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I'm going to review the Bass Guitar Show attendees instead and give you some perspective from what the show was like as an exhibitor. WHAT a LOVELY bunch of people you all are. For those who took the time and effort to come out to see us, thank you very much. Very much enjoyed meeting everybody. Everybody was positive, polite and game for trying out our stuff. I was really nice to see the familiar faces and old friends. And make some new ones. @romeo2 it was good to see you again. Glad you like the new stuff. I'll try and politely address some of the negativity around the show, and where criticism is rightly and wrongly being directed. I'll agree the show is noisy. But we are talking about a product(s) that make noise. It's LITERALLY what they do. I agree that the quiet periods were not enforced very well, and that the sound police were a bit toothless. I will be raising this very strongly with the show organisers. The management of space wasn't great either, and if there were performances in the booth it backed up into the aisles making it difficult to get to all the stands. I am also raising this with the show organisers. To mitigate the noise, we had closed headphones for those that couldn't hear. If you want a diverse array of stuff gathered in one place. Where you are welcomed and encouraged to put your hands on them and try them out. Where you can talk directly to the product makers - and not just sales staff, who are quite happy for you to buy anything. Where there is a community of like minded individuals and where you can actively support small and local builders and makers - it is the place to go. It is NOT cheap exhibiting. For a smaller company like ours - it's probably just shy of a few thousand pounds. Plus hotels, travel, facilities etc. We do NOT make our money back at the show. Yes - it's a marketing expense. But also it's also for you guys. The venue is certainly nicer. From a sound point of view, the open space makes it less oppressive. It's nice and light. And it's certainly more photogenic. From a selfish logistics perspective it is a bastard to get to in a van. For those complaining of no bargains - we were offering 15%-20% off instruments on the day. As well as organising discounts for show attendees who want to buy afterwards. Rather than having a moan, if you ACTUALLY attended the show, and you feel there is anything we - as exhibitors - can do to improve things for you. Let me know. Other than that I know Sylvia is feeding stuff back to the show organisers. It was EXHAUSTING - but a lot of fun. If the show organisers can assure me they'll do more to tackle the things that annoy me, I'll certainly be back next year. Look forward to seeing you guys at the Birmingham Guitar Show and Manchester Bass Show in Feb and March.

Recently traded my G&L for this lovely 2014 American Standard P Bass - I've been playing bass for about 15 years and have always had a stable of at least 3 basses and yet this is my first proper P Bass! Even in bass shops I've never really tried one as I always thought they were boring and were always going to be available. This is the epitome of "does what it says on the tin" type of bass. Does the wooly old school thump and the proper grind with the tone all the way up. I can definitely see why they are so popular for bands/recording, they just sound right! The neck has just about the right amount of finish on it for me - not a fan of heavy gloss and but this has a light gloss that makes it feel like it's protected but doesn't get sticky. Only thing is the strings - forgot to ask what they were but they are very clanky so could be steels. Might change them for something more refined. I was originally trying to sell my G&L so this may be up for sale in the very near future but I'll enjoy it for a month or so Anyway, pictures!

Well, finally sorted the Attitude bridge on the orange bass...took much longer than planned as I wanted a luthier to do it for me but got all sorts of “nah shove a badass on it” or “it’ll be £140 to do that”. Some patience and a half hour later...

I was 14 years old when I heard this, and I’m still playing it now 🙂

Er hmmm. Can I just remind folk that some people are willing to pay EXTRA money for that 'crapped* on' look! Apparently like fake [insert anything you like] it adds that elusive "mojo" and makes your audience regard you as some sort of minor god.

