Wolverinebass

Unless they're amazing pedals, the bods at Ashdown are have smoked too much gear when they decided on price. Unlike Darkglass they don't have the hype nor consistent track record to justify those prices. I'd take Wounded Paw over this any day. 150 quid will get you a 4 band parametric EQ with a distortion and parallel fuzz (both separately switchable) with the fuzzes ability to be turned into an octave up fuzz. 150 quid versus 260 for this.

It's probably damaged stock. Look at that bass! It's been melted like a marshmallow over a fire.... Oh, it's a singlecut. But yeah, 7 grand cheaper.

Totally agree. I don't even like 5 strings and that is a beautiful bass. I remember playing one like it at the bass guitar show a couple of years ago. Similar wood, but left naturally blonde. That was an amazing bass and a "step away from the vehicle" moment.

If you want a Wal or Alembic, good luck getting them for less.

Just to clarify, I wasn't advocating violence towards him or Daphne & Celeste. I should have put that bit in quotation marks as it was representing the hypothetical thought process of the people who thought about the potential train wreck of a show whilst rubbing their hands with glee.

My mates who are going are doing so for the "irony." The Underworld have thought along the same lines as the idiots who thought it'd be a good idea to book Daphne & Celeste at Reading festival. I mean, nobody is going to bottle them are they? Obviously not. But if they do, wouldn't that be good sport? Irony or not that guy isn't getting one penny of my cash as he's a narcissistic, manipulative creep.

Possibly something that Hans Peter Wilfer won't falsely claim to have invented first.

A fair point. I should have said his music is "derivatively challenged." Not crap. At all. 😋 However, it just kind of strikes a raw nerve in me how he treated his bandmates. The fact that I find his music cliched, hackneyed 80's throwback dreck is just an extra justification for wondering what's happening in the originals scene where the underworld will book this tool. Now for the best bit. 2 of my closest friends are actually going. I declined their invitation. "But you like rock and metal Andy!!" was their reply. I had to literally hit myself on the back of the head to get my eyeballs to come down from inside my skull, they had rolled so far.

Shake hands with the right, overhand cross with the left?

Well, that's sold me into going. "Come and be part of the meme." Er, no. Whilst there's a lot to be said for the sheer insanity to dream all this stuff up, there are certain things outstanding which need to be addressed. Firstly, this guy is a tool and if you go to this show you're enabling his narcissism and literally sticking the middle finger up to the musicians he screwed over to book his first tour and were left out of pocket trying to get back to America. Secondly, the music is crap. You're going to heckle, not to see your favourite band. It's not 1986. This guy's stuff has had its time and it flies so in the face of the current "Mumford and sons acoustic indie crap" which is somehow popular that you know that nobody would go and see it were it not for the story and "irony factor." Thirdly, it's doing someone else's band out of a slot. Melodramatic possibly, but everyone who's been in original bands has struggled to get a fan base and play bigger and better gigs. To see this knob blag it all especially when his tunes are crap quite irritates me. The originals scene is hard enough if you don't do insipid acoustic crap, but to see this guy and his wife literally screw folk over and then get asked back really is irritating especially when there are many members of the forum whose respective bands would just destroy this jumped up, narcissistic, hair metal donkey's music. It's a sad day that "irony" has now replaced "talent" as the driving factor. Welcome to the apocalypse.

I've played a few Foderas. They were very well made, but I didn't think they were tonally amazing. "Polite" would have been a nice way to describe them. "Characterless" would be a slightly harsher. Now, I own quite a few expensive basses. There aren't that many basses in general that I can't find some sort of positive aspect of regardless of price. I think Foderas are overpriced. Alembic as well though I've owned one for almost 20 years. Wal are getting there as well. Ultimately, if you don't like the product, it's overpriced if it costs a fiver or 20 grand. To pick on Fodera alone is pointless. Fenders are overpriced!!

That was interesting. Certainly, he's right about rack products, but what I'd like is the pedals to have midi presets. I'd certainly be intrigued to see what they come up with next as recent developments have been great.

