pete.young

I also ordered some pedalboard stuff on Monday from Thomann. It was picked up by DHL on Saturday morning and has now made it as far as the delivery depot. So I would say this is normal or close to it for post-Brexit orders from Thomann.

The guy who bought my EBS 2x12 Neo sounded fantastic when he brought his Mesa head round to try it.

£15 quid seems like good value for a functioning instrument. I don't know much about the balalaika but I think the idea is that you play the melody on the A and use the Es for accompaniment, either as drones or as a harmony below the top string. Similar in that respect to the DAD tuning used on the traditional Rebetiko Greek bouzouki. I'd quite like a contrabass but I'm not sure where I'd keep it.

Or, learn to read bass clef. And get used to practicing without an accompanying track. Thats what most orchestral players do.

All these pedals are showing as 'out of stock' for me.

I have just put a set of Labella Low Tension Flats on my short scale Epiphone Century and I'm very happy with the results. Lower tension than the standard Labellas, vintage sound, not massively expensive. (Technically I have medium scale because of the tailpiece, for a Violin bass I think you'd need the short scale set.)

Penn Elcom have a good range.

Mine is in a Tourtech hard case, but there is no model number or any other identification on it. There is quite a lot of space between the headstock and the end of the case, so it's probably a generic acoustic bass hard case. Maybe this one: https://www.pmtonline.co.uk/tourtech-ttc-ab-basic-acoustic-bass-guitar-case

https://borderband.org came up in a google search for concert bands in the area.

Carlisle?

I have my Fylde in Bb Sus 2 with D'Addario lighs - 11 gauge. Sounds incredible. Can't take any credit for this, it was Nic Jones' idea.

Bit of a sore point there Daryl. One of the main reasons I got back into playing was so that I didn't have to sit at home watching Jools Holland on NYE phoning it in with his chums in the middle of November. Nothing this year or for a couple of years, not even a sniff of a dep job. On the bright side I have at least figured out how to watch the NYE show on the Irish channel TG4, so at least there will be some decent music.

You could contact EBS directly via https://ebssweden.com , they have a pretty good record for supplying spare drivers and other cab components.