tauzero

Common sense. I play with one band where the BL just bungs the leads into a bag and I'm glad it's not me who has to extract them.

Ought to be a catamaran with one hull marked "His" and the other "Hers" (making unwarranted but not unreasonable assumptions about the gender and sexuality of the Stugots).

The thermionic valve was invented by an Englishman, John Ambrose Fleming, so "valve" is the correct word.

Interesting that the Zoom MS-200D+ is in there as it's still a current pedal. And it's a bit surprising that there's a Les Paul that you have to pre-order, I'd expect a clearance item to be in stock. As for that Bacchus, couldn't they have just left the scratchplate off rather than putting on something that looks thoroughly cheap and nasty?

You have to watch out for that. If you go back to the original item, you'll probably find there's a selection of wirelesses and the most attractive is shown as the default but the cheapest is the one autoselected for you. I fell foul of this when I finished up with a couple of Amplug type things when I wanted something else.

And to answer your original question, I've put Artecs into a couple of basses and I'm very pleased with them.

I've used lockwashers to act as a shim between the threaded shaft and the hole for a couple of pots and switches.

Always on for me, although I need to do a bit more playing around with it since going from a Zoom MS-60B to an MS-60B+.

I have a Kam PAR bar which doesn't get used as I already have to set up the PA and my bass gear, and putting up the lights as well just got too much. I supplied the drummer with four LED PAR cans which just get laid flat on the floor pointing up (thus relieving me of a job).

Another headless bass you can find second-hand is the Westone Quantum. No flip-out leg rest but it does have a notch for your leg.

It's not bad, though there's nothing to rest your right forearm against. The flip-out leg rest works well. On a strap, it tilts forward because the neck end strap button is behind the body. I keep meaning to look at moving it to the shoulder instead.

As long as you get some good quality tone dust to replace it with, it's not a problem.

As also found on the Sire M6, so it's not just anonymous Chinese makers who do that.

Have you considered the Hils HNB5? There's also the upcoming Sire M6. The only thing about these is that there is currently only a fan-fret option. Kiesel also make headless basses: https://www.kieselguitars.com/models/bass

Clear or no scratchplate (what's this ghastly "pickguard" word?). Scratchplates are an abomination and a monstrosity created so Leo Fender could do all the routing from the front and save money, then perpetuated by Ernie Ball and then by most of the FSO and FakeRay builders.

My fix was just to take the battery carrier partly out. I do want to come up with a better fix - may have a look at that shortly.

I was going to mention the 10-string Dean Edge Hammer. I have one - the neck is rather on the thick side but it's not bad.

We use backline and vocal PA, and the drumkit isn't miced up. Our drummer isn't a heavy hitter. We set volumes to match the drums.

I'm glad that so many subsequent manufacturers have improved immeasurably on that bass guitar design.

Express Music in Solihull. Rather more geared to keyboards (I bought my Roland D10 there) but they did have guitars (I bought my Eko Ranger 6 from there, the instrument I've owned the longest). I remember dropping in one day when there had just been a delivery and Pete the guitar specialist was doing the unboxings. One of the instruments was a Tokai bass, IIRC a Jazz (FSO anyway) which had an amazing finish, a lacquer with glitter in it, very sparse but it seemed to be really deep. Pete went on to run his own shop in Shirley which has subsequently moved on to new hands a new name, the Bop Shop.

The chap on the right in the third photo is little Gary. He finished up at PMT in Birmingham. As a schoolboy, I'd go and look in the window of Musical Exchanges when it was in Broad Street, and occasionally venture inside, though I never bought anything. It did get so the staff recognised me. There was a fire there around the time they moved to the new premises - I remember Gary showing me some photos of the aftermath. The new premises were where I bought my Fender P and later exchanged it (and a lot of money) for the Warwick Thumb that I still have (and I only went in there to try out an octaver). Musical Exchanges later became Reverb and moved to new instruments only, rather sadly. When I still had aspirations and pretensions to being a guitarist, I bought a Carlsbro Stingray combo from Woodroffes. Had that amp for many years.

Needs a bigger stairway, there's Keith Moon, John Entwhistle, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Amy Winecellar, half of Lynyrd Skynrd, John Lennon, George Harrison, Jeff and Tim Buckley to fit on it and that's just off the top of my head. Edit: And I forgot Phil Lynott and Dusty Hill.

My pet piamh is the pronunciation of Irish names.

FTFY

The ones with male names, eg HMS Prince of Wales, self-identify as female.