Silvia Bluejay

I have posted this info on Basschat's social media. All the best, guys, hope it can be rescheduled soon.

A few proper photos! I took these just after the bass arrived, so it's still got D'Addario XL roundwounds on. Very clever flipping truss rod cover - no screws to take out, no risk of losing unsecured press-down caps or similar. (It's still necessary to loosen the A string to use the hex key properly, however.) The following is to refer to a conversation we had on one of @tvickey's NBD threads some time ago. This is, indeed, how D'Addario - and possibly also Warwick - new string sets come installed. No longer do we have the familiar purple ball end on the low B. The end of the world is here. Having said that, I replaced the rounds with Labella Low Tension Flats, and now my OCD is no longer screaming at the wrong colours or indeed at the weird assortment of angles the ball ends lie at in their sockets!! The new strings, a slight truss rod tweak, and proper intonation have made this bass even more awesome than it was on arrival. I'm happy.

Full house last night for us, as the previous weekend, with little sign of gig-going people buying the media's scaremongering. (Don't get me wrong, I know we need to be careful, but I for one believe that shutting or crippling pubs, restaurants et al would screw up the economy but NOT help the health point of view one single bit.)

Tell that to Jens Ritter... 😉

HAHA! I see that the last lefty model like the one I just bought has gone from PMT's website. Come on, own up, was it any of you guys on here? 😉😎

... which is meant literally, not as a swear-filter-friendly euphemism. 😉 I haven't tried it yet, so I'll wait until I've used it, to see whether it's a good idea or not.

Found something else I like: the battery compartment is completely separate from the preamp/knobs cavity. Very neat. Judging by the serial number, my bass was manufactured in May 2017. For a lefty, staying 'new' in the shop, in a box for 3 years is not that bad. PMT has only one left at that price! Any other lefties interested?

Incidentally, @Woodinblack, the bass did arrive with the explanatory plate on the controls. Quite handy too. This is a discontinued model, presumably because it uses rosewood (quite a lot of it). The new (righty) models replace it with walnut, and offer different colours.

Nothing to apologise for! I don't need to succumb to expensive GAS myself, considering I only play at home. This is a very nice bass for very little money, and I'm happy I've been able to widen my horizon for once. The SR range seems to be excellent value for money indeed.

After I ended up hijacking the Bass Weight thread in General Discussion by revealing my GAS for a 5-string Ibanez SR30-something, and being kindly pointed to a couple of models by @Woodinblack, I had decided to wait for something better, mostly because I didn't like the look of the bass. This was Woody's suggested purchase. While I'm averse to 'burst' colours, I did like everything else about the bass (very similar specs to my beloved Warwick RB Fortress 5, and a bit lighter). So I waited, erm, about a couple of days, and then stumbled upon the same model and colour but way cheaper. So I said, to hell with it, and bought it. So thank you for steering me towards it, @Woodinblack! It's a very nice bass. I've only played a few minutes, as it came, and my impression so far is the following. Likes: - The angled input socket on the front that doesn't jam bass stands. - The reduced weight compared to Fortress/Corvette 5s. - The wider variety of sounds and combinations of sounds I can get. - The lack of neck dive. Dislikes: - The colour! Oh, well, I'm used to this issue. My NS NXT 5 is a reddish/brownish/orangeish burst too, as it was the only lefty available when I bought it. (I wanted a black one.) - The strings it came with. Very nice D'Addario XL somethings, but roundwound, which I hate. - The setup. While intonation is fine, string height is all over the place and the E string rattles. Not a problem, as I am replacing the rounds with flats and will have to start from scratch. Mega-dislike: The non-adjustable nut! Have Warwick registered ALL adjustable nut designs? Why can't other manufacturers offer their versions of a-nut-with-screws-that-lift-or-lower-it?? Grr. More to follow, pics-wise too, when I've made the new arrival truly mine. 😉😎

Incidentally, @AndyTravis, I agree with those who recommend not mentioning the look of the guitar just yet. And I hope it all works out fine with him. I'll keep reading your updates with interest.

Well, I had missed this thread so far, because it's in Off Topic. I am now moving it to General Discussion! 😎

That's not so simple and has been discussed almost to death elsewhere on this forum. I'll edit this post if/when I find the relevant thread(s), in case anyone's interested. @Stub Mandrel The only relevant thread/group of posts I've been able to find is the most recent one. THIS. However, there have been loads of others that can be found with a slightly less hurried search.

While I see your point, and did think about that when I started playing bass (recently enough for a decent choice of lefty models to be on the market), I absolutely didn't want a repeat of the 'being taught to write with the wrong hand' debacle that happened to me over 50 years ago. Whenever I have to write something, I have to mentally prepare and make an effort, because my right hand always feels a bit like it's fighting against me. (Yes I know, it's the 'wiring' in my brain, not my hand, that's the problem.) My handwriting is also crap, and I am infinitely grateful for the existence of computer keyboards (even if they themselves are right-hand-optimised!). I resent having to go through all that, while I could have been happily writing using the hand that feels correct to me. I don't think I'd have been able to learn to play bass at all, if I had been forced to play right-handed by myself, by others or by the circumstances. Is it true that many hollowbodies have neck dive? My Hofner violin has some, despite having those tiny machine heads that are half made of plastic. Both my acoustic bass guitars have neck dive as well. Is it not the case that more weight in the non-hollow bit of the body is necessary to avoid the body being too light compared to the neck/headstock? (Genuine question, I hope my reasoning is flawed!)

