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Jon sent me a few pictures.

Finally it's back! I traded this beast away several years ago and always considered it to be 'one of those that got away'... I think we've all been there, trading a bass and then suffering instant regret! However... finally after 3 years of failed attempts to get this bass back, the right sequence of trades has now landed this monster back in my hands. It's a Warwick Thumb Single Cut 6, a horrendously expensive thing if you wanted to buy it new (price tag is a shade under €8000). Warwick only made 120 of these and now only make them to order. These are heavy, but they are exceptionally good basses. The tone is outstanding and slices through any mix, the construction is immaculate. Pommele Bubinga top with USA ash body, flame maple neck and thick ebony board. Solid brass 'invisible' frets, MEC active/passive pickups and preamp. This one is near mint, with the flight case and Warwick folder. Very glad to have it back!

Well I don’t know about anyone else but all I have ever really wanted from Fender is decent build quality and some interesting colours, not just black and sh*t-burst.....so on that note, well done Fender and yes please to this....

As part of my ongoing search for a decent Overdrive pedal (ie a warm, slightly overdriven sound rather than a dentist’s drill), I decided to pick up one of the new Fender Downtown Express Bass pedals incorporating and Overdrive, Eq and Compressor. Build-wise this thing is high quality and a really substantial bit of kit both size and weight wise. It was apparently designed in conjunction with Mr Aguilar and I can well believe it. At just under £150 the quality of the Compressor (analog) and the really meaty Overdrive (all the way from thick warm valvey sounds through some serious dirt) as well as a decent eq and a DI, it really seems to be very good value indeed. Granted I’m not a massive user of effects, but it really is a good (in essence) multi-effect pedal as one that is very intuitive and easy to set up. The LEDs are something else too!

The Q\Strip is very capable as an analog speaker sim if set correctly. I'm not familiar with the other pedals you mentioned. For a speaker sim, it's best to use after any distortion producing pedals. You should obviously have the LPF engaged. You need to make sure everything is gain staged correctly as you could be getting fizz from overloading the interface. If you're running a number of pedals in series you want to set the gain structures so you have unity gain. Here is a video showing the Q\Strip as a speaker sim in action.

I'm asking Rocco to fund my holiday to Crete

A new Fender range. "Vintage style for the modern modern era" 60s Jazz 70s Jazz 50s Precision 60s Mustang

A fellow Scot here, with a Sterling Sub Ray 4 in my arsenal. (No cheap shots, please, about tight Scotsmen, or I will hunt you down like a dog.) Like the OP, I wanted to test the MM waters, but I find the wide nut on EBMM basses to be too wide for my delicate little paws, being a Jazz Bass player by temperament. The Sub Ray 4 I nabbed may be cheap, but it really packs a punch, and sounds close enough to the real thing to me to be well worth considering, to get a sense of these things, which are very different to the Jazz. I got mine for 200 quid, and there are plenty around, so give one a whirl, I say. I will now duck into my previously prepared bunker, so as to avoid the inevitable incoming from those rightfully enraged by my maundering.. Carry on.

Always looking for a bargain...one day somebody will post an ad for something I want but missed. Hope that I'm doing the same for somebody else... That or I'm fuelling everybody's GAS...

I'd like to take some of the credit but I think at least 95% must go to @Andyjr1515..... As you say "amazing skills"..

...Handbox looks great, but sadly only 200W at 8ohms, otherwise I would have been very tempted myself! Mesa M6: definitely a bit of fan noise with this one (not noticeable at all as soon as you start playing). But does it just deliver the best tone of any amp I've come across to date? Yup

Thunderfunk all the way.

The Portamento basses has 30 “fret” boards

Every time you buy a cd with tracks you haven’t heard in the radio. Every film you’ve gone to see at the cinema, or bought as a preorder.

The basses are ‘no great shakes’, but some of the telecasters look quite tasty...

I've actually always wanted one of these. When you think about it they are ridiculous, having only 15 frets and the same range as a 4 string but I still want one but I like the odd balls from the 60s & 70s like these:

Brilliant, thank you

@cetera Oh Spector King - knowest thee what this is?

