiming for. Ps i know sound balancer is a terrible name, but you know what i mean. The name compressor immediately gives the image of squashing and squeezing the tone, which it doesnt need to be used for.

Just teamed up with a great vocalist who is also a voice coach. She proudly claimed she could teach anyone to sing and I couldn't resist. No band I've ever been in would let me near a microphone unless there was a fire and we needed to clear the room. I sing like a cow with a throat infection giving birth to a tumble dryer. However she has taken up the challenge. All of the work so far has been around understanding my body, breathing properly, hissing and humming. Not a word has passed my lips in three lessons and I am amazed to find the process fascinating. I'm actually excited to continue and while I still doubt her chances of getting a noise from me which wouldn't startle passers by and cause the dogs to hide, I am enjoying finding out just how a real singer goes about their business. Turns out that they actually practice every bit as hard as we do. The voice really is an instrument which requires work. Who knew? My respect for vocalists will of course never be more than marginally higher than that with which I esteem guitarists, but I do feel slightly less contempt for them.

You should probably just think that

same way that a flirty new girl at work makes you horny for your wife again wait, what?

To this... The new board is already full, so I think (hope?) that should mean this is now going to be a pretty 'final' incarnation. For a little while anyway! (I suspect @Skol303 may be surprised to see a particular type of pedal on both boards; a direct consequence of too much tilting at windmills )

Wrote this the other day after a fairly unfortunate vocal gig on Saturday night. Suddenly thought you lot might actually be interested in it. Singing is hard, tips to make it less hard are always welcome http://davedoesntwriteanythingever.blogspot.co.uk/2018/03/some-rather-more-helpful-things-that-i.html

Looks like a generic part, same as this one (except this one has the advantage of being in stock): https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/aw/d/B019E6VJ0A/

Not something that has particularly bothered me so far with my M900 - it's a fair bit quieter than my Mesa M6 carbine and with both of them, fan noise is something I instantly stop noticing the moment I start playing. But I'd certainly be interested to hear from you as to what mods you do put through if / when you end up doing it.

If you have decided to do it why not just go totally flat? I've got 2 ACG's with flat fingerboards and love them. Wouldn't go back to a radius if I was speccing a bass build.

Just had a nice meet up and chat with @alinbassplayer and walked away with this beauty! BTB1206 in natural, such a nice bass to play. A bit more deep and growly than my Yamaha (which snuck into the second pic) and also a tad lighter. Haven't changed the strings yet but already loving the sound

I thought you never take the easy option!!.....

Excellent! Glad to have played a tiny part in helping this come to fruition. Can't remember what sort of shaft your pots have - splined?

This sort of thing deserves to be recorded for posterity so I've added Redd's first post to the Famous Quotes thread.

No your right I wouldn’t!!!!! Any more of that talk and I will report you!!!!!

Another option might be the Quilter Bass Block 800. I'd say it's definitely lightweight and well-built, and it sounds open and warm and has bags and bags of headroom, plus you can dial in some vintage-ish squash. I have one and am impressed so far.

+1 for the GM 800. NO ONE seems to have a bad word to say about them! Here's a link to @Osiris's excellent review on this and the GM 350 I've actually also got a VK; a 210 rather than a 410 (although the 410 is certainly very tempting). I pair mine with a DG M900, which seems to be a very good match. Here's a link to a thread where I posted a review of that (which also has other views both positive and negative):

Excellent review. And great that you're so delighted with the pedal! Hopefully it will also put to bed the view, that some folk seem to harbour, that there is any loss of low end with this pedal Are you using the pedal at 9V or 18V (or somewhere in between?)

I used my new Stage 800 live for the first time last night at a gig near Bolton and the whole band - even the drummer - complemented me on the sound. There are so many different settings and options but I found one that gave me the perfect right blend of vintage vibe I like with a bit of mid tone punch which is curiously called "young lust"!

Hiho I forgot to add that my 83 bodied bass was a fully loaded body- super ferrites, trapeze bridge tin foil pie tray shielding the same as my 84.The 92 neck is not as slim as my 84 but who cares.

Didn't the MOD develop these as wide-area anti-personnel devices?

+1 for what Pete said the Genzler Magellan is a very flexible amp with two switchable channels. If you want a broad range of tones from modern to olde school the Mesa Subway D800 fits the bill and if you'v got a few more pennies to spare the Mesa Subway D800 + adds variable HPF and great mid control. If you prefer home grown amps the Ashdown RM 500 or RM 800 gets lots of love around here!

