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I found this beauty on eBay a while back, being sold by a fella in Japan. It’s a 2022 masterbuilt, but it had just been sat doing nothing and never bought or owned by anyone. I wasn’t in the market for a new bass (I am picking up a new Shuker any day now), but the opportunity to get this at about 40% of the list price (yes, Warwick list prices are silly) couldn’t be ignored. I have owned other Warwick basses and other high end basses, but this is something else. My iphone pictures won’t do it justice. It feels stunning, the neck is silky and plays like butter and it’s so beautiful to look at. Hope you all like it!

… what can i say, i’m in love..

Accidentally bought this over the weekend, it arrived today. Very impressive little thing.

Accidentally bought this on eBay over the weekend. Very impressed with it, though the 18-fret fingerboard may take some getting used to! Pickups very punchy, nice variation with the tone, not as heavy as some reviews had suggested. Happy days!

In truth my fave gig for many years, not the most competent or accomplished but extremely satisfying. First outing for BandKamp, a bunch of friends getting together to rehearse an iconic album for 2-3 months, and then gig it live once and once only before moving on to the next iconic album. First was yesterday when we did Dylan's Blonde on Blonde (tying it in with the Chalomet movie) at The Ballroom in Canterbury, which is a lovely venue. We were expecting an audience of about 10 but to our amazement had around 120. We played the set our way and had a ball doing so, and had people dancing; to Dylan! A few folks said the same thing afterwards; I don't really like Dylan but really like your set. Job done 👍 Hard to let the album go as over 3-months we've come to love it, but as we've all agreed, we're not in a relationship with it, we've simply had a brief flirtation. Time to move on

There's something almost pathetic about those who think they are gatekeepers of being a 'real bass player' according to what brand, value or style of bass you play.

Fun evening ahead. (The Puppy is a loaner.)

My trio of Squier P basses The sunburst PJ is a VM The white PJ started life as a Affinity but I acquired a CV 70’s neck from Spacecowboy from this very parish, Hi-mass bridge, custom loom & a set of Toneriders. The orange is a real bitsa, with the original affinity neck from the white one, a ratty body from Orangepeelneil & the rest mostly raided from my spares bin..The Neo Entwistle pickup gives it a great punky JJ rasp

I think you're confusing 'professional' and 'elite'. Most professional players play off the shelf basses, and I'm sure plenty of them own and play Squiers. My DPD delivery guy doesn't get to drive Max Verstappen's F1 car, but they're both professional drivers.

The 40th Anniversary Precision I have plays better than most Fender's I've tried. When I bought it, my intention was to buy a CS but this blew them out the water. Great basses.

"Almost"? It's 100% sad.

Didn’t they use nitro on the headstocks and that’s why they discoloured more than the poly body from 68 ish

What a great question and the answer is actually quite subtle and probably something we all ought to know if we are playing amplified music. Now the first thing is how do we measure loudness? Most people would say 'in decibels' but that's not quite right. The actual measurement of loudness is the phon. More of that later. The decibel is actually a slightly difficult concept and is used to describe slightly different things, it can be used to describe the electrical gain in an amplifier or preamplifier or the sound energy level at a particular point, they are of course closely related but not the same thing. For that reason the decibel (more accurately the Bel isn't accepted as a SI unit though it is regulated and recognised by ISO and IEC). It was initially invented by Bell for measuring the loss along a mile of standard telegraph cable with one decibel being the smallest loss that anyone would notice and 1dB remains the smallest change in volume that anyone will notice. The other way the decibel reflects our hearing is that it is a logarythmic scale. for us to hear a doubling of volume it takes 10x more power. It's a brilliant piece of organic/evolutionary engineering which lets us hear a leaf blowing across a forest floor several meters away but still cope with a herd of elephants charging or even a volcano or landslide. It's not so good when you are buying an amplifier, a 10W amp will give you 10dB over a 1W amp but that will only double the sound level. If you want it four times louder then you need to increase the amp to 100W to get your extra 10dB and then doubling again to eight times louder will need 1000W. Sorry to tell you but moving out your 500W bass amp for an 800W monster gives you just over 1dB extra headroom, only just noticeable and not really worth the expense. Now this is all about gain so far and in telegraph cables you get 1dB loss for each mile mile of cable and in amps doubling the power gives you an extra 3dB of sound. Go back and have a look at BFM's excellent explanation of what happens with 2x10's and 4x10's and you can see what a good deal an extra 6db is compared with the 1dB gained by buying an 800W amp So this is where we move from sound levels to actual loudness, how it sounds to us and the reason why some amps sound louder than others, the mystery or Trace watts if you like. Sound is frequency dependent humans can't hear bass very well, we feel bass when it's loud, our ears aren't much better at picking up bass than the stretch receptors in our guts and on our skin, Similarly we don't hear bats very well or anything much above a few thousand Hz, our hearing is much more sensitive at around 1,000Hz quite high in the midrange and the quietest sounds we can only detect here, the rustle of that leaf blown through the forest. When we remove the measuring microphone and pressure measurements we start again with a new decibel scale. One decibel is now defined differently as the quietest sound we can hear at 1,000Hz, something twice as loud (still at 1,000hz) is 10dB and your bass speaker producing 90db is 1,000,000,000 times louder than that at 1khz with just one watt or less! but at bottom E our hearing has lost most of that energy, deliberately filtered out by the working of the ear and then by the brain. You've lost 30dB or three of those noughts or in terms of hearing the 1.000Hz noise if 8x louder than the fundamental of bottom E. This is where the Phon comes in, it compares all the sound with the 1kHz sounds and allows for all the trickery of the ear/brain interface. Very few people use Phon's, we use decibels because we can measure them and anyone using them knows about Phons and equal loudnessbut there's one big practical thing about knowing all this for musicians. I terms of perception any aplification systen that emphasises the midrange is going to sound louder and for a long time speakers in particular have tended to have huge peaks in the midrange a 6db boost isn't unusual and this can make a cheap 100W amp sound as loud as a really honest high quality 400W amp. Actually the whole of rock'n'roll was founded on that sound so I shouldnt use words like honest, people love this artificial boost and it sounds good to them. The thing for you when buying an amp is to realise that Trace, Orange and many others are made to sound loud for a reason and if your tone rolls off those frequencies you might not be using all that boost. If you've read all this I apologise, I'm such a nerd As a final treat these are the equal loudness curves ISO version