Managed to get time to do a bit on this build cavities are all routed out Just need to re-shape the head stock then give the body a bit of a sand over then a few coats of danish oil Here’s a mock up so far........... I'm hoping that when I danish oil the body it will go almost the same colour as the neck............😀

Also known as customers giving feedback 😄

Having done exhibitions myself in the past (including at the BDC) I can testify to this. It’s a great feeling meeting folks who are actually interested in what you’re selling and have made the effort to come and have a look. But being on your feet all day, trying to say the same thing hundreds of times in a different way, takes it out of you. Noise at any trade exhibition tends to high (people are just noisy on their own never mind if the product being sold makes a sound too) and the old ears get fatigued too, that said, it wasn’t until mid afternoon that I found it started to become oppressive, an improvement on Olympia. The BDC is very bright, which is a good thing, but it is also acoustically challenged with its marvellous roof. However, there is office space and the like on the top and ground floors which could be utilised as demo areas in the future, should the organisers decide to use this venue again. The idea of bringing your own headphone amp that you’re familiar with is something I’d consider in the future, although this won’t help for amps and cabs of course, but demo rooms could sort that. Finally, it may seem that a lot of people are moaning but, for the most part, Brits can be quite curmudgeonly and an honest critique may come over as negative, especially when we forget to praise the things that we liked. However, if we don’t point out the short comings, things won’t improve and folks will eventually stop coming.

New Bass Neck Day So, I’ve three of my fave US 2013-16 Series Precisions, all with maple fretboards. And I was really gassing for a white/black/rosewood Precision a la Vicious Sidney, which is my fave colour scheme. None seemed to be turning up that were within price range or collection distance. So I bought a new US Fender neck. Slightly slimmer depth wise than my others but that’s no biggie, it has medium jumbo frets, tuners fit straight into it from the maple one I’m replacing it with. Pretty chuffed I have to admit.

...To be replaced the very next day with the last one of these available in Europe (well according the Ibby rep.), following Ibby ceasing production of these earlier this year. I had the good fortune to source from a German online store at an end of line price. Wasn't sure I was going to like the colour, but has turned out to be very lovely 'in the wood'. And whilst I'm not usually drawn to some of the 'sparklier' elements on basses, the abalone fret inlays are a really nice touch. Excited about the new material that this will hopefully help me to access on bass, assisted by it's relatively uniform and half way to a bass VI string 14mm spacing.

Again not a bass album as such but Hooky's work on " Closer" certainly had some effect on me...I actually had that before "Unknown Pleasures" ( and, strangely, some time before I ever heard LWTUA or Transmission as well...), knew I was hearing something special even then

£500- £1000 + = "laminate construction " £50- £500 = "plywood" 😉

I think it`s a great film, am not too knowledgeable about specifics and timelines but from a viewing point I think it`s excellent, and not just a little bit sad. I think Rami Malek was amazing in the role.

At least, on the scheme of things, bass sits in the "middle" of ease of playing vs ease of reading. For example: French Horn. Fiendishly hard to play well, yes you can make fart noises but anything musical needs years of dedication and hundreds of hours of practice. Even an apparently simple line as notated, is difficult to play. So the reading really is a bit of a non-issue here. Compare with piano. Dead easy to make a noise on, compared to the French horn. A cat, or 5 year old child, can play the lowest note and the highest note and all those in between. And a beginner will soon be learning both hands at once and chords etc etc etc. The notation is clearly more complex than the French Horn, for a start there's 2 clefs, 2 or more notes at once, etc etc. Fortunately, it is convention to learn to read music to play piano. Compare with electric guitar. Very little resources around to learn to read, very little standard notation music published, the same issues with polyphony as the piano (except, sensibly, it sticks to one clef and stave), it would be a nightmare to try learn to read on electric guitar. In fact most people don't, and I don't blame them! At least bass is somewhere in between the extremes presented.

