fretmeister

1 hour ago, Geek99 said:

Be careful with paulownia - I found that it it drinks paint and is very soft as stated above 

I have 2 paulownia basses already. I don't mind dinks.

I now fancy a ray / sterling type without the weight!

Can any of you fine people suggest where I might be able to get a paulownia body?

In an ideal world it would be EBMM Sterling shaped, but a J shape without pickup routs would do if I can't find a Sterling one.

ta

28 minutes ago, kodiakblair said:

Not if my idea comes to pass.

 

Told the lad in the local takeaway to send a letter home suggesting they convert their held treasuries, 760bn USD, into brick and mortar then build a wall around Trumpland.

The orange BAM may talk but let's face it China perfected wall building centuries ago.

Are you just a simple tailor by any chance? [/DS9]

This was my attempt at seeing if I could get on with a 7 string. Alas despite giving it a try over a couple of years my brain just cannot cope and I often seem to be playing one string wrong!


A previous owner swapped the pickups for the rather excellent Seymour Duncan Mick Thompson active set. One of the mounting feet on the neck pickup was apparently damaged at that time so that's been repaired in a very janky sort of way. They function just fine - absolutely massive output levels with great clarity. The bridge pickup is the complete opposite of subtle! It seems that the pickups had an RRP of nearly £400!!!

I am unconvinced that the tone control is actually connected as it doesn't seem to do anything. 

At some point in the past the tuning heads have been swapped to gold ones too.

I've set it up so it plays very nicely in BEADGBE tuning. 

There are quite a few scratches and bits of paint knocked off but it's quite difficult to photograph, but this is reflected in the bargain price.

£250 ono collected from Northants as I do not have a box.

10 minutes ago, Steve Browning said:

Pedant alert. VAT is the final charge and goes on the cost after Duty is charged. 

I didn't think the duty attracted Vat?

Ah well - makes the comparison with Andertons even worse then.

53 minutes ago, Misdee said:

The golden age  of buying from the USA was in the late 1980s when you got about 1.8 dollars your pound and shops in the States were packed with great gear.

 

Nowadays the world is a smaller place, and international shopping is far more common. .

 

Give the potential pitfalls, it makes no sense to save a couple of bob buying equipment from the USA unless it's stuff that is otherwise unavailable in the UK. There's more to consider than the sticker price on the goods, and so much hassle it would have to be something special to peak my interest.

That's my view too.

I've had a few bargains buying from Japan - but always for used items that were impossible to find in the UK or just over-priced.

15 minutes ago, neepheid said:

Pfft, the golden age was when it was £1 == $2.  I visited the US then (2009?) and chuckled heartily about getting on a bus for 50p ($1).

It was about that in 1990/1 as well.

I came back with a new wardrobe of jeans and trainers.

11 hours ago, NancyJohnson said:

Given the current slide of the $, down over 9% since the end of January, are we approaching a golden age of buying from the US?

 

Obviously you're going to need to factor in shipping/duties, but by way of example if you're in the US A Fender Player II Jazz bass.  Guitar Center $800, Andertons £750; at current exchange prices the Guitar Center version at £600.

 

 

So $800 is (at the exact moment) £597.82.

Shipping from the USA would be in the region of $100, so that's another £74.73. But might be as much as $200 (£149.49)

Using the lower sum that's £672.55 that is subject to vat at 20% being £134.51 = £807.06.

Then there's 3.5% duty on the guitar bit as well - another £20.92

Running total is £827.98 + about £13 for the courier admin fee. So £840.98 delivered to a UK buyer assuming the lower end shipping fee.

So there could be a saving of about £77.45 compared to Andertons if it sneaks though without getting pinged by customs, and about £100 more than Andertons if it gets caught. I've had small stuff get through, but never anything as big as an instrument.

I'm not sure whether Fender UK would deal with any warranty problems for a personal import or not. I'm guessing not.

I never measure when I do a set up. Every bass needs something different so I always do it by feel alone.

2 minutes ago, BabyBlueSound said:

Good stuff, really love your shortie, was not familiar with this little Jim Deacon prec!