A mock up of my board before it gets all wired up. I still might swap out the Darkglass compressor for the new Cali 76 though.

It has arrived!

I gigged my Ashdown 200 Drophead for the first time on Saturday and could not have been happier. Tone was fatter and smoother than I'd get for the same volume with SVT but could still bit like an angry Jack Russell when needed. And I have to say, of all the big tube heads, I thing Ashdown take the prize for best aesthetics also, especially mine....

Just wanted to post a final update and say that I purchased the TC Electronic BH250 and BC208 from a local seller for £280 all in and I'm more than very happy with it. Big thanks to all for your input even though i came across as picky and indecisive 😆👍

tonight’s practice rig

Beings I started this thread a few years ago, here’s my current set up! The Sampeg SVT CL into a Fender Neo 8x10. Overkill in every sense of the word. Tone and volume for days, though I usually keep it sensible. Usually… Sounds incredible. @Bassworks JPJ4 featuring in front - a wonderful bass, outstanding craftsmanship. Hot take, but an 8x10 is far, far easier to move around than a 4x10, even up stairs. Happy to arm wrestle anyone who thinks otherwise.

Fingers crossed for Thursday... odd early evening gig but we've pushed the fact our frontman/guitarist was supporting Cardinal Black for a huge sellout gig on Saturday.

I would love to persuade some guys to do either Supper's Ready, or the whole of Chronicle of the Black Sword.

Finally got my latest video uploading - I bring to you the new Mark 2 version of the Lusithand Double NFP Special. Spoiler, I like it a lot. Edit: Hmm, some of the audio is clipping. I am going to re-upload it. Edit 2: Fixed the audio. New version coming now; new link below.

I worry that matter might meet anti-matter if you two meet 🙂

I can pop it on the bathroom scales. Not sure how accurate they are though, they keep telling me I’m getting heavier.

We only play about 5 times a year (at the same venue). We charge £420, as we hire in the PA each time, but tend to always pretty much pack the place, so everyone's happy.......

Yeah! 2024 ended exceptionally well with no less than two Brooks bass guitars in the Top10 of No Treble. And 2025 continues that with yet another Brooks bass featured as Bass of the Week! https://www.notreble.com/buzz/2025/01/20/bass-of-the-week-the-upgraded-brooks-1-2-short-scale-inspired-by-a-classic/

I'm always keeping half an eye out on what Squier are doing. Apart from anything else for the last few years the finishes available on Squier's skinny stringers have been a lot more appealing to me than the rather bland offerings in the Fender Player range. Also, every now and then Squier does something really cool like the baritone Jazzmasters a few years back or the FSR run of purple Bass VI's they did for Andertons a couple of years ago. That purple VI has become one of my main squeezes and at the time I bought it there was no equivalent Fender model in any range outside the custom shop. I'd take a punt on a Squier tomorrow if saw something that ticked the right boxes.

Yes 😈

Why would anyone buy strings from eBay? As far as I am concerned eBay is for buying second hand items only, and I wouldn't want to buy used strings.

We get a bit more than that but there are fewer venues these days. Although I don't think we have ever done less than 2 hours, unless it was a slot at a multiband venue.