A quick update after a lot more testing and a band rehearsal. I have measured the distance between the central woofer dome and the rear of the grille and I now have 37-38mm of space. That should be plenty for the woofer excursion. If it hits the grill, the driver is going to die...or is already dead... I sat down with my test setup and a comparison cab. The One10 is about half the size of the BC 112, lol. It’s actually not a bad cab to compare to. Long throw driver, well braced, rated for 250W though apparently will take up to 500W with clean sounds. So it’s a potent little driver, albeit a 10”. I maxed out the volume available from the One10 with the amp set optimally flat and the Gain at 3 o’clock and the Master at 12 o’clock. At that point I could distort the woofer with note accents. The One10 gives a very satisfying low end, easily comparable to the BC 112, but only up to a certain volume. I’ll call it jazz gig volume. It’s very good, but there are limits. it also takes a huge amount of bass boost before it farts out. Veiled top end, but enough, just. The cab clearly adds more colouration to the sound as it gets louder. It’s a nice colour and it really suits bass. It’s a great cab. Swapped over to the BC 112, leaving the amp set optimally flat. Gain at 3 o’clock and Master at 12 o’clock, as before. The upper mids and treble sparkle and the clarity is great. As expected, really. Cranked in max bass boost on the amp and the cab tolerated it at this level. Impressive for such abuse. Put bass back to flat on the amp and turned up. Could get the woofer to fart out with accents with Gain at 3 o’clock and the Master at 3 o’clock. It was stupendously loud; the wall and window shaking volume I described previously that will drown out any drummer and will definitely keep up with a full band. It remains clear at volume. Slapping at that point caused a click noise which I suspect might have been the voice coil hitting the back plate, or just a very unpleasant transient. It didn’t sound natural so I stopped doing that. (If it was the woofer travelling beyond Xdamage it would have been wrecked. It obviously wasn’t...lol...). Adding any bass boost at this point also caused woofer distortion. I am confident that this is the mechanical limits of how far the cabinet can go. I won’t go near this again; the amp can give a lot more but it will kill the cab. I started adding an HPF but had to stop to pick up the kids. Took the cab out to a very moderate volume keys/sax jazz rehearsal. Carrying it around was easy. Had to turn down the bass frequencies at the amp; otherwise I just plugged and played. Great sounds all night. The band loved it and the keys player may want to build his own after we tried the keys through it and it sounded amazing. I may have retired my One10 from the moderate volume jazz stuff. I have concluded two things. 1. The setting of volume knobs on the amp is not a good indicator of the power getting delivered. Basically this amp is very powerful and can distort woofers at settings far less than maximum. Not a surprise. 2. The BC 112 is a very capable cab. The BC cab reminds me a bit of the Faital-loaded Berg CN112. The same smoothness of the mids, mainly. However that cab was a little bass-shy; the BC 112 has more lows (more like the BF BB2). And the high end is smoother sounding than the CN112 as well, and extends higher also. I’m probably only going to bother with an HPF for loud gigs or rehearsals. In my ordinary use it doesn’t look like it will be necessary.

Update: I now have all the cab kits and they look lovely! The Celestion compression drivers will be with me on Friday, by which time I should have some of the crossovers ready. Anyone wanting to collect is welcome to do so at the weekend. I'm going to start sending boxes of goodies out next Monday. It'll take me a few days to pack everybody's orders up. I just hope the local supermarkets and stores have enough spare cardboard boxes.

I have never been to the show and I was thinking of attending this year but was put off by negative comments about past shows. Having read the post-show comments I think I will attend the next one because it easy to sit here clicking across the web making decisions based on feedback and or whinging but there is nothing like personal experience to make up one's mind, that sounds blimmin' obvious but I think it is particularly salient since the Internet arrived. This thread has made me realise that I personally make far too many decisions based on what folk say online, I'm not saying online advice/opinions aren't valid or extremely helpful (I mean just being a member of Basschat has utterly transformed my bass playing world!) but I've avoided the BGS for reasons that, on deeper thought, I can't recall and I think I really I should go and see and form my own opinion based on the experience. I was the same about the Bass Bashes, I heard a couple of negative comments (not on here I hasten to add) and given those and my misanthropic leanings I just assumed a Bass Bash wouldn't be for me, a not very good player with a couple of basses. How wrong was I, I love a bass bash! I sit there with my FRFR rig often unable to hear myself and I don't care, it's great to meet and hang out with other Bass Chatters and even get your dream bass built by a dude you've only met a couple of times! So, next year I'm going to this Bass Guitar show just like last year I went to my first Bash and had my preconceptions upended by great people and a lovely day... ...I've kind of lost my thread. No gathering together of enthusiasts can be tailored to suit each individual and as such we should accept that some compromise has to be made, take what you can from the event. Although I wasn't an attendee I do know one way in which this event could be improved and that's to get the wonderful and gorgeous catering team in from the Great Big SW Bass Bash to do a food stall at the show, attendance would rocket and it is so difficult to whinge with a huge scone stuck in your gob.

