spinynorman

[quote name='skywalker' post='113357' date='Jan 4 2008, 08:44 AM']Hi Spiny The Schenker UK charges are about what I would expect, at least they are not stiffing you. The moral to the story is that shipping must be door to door, and anything else will cost far more than expected. If it is door-door you may have to pay the Duty and VAT, but at least you don't get stung for all kinds of handling and final delivery charges. Steve[/quote] OK, thanks. I guessed it was probably the door-to-airport thing that cost the money. Does that affect duty though? I was charged VAT, but not duty. However, I calculated the duty should only have been about £8 anyway, it was the VAT that was the bigger money. To be honest I was a bit worried about the $80 shipping quote, although a couple of years ago I payed $75 to have an Epi Elitist EB3 shipped and that got here ok, just took about 5 weeks. Regarding some of the items that seem to have disappeared, if Parcelforce is delivering here they write you a letter telling you how much duty to pay, and they're not quick about writing it. And it may not show up in tracking. I had one bass that left the US and disappeared for about 3 weeks, and then a letter arrived. It had been in their warehouse for most of that time.

Mine are called Fender, Gibson, Vester and Spector. Unless I'm talking to my wife, in which case its "the black one", "the red one", "the white one", "the wooden one".

Just posting this a bit of a warning, also wondering if anyone else has had a similar experience. Bought a bass on eBay from the US. Seller quoted $80 shipping using "Bax Global", neck-detached in two boxes. So then I got an email saying boxes had been shipped, but the friend he got to do the drop-off shipped them door-to-airport, not door-door. And he offered a refund of $25 for the "inconvenience". Then I get a call from Schenker at Birmingham Airport. Their charges, excluding the VAT on the bass, came to £118. Airline handling £31. UK delivery £32. Charge for paying the VAT £15. Charge for clearing customs £40. So, bearing in mind I've had a bass shipped whole from the US via USPS, in a large heavy case, for about £80, including customs clearance, I feel like I've been well and truly rogered. Well, at the least I'm out by about £50. If I did this again, I think I'd insist the seller uses USPS, or not bid. At least, the Bax/Schenker option seems expensive.

Another old git. [attachment=4325:7th_Sept_013a.jpg]

We used to do SOTW before our keyboard player quit. We had a regular double bill in a pub with a metal band, all in their twenties, and it went down well there, but I wouldn't do it for a function or party. Generally doesn't appeal to the ladies or anyone who was teenage in the 80s. Things that work - Tainted Love, I Love Rock'n'Roll (Joan Jett), Down at the Doctors (Dr Feelgood), Roll Over Beethoven, Wonderful Tonight.

The song that made me think I might have more success playing bass than guitar was Black Night (Deep Purple). So I bought a bass for £100 from a friend who had given up. There was no name on it, but I discovered later it was probably a 1980s Kay, made in Korea. It was quite a nice bass once I changed everything on it except the wood and the frets.

3 + 1 in the post [b][size=4]873[/size][/b]

Thanks for the welcome and the interesting link, didn't know about them. Only shop I know in Leamington is Regent Guitars and I haven't been in there in a long time. That bassdirect site is out of my league though, I'm an eBay vulture. Another local link, just had two basses fixed up by Peter Allen in Warwick. [url="http://www.guitartechnicalservices.co.uk/"]http://www.guitartechnicalservices.co.uk/[/url]

I have a MAG 300H with MAG 210T cab. Amounts to the same thing as the combo, except the separate cabs are deeper. But it solves the weight issue, as I can carry the cab by myself easily. Later added a used MAG 115, which turned out to be the older "not deep" model, which is about 1/2" smaller and doesn't stack that well. When I bought mine they had a 2-year warranty (think it's down to 1 year now?). 6 months after warranty expired I started to get intermittent problems with the head. Switched on ok, but just got a farting noise out of it. Then next time it would be ok, then it would fail again. Sent it back to Soundslive, who told me it needed a new mains transformer. Queried that, turned out they'd just phoned Ashdown support and told them it was blowing fuses, which it wasn't. So they sent it back to Ashdown. After a few weeks it came back via Soundslive "repaired" with a £68 charge from Ashdown, but no paperwork. Emailed Ashdown to find out what they'd done, turns out they'd bench tested it for 10 hours, found nothing wrong and sent it back. The test report mysteriously disappeared "somewhere" on the way back to me. So, my experience is Soundslive are good for low prices, but their technical department isn't up to much. I've always had good service from Ashdown in the past, but in this case I think they could have phoned or emailed me to check what the problem was, in case their testing was missing something. I use a Hartke 3500 now, with the Ashdown cabs, and like it a lot.

[quote name='Sibob' post='102498' date='Dec 11 2007, 12:12 AM']With regards to restringing a 4 string BEAD, you've simply got to ask what you're going to be using the tool for, if you need a low B and a 4th octave high E, then it's obviously useless. But if you're doing riffing down low, then yeah cool!. Si[/quote] But you'd have to widen the nuts slots, wouldn't you? Which means a new nut if you want to change back.

I thought the quality issues with Ashdown were with the MAGs, not the ABMs?

In a very small pub 5 mins from where I live - but still had to load the car up and drive there. During the first set the place pretty much emptied, apart from our tame followers, so we were worried, but as the second set started it filled up again. We expected to finish at 11, but ended up repeating most of the first set as "encores". So finished at 12 and got a booking for Feb, so turned out well.

I got into my first band jamming around on guitar with friends and then switched to bass when it started to turn into a real band. Most people I know who play an instrument seem to be in a band with friends, or with people they've met while gigging. You'd have to be pretty confident to audition with complete strangers, without any band experience. Having said that, my son picked up bass soon after I did, and all he would do was play along to Stone Roses tracks. Got good at those, then answered an ad for a bass player. Audition was more of a jam and he got on ok till they started talking about chords and keys and he hadn't a clue what they were on about. By then though they were getting on well enough that the other band members were prepared to hep him along. So it turned out ok, but he was lucky.

[quote name='Happy Jack' post='101405' date='Dec 8 2007, 04:14 PM']Don't forget the original SGC Nanyo Bass Collections from the late-80's / early-90's. The SB325 remains a seriously good active 5-string, high-quality components, well made, and they sell for silly (i.e. cheap) money on eBay when they turn up. Bass Collections are also lighter than Fenders and their clones. An SB325 weighs slightly less than most 4-string Fenders.[/quote] I never had any use for more than 4 strings, till we did Black Velvet and the singer wanted it in D. I've been getting round it using drop D tuning, but that made me wonder if I could work with a 5-string and I saw a Vester OPR 1135 going for £100 on eBay, so I bought it. Good news is it's a nice bass, especially at that price, bad news is 16mm string spacing at the bridge and a narrow neck. It's ok for blues, but I find with anything too quick I just miss the strings. Definitely has potential though, so I'll be back on eBay looking for something wider.

I've been hanging around on the Dudepit since late DPI under a couple of different aliases. Since the Pit seems to have stopped working for bit I was looking for what else is out there and landed here. I live near Stratford on Avon and play in a 4-piece rock band with a girl singer. I have a black Fender MIJ Precision, a lipstick red Gibson IV and a Vester 5-string. Play through a Hartke 3500 with Ashdown Mag 2x10 and 1x15. So that's me, time to go and look around. Phil