I bought it on here from @hooky_lowdown about 3 years ago as I just wanted to try a shortie. I swapped the pickup to an Aguilar with a loom made by our own @KiOgon as the stock controls were really just on/off. It neck dived a bit so I swapped the tuners for Hipshot Ultralights.

It’s a cheap bass but the basic quality and build is more than good enough to warrant spending on those swaps. I love it!

I liked it so much I found another one for roundwounds.

I thought the bridge string spacing would be a bit tight but I’ve discovered I much prefer it for everything other than slap, and I don’t do a lot of that.

Bit of Stevie Wonder, the arrangement from the film “Sing”

Moises app to remove the original bass.

Tone by Line 6 HX Stomp

That’s where I saw them too!

I was fortunate enough to see them live. Fantastic performance by all.

Ed Friedland famously has La Bella’s that are over 20 years old.

18 minutes ago, LukeFRC said:

Retro reel into valve preamp with high end rolled off? 

yes, although maybe the noble. 

Mark Bass Vintage preamp has an excellent versatile tone right out of the box. Flat on the EQ and with the “old” option engaged and it sounds thick but defined, useful if many genres.

I’m spending my afternoon trying to program my HX Stomp to match it!

That does look very cool!

11 minutes ago, neepheid said:

 

You hold the iron by the handle - that's the fatter part of it, not the thin, pointy, extremely hot part...

They annoying bit is that my eldest is at uni doing aerospace engineering and as part of the Avionics bit she's spending a lot of time in their skills lab assembling / soldering circuits using traditional components to test things before using Surface Mount stuff.

Over the last few years I have sent her 3 pedal kits that I reckon she could bang out in about 10 mins each and she hasn't done any of them!

But when she asks for money apparently I'm supposed to respond within 30 seconds! Bloody kids!  

27 minutes ago, BabyBlueSound said:

Send it back! I can make you a ZVEX Mastotron clone for parts prices. That MUST be a smaller breach! 😁

If I knew how to solder without burning myself I'd be having a Basstortion clone already!

In a sensible enclosure of course.

Tier 2 breach incoming.

I have some recording to do on guitar and it needs fuzz. My collection of fuzz pedals is very small and is mostly cheap clones / inspired by stuff and I can't get them sounding how I need.

So - Walrus Audio Eons 5 State Fuzz should be here on Saturday.

I could pretend that I'd never use it on bass but I think we all know I'd at least give it a try, so it looks like I'm out.

I lasted longer than I thought!  

1 hour ago, LeftyJ said:

 

Not so sure about that. She worked as a cardiology research nurse for the last 21 months, so it may also be related to her work interest. I see on her LinkedIn she was forced to give up her job as an ICU nurse because of a lower back injury. I figured there might be more on her X-account, but I can't read it as I don't have one. For those who do, it's https://x.com/samiam_uk

No recent posts on Twitter. Last one appears to be in March 2024.

ah damnit.

RIP Sam.

If you can write tab then you can use an app that will then generate the notes on the stave for you.

It will then also flag if anything written is incorrect for the key and time signature.

It's not difficult anymore.

And there are now at least a dozen AI based transcribing apps - they actually transcribe from the audio.

I suppose it was just the natural evolution of spoken language computer dictation.

Yeah - I've got an old Digitech iStomp.

It's currently set to nice boost pedal and I have no plans to change it - but I have no idea if the iOS app still works for it.

17 minutes ago, BabyBlueSound said:

 

I think the real point is, will it work in 2035+ ? Or for example, will some cannibalistic private equity buy up Neural DSP, "cut the trim" by stripping the company of most assets, then toss it to the dump? A very likely scenario in today's tech scene, and if you're a C-level director at one of these companies, you're usually likely to take the golden parachute and retire VS protecting your company and brand.

Korg already bought Darkglass so I think it would be them if that happened.

But let's say you are right... why wouldn't the physical unit still work? It wouldn't get any more updates but it will probably still work just as it does now. It's not dependant on other things like Windows updates to continue to work exactly as it does now.

My Macbook Air from 2013 still works too. It won't run the latest OS but it still runs the version of Excel I've got on it which is what I got it for in the first place. Battery life is still a lot better than a lot of current Windows laptops too.

I got my POD XT when it was introduced in 2002/3 and still works. That's 22 years.