Kev

When I looked at it I just figured it was a launch day offer for ones he's already built, and custom orders wouldn't work that way?

Yeah in fairness, that's only 6 basses worth in many cases now. Not a huge investment if you're building enough, which one assumes you would be if you're considering CNC.

I can't believe they charge that much for CNC. Sickening.

At least they added the handbuilt feel with the neck bolt arrangement...

Bluetooth isn't usable in a live music environment, latency is too high sadly.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with using CNC, gear snobbery beyond any kind of sense. What if a luthier used a drill to screw parts in and instead of using a screwdriver? Time for a boycott? I think people do get this mixed up with mass produced production line, which of course use CNC but its not the CNC bit that cheapens or otherwise reduces quality of the final product.

The John Taylor model was a significant markup from a regular NG/Combustion, whereas the Status doesn't seem to be any markup at all. Must be somewhere in the region of £1,500 for a 2 pickup 4 string model. In the current market its not a bad pricing model for UK built basses, but I just don't recall the graphite models being much more?

0db should be unity so I'd check its set to that and compare levels cables and wireless. Guess it depends what preamp you're running it into but I've never experienced it causing anything to clip.

I can't unsee this unfortunately, even the finishes in these pictures don't look spectacular (though they aren't great pictures). It just looks all a little budget, yet not budget priced.

How so? Uninformed as I am, I would have assumed woodworking would be more a risk to health, inhaling sawdust etc.

Nice to see you on the forum Cici It's not all grumpy old men on here, we promise!

Only had the one wooden necked status and I wasn't a fan, though these painted neck jobbies seem a different kettle of fish. It's an odd move, and the prices seem to have stayed high (the wooden models were always the more budget ones?), but it's nice to see they're still being made. Hope it works out for them!

I did wince a little at it, and hope Mark green flagged it before posting

I only suggested that as it seemed he bought on the old website and a new site went live, so the first thing I would have thought is that its been lost somewhere in the middle and emails may have been affected, potential change of hosting etc, emails can absolutely be affected by that depending on how and where they're hosted. Absolutely shouldn't have to do it, and I cannot stand phone call interactions, but may have been a route to a quicker answer. Still having no reply by this time though, presume emails are working fine so that's pretty poor all round in the end.

Have you tried calling them? Given the website transition id probably think emails of all things may be a bit off.

I do think on occasion people can sometimes struggle to tell the difference between a slow server, a slow isp and a slow PC/Browser. Both the new Bass Direct and Bassbros website are as fast as they possible could be for me, so either the server they're on is very variable or (more likely) its browsers and pcs slowing things down. I oddly miss the old Bass Direct site. I liked how one-click it was to quickly look at different sections/manufacturers. And I think the search defaulting to show both in and out of stock items, with no way of knowing without clicking on the product, is not a good way of doing it.

So, in classic Basschat advice thread tradition, I went against the advice to not try and seek out a usb to midi interface cable 😂 I went with an ESI Midimate EX (so not a dodgy sub £10 chinese jobbie but still cheap at ~£22) and it works perfectly. Sysex going both ways, no glitchyness so far! So, a bit of a far cry from the highly optimistic OP, but I am now able to fully program the pedal both ways with the PC editor and with the Quad Cortex, with a tiny form factor (basically just a lead) interface connected to the QC (in) and the Meris I/O (out). All I need to do is switch the midi out/thru setting on the QC, depending on if its the editor or QC I want to send messages. Really happy with the whole outcome. Thanks for the help all!

The headache continues. So, I decided to just buy the Midi I/O, which I have done. QC can now send messages to the Ottobit, great stuff. However, when connecting the QC over USB and trying to use the desktop editor (changing the QC midi setting to thru), the Meris is not receiving nor sending any Midi. Id hope that a £1600 processor doesn't fall into this category, but could this be a factor? I have emailed Neural DSP for help. At the point of considering moving this pedal on as this is a whole lot of fuss for something that seems like it should be simple! I'm NOT prepared to invest any further, but if I did I guess the next thing would be to buy a USB midi interface to cut the QC out the chain. EDIT: Neural have confirmed it's the QC, it can't send messages from midi usb through DIN. Sigh. I'm not buying a USB Midi cable, have to draw a line somewhere! So, fiddly interface it is! Nothing is easy, eh?

At this stage I'd happily forget about receiving midi from the Meris and just let it receive midi from the Quad Cortex...

One of those would appear to do the trick and are somewhat cheaper than the midi i/o, if less available...

Thanks for the suggestions! Rob has asked that I send the cable back so he can have a look and do some digging. I don't have another midi usb adapater to use, but given the QC is responding to midi commands the issue I assume is going to lie with the QC not outputting midi through its midi out, or (more likely) there is an issue with the cable. To be honest, the pedal is almost unusable without Midi in some ways. The sequencer is very fiddly to set up just using the knobs on the pedal, and there is literally no way to use any of the preset functionality without midi. Its just so frustrating they didn't design it with the standard Din sockets. I don't have anything that can check that unfortunately. I know the QC is sending Midi messages internally (the QC is set to channel 1, and sending Midi messages to channel 1 causes to the QC to receive and act upon messages) but I don't have any other midi devices at the moment.

Yeah all global config settings are set right. I'm waiting for designacable to come back as they've literally sold the cable to me as a Meris Midi Cable, so I'll see what they say. But I've fiddled with the jack when sending midi to no effect.

...it didn't. Setting the Meris up to received Midi over TRS on a specific channel and connecting the cable to the Quad Cortex, setting the QC to send PC messages across the same channel, there is no sign the Meris is receiving anything. The QC can send and receive messages over USB midi with my PC with no issue but nothing I try gets it to communicate with the Meris. I'm assuming the cable is wrong, as otherwise it means there is something wrong with the Meris I guess? I've emailed Designacable to ask them how they've wired it, but you'd assume if they say they're familiar with Meris and realise its a different wiring they wouldn't get it wrong. Sigh.