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10 months later the bass has finally arrived... Overwater J5 Contemporary Figured Maple Top Ebony Fretboard Abalone Inlays Black/Grey Burst - Comes out more purple in photos Can't wait to plug it in later!

Isn’t it incredible how many people can feel the good vibes of a single person through our little community. Buying and selling here has always been a pleasure because it takes trust, and more often than not leads to friendship. Martin’s family are truly humbled by the fantastic showing of memories and tributes posted here. What an awesome endorsement of the community and what a tribute to Martin.

Hi folks. I’ve deactivated my messenger as I’m winding down my admin duties for the time being. For any help with BC please contact a moderator or Kiwi Cheers (don’t worry, everything’s fine, just having a break!)

Collected today. Pics tomorrow...

It should be a perfect match for my equally worn black/maple/black crackle paint SB1

We’ll check if a wreath or similar would be ok, great idea Mick. I bet he’d have loved a bass shaped one (graphite reinforced)

I’m so sorry to hear this. I have done many deals with Martin over the years and really liked him. We shared a love of cult TV programmes, Status basses and a revolving door of Markbass gear. He really was a true Basschat character and will be missed. RIP Martin and condolences to your family. MB1 we salute you!

Dan Reed posted that when the Network opened for the Stones in 1990, Charlie had his own sewing machine on tour and repaired his own suits on tour. That's pretty classy. RIP Charle Watts

Although I'm sure he had his moments, he always appeared to be content to let the others play up to the audience/cameras/press, whilst being the well attired, dapper gent at the back holding things together. In that alone he was always the coolest stone of all. Rest easy Charlie, and thanks for sharing sixty years of your life with us.

Ahem...

There is a large thread on here full of tips and tricks. I’ll see if I can find the link 😂

There's plenty of knowledgeable folks on this forum when it comes to envelope filters, which are one of the most subjective of effects, and what you like often come down to personal experience, your bass and your set-up. Of the three you mentioned, I haven't tried the Filter Twin, I had a EBS Bass IQ but wasn't a huge fan, (just a bit murky sounding to me) and still have a DiscumBOBulator (v1). The Emma is a really good filter, not as resonant/peaky as some other filters, but if you are looking for a funky quack, easy to dial in then it's a great candidate. Caveats being that IME the DiscumBOBulator likes an active or hotter output bass, and the down-sweep is sweet but on the milder side. Of the other filters out there, Mu-Tron Micro-Tron IV is awesome but not cheap. They've just got a UK supplier (Joespedals.com - no affiliation), @Al Krow will attest how good the latest v4 Proton is, but like you say good luck finding one. Maxon AF-9 is also really underrated and will get you into Mu-Tron territory and is similar size as the others with a down-sweep. Sometimes those old big box Q-Trons do come up cheap on eBay and as @lee650 mentioned they're really great filters. They do sound sweeter than the current EHX iteration. EHX Enigma Q-Balls can be trickier to dial in but has a huge array of sounds in it, though I prefer an up/down sweep switch personally than the stop/start controls on the Enigma. The newer Source Audio Spectrum and C4 have lots of fans on this forum. I've no experience with these, as prefer a simpler analogue filter myself, but they're meant to able to cop the sounds of most of the well-known filters out there. Good luck on your search!

This story is stolen from TB, but it's stolen from a thread I started last autumn, so it's mine right? Funny story about the many wondrous tones of the L-2000. I got mine in 1997, as a b-day/Christmas gift. I still have it. The bass had no manual. I was a high school senior, and had no idea what all the switches did. I knew it was an active bass, so it needed a battery, and that battery needed to be changed periodically. I knew what the volume, bass, and treble knobs did. But that's it. So I plugged the bass in, turned on the amp, and started flipping switches. I found "the" tone on the bass – MY tone. This was December 1997. I literally have not touched the switches since! They have remained at "the" tone – MY tone for 23 years straight. All I have done is to change the battery out every now and then. At some point, maybe 10 or 12 years later, when I got way more into the technical elements of things, I actually looked up what the switches on an L-2000 do. Much to my surprise, I determined that the entire time, the bass had been set to: neck pickup only, series coils, passive. In other words, a classic P Bass ... and no need to have been changing batteries all those years.