What theme. You can't leave me hanging like that. Not at my age Dave

I'm sure it could, but if you're going down that road you may wonder why you chose a combo and not an Ampeg fridge. My feeling is that a combo should be judged on how it performs solely through its internal driver(s) and if you need to be regularly hauling extension cabs then you're defeating the main raison d'etre of a combo - ease of use - and should maybe consider a separate amp head and cab(s) for maximum flexibility. Having said that, I suppose it could be useful to turn up and plug in to a large backline cab (that you didn't have to carry) but that situation seems less likely than simply going FOH if it's a big room and using the combo for stage monitoring. Which logically makes you wonder if very powerful combos are even necessary. And having said that... I still want one.

I can't speak for a 5 string replacement set, but I just replaced my Squier VM70 Jbass4 with a set of Aguilar AG 4J-HC pickups. OUTSTANDING! I am SO happy with them. They say the stock Duncan Design pickups are decent but the difference is night and day. So great having noiseless. I also spent some $ on having professional fret leveling and setup and a Gotoh bridge and when I pick up a (stock) American J Bass and think I prefer my Squier I think I must be out of my mind. I have to give the Aguilars 5 Stars+.

I will. But it's really less combative than it might seem. The necessity for using compression is borne out of the laws of physics and well-recognised good practice in sound engineering. It's not something subjective, like whether a new set of strings makes your tone sound 'better'. It's proven by the measurable behaviour of sound traveling through air. All quite dull and predictable, really. The short story is that every bass player should use a compressor. Because the bass guitar is an instrument capable of producing extremes of both low and high frequency energy, and there's not a cat-in-hell's chance that anyone can compensate for that by 'good technique' alone, least of all during a live performance. This is why 100% of sound engineers apply compressors to bass, to compensate for the 50% of bass players who apparently don't. Ultimately it's not essential. Just like changing your strings regularly isn't essential. But the question as to whether it's beneficial has been answered long ago, which is why I find threads like this a little tedious (no offence). Compression is complex and very different to the majority of other FX we apply to our instruments, where we plug something in and turn a dial until we hear a noticeable difference. And I think that is partly why it confuses some people and leads others to believe that it's a case of the Emperor's New Clothes. What I find odd is how this confusion seems most prevalent amongst bass players - the very people who stand to benefit most from compression. You just don't get threads like this appearing on sound engineering forums. Instead, you just get endless debate about 'which compressor is best for bass'... and that's just as tedious! Anyway. Next time I record some bass I'll post some clips of the dry signal and the same signal (at the same volume) run through a compressor - and also both again in the context of a mix with other instruments - so you can hear the difference. Until then, my advice would be to cease tilting at windmills

I doubt there's any malice behind the situation and you've not played in a while, so why not see it as a quick blast round the block to shake the dust off ?

Blimey you lot! You never see these in the for sale section, which obviously means they are brilliant, beautiful & owners would never sell......😉

I was prepared to let this thread go, but ...I never said rubbish, or that they won't work. I did point out the shortcomings of systems of this type from a purely technical standpoint. If the subs can be easily remotely placed It would be most helpful if the marketing material made note of that, and the owner's manual as well. It would be even better if the manual pointed out the advantages of sub wall placement and clustering. But every picture in the advertising, the manual, and your own demonstration shows the mains atop the subs, the subs split and away from the wall. As for the percentage of PA operators here who were previously aware that subs should be wall loaded and clustered whenever possible, and what the Power Alley is, do a poll. I venture it would be a very small percentage, because by no means are these technical aspects intuitively obvious. Knowing how to correctly do PA must be learned. It is most difficult to learn something that is not being taught. It certainly isn't being taught by the PA industry in general, and as the marketing and manuals are presently written, not by Markaudio. IMHO that makes Markaudio part of the problem. You now have the opportunity to make it part of the solution. Or continue to shoot at the messenger while ignoring the validity of the message.

Never sell anything unless you need the money or stop liking it. Frank.

The angling of the drivers doesn't make it 'not... a true array'. It's actually an old concept, intended to broaden high frequency dispersion that otherwise beams due to using HF drivers that are too large. It's not as effective as using a two-way line, with midbass drivers large enough to comfortably reach 100Hz or lower, and tweeters to prevent high frequency beaming. Bose used that configuration as a cost cutting measure, allowing use of the same drivers they employ in many of their home audio speakers. Bose double cubes allow aiming of the drivers in two directions for the same reason, to broaden HF dispersion beyond the limitations of the driver. The Bose array is for all intents and purposes a stack of those double cubes.

Great idea. You could also playfully slap them round the face as well - to see if they're violent. If they are, go straight to A&E. And don't join.