Leaderboard

Myself and @cd_david spent a couple of hours this afternoon in the company of a '72, a couple of '73's and a '78. The verdict? They're all fantastic.

I have a Mercalli 4 in metallic copper fire which I bought in January of this year. I bought it unseen and unheard (!) and after a tense six month wait, it finally arrived. I liked it so much I bought a Decision P two months later. These are fantastic basses and live up to the hype. There are exceptionally good value for money, are finished really well, light weight and sound amazing. The blend knob is so simple but effective. It really does give a good tonal sweep. I suppose I tend to favour the Merc over the Decision as those pups are very powerful and can need a bit of taming when using IEMs but it is an absolute beast of a guitar and great fun to crank up at rock gigs. Best money I've spent in over 25 years of playing bass, after my my Mesa Subway rig.

I've just removed the La Bella's and put some Dunlop Flats on my P bass and it is a revelation. The strings sound consistent and even and there is a nice feeling tension. So far so good.

I do Weddings and events for a living. Firstly, if you dont hold your ground, venues will take the proverbial as shown here. If you throw a ' sorry we are all organised now, and its impossible to set up in the evening's youd be amazed at how quickly they can reconsider. That aside, tips for getting done in that time scale are: 1. Have all your equipment un cased and ready. 2. Make clear straight away when you go in the room that the priority is that the staff clear the area you need first (or be prepared to wait 50 minutes whilst they amble about working it out...). 3. Be very friendly with the dj when you meet him, be courteous and work together, it's easier for everyone then. 4. Try to stop guests coming back in the room when they start to wander around and filter back in. Once 2 or 3 come in, they'll all follow and you'll have a room full in 10 minutes. 5. Only play music and let the dj play music when you are 100% ready. When guests hear music for over 2 minutes and the lights are down, you'll attract everyone in. 6. Remember it's not the end of the world if you struggle for time. Do what you can do in the time scales and be confident knowing you couldn't do more. 7. Enjoy it.

You're going to love it! I made a little vid this afternoon of what it's like when it's turned up REALLY loud...

There's another alternative - two feet at the front and one foot in the centre at the rear. Triangles are stable (hence three-legged milking stools).

Nothing sounds like a Ric growl and along with it the iconic 50s design is the reason why it’s lasted so long and will continue to do so. Here’s my little friend...

What's not to like 😁

That's not a shim, it's an emergency roach.

Believe me, it didn’t feel like a short time to us!😆

Sleep. Well, that's my guess, at least. I find that I can practise something as much as I like on a given day with only marginal improvement, but if I get a decent night's sleep and come back to it then it's somehow just there, much as you described. Something to do with the brain consolidating information and strengthening neural pathways blah blah blah...

Tonight, jointing the top and trying to learn how to wire a push pull pot I thought about adding a second pickup, but have now decided to experiment with a series/parallel switch instead. Onwards and upwards

Had some time today to update my V1 to V3 which has been sitting on a shelf gathering dust. My goodness this has come along way in a very short period of time. It was good before but this is now excellent.

I find it's the opposite for for a simpleton like me. I leave it all flat, and BOOM! It's perfect! ha ha.

Bass player is killing it! 👍

It is lovely! Here it is with its brother-in-arms:

Our singer turned up without a mic stand at one gig, and it happened to be the one gig where I was not in my own car (where my spare one always resides). Made one with a mop handle a chair and gaffer tape. As above: always have at least one roll!

These are fvckin’ splendid!

Always carry Gaffer tape. You can't prevent every possible failure or problem. Even if you do the traffic could get you. You have to improvise etc. I saw John Mayall using a combo for a PA when his broke. Tower of Power did several gigs without a bass player when Rocco Prestia was hospitalised on tour in Europe. Our singer didn't show on a gig and the 3 of us took it in turns to sing the songs. We couldn't sing and didn't know most of the words but we got by. I've done gigs when the drummer didn't show and one when the drummer and guitarist didn't make it. We were a bass and a singer strumming an acoustic guitar. We got an encore!

