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I have just complete a tremendous experience, ordered a bass for my 50th and it arrived early thanks to Alan. From start to finish Alan has been great. The bass on the other hand is fantastic. Full specs here: https://www.acguitars.co.uk/project/0328urecurve5/

Went to the local guitar shop to grab a little something - fatal mistake. They have a pretty standard bass selection in there, mainly Fenders and Ibanez's and rarely anything more unusual. And this was hanging on the wall.....i tried one of these years ago in a shop and was close to pushing the button then and have never seen one since. Mint condition and a good price i believe. I had a 10 minute go on it just to see what it was like - lovely sound and easy to play, just felt like a quality bass. Anyway i hadn't gone in there for a new bass so headed home. And you know when you start itching and the mind starts turning over..........and the missus is an enabler damn her!!!! So here is the new addition - A Zon Sonus Standard 4 :-)

Call me crazy, but I just met a chap in Buxton and did an eBay trade deal. Traded my PDN Musicman Starry Night Stingray for a Euro 5 LX. Couldn’t be happier!!!!

Otoh I once had a guitarist look at my hands and accuse me of playing in the wrong key. He hadn't noticed I was playing a 5.

being loaded... 😉

There's a horrible moment, and tragically early in the film, where you realise that the Spinal Tap/Ricky Gervais/Bad News Tour stuff is for real. There was even a moment at which I thought Matt Goss was going to claim that he could play Stairway to Heaven when he was 19

I found this on the BBC News app this morning and while it doesn't go into a lot of detail about Fender's business it's still quite an interesting insight into the man that leads the company: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-46546014

Oh, ok 🙂 ...

I quite enjoyed that 😕. At least he wasn’t slapping (which I can’t stand). The only thing is he seemed to be using the term quintuplets to mean 5/8 or 5/16, but they are not the same. A quintuplet is playing 5 notes in the time of 4, but his musical examples were simply playing in a 5/8 time signature. Very confusing. But, being a mathematician and a huge fan of Balkan music I found this fascinating. Robbie

Absolutely nothing done with the triplets since, the weather has been too damp and horrible. Fingers crossed we will get a nice spell in the new year to let me get the last few coats on. Well Christmas is finally upon us and I shall be mostly cooking as well as drinking as much wine as I can in the process Merry Christmas everybody!

Thotch. /I am a Genesis fan, BTW. lol

I used to go to open nights when I lived in Chelmsford in the late 90's. I had some fun nights there, getting up to play on a few numbers. Then one night, Guthrie Govan turned up and joined in. I hid in the bog for half an hour until he went away.

And dropped off a Sire Marcus Miller v7 version 2 vintage jazz.So far i'm lovin it,really nice neck and some nice sounds coming out. The truss rod needed a tweek as the strings were sat a little high for my liking sorted that out so it's just about right for me. Can't understand sire not providing an instruction booklet of some sort,but it's all available online i suppose so no real set back. Here's me hoping this relationship will develop into some meaningful love affair,and i'm sure it will.

To be honest, there’s not really a lot of point to these kind of threads, either “I can’t stand so and so”, or “so and so is fantastic”. All they ever end up in is a percentage of people agreeing and a percentage of people disagreeing. 99% of the time minds are already made up. All they ever prove is that we’ve all got different tastes, which is how it should be.

Looks like your average run of the mill gospel chops totally capable in any situation jobbing pro. Hate him already.

Hi! Here are my 2 'Wicks - 2008 Corvette $$ 5 + 2003 Thumb 5 BO.

Very musical people, aren't they? I mean gospel musicians are! Not the other thing... I'm not Mortimer Duke!! 😁

@Delberthot, this is what I found in the BDI21’s manual. If you’re using the 1/4” output then set your QSC to accept instrument level 👍🏾

Agreed, I get concerned when our band leader calls multiple 12 bar blues tunes. Thing is we have so much other material . However it's not my call. Blue PS: I'm in New Jersey over the holidays and had a chance to jam with my close childhood friend Doug. We started our first band when we were both 12 years old.

I used a 3 band eq live for a long time, and I think there was always a temptation to use the mid control to cut that part of the sound when it wasn't necessary. It's what I call "the bedroom sound" - a bass can sound amazing in the bedroom when you're just playing by yourself, but in a band scenario, a lot of the bandwith you tend to cut in the solo scenario is exactly the bandwith you need to be heard when playing with a band.