Warwick "We invented just a nut in 1982!!" Alembic "Try 1969." Hans Peter Wilfer reminds of that Family Guy skit where Thomas Edison is going round all these inventors stealing their ideas and then saying he invented them when he doesn't really have a clue what they are, only that he can make money off stealing their patents. I bet he does loads of outdoor cooking in Heidelberg or wherever Warwick are based. The correlation becomes almost undeniable......

Finally proof that owning a bass amplification company and extensive amounts of outdoor cooking leads to some pretty unsavoury results.... I had only noticed anecdotal evidence prior to this.

I was going to make a derogatory comment about barbeque's and Rolling Rock, but thought that was a bit mean.

See, this is what Hartke should have done for a class D. Put the HA series preamp in with a massively light power section. Job done. But no, they minced about for years giving us untold levels of crap, unreliable and fictitiously spec'd amps (TX600 anyone?!!) and now Markbass have in effect done their amp as Hartke should have done 5 years ago albeit with a pretty abysmal paint job. Congratulations Larry, you're "oot the game." Enjoy posting photos of Jaco's bass cabinet as that nostalgia is all that Hartke as a company have left.

The Vanderkley 212LNT is brilliant. I love it. Am so glad of the upgrade as the Markbass cabs just aren't anywhere near as good. It's like a blanket has been lifted off my sound. Love it.

Two of the 3 stingrays I've played have had serious issues. One had an incredibly weak G string. Mainly because it was a 4 string in BEAD. The second had 5 strings which is a serious design flaw as all bassists know. However, on a serious level, I like them. Very good instruments though I do prefer the HH versions. I guess it's something I might own one day, but that's for some other time.

Yeah, sign me up for this. As it includes strings and anything like drum heads I need for my studio I should be fine. I'm certainly not going to be buying amps or pedals anytime soon. Definitely not basses as I have more than enough.

I had a similar experience experience to @ped recently. I run my own studio part time and after discussions with the band they decided they wanted to use the studio drum kit. I said that it'd need re-skinned to get the best out of it. They agreed so I order the skins. All are "in stock." A couple of days later I've not received any dispatch email so I login. It says that it's not going to be dispatched for more than 2 weeks and if I was unlucky it might not arrive for the recording days. I phone them up and one of the skins was in Sweden. I point out the current stock situation which shows everything in stock. They basically sent it all next day for no charge.

I generally find out what strings work for whatever bass I have a mind to use. A while back, I was exclusively using my Wal and was using D'Addarrio pro steels. When they went off, I took out a set of roto66 swing bass. After putting them on I played them for maybe 10 minutes and took them off. Awful. They'd already started going off after 10 minutes and had none of the complex, rich harmonics and overtones which I want. Just not as alive as you would expect straight out of the packet. Maybe I got a bad set, who knows. Ironically, the nickel rounds were great on my Wal, and I use steel rounds on my 8 string which work very well. DR blues turned out to be the sound of me and my Wal in the end. I hasten to say, when the octave G on my 8 string set snapped whilst I was putting it on (I'd only got to C# whilst tuning up) Jason sent me 2 the next day. Customer service and then some.

I'd not go lighter than 145 or 150. That's stupidly low. This is kind of endemic these days. It's funny how bands that are still considered "heavy" have managed it without drop tuning to Z flat. Sabbath were generally C#, Tool mostly drop D. I could go on. As someone who has 4 string basses that I'm not going to replace the nut on just to detune to wet fart territory, I make a rule that if I can't do it with DR Droptune strings or a Digitech Drop pedal ( below C# is the limit) then I'm not interested at all.

And free returns when you find out its underpowered unless you use a cab the size of small country. You'll be fine with a 610, but there's no way you could use this in a loud band with anything much less. Which of course defeats the point of having an amp the size of a Kit Kat.

Yes in the first point. I couldn't give a toss about image. Good music is good music. The second part I'm surely misreading. Should it not be if you (the player) don't like the music you personally play you're wasting your time? Reading that as it's written makes it sound like if you (bigredx) think something is crap, then the musicians are wasting their talents? I'm quite happy to learn from anyone, so I guess there's something to be said for not writing stuff off maybe? On the other hand, I quite enjoy the notion of using my bass playing powers for evil. Sounds fun!