Very interesting thread! It gives us a glimpse of what's behind our avatars, besides our shared love of music and bass in particular. I was a (mostly) freelance technical translator, copy-editor and proofreader for around 25 years. That also included multiple-foreign-language website and applications testing. I then got bored and fed up with the direction taken by the industry, so I re-trained as pro PR/social media person. Around the same time, I joined Basschat. I also started my music photoblog, and through that was offered to write for BGM and later BPM. I consider myself semi-retired now, and I'm loving being able to gig every weekend as live sound engineer and photographer for @Happy Jack's bands. There are plenty of opportunities to learn new stuff and make yourself useful, no matter what age you are.

Thanks for that! At least it's not faeces-brown like the other 375 I found online. However, my intention would be to buy new, not second hand. And I'm sorry but I don't like that sort of red burst, or that plate with the knobs... This would be a want, not a need, so I can wait until I find the perfect one. Apologies for derailing the thread!

Nah. After visiting NAMM, I've developed a bit of GAS for an Ibanez SR 305 - much cheaper than even the most lowly Rockbass. Ibanez has always been my second favourite guitar maker. The SR line of 5-string basses has the same specs as my Warwicks - 45mm nut width, thin comfortable neck, 34" scale, 16.5mm string spacing at the bridge, a NON-Fendery body shape, a much nicer headstock than Warwick's but still with 3-2 as opposed to 4-1 machine heads, and slightly lighter in weight (although that's not difficult, considering that Warwicks are boat anchors). Except that, erm, there are no lefty models. That being the original reason why I got an entire collection of 5-string Warwicks, but haven't been able to widen my horizon to other 5-string basses. I'm not keen on a custom build, regardless of price. This is my unattainable favourite model, although I would settle for black, or white, or natural if they existed in lefty. Heh.

Too far for us, but those who are within reach should make the effort to go - Sheldon's great. He ran a luthier's seminar throughout the weekend at the LBGS 2018 and I absolutely loved it. There's some footage in my LBGS 2018 blog, but seeing him in person is better!

We keep those Hi-Z inputs as emergency for plugging the double bass (in the rockabilly band) in case of partial or total failure of the regular, highly expensive DB rig we normally use. In our tests, the difference we heard between the two setups is minimal. 😮

Been GASsing for a new bass of late, so I was having a look at specs on websites. When it's given, weight is almost always expressed in pounds, while nut width and string spacing at the bridge are always in millimetres. Fingerboard radius and scale are usually expressed in inches, unless you're Thomann, in which case it's mm again. Pretty damn confusing, whether you grew up metric - as I did - or Imperial.

A quick look at the PDF manual suggests that it's not replaceable, a bit like those in modern laptops and tablets. I imagine it may be possible to swap the battery for a new one if you send the BigHead in for a service, but they don't seem to want the user to do it themselves. If the shop you bought it from doesn't get back to you, try another distributor, such as GAK, Bass Direct or indeed Thomann, and ask whether any spares for the battery exist. They should be happy to answer a general enquiry like that.

Yes, there are quite a few features you can only see if you bring up one channel at a time on screen and navigate through all the tabs, checking that the values entered make sense. But it's still worth it - I don't think we would want to go back to an analogue desk, ever, except in an emergency (for which we are indeed prepared, with a spare, analogue desk!).

Can't help with your last question, I'm afraid, but I just wanted to reassure you. The XR18 usually works fine - the problems come from the operator (don't ask @Happy Jack and me how we know!). Since the instructions and manuals are unadulterated cr@p, and the interface is far from intuitive, it's very easy to press the wrong buttons or forget to press the correct ones. The hardware is usually not at fault, when used correctly. It just takes a lot of patience to get it right, and testing in the rehearsal room will help, but can't be the be-all and end-all. It has happened to us more than once that everything sounded glorious in our home studio, only for the band (and yours truly on the tablet) to have to contend with - for instance - screeches, hisses and horrid feedback of all kinds when set up in a different room. So the saved scenes are always just a starting point, and your sound engineer will have to re-work EVERYTHING according to the particular room you're gigging in. It's a steep learning curve, but worth it.

Thanks @Teebs. I'm sharing on Basschat's accounts. Hope it's recovered quickly.

At the moment I'm more concerned about pubs having to cancel due to panicking punters choosing to stay and drink at home, than to any actual risk to us as the band. Things may change, of course. In the past few weeks the main problems would have been people not feeling like braving the storm to go to the pub, but we've been lucky so far. The official advice is still not to panic.