65 baby

78 beast

Yep to the Rattus Norvegicus, and most Rush stuff, lots of bass driving the songs. Slightly more subtly, Lizzy's stuff is a favourite, too. Solo bass albums? I've bought a few and got rid: a bass solo'ed is like a comedian explaining comedy: instructional, and occasionally interesting, but not the point.

Can I just throw something into the noise debate, because I'm finding this all a bit tiring... I do some work for Markbass/MSL (as a pro musician, not employee), and was on the Markbass stand all weekend. Interestingly in the Exhibitor Manual for the show, there is no specified noise level, just a reference to noisy/quiet times. I took my brand new and freshly certified calibrated db meter with me to the show (not a £25 ebay chinese jobby, a proper one... and before say you did the same with your phone, no mobile phone app can measure accurately over 90db, because of the limitations of the phone's microphone), and I left it logging for some long periods. The noise levels measured at our stand rarely exceeded 97db, even when someone was slapping away (its a thing... get over it). That's nowhere near a standard concert volume, but is about as loud as a band should ever need to be at a wedding/function, but across the day the levels tended to average at between 70-88db. Thats about the same volume as the vehicle noise standing at the traffic lights down the road at Pentonville Road. OK, the frequency of the noise and sometimes percussive nature of it will contribute to ear fatigue, but I didn't feel the need to resort to my ACS moulds (thank you #hearformusicians) at any point during the weekend. We also discouraged any jamming this year, and didn't have any ad-hoc performances on the stand. Yeah sure it got louder than 100db at times, but that was very rare, and usually due to an ad-hoc performance at someones stand, and the coincidence of half a dozen or so people trying something out at the same time and resorting to the volume knob to try and hear themselves... Everybody contributing, no single guilty party, and generally initiated by the visitors, not the guys manning the stands. Regarding the show itself, I am beginning to struggle with what sort of show you actually want or expect? There were definitely some other bigger brands missing, but they were either never, or rarely, there even when the show was at Olympia anyway. There were fewer smaller builders there, but they'll have their own reasons for that, and make no mistake, if people don't turn up and actually buy stuff it can be hard to justify, because believe it or not, directly or indirectly thats the only point of exhibiting! ...Who knew? Personally, I prefer the room, but didn't appreciate the extra 1 hour across London slog in the van before and after the show, but apart from exhibitor issues, those are my only thoughts on the weekend. On another point, can I also say, if you didn't even go, why on earth are you posting negative comments here? Thats not contributing to the debate in any way. ...and those of you who missed Cody Wright playing with Eric Gales to close the show performances (you probably didn't go because Eric is a guitarist not a bass player, and you just wanted a bass show...), you missed an absolute treat of the tightest improvisation and very best musicianship...

The most important thing is the reason why they wouldn't consider going, I think. IMO they're still valid comments.

I think weight has a part to play, just like everything else. I think it's often a by-product created in pursuit of rigidity, which I think is one of the main factors influencing the way a bass vibrates and reacts. Traditionally that can be achieved through lots of laminates (my Alembic had 11!), heavier woods that are stiffer or new materials like carbon necks, which of course are quite light. Nowadays I don't think there's a need for a rigid bass to be heavy and although I generally play in the studio sitting down I still prefer a mid weight bass just because from a technical standpoint I don't think unnecessary weight is acceptable. For me it's all about a rigid neck and a softer body wood to give that 'weight' to the sound, so it feels like you're slapping a suspension bridge cable rather than a piece of twine affixed to a dowel.