Stub, what was interesting, the couple I sat down with knew me, but I had no clue who they were. They had seen me at our New Years Eve 2023 gig at The Precinct. They had met my girlfriend and was asking about her and made comments about how nice she was. This was the night my girlfriend had too much to drink and flashed our bandleaders father. Yes, I'm "internationally renowned." Lol Daryl

Saturday night was our second gig of this year at Hogarths in Bolton. A decent sized venue and usually quite busy. It was fairly packed while we were playing and our two spots went down really well. They even went a bit mad when we played one of our own songs off our album. Back in September.

I was home by 6 00. It was -3°. Sunday afternoon bar gig. Dep drummer, a good amount of dancing and lots of mistakes and sketchy endings. Good pay and good tips. My gear was functioning properly. I sat down at a table and spoke to some nice folks. I pretended I was famous.Sad 😔 Daryl

God I wish I got to play music like that. Instead I’m in year thirty of playing Brown Eyed ****ing Girl. Wrongly. I play it correctly, but you know geetards.

Thanks chaps! I was always super sceptical about Warwick masterbuilt just because of the ridiculous prices. I think the list on this is somewhere north of €8000, which I wouldn’t pay in a million years. I can most definitely vouch for the quality though, this thing feels incredible, it has that beautiful resonance when it’s not plugged in and it’s a real looker. Will definitely post the Shuker when it arrives. I’m off to visit my mum in Edale soon, that will be my time to pick up from Jon.

Ohhhh Stubbs, I just love it when you're masterful... *swoon*

In that case we are both on the album 'Live Chronicles' 😎

...and a very well deserved winner of No Treble's Bass of the Week! Beautiful bass, splendid build

eBay don't care about fakes anymore; I received the following response when I reported some counterfeit items: I had a back-and-forth conversation with them last week to try and pursue the matter, but they just shrugged their shoulders and the items are still up for sale. Ironically, they are just about to bring in their buyer assurance charges at the start of Feb; there seems to be a bit of a disconnect there. I've decided to step away from eBay, as I just don't trust their artificial integrity. The problem with an automated learning system is if you don't correct its mistakes then it will tend to reinforce its erroneous behaviour.

Alex is a fantastic guitarist with a bright future ahead of him. Tasteful! Thanks for coming! It was a great gig. Thoroughly enjoyed.

This Thursday and Basschaters from Caerdydd welcome!

Ah, the FDP. Them were the days!

Heh, had a bunch of D'addario strings to register and turns out I had nearly 5000 points. Wanted a couple of straps (I like each bass to have a strap, I CBA swapping straps around). So I used my points to get em for "free". All within the rules and above board (being both an allowed accessory and use of music vendor loyalty points), but a nice little frisson of officially sanctioned "stuff coming through the letterbox" activity nonetheless.

Thanks Dave, it's a funny thing, I initially chose Blonde On Blonde because because we had to start somewhere, we wanted to do something that was classic but a little off the beaten track. Despite early reservations, including my own, we came to love it. It's a funny thing, when you have to play the whole album, in recorded order, the potential for disagreement is significantly reduced. And we were a bit worried, the final song is Sad Eyed Lady of the Lowlands is very slow and in textbook terms is the worst song you could ever finish a set with (no encores if you're playing the album and only the album) but the vibe in the room was awesome as one by one, bass, then drums, them Hammond, dropped out leaving that beautiful guitar part soloed and then..... silence. Couldn't have ended better. Next album is, to say the least, a contrast Re video, we chose not to record, the whole thing for us is that it's a moment, we'll never do it again, so we don't want or need to analyse. We've done it, we move on. Lovely to see that around 50% of the room were recording so if we get anything nice - and in which the bass part is even vaguely competent - I'll post here. Thanks for your comments mate 👍

Challenge accepted: How many pieces of pizza can you fit in a trombone?

First gig of the year this afternoon and it was a dep for some old band mates. 4pm-7pm Sunday afternoon type easy going blues/jazz event at Baker Street in Stirling. Band going by the name Blues Delux this time. The name seems to change every gig at the moment for these guys as does the lineup. Drums/bass/guitar/saxophone/vocals and harp. Very enjoyable three hour gig and for the most part a bluesy jazzy jam with good friends. Only downside was not having a huge amount of room to set up. The new LFSYS cab was a godsend size wise and there wasn't really any room for anything bigger. New Mighty Mat carpet square is my latest gigging accessory and its job is to keep cabs and stuff off dirty pub floors. Works perfectly! Over-did the amp side of things but well I just had to hear for myself if Trace Elliot watts are different from all other watts😉 Good feedback from quite a few punters asking the name of the band, and surprisingly good feedback about the bass sound from several band mates. The cab was phenomenally good and it takes some getting used to hearing everything so clearly. It's easy to assume the amp is up far too loud, but it wasn't. Saw some folks taking video footage but nothing available yet. Home by 8pm, got paid, and relaxing with a nice Bowmore malt to see out Sunday evening. Lovely.

Penthouse?

New website is now live. Launch of the Standard Series in conjunction with the revamped website. Please swing by and check it all out. https://acguitars.co.uk