Just going on filters with up/down sweep (The MXR bass Envelope filter,is a must try, but only does upsweep) so won't include the few I've had with just up. I had the Discombobulator (V2) for a while, and i must admit i was disappointed. I found it to be too subtle for my tastes. It has a nice bubbly tone, but doesn't have that dirty squelch. I also had noise issues with mine, it kept making a weird whistling sound when daisy chained in a power supply(or indeed near). The Down sweep was incredibly noisy too, I just couldn't use it. Note these issues went away when I plugged it in on its own,also at the time I wanted to use it as part of an Octave/fuzz setup,I think it works better alone. I also had the Bass IQ, I am a big fan of EBS pedals,but was really dissapointed with this. In fairness I was new to filters at the time, but found that the lack of sensitivity control, meant the filter would overload with certain basses. I'd just get this bassy indistinct WHOMP. My favourite for up and down sweep is the original big box Qtron, but hard to find and going for daft money. Huge size and horrible 24v power req aside, it really sucked your tone when bypassed (I'd stick in in a true bypass loop) I loved my old wonderlove and used it exclusively for downsweep, a great filter for synth combos, buy again subtle on its own, despite the amount of control. Having a loop after the envelope detector was fantastic though. Had an VJE Mini MU, which is apparently a very close mutron clone. Loads of control but alas,I could not get a useable sound out of it. I couldn't get it to work with my basses without a huge bassy spike, that nearly took out my cabs. I have to say though, it was the most beautiful pedal I've ever owned, so well made and the colour was called cosmos, which looked purple, but with glittery multicolour sparkles. And the wiring was sublime. It again another filter that was really noisy,with my setup. I've yet to find my perfect filter,but in currently using a few in my source Audio C4, they sound great, but still not for me. I suspect if I ever try a seamoon funk machine, I will fall in love 😂 Hopefully our @BootsyWill be along, he is a filter Guru 😁

To those of a suspicious nature bear in mind for me this isn’t one of those “I can’t afford the real thing so I’ll pretend to myself that the cheaper one is better”. I have both, I just prefer the cheaper one.

More pics in the Affiliates section.

So my little band is releasing its debut single and music video on Friday! The track will be available to stream from midnight and the video premiere’s at 5pm. If it sounds like your thing, I would LOVE if you could presave the Spotify track and Subscribe to the YouTube channel on the links below. 20 seconds or so of your time would help us a lot! https://distrokid.com/hyperfollow/awakeneternity/serenity

Thanks for letting me in. A month ago I had a mini stroke, and whilst (fortunately) I am pretty much ok, I still had some issues with my left hand / brain co-ordination. 2 weeks ago, I decided to buy a bass - as you do. I’ve never played anything before - so I bought a Cort Action - and off we go. I’m loving it. Learning a lot from the forum, thank you all. Ian

I’ve done three gigs so far and been very careful however despite being double jabbed since March I got tested positive and have been ill with Covid for the last couple of weeks. I’ve not had flu before but guess it’s akin to that. I am no longer officially isolating but continue to experience fatigue and some congestion I also have no sense of smell or taste so I am still being very careful. As others have said it was great playing but as soon as people started drinking the rule book was torn up. I dread to know how I would have felt if I hadn’t been vaccinated so I’d encourage those who haven’t to go and get yourselves jabbed!

Some better pictures of my latest p bass

...or an 11mm spanner

For Charlie -

Very under rated (much like Ringo) and made the band swing.

So glad someone else brought up the AF9. I’ve had a couple in the past and recently bought another. It’s a really cool pedal and the down filter is great on it. The original Subdecay Prometheus is also an incredible pedal. Lots of tweakability, up/down/step filter modes (the latter being able to be tuned into an autowah with the step and speed controls) and a DLX version if you’re feeling fancy! Had the Filter Twin before and that too is a great pedal, with some unique sounds available. However there’s not much to tweak so can be difficult to really dial in what you are looking for.