I’ve been doing an even worse job than usual of lurking!! But huge thanks to @Andyjr1515 for the setups and the mods..! Am excited to put the Squier to work @Sibob so cool you were at PLASA!!! And hilarious to be recognised by my modded bass Cheeky advert.. If any basschat crew are around I’m playing a (very!) small show with Nyah in Hackney Downs tomorrow: https://www.facebook.com/events/1334421266721824/ Cheers y’all! Tom

This is just such a great musical album with all players being in topform but for me as a bassplayer Jeff Berlin stood out even more.

Well I love the Bee Gees and Heart too....

The Yes Album. I had never heard bass sound like that, played like that, and such an important part of the composition. Back in the day it was a revelation, to me at least.

UB40 split and became two, as if one wasn’t already too many.

That’s a really nice bridge. Reminds me of a Gotoh 201, my fav bridge. Definitely a good idea to steer away for a BA2 IMO. Nice bridges but the ones I’ve had have changed the tone a bit too much. Since getting my P34 a couple of months ago (and now getting to warm to it a bit more) I’ve thought the fretboard looked a bit pale, like its was too dry. As the Bass was brought new I figured it’s part of the Yamaha ageing/worn in ‘magic’. I found a bottle of F-one oil in a draw this evening and figured I had nothing to lose. A couple of applications later and oh my, what a lovely deep rosewood board I have . It looks so much more classy now. Strange that a new bass, made only last year needed this, but I’m glad I did it.

Cheers, my friend. 🙏 I will be using the Guild B301F fretless for my sins, which I have only ever played once in public. Wish me luck...😬

I ran a 9V daisy chain with several pedals for years with no issues. When I started doing a lot of practice with headphones, I noticed a lot of noise in my chain, so got a Cioks DC5. It did not solve my noise issues, that turned out to be my patch cables! Nowadays I have my pedals mostly sprawled over the floor of my music room with a 9V daisy chain and don't notice any noise issues with 7 pedals in the chain. Zoom/EHX digital pedals (TC and Mooer seem to be fine!) and some pedals with internal 9V-18V charge pumps seem to be the main culprit for noise in my experience and will require a separate power supply or just one with isolated outputs.

Well in that case, ‘‘twas Steve on rhythm gtr, me on bass, Mark Emmins on vocals, Julian Cooper (Ray Coopers Son) on lead gtr and Mick Green on drums.

I used to be able to read treble clef - I am OK getting the pitch right but reading rhythm eludes me. Bass clef is still a mystery to me ( I can never remember the stave).

@Marc S - thanks for feeding my new bass thirst. Now I'm sold, I just need to get my hand one one to try out in local stores and think of an excuse for my wife

This!

I don't think you're paranoid man, it happens around here as well. Some headliner acts have a deal with the management about it and from a commercial point of view it makes sense for them to give that extra push to the headlining band so it feels "WOW" when they get on stage. Usually what happens is this: - Opening acts use different gear on stage (amps, drums, mics etc). - Opening acts sometimes use a different main mixer as well. - Headliners always have their own sound, stage and lights guys. This makes HUGE difference. So when you were performing lights were on auto pilot and when headliner went on their guy worked his donkey off to put out a great light show + he knows bands set list inside out and it's pre-planned etc. Sound guy will always make the biggest difference. He'll just push it out as loud as possible with the best possible live mix. Even for small acts, having a soundguy in your team makes day/night difference. So basically, this is how it works at the moment. It doesn't happen everywhere and to the same extent so you might end up with great performance and PA sound but it is somewhat expected. I know it's not fair and kinda terrible to young artists starting out on stage etc, but it's just the way things are I guess. I still think its OK, as you get to perform on sold out gigs in front of a lot of people and if your music rocks, you'll get your spotlight and be a headliner one day too so maybe even get a change of perspective. Another aspect, which is very debatable is that headlining bands (=well known bands playing for ages together) are usually made up of very experienced and good musicians, with great gear and playing technique. Maybe the PA was overall the same, the sound was just better and the band played better too... There are just too many factors I guess - so controversial topic

