neepheid

Hmm, best has probably been my Lekato WS-70 wireless bugs. Should have gone wireless years ago! Honourable mention to the Hotone Harmony pitch shifter/harmonizer pedal I bought - it is tiny, cheap and does a surprisingly good job of handling singer's requests to put songs up/down 1-3 semitones as well as giving me a blendable octave up/down and a detune effect. Worst - probably the Digitech Bass Synth Wah I bought - I snagged it for a keen price from a second hand shop down south but it was broken

The saga rumbles on. Now it's the turn of DHL to be the sticking point. I have been to two DHL "service"points and had my parcel refused because it's too big. The trouble with this is that your typical DHL "service"point seems to be situated in a tiny convenience store with hardly enough room to swing a cat, never mind store a bass in a box. Also, I have zero confidence that the parcel will be safe as they just seem to leave them lying around the shop. In the second one I went to, the lady I spoke to at the second one told me they're a shower of lazy b'stards (not her words) and only show up intermittently. She pointed at a smaller parcel (about the size of a small microwave oven) she took in (ironically also a Thomann box, but I couldn't say if it was bound for Thomann or reused for something else) which was just sitting on the floor in the aisle and it had been there for 3 days I'm not going traipsing around the city trying all six because it's going to be the same story. I've fed this back to Thomann and asked them what I'm supposed to do now.

My drummer has two estate cars.

Hardly, it's a shallow route plus a swimming pool in the body (CNC machine can take care of that) and one extra piece of plastic that the pickup is attached to which slides underneath the pickguard. That's it. (pic lifted from flyguitars.com)

Mind you, I'm not sure about the logic of using 250k pots with a humbucker. I think I'll just get the pickup on its own and do my own thing with 500k pots and their excellent wiring diagram. I'm not paying them €21 for two pots and a cap - where do you think I'm from? How was copper wire invented? Two Aberdonians fighting over a penny!

Aye, they had actually started to leave, but it took them the length of your set to make it to the door...

Would watch, but not allowed to

Oh, not you too! Why not just enjoy the best T-bird Gibson never made for what it is? I am 100% with you about the Grabber pickguard though - whoever passed that as OK needs an eye test, or had it described to them down the phone!

Just thought I'd dredge this up to say that I'm giving some serious consideration to getting one of these pickups in my Jack Casady. It's not well, feeding back at the slightest provocation and I'm out of warranty so Epiphone/Gibson have kicked me into the long grass to fend for myself. I like the idea of using the rotary as a series/single/parallel switch - gives the switch something to do because I'd rather that than have it there as a DFA switch, or remove it and have a rubber grommet or something in there.

Have you wandered in here unattended again? Where is your carer?

Now now, dinna be flippant, we are actually trying to help here...

I asked someone to read over my email before I sent it and the verdict was (and I quote) - "sassy, but not unfair"

Why is this even relevant in this thread anyway? I'm in Aberdeen, and have been sent a bass which has got bashed in the post. How is visiting a guitar shop in Wales, in person, gonna help me right now? I've already got the replacement, it's utterly moot. I just ignored it when Stub mentioned it - honestly I thought he had wandered into the wrong thread by mistake But now that it's been referenced again I would just like to say I don't want to get into a discussion about the merits (and downsides - something usually forgotten about by cheerleaders of the "buy in person" brigade) of going to guitar shops in person vs. buying at distance. It's not relevant to this thread or this situation. Thank you for reading, and I hope I don't come off rude here but it's my thread about a specific issue/saga that I'm having and I'd rather it wasn't derailed by this irrelevance.

Aw damn, my bluff's been called! 'Spose I had better turn up then...

Has anyone asked what kind of strap is being used? You know, before the rush to mod this, and mod that...

No worries! And I agree - I highly doubt they'll pay much attention to it, but I just wanted to make the point to them.

They've already sent me a label for that. I'm not being charged for return postage - I'm talking about my time, fuel and packing materials that it will take to make this return happen. Basically, I'm being an officious d!ck, but it's to make a point.

You know something, this has effed me off to the point where I've dashed off another email to tell them I will be invoicing them for my time, mileage and cost of packing materials. Their packing advice - https://www.thomann.co.uk/faq_question_how_do_i_pack_my_return_consignment.html - has the nerve to lecture me about using bubble wrap etc, yet they employed not one shred of the stuff when they sent it to me! Coupled with the line in their returns email "we will not accept liability for damages due to insufficient packaging" - excuse me? You expect me to place it back in the hands of the very folk who damaged it in the first place, but I'm screwed if something goes wrong? RIght then. It's hypocritical BS, and it's left a sour taste in my mouth. I'm sure they won't pay the invoice (I worked it out, it'll be around £30 all told), but it's symbolic and I'm making the point that they are leaning on the goodwill of their customers when stuff goes wrong. I think it's kinda their fault in the first place - if they had packaged the bass to the same standards as they're expecting me to, it would have probably arrived safely. None of this would have happened and we could have had a lovely, ordinary NBD thread.

FYI I have blocked off the weekend of 11th/12th October 2025 in the band calendars in anticpation of next year's bash being hopefully around the same time next year. Gutted I missed it this year, so am doing all I can to ensure I will be available.

Save the (approximate) date for next year!

FFS, I just bought a set last week.

Show's over. They've offered me £25 off to keep it and apparently that's a maximum. That is unacceptable to me and I can't be arsed arguing with them any more, so I'll just be returning it. Enjoy your paperwork, guys.

Don't worry, we're extracting the michael out of them, not you.

You feckin savage!

Aye, rub it in why don't you?