Went last year and this year. To be honest I don't think I'll go again. Open-space workshops surrounded by bass and guitar amps is as stupid as it sounds. The other workshops in separate rooms were very interesting. I expected to find much more to try and in a way that it is easier for everyone to sit down and try stuff.

I am in the same situation. My solution for the stupidly loud bands was to buy a second Super Compact. The modular approach just seems more logical to me.

'The difference between a strat and a telestrat is more emotional than actual yet people do find that one gives them something that the other doesn't.' The opportunity to write more B.S. perhaps......?

@Pete33rd Beware of the SkinnyMan! He is a wicked man and involved in all sorts of untoward activities in Cleethorpes and environs.

Agreed. I'm much older, and have come back to playing the bass after a ten-odd year break from music. I'm a much better player now than I ever was before, which is largely due to the help and wisdom from the folks on this fine forum. I hope you enjoy it here as much as I have (and still do). Welcome to the jungle! (sorry, couldn't resist a GnR pun 😃)

People coming up to me midsong, while I am singing.. If I can hear them, I pretend they are not there til the end of the song. Then I speak to them. However, there should always be an exception: Slade at Manchester Rotters 1979. A punter (me) gesticulates frantically at Jim Lea during a song. Seeing as he knew me to chat to at sound checks he didn't ignore me. "Oi, Jim. Your bass rig is belching smoke". An Acoustic 360 power amp was overheating. One of the crew just pulled it out of the rig.

I've taken the plunge. WB-100 on its way....

Do you play any other instruments? A change is as good as a rest.

Here's one about Wales Dave. I've never seen it either:

Rick Beato's channel is one of the finest on Youtube.

To be honest, I'm utterly amazed that the phrase..."GIT TAE F**K...!!"...not to mention the tone that it's normally said in, could be taken in any way other than intended...!!!!

On the other hand, some of these bozos are sources of great band stories for the years to come. Last night is a case in point. I'm playing DB in a rockabilly trio (at The Oddfellows in Apsley, in case you know it), just about to start the third set, when a mid-40s lady walks up to me. Here we go, I think, do we play any Abba. She points at my DB and says, "Is that a harp?". OK, this is a wind-up, right? But she looks perfectly serious. No, I say, it's a double bass. "A double bass?" says she, "I didn't know about them." Yes, I reply, it's a double bass, and usually when people ask about it, that's because they think it's a cello. "No", she says, "I thought it was a harp. What does a harp look like, then?". I ask her if she's familiar with Guinness. She looks startled but says that she is. I tell her to picture the Guinness logo. "That's a harp", I say. She frowns, looks around for support, there's none forthcoming and my guitarist is now wetting himslef laughing, so off she totters to the toilet.

I’m liking these at the moment 🙂

While I agree that the backing band plumb new lows of munterdom my immediate reaction was to assume that the former Home Secretary Ms Amber Rudd MP (Ind) had been on her way to a fancy dress ball and stopped at several pubs en route.

I've owned 3 fivers and my favourite is probably the cheapest. I had an Overwater Jazz, that I got for half price in a sale. Wonderful bass but it made my fretting hand ache after 15 mins of playing. Later I had an LTD that had a through neck and all sorts of great spec , for not much cash. But my favourite was a Squier Deluxe Dimension Bass. Got it new for under £300 and was so impressed with it's design and build quality. A real pleasure to play and it's active pickup got some very decent tones. I'm a four string player but I like to dabble occasionally.

now what the profanity filter has done here, is make it seem like I'm talking about someone who has been sniffing amphetamine sulphate! 😱

Saturday with In Isolation supporting Toyah at The Rescue Rooms in Nottingham. Nice big stage and great sound both on stage and FoH, and other than having to go on at 7.15 in order for Toyah's set to be over for the 10.00pm live music curfew it couldn't be faulted. Interesting to see that Toyah's band were all in-ears and no backline. The guitarist was using a Axe-FX, and the bassist a Kemper rack unit, although I have to say that I wan't massively impressed with the bass guitar sound FoH - there was a lot of synth bass on the backing and the keyboards that he had to compete with. Proper dressing room back-stage complete with snacks and a fridge full of drinks. Also interesting to see that Toyah's backing band all turned up individually in their own cars with their gear and apart from having their own sound engineer didn't have any road crew.