I've got a kind of reverse one too. We turned up on time for soundcheck. Reasonably well known band is not there. Promoter rings them. They're running late will not make soundcheck. Can they use our drums and bass amp. We soundcheck. It sounds great. They turn up 20 minutes before going on during the last 5 minutes of our set. They spend the 15 minute break reconfiguring the kit, including removing a tom and tuning it up to the drummers preferred slack skinned style. They leave the drum mics where they were out of position. The bass player just sets my amp flat. It sounds OK. The drums sound pretty horrible despite the guy on the desks best efforts. We support them again at another venue. Exactly the same thing happens. Get told by the promoter they don't want to play with us again due to the drums sounding so bad.... to be fair I don't think I've ever had significantly worse sound when being the support band. We always turned up on time and were polite and fuss free even when having to wait around and only getting a line check.

Here’s a section I’ve just written that I’ll probably add to the manual. (Formatting is better in the proper document. What do you guys think? Building your first sound Loading a pre-existing sound and playing around with the various parameters can be a very good way to learn how to manipulate sounds to your liking, but at some point you will probably want to start creating your own sounds. This next section will give you a few pointers on how to do just that. The examples assume you are creating a sound using the audio input for triggering. Connect the FI to your computer (a single cable is sufficient for this, unless you want to write your sound to the FI straightaway). Launch the Editor. Let’s start by zeroing out all the parameters so you can start from a clean slate. Using the block adjust tool in the bottom right of the Editor click Select All and Reset. Note that due to the various gain stages in the signal path you may need to raise several sliders above minimum in order to hear anything. To hear your dry instrument signal, turn up the INSTR slider in the Main Mixer. You should hear sound straight away (providing the pedal is not bypassed). To hear a sound using the synth you will first need to turn up no less than 5 volume sliders! These are as follows: At least one VCO waveform amplitude slider - e.g. VCO1 AMPLITUDE SAW; That VCO’s master volume - VCO1 AMPLITUDE VOLUME; The synth volume going into the filter - VCF INPUT SYNTH; The VCF outputs of the main mixer - MAIN MIXER VCF LIN and; MAIN MIXER VCF LOG. If you are in one of the two ADSR modes then you will also need to set the VCA envelope before a sound can be heard. To start with, set the S slider to 127 and leave all others at minimum. This gives a simple on/off gate signal when playing a note. (If you are in Vintage envelope mode then leave both the A and R sliders at minimum to achieve the same effect.) Lastly, the filter will need to be set with a sufficiently high cutoff to allow sound through. (You could set VCF TYPE to OFF to bypass it completely but for this example let’s use the filter.) Click the Vintage/New button to put the filter into New mode, set the slope to 24dB and raise the cutoff (VCF FRQ) slider to 122. You should now hear a sawtooth alongside the sound of your instrument. Lower the filter cutoff back down to 64 and you’ll hear the sound become more muted. Now raise the A and D sliders of the VCF envelope to 64. This sets an envelope shape, though you still won’t hear any difference until you apply this envelope to the filter. To do this, raise the AD/ADSR slider in the Filter section; set it to 64 for now. You should now hear a synth brass-type sound. Experiment with the positions of the A and D sliders of the envelope, the VCF FRQ slider, the AD/ADSR slider and the RESO slider to find a sound you like. If you want the filter to sustain at a cutoff level above that set by the VCF FRQ slider then raise the S slider of the VCF envelope. We recommend only using a single oscillator to start with until you have become familiar with the controls. Adding multiple oscillators adds complexity and you need to be careful with the levels if you want to avoid foldover distortion and clipping. When you are satisfied with your creation, click save to archive it to your computer. Let’s now look at creating a sound using the Distortion block. Use the block edit function to zero out all the blocks again. To hear a sound using the Distortion block you’ll need to turn up the following sliders: At least one slider in the Harmonizer Mixer section - e.g. INSTR The distortion block signal going into the filter - VCF INPUT DIST The VCF outputs of the main mixer - MAIN MIXER VCF LIN and; MAIN MIXER VCF LOG. Again, if not bypassed, the filter will need to be set with a sufficiently high cutoff to allow sound through. Let’s bypass the filter this time so set the VCF TYPE slider to OFF. At this point you should hear sound but it might be very faint. This is because the sound is being made using your instrument as opposed to the synth and the synth has a much hotter output than the instrument signal. If you recall, unity gain of the instrument input is achieved when its sliders are at 127. Turn the VCF DIST and HARM MIX INSTR sliders to 127. Now raise the DISTORTION TONE slider to 127 and you should notice a marked increase in volume. If it’s still not enough, try raising the VCF LIN and VCF LOG sliders. Now experiment with the positions of the DISTORTION GRADE and TONE sliders. You may need to back off some of the volume sliders at high GRADE settings. Now raise the HARM MIXER VOICE2 VAR slider until you hear distortion at a 5th above the original sound. Adjust the HARMONIZER TRANSPOSE VOICE2 slider to hear the different intervals. If desired, repeat the process with VOICE 3 and add in the VOICE1 slider. Experiment with different combinations, paying attention to the volumes, until you find a setting you like. You could also mix in some of your dry instrument signal using the INSTR slider in the Main Mixer. When you are satisfied with the result, click save. Hopefully you now have a better idea of how to go about creating your own sounds. Remember that you can create a sound using a mixture of the synth and the distortion blocks. If necessary, go back over the explanations given in the parameter block descriptions to acquaint yourself with what the VCO, LFO and effects slider do and experiment, again within a single VCO until you are comfortable. Don’t be afraid to try things out and let your ears be your guide. We hope that your Future Impact v3 brings you many years of joyful music-making!

