Ian McFly

After a slight delay (thanks FedEx), it has finally arrived today. Coincidentally we’re resuming band practices (safely) tonight, yay! After a few hours of playing it, here are my thoughts: -great finish, no issues whatsoever. -plays great, good balance, not too heavy but not feather light either. -sounds alright through my small amp at home, real drive test will be during practice I haven’t played a 5er in like 8 years so it feels kinda weird, but I’m already getting used to it. The only « bad » thing about it is the tuners: they feel cheap when being turned. I might replace them with Hipshots at some point. Everything else is fine. I didn’t like the stock strings so I put a set of my favourite strings: Dunlop Super Bright nickels. Excited for tonight’s practice! PS: it looks less grey in real life, the Charcoal Frost finish has that blue-ish hue to it that looks fantastic in the flesh.

Hate that fretboard division. Meh.

🤫

Just received this photo from Adrian... I’m excited!

My Elwood shouldn’t be too long now. A couple more weeks to wait.

Who’s lucky enough to do a gig, let alone a 3 hour gig nowadays!!?

Tell me more! I just got one myself but I’m still figuring it out. Seems really good already.

That’s very bold. But to each their own. Looks quality though.

Darkglass stuff makes you old? Well, the Helix Stomp makes me old! I’m 35, I don’t have one, I’m tempted to though, but I’d rather stick to my analog pedals for now.

Phrase and timing are down to the player’s abilities. I never said a cab sim would improve that. Cab-sims improve the quality of the sound, not the flaws in one’s playing.

Yeah it could be aimed at non Darkglass users... or people who own an older Darkglass pedal like the OG B7K and don’t have the built-in cab sim.

The aim of a cab-sim is to make you sound good if you use any sort of distortion/fuzz/od on your bass. If you play clean, then no problem. But a distorted bass sound straight to PA with no cab-sim sounds fizzy af. And considering the fact that Darkglass is well-known for their distortions... then it makes sense for them to offer a stand-alone cab-sim.

This is for people who go amp(and cab)-less on stage. Obviously if you have a full stack, nothing beats mic-ing it up. Like, I have a full pedalboard but I don’t own a gigging amp. I play with what’s available at the gig, and if it’s rubbish, I go straight to the PA. Thankfully I’m covered with cabsim as my preamp has it built-in. But for those who want to do it like that but have a preamp without cabsim, then there you go.

Guys, it’s not just a headphones amp, but mainly a cab sim with customisable IR’s. You’ve got a lovely preamp with no cab sim? You use OD and distortion a lot and want to play straight into the PA without sounding like crap? Then this could be for you. Just stick it at the end of your pedalboard and use the built-in DI output.

Yet another update!

https://www.andertons.co.uk/sire-version-2-marcus-miller-v5-alder-4-string-in-natural They do. Get ready to be all over it.

Finally got an update from Adrian. My bass is in progress and should be done on time. They couldn’t get Aguilar pickups for month due to lockdown and stinky poo, but they now got them.

Got two Fender Players. A P and a J. Cost me 2/3rds of the price of one American Fender. They do the job perfectly.

Mate, you ordered a bass with a nitro finish. It’ll get matt, it’ll get cracks. It’s the nature of nitro. It’s fragile. Yes, you don’t want that on a brand new bass. But it could (and will) happen to the bass if you gig it loads.

I appreciate he’s a busy man, yet I don’t think it would take that long to reply to my questions. Again, he was super quick to reply before I placed my order. Why has that changed after I’ve ordered?