The fasting showman

The Fallouts that I've gone on about ad nauseum. Complete with replacement Schallers and OK from a distance DIY competition stripes. I very gingerly swapped the La Bella DTFs from the white bass to the red. The combination seems to work even better this way round; weirdly the flats on the red bass sound very much like my old fender 72 messed up tele bass modded into a P bass that wore TI flats ( now owned by Ash)....somehow the bass sounds 50 years old with flats a year older than they did on the white bass! The white bass is much more polite in a good way...it left the factory with a nicer setup. The rounds really suit it. The red is more of a bass of extremes; glassy with rounds and more boxy / tubby in a good way with flats. It's useful to have them sound more different from each other. Thanks to Shepster for stoning the frets on the red bass ( initial setup as stock was a 'Friday afternoon special ') and to Beedster Chris for the Schaller BMs.

There's a lot in what you say, I put some Resolite tuners on an old Fender and it really thinned out the sound, a lot of low mids disappeared. I suppose it could help some basses but in my case the old tuners went straight back on.

Yep, like a Delrin type of plastic

I'd have a look at Schaller BM lites, from memory the locating pins may well be similar to the originals. Less woodworking hopefully!

I believe Colin Moulding used a Newport ( single sided headstock, short scale? ) with an added pickup on some of my favourite XTC records. Definitely on Black Sea anyway.

I owned a USA G&L Fallout a few years back with a tribute model as a backup. From a fetish the object point of view, I wish I still had the USA one with it's quarter sawn neck and fancy tuners BUT....sonically it was no better at all than the Tribute. My only basses now are 2 tribute Fallouts, one with flats one with rounds. It's a strange feeling, having played bass for 40 years; you feel there should be a justification for having a vintage fender ( those days are gone now for me) or some other bass with kudos. The brute truth is that in the band I'm in, the basses I currently own work better than anything else I've tried. At around £300 s/h each. OK I've upgraded the tuners, but for no good reason really. I think, like Danelectro guitars ( I read an interview with Lindy Fralin where he said the stock pickups in his Korean Dano where perfectly good enough), by their essence 30 inch scale basses are ' good enough ' at a lower price point than 34 inch scale. You can try and make them more ornate but perhaps the inherent lack of dead spots and the bloom of notes up the dusty end makes them great value and utility. Just my experience anyway.

We supported the band Space last night at The Station in Cannock. The sound engineer was a great kid, didn't roll his eyes at volume levels or anything, he just worked around everything; the footage I heard sounded a good mix. Space are a nice bunch of people, not sure how many are from the '90s lineup as it's not my forte, good players though and people with music taste that was broad. They went down very well, their audience were pretty receptive to our set also. Still enjoying the 8x10 fridge and LaBella flats. Freezing cold load out last night! No gigs for a few months now. I may try and make a case for click track syncing up the samples and whatnot from seeing Space last night. Our drummer would be fine I'm sure. Will see what the others think.

My tastes regarding Stingrays are always the blue, honey or cherry burst that harked back to the ebmm relaunch of the Stingray that hit UK music shops in about '87. Those early EB basses had very figured maple necks...as a skint teenage bassist I was very impressed! Regardless of the merits of pre EB and more recent Rays, my tastes are fixed. The bass above appeals to me for those reasons....obviously its got mid '90s changes but it's in that mould.

Fred Smith RIP, I was unaware he died last week

To add...you are flagging quite a problem in the UK. 30 years ago I was a big fan of valve amps; things like Bassman 135s were dead easy to fix and valves were still plentiful from non music suppliers. Acres of space internally with big simple components that were built to cope. I've lasted the last 10 years using GK700rbs ( s/ h value £200-250) with a class D mini amp ( MB200) in my gig bag. I think that's my philosophy, a mid value great sounding amp as a main amp and a small back up. I also dropped on some backup boards from Polar Audio on ebay. I don't know how much faith I'd have in any newly made amp given the miniature consumer grade electronics within. From having worked in a QC dept for a non music related company, I know how products are rushed onto the market prematurely.

I didn't have a great time with them getting my ABM 300 fixed. We got there in the end but I'd imagine you'd have more luck with current production items. This was 10 years ago. I went back to GK ( who's amps I've always preferred the sound of) and tried to have backups and scruffy donor amps for spares.

We play an excerpt of the title track in our set, the bit after the drum break grafted onto another song. Great to play, absolute masterpiece