This was the first time I have been. I was expecting a bit more stuff on show - maybe a few more stands. There wasn't a lot of space so the opportunity to try stuff was a bit limited. I don't spend big money on my basses so the high end stuff was wasted on me. Maybe I should have had a closer look at the Chowny stand - I like the look SWB and the semi acoustic stuff but it seemed quite busy so I didn't - my fault. I sat in with four of the Saturday bass workshops, all were interesting. Dave Marks was entertaining and talked about things probably more relevant to me. Paul Geary was good with his son on the drums. The problem was the room was too small and too hot. I had a wander around looking for a Basschat stand, even an antisocial grump like me may have said hello.

Did some further research last night and there are just none about in the usual music shops - just a 5er in GAK. Suffice to say I was at Dawson's for opening - they were so sure I'd be back they'd actually put it out the back off sale ! Even got permission off the boss - a happy ending !

Amp is back to perfect as new condition again😊. A simple component failure ( can happen on any amp I guess) My tech sent the board off to leszek who quickly sorted it and returned for free. back to blissful sounds again

With my method of finishing, the principle is "wherever you think you are in the process, nevertheless if it looks OK then STOP" The reason is that 'just one last coat' almost always goes wrong and then you have to sand down a couple of layers and build back up to where you had been a few days earlier. Am I right, fellow builders?? So for the back, I have stopped : It's got there a couple of coats earlier than I expected, but trust me, it can only go downhill from here so I'm stopping. The top, on the other hand, is NOT yet there. It has had one less coat than the back and so might be OK at the next coat...or it might take a few: The sides are actually OK but, at this stage I do Back & Sides and then Top & Sides to ensure there is no varnish edge round the periphery. So as I have to do at least one more coat on the top, the sides will have to be done more also. But that doesn't worry me - the sides are a lot less fussy to varnish than tops or backs and so the chances of it all going to pot are lower. This is how the sides are looking at the moment:

I think he's a good teacher. He seems like a nice guy. I'm not criticising him at all and I'm happy his site is successful. It's just a shame to have to use such clickbaity means, but that's the way of the world. That's how Youtube works, The competitions are nice, I certainly would love to win a bass worth big bucks - who wouldn't? But again allowing multiple clicks is just a marketing strategy. It doesn't offend me though. I keep it in proportion. I do maintain a healthy scepticism of signing up with a card for a free trial. Yes it is standard practice but knowing I can't really afford to go beyond, do I really need to be signing over my details on another website? C'est la vie I guess

I hope the buttons are better than its predecessor, the HR16. Mine had started sticking after only a couple of years of use.