As an artist I think it is somewhat presumptuous and disrespectful to your (potential) audience to expect them to crowd fund your recording. It is my experience as a artist that if your music is worth releasing you will find a way to do it without resorting to begging. It is also my experience as a fan of bands who have used crowd funding to release their music that the incentives being offered aren't really that special. What I am primarily interested in is the music. I'll be able to buy that for £10 when the album comes out. Nearly all of the other stuff is irrelevant to me. And in this particular case $50,000 just seems to be far to much money to ask for with no explanation of exactly how it will be spent. Is it just for recording costs? Getting your music on-line with all the major download and streaming sites only costs $50 for an album, so unless he's going for a large volume physical release that seems like an awful lot of money. For that kind of money just for recording plus mixing and mastering I'd be looking at a couple of weeks lock in with a name producer and mixing engineer with the aim of producing a fantastic sounding album and turning at least one of my band's songs into a potential hit single. Getting your music recorded and released has never been cheaper. My last studio recording (made earlier this year) was charged at the same hourly rate (£6/h) as my first back in 1980 and while both were made in similar locations (converted garages) the quality and range of the equipment (as well as the acoustic treatment in the studio and control room) used for this year's session was vastly superior to 1980's semi-professional 4-track tape machine fed from a modified 12 channel PA desk and the sole effect available being reverb and echo from a spare 2-track tape machine. Maybe the way forward for crowd funding recordings would be instead of offering useless "special" incentives would be to give everyone funding the album a cut of the sales? I might be tempted to throw a couple of hundred pounds at my favourite bands in return for 1% of the sales of their next album.

Yes, I've forgotten to thank Luke for his work on the badges - looking good.

What a negative thread! Give them some credit - they've made up a word!

Show us your Fenderbirds / Explorerbirds. Heres mine

I’ve 'enjoyed' having a dodgy back for many years, and certainly for rehearsals, I'd sit rather than have the full weight of the bass on the strap, because of backache. Both my basses are long scale (an EB3 and a 335-shape semi acoustic). Looking for a lighter bass, I bought (unseen, via eBay - yes, I know) an 80s Marlin, which, as I’d learned on here, is budget thing, but, having a ply body, I hoped it might be lighter. I’ve mentioned this bass on another thread. Unfortunately, it’s not lighter, in fact it’s a tad heavier than the semi, and still 34" scale. However, as the bridge is closer to the bottom (?) of the body, the whole instrument, and therefore the playing position, is shifted a few inches to the right. Guess what, it’s so much more comfortable to play, and I did a 2 hour rehearsal yesterday with it, sitting down only for tea break. Might have to sell all 3, and buy a decent similar-sized one, or switch to short scale!

Nice! It’s lovely figuring, but in a subtle way. Still a bit “Van Gogh” grain, like those crazy Alphers!

Not wanting to be a bigger buzz kill than Buzz Killington - I could probably say that about most things posted in this section. Now a Bass V - now there's a story 🤠

This would’ve done it. Don’t know why they did a Mexican version of the rascal bass, and a version of the cabronita that the custom shop did...but not the Lotto telecaster bass.

If it's any use, I have a TMB30 and it easily fits in the Fender Urban Short Scale Gig Bag.

2 small and no doubt noisy fans. Bah. I like GK stuff but why doesn't anyone do proper passive cooling anymore with fins on the back? Do Class D amps get hotter than old iron amps?

This. To me the best thing about the Stingray is the neck. It's just the best neck out there in my hands. Obviously the tone is massive and, despite what people say, it's a very versatile instrument with the active EQ. But that neck man...

Just wanted to let you know that Gary Bevan Garbev100 has died suddenly and unexpectedly. I know he was a regular visitor on this site so if you knew him please keep him in your thoughts

What I like about the FI is that I have other people to struggle with that stuff for me who then just present patches which enable me to say "that is ace, I can use that" instead of "this pedal looked ace but I have owned it for 2 years and can still not make head nor tail of it". This is not being lazy. Too many parameters make my head all fuzzy. I can not even read piano music because there is too much going on.

