tauzero

I use acetone for some things but I wouldn't use it on anything plasticy as it's an extremely good solvent (splashed a bit on a PC keyboard when I was removing sticky from some headless bridge tuners, I think it's still usable).

The cheap piezo bridges off Ebay were crap. I have a couple knocking around somewhere, I tried them and the sound was very scratchy, for want of a better word - no bass and the tone was very gritty and low fi.

That intonation looks a bit out...

Drummer could mic his drums up into a separate mixer and run the output from it into the main mixer, so he buys the drum mixer and drum mics. They might want different mixes for IEMs - there might just be one monitor output on the current desk or there might be a couple of Aux ouputs.

They are, and that's just the 8" ones.

I'm not sure that it is the fault of the bean counters. Fender (and, in the bike world, Harley-Davidson) have attempted the occasional innovation but they have been marketing flops as their core customers are utterly resistant to change.

It's just gear snobbery. I wonder how many avid Class AB devotees would be able to distinguish an AB from a D in a blind test. Assuming that the blind test didn't include picking the amp up.

The Alto TS408s that I use are (according to Alto) 2000W peak, 1000W RMS. I will say that they're mind-buggeringly loud if you're standing a couple of metres from one and the guitard plugs in a guitar that he hasn't set the volume correctly on.

Isn't the port that horizontal slot at the bottom? I had an idea that the bike park slot was some sort of speaker loading system, like horn loading but more primitive - @Bill Fitzmaurice would be able to answer that, he's done a lot of horn loaded designs.

If it does, it means it can be used by a leftie as well as a rightie.

Has anyone here tried any of the luminous acrylic paints?

Sei Flamboyant 5-string headless fretless with piezo bridge saddles feeding a GraphTech ghost Hexpander to 13-pin jack.

The top looks nice in the middle but it looks like someone has sprayed the edge in an attempt to hide something nasty.

Do they do Shitty Drummer 1.5 too?

New dishwasher coming tomorrow <checks clock> er, today. Replacement for the one which was being delivered on Monday but had a damaged door. Now, can I use expenditure on dishwasher as an excuse for expenditure on a bass, when I've seen something tempting?

http://bandwerkz.com/ I've managed to get 50% of the band onto it. One day maybe the other two will join too.

Can't be He Who Can't Be Named, he'd convert a 6-string bass into a 4-string for people with sausage fingers.

You should watch some of Glenn Fricker's Youtube videos on the SpectreSoundStudio channel - guitars rather than basses, but he has a lot of time for HBs and very little for gear snobs.

Grow your fingernails a bit, so they catch the strings as you pluck.

I don't mind my lot doing some things to help - take speakers off stands, fold stands up and put them in bag, put speakers in slip covers, coil mains leads (which have velcro ties and are colour coded with insulting tape for length). They know to leave me to coil the XLR leads (2 to FOH, 2 to monitors, 2 to mics, the vocalist brings his own XLR lead and mic). I don't bother with subdividing the leads case, XLR leads are colour coded (orange = FOH, green = monitors, purple = my mic) so easy enough to get what I want out at the next gig.

Must have put an extra zero on the end of the price by accident.

The drummer had our banner made and I made the stand for it, so he's going to have those, plus my lights (just four LED units). I find setting up the slowest part - PA first (two tops, two monitors, Behringer box and controller console), then my bass rig (which isn't massive, just a combo and whatever pedalboard/effects I want). Knocking down is much easier as I'm not playing hunt the socket and daisy chaining three or four mains extensions. Due to my 10kg rule, carrying stuff isn't too hard, and the rest of the band are very helpful - generally I'm just ready to start taking stuff to the car as the guitarists have packed their own stuff and helped the drummer, so there's at least four of us to take my stuff out. Having played in a few bands where members have been no help at all, it's a very welcome change.

Their old premises on Smallbrook Queensway are to be demolished - I bought a Variax 300 from there 19 years ago. I still have it, in fact.

I have posted a very belated NBD thread. The bass was purchased and received in 2023, initially put together then, but I decided to use bolts and inserts rather than screws for the neck joint, and the preamp was seriously defective, so those bits were purchased this year. The replacement preamp was an Artec SE3, so not a big upgrade from the average Chinese anonymous preamp. I think I'm still just about in unless there's any objections. I thought I'd better disclose all this in the interest of transparency.

Some time ago (back in 2023), I bought a Chinese fan-fret bass for the grand total of about £225 - https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/404181116674. This was shipped with the neck off to keep shipping prices down. I initially screwed the neck on, then decided to use inserts and bolts, and also to replace the preamp which was absolutely dreadful (pots did either nothing or something unexpected, with what appeared to be the volume control having a centre detente). I also decided that the neck could do with a shim. So I finally got round to finishing it a couple of days ago. The body is a rather unconvincing photoflame. The neck is slightly on the chunky side but comfortable and the frets are finished beautifully, not a sharp end to be found. I've been able to get it down to a good low action. The preamp is now an Artec SE3 as the original was a five-pot preamp - this necessitated a tiny bit of routing with a Dremel, as the pots sit in recesses which wouldn't accommodate the preamp circuit board so I had to bridge between to recesses. I left the original pickups in for the time being, they seem pretty good. It also has the original strings on which aren't so good, they're rather dull so I'm not sure how well the treble control works. Incidentally, the tuners have good and bad points. Strings go straight through the middle of the knob so there's none of the weak points associated with the claw type string holders, and none of the fiddliness of getting ball ends in and out of the tuners (especially the B string on a fiver). However, the intonation is by sliding the entire tuner back and forth, for which the string has to be removed, and the string height is adjusted by a screw in the middle of the brass bridge saddle. If the bridge saddles could be moved independently fore and aft and up and down, on a fixed base, the tuners would be far better. It will be getting an outing at an open mic later this week.