Sandberg Lionel fretless

I just saw their photo of this bass. It looks awesome, and speaking as a big fan of Overwater I'd say it'll sound it too!

Yes that’s it, the actual mids are at 660. Although I love the RM amps (make that Ashdown gear in total) I never really got why the controls weren’t all labelled with the frequency or labelled bass, low-mid, mid, hi-mid, treble. Just seems a bit of a mid-match. Still, they sound great, that’s what counts.

I'm surprised about a couple of comments about being disappointed with the EBS Bass IQ. I've only heard good things about these - I bought one of the basis of positive feedback. I can say that I'm not disappointed with mine - does everything I need it to do.

They used to be. The HA3500 was a brilliant amp. It all went wrong after that really. A real shame.

Today is tomorrow. 🙂

Don't see these often https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/224581029411?_trkparms=aid%3D111001%26algo%3DREC.SEED%26ao%3D1%26asc%3D20180105095853%26meid%3Db2713914eb8441d399483e474fb54b62%26pid%3D100903%26rk%3D1%26rkt%3D20%26sd%3D224581029411%26itm%3D224581029411%26pmt%3D0%26noa%3D1%26pg%3D2510209%26brand%3DDanelectro&_trksid=p2510209.c100903.m5276 All original 1960s Silvertone made by Danelectro

*back on topic* 😸 Personally I like it when companies have a vegan line. With everyone from Greggs through to the fast food burger outlets doing the same, it just helps give people more options. Obviously with Levy's there is less chance of any cross contamination than at McDonalds but it's good to see it moving into the mainstream.

That’s a good point tegs, I’ve just spent the equivalent of 100 pints of beer on this Epi and it’s great. When I started out an instrument costing the equivalent of 100 pints of beer was not quite so great - my Kay EB-O copy in fact cost more than that, at £50 in 1980 prob equivalent to about 120 pints.

It seems OK for boutique manufacturers to copy other designs but with Behringer it is not. So I have a BD-I21, the concept is tha same as a Tech21 model but is it a copy? I don't think so . I have a Behringer mixer, it has innovations that others don't even though it is 18 years old. I have a Bugera Amp. Visual clues and voicing from other makes but IMHO far better built that the US amps they "copy". I also have a TCHelicon Mic Mechanic from the same group. Now my beef with Music Tribe (Behringer's parent) is the same one as with Mark Bass. No service information unless you are an authorised service centre. This menas that your local amp tech cannot get the information required to service the equipment. I must admit that EMS. the servcie centre for Behringer in the UK are reasonable in their charges but I like to repair my own equipment.

Motley crue are bad, but docken are another story. Makes no sense for them to be touring now. And I liked docken.

Diamond Bass Compressor Passive Bass w/ flats. Very nice. The Diamond is a bit temperamental with Power and/or other pedals. Apparently the new Jnr version sorts this.

My RM800 EVO2 Musik Productiv purchase arrived this afternoon: I managed about an hour through it when I got back from work early. I really love the sound. Compared to my MarkBass head through the Super Compact, the RM800 is considerably more punchy and bright, though it is warm too. I thought the punchiness might be due to my compressor's attack/release settings so I turned it off and the punchiness remains. The Super Compact and RM800 EVO2 seems to be a match made in heaven.

Darkglass Alpha Omicron and Hyper Luminal. But I’m guessing it could have been any Darkglass pedal. I’m not a massive fan of pedals, but anything I buy from now on has to match those two in terms of quality.

My banana yellow righton strap has arrived for my banana yellow mustang and I'm very chuffed with it. I had been using an old comfort strapp with the guitar for the few days since I got it but this Righton strap is just as comfy and the colour is pretty much spot-on.

20 months waiting so far. Apparently my pickups have now arrived and my bass is third in the queue…

Which can be a problem when checking out Reverb. Not a week goes buy without something like this popping up.