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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!

Well, I finally lost the plot and did what I knew I'd do the minute I bought the half a kg trace elliot elf amp ..... I bought a 40kg all valve amp to replace it! I've been after one of these for ages. By nature I never really go for the obvious choices in anything - cars, music, clothes - my main gigging amp is a quilter and my bass a g&l, so in a weird way Laney becomes a much more attractive amp for me than say an Ampeg, Trace, Fender etc. I got it in pretty much unused condition and I'm chuffed to bits with it. I've never had a full valve amp before. I've had ashdown abms with the one valve preamp, but nothing else. But this, this has 12 valves! Massive ones at that. The control panel despite looking confusing is very simple. Pretty much all of it is standard, but the panel has extra options in switchable lo mid and hi mid frequencies and boosts and cuts (I love the fact its covered both mids) and a 6 band switchable graphic too. On top of that it has a presence dial, which helps bring the mids and top end more to the fore. Likewise a deep dial which is used to tighten the bottom end. Theres also a one knob compressor that seems to work really well and also add a bit of bite. The tube option has both a tube drive and a tube level, so you can get more out of the tubes at lower volumes. Now, heres the brilliant bonus....not only does it have an awesome valve section, it also has a fantastic fet section, so you can run it just fet, just valve, or have a combination of both! Love it! I'd wager this is also a fantastic saver should anything go wrong with either section. Simply switch to just the other. Sound wise....gees, its unbelievable. Paired with my laney n410 it's really really powerful. Even at its lowest level, with the bass guitar turned right down and the pad button in, I can feel the bass vibrate through my legs! Real real heft if ever I felt it. Gorgeous tone so far, with lots of tone shaping options. I simply cant wait to get it in a practice room soon!

Gorgeous top, back is a lovely colour too.

Handbox R 400 , hefty lovlieness

** DG M900 sidetrack warning!! ** 😂 I thought the dirt tone was better than on our DG M900s - interesting post in the comments section on the YouTube clip "The distortion it's very cool, it's similar to Alpha Omega pedal." Hmmm...if that's true then that's got me wanting to check out the AO pedal But I guess it's also relevant to your other thread where you're looking to compare the DG M900 v1 with the v2 and which gives you the option of going for the AO instead of the B3K/VMT. However I'm not sure that the clean tone on the GK is any better than on the DG M900? ...I personally would have liked to have seen the amp settings that he was using, whilst he was demoing it.

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.

Wasn't it to protect the finish on the capstan?

Oh, aye - this one was mine. Beautiful fit & finish, but weighed twice as much as Birmingham.

The pics weren't available last time I looked, but they are back up now. I keep telling myself that I don't *need* another mustang, but the sunburst one looks rather tasty

Not sure if you were joking or not, but I love this! Not seen it before. Take off that extra string and I'd be very keen! Wouldn't mind seeing what's under that pickup cover too, the saucy minx. Reminds me of a Mustang but with a bit more charm.

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.

If a "dodgy" back is the problem then the weight is the first issue has to be sorted out. You have to find a bass that you can hold up for several hours without any pain or discomfort. All my basses have balanced well so that has never been a problem for me, but if the body of your bass is so light that the balance is thrown out you can buy (or make) strap button extenders. For a bad neck or shoulder, a wide, soft and supportive strap is also a prerequisite for a comfortable gig, but they don't always help lower back problems. The best solution to a bad back is not to have one. Too many people don't seem to understand the importance of looking after their backs.

Spector Q4 Pro. p.s. I had a Q6 Pro.

Welcome JJ - glad you've returned to bass. A great choice of basses and amps, by the way. 👍

Welcome to the F112 club :). The lows seem overwhelming at first but once you figure out how you amp and eq best works with the speaker you'll be in tone heaven. I still haven't found use for my second F112 in all the gigs I've played the last 2-3 years except as a PA for one gig :).

And Richard Thompson, vocally more than the guitar.

Yeah, I just put some La Bella low tension flats on my Jazz. They're really nice. A bit like TIs but not so sticky and rubber bandy. I prefer heavier strings on Ps but I think for Jazzes, they're spot on.

