Jellyfish

Thanks for all the support guys with our new shop! It's good to know that we're on the right track as we always keep all of the above in the forefront of our minds but try and excel with customer service.

I currently manage a small music shop here in Birmingham, and while we're quite new, we're also very hopeful for the future. We try our best to be as honest and as useful as possible to potential customers and match all our prices online. And when people see the prices of our items, they're often shocked to see a small local shop matching online prices. But I'm curious as to what brings you to your favourite music shops on a regular basis for things like strings, cases etc. For me, it's a combination of a few things. I never used to travel to local shops because they never had the gear I wanted ('high-end' items like good cases/straps that sort of thing) or even do things for good prices (it was always cheaper to buy online). And don't worry, this isn't market research by any means! I'm just curious as to hear if I'm the only one who primarily has bought online in the past as it's hard for a lot of people around my age (twenties) to get out of the stigma of "everything is cheaper online"

I'm not in a band, but would genuinely love to be.

A Dingwall Combustion! I've had a bit of a problem with the pickup heights, which will be sorted in due course, but apart from that it's perfect. Of course, we all know what the necks look like on these so I'll focus on the 'candy'. A tidy little neck joint...

Some Ibanez Premiums have come up for sale for £500 or around that price and they're absolutely amazing instruments. As others have said though, the 55-01's can go for that sort of price, and when they do they're a bargain! The TRB's are lovely instruments as well and one of my favourites. Only factor that stopped me from ever purchasing one was the standard string spacing as I'm a big fan of 17.5mm and below. I've owned a G&L and they are premium instruments for the money, or at least feel like it. I was dead impressed with mine, but string spacing and chunky neck made me sell it on.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HCp8vE1ZT0g Maybe too technical... But I love it!

[quote name='icastle' timestamp='1362865406' post='2005668'] It's not a Dingwall problem, these are aftermarket pickups that it was never designed to take. The answer is to route out a recess for the cable to run into and have the cable hole enlarged so the cable will run smoothly into it. I'd be inclined not to do a DIY job on it though. [/quote] Are you sure? " Our Neodymium powered FD-3 pickup coils mounted in Combustion shells ready to install in your Combustion 5-string bass. These pickups will increase your output, frequency response and dynamics compared with the stock pickups. Mounting hardware and instructions are included." [quote name='discreet' timestamp='1362865472' post='2005672'] What's rash about it? If you're not happy now, the situation isn't going to improve, is it? You will start obsessing about it. I know I would. It's quite clearly not what you were expecting and is not 100%. I'd send it back, me. YMMV, etc. [/quote] That's given me a lot of confidence. I will wait to hear back from Sheldon and see what he thinks first before I get the boxes back!

It's hard to tell whether immediately asking to send it back would be a rash decision or not as I'm usually quite forgiving, but perhaps you're right...

Today I received my Dingwall Combustion with upgraded FD3 pickups. It's a brand new bass and Mark from Bass Direct kindly installed the FD3 pickups for me. However, upon first playing the bass, I noticed that there was a smaller-than-1mm gap between the corner of the neck pickup and the G string. It was so close that it was causing the G string to strike the pickup every time I played it. For comparison, there is ~3mm gap between the bridge pickup and the G string. To cut a long-ish story short, I pulled out the pickup to see and it seems that there's no way to get it to sit flush because of how the wire goes through the bass. The pictures explain it better, but the wire is such that the pickup ends up sitting atop it just on the one corner and sticks up against the G string. Below is the pickup unscrewed and screwed down and, as you can see, it sticks up. I've tried screwing it down further but it won't go any further and I don't want to adjust the string height just for the one string. I've contacted Mr. Dingwall regarding this, but have yet to receive an answer and am dying to get playing. I've also contacted Mark at Bass Direct and he admitted that it was his first time installing these pickups and that, while the pickup seemed quite high, it didn't seem a problem and that he should have checked properly. What to do?!

Following a course in reading music? Sounds like you're going pretty hard core with "doing something else other than working"! But I wish you luck, and am jealous of where you live, if only for seeing Megadeth and Billy Sheehan in the same year.

I listen to Spotify purely for them being more up to date than other services I've tried. :-)

I only saw the F#, B, E, A, D tuned bass, but I won't be forgetting the site of that F# string any time soon...

I actually envy people that prefer a Fender over any other brand. They have their own great sound, both Jazz and Precision, and are obviously quite playable. Not only that, but they go for great prices second-hand and are readily available to try at the majority of music shops. Fender make great basses, but as a 5-string player I don't gravitate towards them.

It's funny, I had my sights set on a Euro 5. I knew I loved the sound and my previously owned Korean-made Spector was absolutely brilliant but was a string short! So I attended the London Bass Guitar Show this weekend and I really couldn't get on with it. The neck was nice and the body shape was lovely but the 5th string didn't feel too great time. It's a shame really as I genuinely love the sound of them. Unfortunately a man by the name of Mr Dingwall will be getting my money instead... :-)

I've attended the show this morning and really knew what I wanted, which made my stay very painless. Quick look around, to the Warwick stand to try some basses out despite not being able to get them very easily in the UK... Then to the Spector stand and finally landing on Bass Direct where I made my mind up on a Dingwall. I really liked that everyone at the each of the stands was extremely friendly and willing to help out. The volume wasn't an issue for me, although I was only there for about an hour, and I'm already looking forward to attending next year! I was also glad to see that most stands had headphones for amps and despite the sacrifice in sound quality, it was a testament to the quality of the basses when it sounded good through headphones.

Well a poll is a poll! A shame not to see Mr. Bryan Beller on there, but happy that 3 of my favourite (15-17) are all up there next to each other.

Yep. http://basschat.co.uk/topic/198710-basschat-the-london-bass-guitar-show/ But gear will not be available to purchase there.