For a PJ setup in soapbar housing check out the EMG 35P4 ad EMG 35J. For something different many people go with the EMG DC pickups.... http://www.emgpickups.com/bass/extended-series.html Both should work with the BT circuit you have. I'd try that first....

Upgrade the pickups to full active EMG soapbars (many choices) and the EMG BT circuit will come alive.... :)

anybody struggling with the FI editor, or synthesis in general might enjoy this. https://learningsynths.ableton.com/get-started its a fantastic primer for all things synth.

Great job Luke! No more than this wonderful cab deserves - and exciting too 😉

Ah, but will they? With this question burning in my mind I telephoned my close personal friend the New York music lawyer Mr Wolf J Flywheel. Our conversation proceeded as follows: Me: Wolf? It's me, Skank ... Flywheel: Whaddyawant ya Limey fag? Me: About this Universal masters fire ... Flywheel: Get the f*ck outta here! Ain't got time to talk, too busy filing a class action against those f*ckin' schlemiels Me: Based on what? Flywheel: Who cares? It's a bonanza. Now scram, shitbird, I got plaintiffs to depose (Ends)

I can't wait for the Fender marketing videos of lots insta-famous teenagers walking through the woods and/or city centres with the bass hanging over the shoulder without a case, never actually playing the bass, but instead providing a bunch of nauseating marketing speak such such as: 'I love the snap and zing of the finish' 'you know, it feels old, but it also kinda feels new?' 'it is so versatile, I can play it with my fingers or with a pick' 'for me, bass is the foundation of music, and the Fender Precision is the foundation of bass' I like the look of the seventies Jazz because it looks like a Fendeer Jazz bass and I like Fender Jazz basses.

I have a lot of time for Fender, but that portmanteau makes me feel a bit queasy.

Roqsolid will make a cover to fit anything.

If the existing one fits OK, Jack's Instrument Services (Google them) in Manchester will make you one using it as a template. Not cheap, but good quality and swift service.

Well I suppose I could buy a couple of RPM’s, Palmer speaker sim, an AD200 and Avalon DI and recreate the sound, or use the excellent Tech21 gear to get close to what he has live but have my own twist as even with his settings dialled perfectly exactly the Same, i’ll Never sound exactly the same. Its like dUg products, by all means I could bi-amp, but they have been engineered brilliantly into small boxes. Studio as you know is a different kettle of fish, often not the same bass as Live etc. But to answer your question, if he is using his signature pre-amp live and playing songs from multiple albums........

So I recently noticed that my Yamaha BB 424x had got really microphonic and transferred loads of acoustic noise to the amp when tapping the pickups, body, control plate, anywhere on the bass really with the strings muted. gave it to my local tech, the awesome amazing Job Dickinson of Dickinson Amps in Crystal Palace and he did indeed diagnose the pickups as being very microphonic. So we went for it and wax potted the pickups. From a bit of research I know it's a bit of a mixed bag at whether it'll sort the problem so didn't know what to expect. Got it back and had a jam yesterday and it been cured!! microphonic noise reduced to about a 10th of what it was before So the trade off, and Jon did tell me about this pre-potting, was that the pickups would lose a bit of air and top end to the sound. They have indeed lost a fair bit of treble content which was instantly noticeable. Its almost lost too much by a hair, but the strings on it aren't the newest, I also dipped the tone a smidge before anyway and I've got plenty of pre-amp and drive control on my board to add this back in if needed. however losing that air, and I'm guessing shifting the resonant frequency of the pups down a bit and getting rid of the acoustic transfer to amp has also given the bottom and low mids incredible thump and focus!! and doesn't sound scooped at all so no Quarter Pounder syndrome. If you thought the BBs sound was massive before it's even bigger now! So all in all great to get it done and experience the results 1st hand and thou I had to trade a little top end now the bass sounds like a vintage voiced rock monster

Oo. Option 2 looks a lot like the start of Dr Who! Can I have one of those and a sofa to hide behind as well please?