The latest today: $100 million lawsuit filed over Universal's 2008 warehouse fire As expected, a lawsuit has been filed following recent revelations in the New York Times about the scale of a fire at an LA warehouse storing Universal Music owned master tapes all the way back in 2008. A legal filing made last week, which seeks class action status, says that the major breached its artist contracts by failing to keep the master tapes safe and then failing to inform said artists about the damage caused by the fire. Citing internal Universal Music memos, the NYT article alleged that up to half a million master tapes containing recordings from the 1930s through to the 2000s were lost in the 2008 fire at the Universal Studios Hollywood. This contradicts statements made at the time of the blaze when the record company played down the extent of the losses. The major has denied many of the claims in the NYT report. However, Universal Music chief Lucian Grainge said in a memo to staff last week that the company now had a duty to be super transparent with affected artists. While insisting that lots of speculation that has followed the publication of the NYT article is without substance, Grainge wrote: "We owe our artists transparency. We owe them answers. I will ensure that the senior management of this company, starting with me, owns this". However, the artists participating in the new litigation - who include Soundgarden, Hole, Steve Earle, and the estates of Tom Petty and Tupac - want more than answers. The lawsuit is seeking compensatory damages "in excess of $100 million", arguing that Universal failed in its obligation to keep the master tapes containing its artists' recordings safe, and then instigated a cover-up which, the legal filing adds, basically continues to this day. The lawsuit also notes that, while in public Universal played down the significance of the 2008 fire at the time, that didn't stop it from suing the Universal film company over the blaze and making a significant insurance claim in relation to its losses. Law360 reports that, in Universal Music's largely sealed lawsuit against the other Universal company shortly after the fire, the former accused the latter of failing to keep sprinkler systems properly up to speed at the Hollywood site where the music company still stored its tapes. It also said that the Universal studio business had ignored safety recommendations made after an earlier fire in 1990. But the music major itself should have been ensuring safety measures were up to scratch at the facility, the artists' lawsuit argues. Not least because when the 1990 fire occurred, Universal Music and Universal Studios were still parts of the same company, so the former would have had access to the safety recommendations that were made. Moreover, the legal filing goes on, "at a minimum, these alleged dire [safety] conditions were observable to UMG on even the most cursory inspection of the warehouse and its location". As for the way Universal Music communicated the impact of the fire to its artists, the lawsuit lists various allegedly false statements the company's executives made to the press back in 2008, all of which played down the scale of the damage. And as for how the loss of the master tapes could in turn impact on the artists pursuing the litigation, the lawsuit adds: "Master recordings - the original sound recordings of songs - are the embodiment of a recording artist's life's work and musical legacy. They are the irreplaceable primary source of recorded music". Universal Music is yet to comment on the legal action. If it gets to court, there will be various questions to be asked. Firstly, exactly how many master tapes were actually lost? Then, how many recordings on those tapes don't exist elsewhere? Then, has the artist still suffered a loss even if their recordings are stored in another format? And, perhaps most importantly of all, what are Universal's contractual obligations to artists regarding tape storage?

Exactly! Which is why all the current "tone wood" "experiments" are completely meaningless, and irrelevant.

So one of the nice things about being a graphic designer, apart from being good at design (as that’s still to be determined) is you end up learning enough about processes to know the best way to get things done for different projects. So I asked Stevie if he wanted help with a badge for the cab. Partly as I wanted a nice badge for my own cab and partly as, if done right, it’s wee details like this can lift a project from very good to great. Like a most the other details stevie has built into this cab we want to try and do it to a high quality. I also wanted it lightweight- a pewter cast badge would be daft on a cab with neo drivers. The first problem we have is the small volume number, while die cast plastic badges, like the big manufacturers use, would be nice - it’s hardly cost effective to make 1000 badges in China to just use 10. Equally you could get a small batch of something from the UK, but the cost goes through the roof. Stevie set a budget for it, which bluntly was a bit more than I would have wanted to pay for a cosmetic thing that erm half of you might not like. So - instead my aim was to get a badge for the grill, a sticker for the gap on the handle and a sticker for the back for about the price of a pint at a music venue. Design is subjective right? And what do you call this thing... we started off on this idea that actually some of Stevies other passions could help name it- like it can be as abstract as anything as long as it’s memorable, pronounceable and means something to Stevie at least. Stevies wife’s maiden name didn’t sound rock and roll enough so we ended up talking about his work as a German translator and throwing random German words at each other. This was quite good as I also enjoy German culture (I’m there now), and design - and it’s the centenary year of the Bauhaus. So Stevies there geeking out on German cab names and I’m geeking out on German design and it’s viele spaß! luckily for you the long compound nouns got dropped, and Stevie started trialing BCcab as a name in PMs with some of you. Bass Chat cab obviously, without it needing to say that, and able to say it without sounding like an idiot, and I think there may have been a second meaning but I forget what that is. So then BCcab - v3. I still got to geek on with my Bauhaus- sorry!! I tried to come up with something that would work with almost any colour scheme and layout, but be distinctive enough that to be worth doing. Not so small that it wouldn’t be noticed, but not so big it took over the cab. so we’ve got a vinyl sticker for the back plate, a domed sticker for the handle and a subliminated aluminium plate 100x40mm for the front. (Soft enough to drill for screws if you need) - and it’s all just going to add £3.60 to the cost. (if you are building the cab and not getting the flat pack Stevie will have a few extra sets you might be able to convince him to sell you if you cover postage too) So the other day I got the first pre production picture of the badge prototype made up. (Colours are off a wee bit on this pic) im excited if no one else.

Yay! 👍

Wow! The design team have really ripped up the rule book with these new models!

Gotta love the period-correct Pau Ferro fingerboards 🤨

Setting intonation at the 12th fret allows for very basic tuners. Nowadays tuners are more sophisticated but if still makes sense the inonate at 12. It is half way between the bridge and nut and assuming all the fret slots are cut accurately, setting intonation at fret 12 will be good up and down the fingerboard. What you are trying to do is make sure the length of string from Nut to fret 12 is the same length as fret 12 to bridge.

If singer A ticks all the boxes but just lacks a bit of balls I would give him the nod like everything he will only get better.

The best ‘legacy’ GK could do is restarting manufacture of the original 800RB exactly as it was.