I agree with this. The 3 band eq is a great bass, no question. But if you think "nah, this is not for me", don't write Stingrays off until you at least try a 2 band, as it's a different animal. The same basic sound is there, but there's something about the 2 band eq that seems to have more oomph than the 3 band. Having said that, another poster above suggested that maybe it's just not for you, which is also a possibility. Nothing wrong with that, that's why the bass market is full of so many great options.

As amongst the final tasks before the Christmas period, I managed to sand down all of the body and side stain trials and reapply properly. Over the last couple of days I've started laying down the initial tru-oil coats ready for the final slurry and buff coats that will be finished after Christmas. This is how it's looking now: While the final coats of slurry and buff are hardening over the post Christmas period, I will be starting the finish jobs. Allowing for family stuff over Christmas and New Year, it should be ready to ship mid-January Have a great Christmas, all. As always, many thanks for the support and encouragement over 2018 and see you all the other side! Andy

Thanks for all the replies, folks. When I contacted GuitarGuitar they offered to take the bass back, but it's now part of the (ever-growing!) family so it's staying with me. If I had the choice I'd rather have a maple board, but I bought it with the rosewood board, and if I hadn't done that wee bit digging regarding the serial number / date of manufacture, I'd be none the wiser regarding the neck not being original to the body, so I guess it's all a bit of a moot point? I spoke to Guitar Guitar on Friday to see if they had any info regarding the neck swap - they had contacted the fella that traded in the bass, and it turns out he's the second owner; he bought it from his bass tutor in 2011, and had no idea the neck had been swapped. He's offered to contact the original owner and get the story behind the swap, and it would be interesting to get the story behind it, but it's not high on my list of priorities right now. I'm just enjoying the bass for what it it - a really nice EB MM StingRay that looks cool, sounds killer, and plays exceptionally well! Merry Xmas, folks.

Did somebody amp up a Gameboy?

This. @Delberthot, the 10.2 will likely match your BFOne10 for volume and low end with the added benefits of easy tilt-back monitoring. If you don’t mind the weight (and cost) increase of the 12.2 then I say go for it. Better to have more and not need it than need more and not have it IMHO.

Gilbert Briggs built his very first loudspeaker in the cellar of his home in Ilkley, Yorkshire. This sleepy little market town was located in the valley of the river “Wharfe” - an area known to this day as ‘Wharfedale’. This unlikely location would see the birth of a brand that was to become recognized all over the world, synonymous with quality in high-fidelity reproduction. Gilbert Briggs is still much admired and respected throughout the world for his pioneering work in hi-fi reproduction and his endless pursuit of better sound quality – driven by his love of live music. Gilbert setup a small factory near Bradford to build his new loudspeaker drive units. Radio was an exciting technology and word of the new transducers had spread quickly around the area. Demand was growing quickly. Initially, the true spirit of the cottage industry, his wife, Doris Edna Briggs was the production department, spending many late nights soldering wires and winding coils. In the same year, he entered the Bradford Radio Society’s annual competition and won first and second place, earning the company their first major order. From this point, the Wharfedale Wireless Works never looked back, going from strength to strength, producing up to 9000 units per year until the outbreak of World War II. Gilbert’s company had outgrown their small premises and moved to a larger factory, again in Bradford. When the war came, the factory continued. During the second half of the war, the Wharfedale Wireless Works were commissioned to make transformers for Marconi. Some 40,000 units were completed by an expert team of just 20 staff before the war finally came to an end. Gilbert embarked on an ambitious collaboration with a close friend and colleague, Quad’s ‘Peter Walker’. With Quad supplying the amplification and Wharfedale building the loudspeaker systems, they embarked on what was to become an industry-defining series of concerts wherein audiences were invited to experience live versus recorded music first hand. Touring UK and the USA and playing at venues as auspicious as the Royal Festival Hall in London and Carnegie Hall in New York. Wharfedale Wireless Works was sold to the Rank Organisation, a controversial move at the time, but one which led to rapid development and expansion of the brand into areas such as electronics. Gilbert Briggs, then 68 years old, continued to manage the day-to-day running of the company until his well-earned retirement in 1965. Demand for Wharfedale products continued to grow at an ever increasing speed and the existing factory in Bradford Road was limiting growth. In 1967, a decision was made to develop a new, more efficient factory on a green field site in Highfield Road, Bradford, just over a mile away. The factory took some seven year to complete. When finished, it comprised over 170,000 sq. ft. of production with additional office space and large scale research and development facilities

