Leaderboard

I've just found out I've got the gig

And a Badass II by the look of it. Edit: Oh heavens. Triple post!! Must’ve gone through the Edge’s pedalboard!

Done for a bit I reckon 😅 Si

A quick shout out to the guys at Alpher Instruments for their superb craftsmanship, willingness to explore new ideas and their first class service. Al and Chris delivered my new Hammerhead bass last Friday and what a monumental day it was. Tone wise this bass is absolutely mind boggling, the build quality is pretty special too. I have always been quite traditional in my taste especially when it comes to body shapes but I must say the more radical nature of the Hammerhead shape is definitely growing on me, have I mentioned the tones on tap? Blooming awesome!!!

Whats really extraordinary here is if I was to ask a question or make a statement about 'practise'.. it'd be lucky if it ran to a couple of pages yet this subject of 5 v 4 strings appears to occupy so much thinking? My moneys on practise..,Practise enough and you can sound great playing anything and forget about how many strings you have.

Great gig, engaged crowd and the place was packed. No deps really helped. Above average compensation. Unfortunately not many decent pics. Daryl

The pickups on mine are fine but the EQ was swapped out for a J Retro. Sounds lovely on the fretless - the pups are pretty good.

At least you didn't waste it!

Damn! I knew I got something wrong: I spent mine on cookers and hoke. 🫢

Looks like a Welby to me (a de-frocked Reverend)😂

Stability is a big one for me. I also like the fact that it's fixed, so I don't need to waste time when I do a gig or play at home. It's just done. Slippage is also an issue as the screw in metal end pins doesn't always catch that well. Soundwise, I have noticed an improvement. Finally, it makes you play about 130% faster, better and with precise intonation.* * This may be a lie.

My economy pedalboard painted in Trace Elliot colours (nearly) to match my rig. After lots of shopping around it's probably cost me around £250-£275 all in. Best pedal of the lot? Boss NS-2 Noise Suppressor. Cures all ills. Close second comes the Sonicake Levitate Reverb/Delay. Magic for about £20.

Well mines just arrived. SN dates it to 2020 but surprisingly the fretwork is great. Action was really high but it’s adjusted down fine. I’ll report back when ive had more time with it but seems good so far!

We've had all these arguments before - it's time to shuffle them around for new and exciting match-ups: Pick vs. 5-string Tort vs. rounds "Play it like the record" vs. active etc.

I've owned Ashly BP-41 and Alembic F2B ones, both of which were very cool within their lanes but not quite my long term cuppa. As usual, I'd rather just roll my own: That one is sitting over a commercial 1000 watt plate amp with DSP processing in the pic, but the power amp is now gone along with a more Fender/Alembic style rack job I did: And then I've done a few tube ones: ...which uses 6SL7 and 6SN7 tubes. The second version was two rack spaces rather than three, like so: And then my favorite is in a half rack width format, meant to fit side by side with either a tube one or a DIY 700 watt amp: And then the very similar preamp in this integrated 500 watt amp build can be run completely independently of the power amp section: I still own the first one and the last two, a luthier friend now has #2 and #3 and has taken both to his NAMM booth, and #4 belongs to a well known pro who primarily uses it in his home studio.

You don't offer creatively modified instruments for sale on eBay by any chance, do you?

Ashdown is selling the "Pink Roasted Saint Soap" for £239 as a black Friday special. It sounds less like a bass and more like a four word password like correct horse battery staple.

Mine arrived yesterday. The serial number dates it to 2021, which is after the most glaring QC issues of the first batch had been resolved. It's nice, sounds good, but there are still some QC issues. Nothing too big, and at €299 I'm a little more willing to look away from them than I would have been at the original price - it would surely have gone straight back to Thomann. Still, I'm not sure yet if it's a keeper: The A-string is clearly louder than the other 4 when using the splitcoil - assumably because both halves of the splitcoil pick it up; The preamp is fairly quiet, so that issue has been resolved on mine - until you turn up the treble boost to halfway or more. Then the noise soon becomes unbearable. Active mode is also considerably louder than passive, even with both EQ knobs set to 0; The side dot at the 7th position is missing. Not just missing from the hole: there IS no hole. Nobody bothered to drill one and they just went with it; The adjustable Just-a-nut is a nice feature, but the nut slot wasn't routed deep enough and it doesn't adjust low enough to my liking for a fretless. Would have been fine if this had had frets, but not here, so I'd need to cut the nut slots; I had to adjust the saddles WAY down to make it playable. The G-string saddle is almost maxed down; The height adjustment screws in the saddles all have varying lengths, in random order. After adjusting the action some of them now stick out ridiculously far; String alignment over the pickups could have been slightly better - but it doesn't seem to affect the tone or playability as there's still plenty of fingerboard width left on either side. There's some good stuff too though: it sounds really good, the hardware is great, it plays well (even despite the nut height not being to my liking), the included gigbag is pretty impressive even if it's not exactly identical to the original Sadowsky Portabag, and the ebony fingerboard - if a little pale - appears to be sealed really well and smoothly, almost to a polish. Looks and feels really nice. For €800 this would have gone straight back, but for €299... I haven't really made my mind up yet. I'll need to play it a little more Again, note that this is a 2021 model. The early batches of the MetroExpress series were known to exhibit several QC issues, many of which have since been attended to. The one that Thomann shipped to me was obviously marked down for a reason: they need to get rid of their old stock, because these old basses are making the new and more expensive models look bad.