Our singer has at least 2 guitars, a load of obscure percussion items, a guitar pedal collection larger than mine and 3 saxophones so. Nope

Hi everyone, This is Wolfgang from BITE Guitars. You guys have been sceptical but fair, thanks, I appreciate this. Yes, we do things differently, from the product design to our online configurator to the way we organize production. Whenever you do things differently, it's bound to raise eyebrows and questions. I'd be surprised if it didn't. So here are a few explanations. We are not in it for the quick buck, we do nothing on the cheap and we do not source in China. We try to be as transparent as possible, pls check out "Guitar Building 4.0" on our ABOUT US page. Our production is highly digitalized for consistent quality and still our head of production is a licensed luthier who also builds violins with the craftsmanship of his own hands (in Austria you need several years of training, a craftsman examination and a compulsory license to build guitars). Our basses were developed in cooperation with professionals from the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna, the venerable luthier school in Hallstatt, and scrutinized and tested by the knowledgeable audience of the Guitar Summit's boutique area, notably trade journalists and bass professionals. Response was overwhelming and till this day we havn't had a single quality complaint. How many bass manufacturers employ graduate bass professionals to QC and test slap each instrument? We do anyway. A straight headstock like ours gives maximum firmness for output and sustain (unlike an angled one). As for straight headstocks, we all have grown to appreciate the 4-left tuner arrangement as industry standard. So why does BITE arrange its tuners 2-left-2-right? 4-left is a pretty crowded party. All 4-left shapes differ slightly between manufacturers for trademark reasons. There are clearly beautiful 4-left shapes out there, but elbowing our way into the 4-left crowd just didn't seem right to us, we wanted to create something of our own. Our headstock is almost an inch shorter than the ubiquitous 4-left headstock. Since our bodies are also a little reduced in size, the overall proportion between body and headstock is right. This counterweight is important for eliminating dead spots. In addition, our necks have a D-profile that players generally find pleasant and relaxing and that also adds strength along the entire neck and thus contributes to consistently strong output across the whole fretboard. Another reason for our headstock shape could be called contingency product planning. You don't want to go through trademark registration every time you add a product variation. Our headstock leaves enough space for adding a fifth or even a sixth machine head and also to flip it and reposition the logo for a left-handed version. To put our headstock in perspective, here's a video of Overdriver Duo (Brazilian sensation with over 2bn clicks and counting). It shows their Jawbone PJ from various angles. We are talking custom bass. Over a billion choices in custom quality, a fast and visualized online configurator, immediate ordering, worldwide direct shipping, zero tropical wood, high output pickups, etc. This is completely new terrritory in many aspects. It's impossible to offer all of this at entry level prices. Yes, but we meanwhile offer our pickups also with plain white and plain black covers. Why did we brand them in the first place? They are a proprietary development. We had Germany's foremost scientific pickup experts contributing, GITEC president Prof. Manfred Zollner, GITEC board member Tillmann Zwicker and renowned pickup physicist Helmuth Lemme. We finally achieved what we had in mind: passive pickups with a record output but still a clearly articulated growl that cuts through the mix even with tone rolled off, no muffled mud. Hear it for yourself in Nathan Navarro's review. For technical reasons and for easy use we focus our configurator on the most popular choices. We can do a lot more than that, ranging from special body finishes, including oil & wax, all the way to implementing special wiring ideas. Those are things that need a little interaction between you and us and require individual pricing, that's why we offer them separately in our SECRET MENU.

Featuring my dad on bass

I ran out of money...

I'm hoping he's going to get a tobacco burst Stingray with a white pickguard just for another one bites the dust, be rude not to add it into the set?