My 64th birthday party next Feb is going to be a blues jam, with my Plastic Mojo Blues Band as the house band. I've asked them as my birthday present to learn my personal anthem: I was drifting through life like I'd lost my way, / Had no original words to say, / Road was empty and the sky was grey, / Praying Lord, get me home tonight. I was drifting through daytimes, not even trying, / Long bitter nights of drinking and crying, / Cursing myself for wasting my time, / Praying Lord let me sleep at night. Now I'm playing 12 bar blues on a five string bass, / Finally know I've found my place, / Electric adrenalin, state of grace, / Singing Lord, let me play all night. Sorry, seriously ot, and on the "must-know" list for my band but not for anyone else!

Just you... Never mind her wider musical achievements, she's brought so much to bass players through the wonderful John Giblin and Eberhard Weber. Song could be 'December will be magic again' or 'Home for Christmas'. Both great seasonal tunes to my mind...

I'm not going to try and work out how much a little piece of rubber would have saved me over the years!

You should see what the spell checker thought of it...😜

Tubeway Army's "Replicas" on CD at a loud enough volume to notice what I missed all the years I only had a second hand tape copy of it. Bl@@dy awesome.

Fire damaged stock sale !! 😀

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I have the 500. It’s a huge sounding beast, really versatile EQ, and the compressor (sort-of-gain/fattener) is an absolute gem. Cuts though the mix like a knife through butter, and snarls without being fuzzy. If I was replacing it, I’d go for the 300 version as the 500 is silly loud - don’t think I’ve had it past the second notch on the dial! Studio recording using a four stroke here (was mic-ed up with about 20% blend from the DI in the mix, and nothing else added).

The point here is that he's only really been collecting/purchasing older basses; irrespective of what actually qualifies as 'vintage', there's a ton of pre-CBS Fenders and despite personally not being a Fender fan, it is fantastic, at the very least from a comparison perspective, to see all these basses in one edition. He doesn't seem that interested with more recent instruments. Interestingly, there's a recent interview with Geddy Lee on You Tube where he says that this book represents his entire collection as of June/July 2018 and that it's already swelled by another 30 since they finished photographing the collection, so expect a second book in a couple of years.

Our opener from our last gig

Merry Christmas Andy

I use OBBM's Rockwire!! Van Damme cable with Hicon pancake jacks! Very flexible with a transparent tone and very little noise 😁

For me the pups and preamp together define at least half the "sound" of the bass. Change them both and you might as well have got a different bass. And it's also not cheap (particularly if you're getting them fitted rather than doing yourself). And because you now have a "modded" bass you're very unlikely to recoup your investment if you move it on. It's why I would always recommend folk getting the Ibanez SR Premium range, from the outset, with big single Nords already fitted, rather than upgrading the pups on the Ibby Standard, which can cost several £hundred to do.

I love his rhythm parts, but his lead.. not so much. Some nice bits, but he always sounds tentative to me.

Painfully hilarious. It IS a spoof isn't it?

@lurksalot I shall explain after this g&t

What are you talking about? Bass players don't move! It's the law 🤣

My "one that got away" eventually did end up with me, just 11 years later! I spotted a unique solid white Status S2 Classic headless for sale on Leftybass.com, with the white epoxy Roman numeral fret markers of the John Entwistle Buzzard model. I'd never seen another one like it, and despite never having played a Status before, I had to have it! But I was too late, it had just been sold to someone in the US. Just before the summer of 2017, 11 years later, it popped back up for sale. In Israel this time! The guy bought it through Leftybass.com when he was studying abroad in the US. He already had a potential buyer, but the guy kept doubting and asking for more pictures. Finally the bass was sold to me, and I've been hooked to Status Graphite ever since.

No, but I hear there's a new book out which might cover this kind-of stuff...?

Just because it's a little confusing for the f*cking bass playing element!

Just you i think,from her warbly period if its December will be magic. Not my favourite era but of its time Mad eccentric musical genius .

My bass