Personally, I spent about 1/2 an hour playing a five string, plus about the same again being harangued by the chap at Bass Direct saying that I had to buy a five string if I wanted to be a proper bass player. I decided I was happy with four and that I probably wasn't willing to practice for the thousands of hours it would take to master it to what was possible on that, never mind learning the extra stuff a fiver would entail. That way I saved myself £Loads which I spent a bit on doing the Gary Willis bass course, and the rest on hookers'n'coke.

Thank you everyone! Together we raised £8,560 which, with the non JG donation of £35, amounts to a grand total of £8,595. Most of the funds are already with Andy and the balance will be with him in the next few days. Here's to Iris 🥰

Well if you took any notice of some opinions towards Mr Clayton on here, anything with one string will cover it.

Humming Megadeth riffs v Shouting at clouds..?

I'll not have a bad word said against tort, burst and rosewood.

Flats v. Rounds? Frets v. Fretless? Active v. Passive? P v. J? Bongo v. Toilet Seat?

If I may expand on this, ALL drummers not only stick their cases where you want to be but also spread their entire kit and bits everywhere while setting up and taking down.

Amazon have Behringer P2s on sale at £27 at the moment should anyone fancy any...

Are you serious? That jacket looks bloody awful. Oh , you mean the bass... 😁

Hi Chris, I don't know about the legal ramifications of this and it's potential long-term impact on the music business, but the very fact that there's such a thing as 'diss tracks' in this world makes me despair at the state we're in. Compare and contrast The Beatles and Brian Wilson spurring each other on to make even greater music back in the 60s, to this pair of overrated, under-talented (if there is such a word) ego-fuelled twats! Instead of arguing about how big their reproductive organs are, they should be working together to take on monolithic record companies and Spotify to get fairer deals for all music creators. This sums up just about everything that's wrong with today's music industry and some of the artists that exist in it....

Currently on Sky Arts - Daryl Hall & John Oates live in Dublin 2014, love these guys, cracking song catalogue and superb backing band. 👍

Small, quick and easy to set up, loads of usable FX. Bluetooths to your phone, so you can play along to YouTube, Spotify etc. I do all of my practicing through one of these.

well... look whats popped up on ebay !!!! pritty tidy as well be quick yall prob wont see one on there for another 15 years hand made in the uk, great price 🙂 lets see who bags it ? https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/205122316053?_skw=nomad+bassman&itmmeta=01JDQTAA7DZAP5WBKE2BH62D4P&hash=item2fc23e2715:g:bYsAAOSwIjJnQRv3&itmprp=enc%3AAQAJAAAA8HoV3kP08IDx%2BKZ9MfhVJKnTrMv4C1Hz6WP1Kx6w3Bmq5WqKserP5%2F28KAyAQMrhVJvpseAapdLPfGbNxOYxBL4uZPIWT5IpxY%2FF9JNacdR9%2FkwpM4%2BV3eUvfF%2BL1nlTADWRKxs3iwHFSSBVwyqCWuY2CteEK5QXE%2FEIIXUrf55aktZER0OGxAnkXrkecdqTDQvZvOmfRuqjWCbOInf3qXRfjnGbS2yeoahNkLlpewGJAD8NM3qbb66o0oDouA%2BdiJ7Dcf6tFi0cGKKdDmILmX2Sspih4FnNdRIHnFyII3COz5Xkh2HlVlzP1c%2F70Ju5XQ%3D%3D|tkp%3ABk9SR-ajqfrtZA

Who?

Rhymes with ganja. This may or may not be a coincidence.

Scale length, weight, string spacing, design, aesthetics. And the fact that you’ll look like an 80s sideman. I’ve tried playing them and it’s just not needed (for me). 5-string basses are like Land Rovers in that 90% if users will never need the extra capabilities.