molan

I've never really found a comfortable leather strap Some of the Harvest ones are beautifully made from super-soft leather but the one I had was a little slippy. Any instrument that wasn't perfectly balanced would tend to dip towars the headstock. I've used various neoprene straps for years and found the amount of 'give' in the better designs works really well to relieve weight and strain on my left shoulder. Recently I moved over to Mono Betty straps and find they offer a nice balance of flexibility, grip & comfort. Not the prettiest straps on the block but hey work really well for me.

I played a Bruce Thomas Precision today. Really nicely made, well finished, good fretwork, super-tight neck pocket, good balance, sounded great

Incorrect strings in a pre-packed set are surprisingly common amongst specialist brands. Thomastik Infeld are the worst for this. Much rarer for the bigger brands though.

A lot of modern small heads have a headphone out and aux in socket. This allows you to plug in an MP3 player and jam along to music whilst listening to a mix of the music and your bass through headphones

£100 shipping, even with insurance, is way over the top. Looks cool to me though

£3K for a, possibly refinned, '62 is a good price. Could easily hit £4K.

[quote name='discreet' timestamp='1406711892' post='2513913'] Nice, but... seafoam green and tort?? [/quote] Classic early 60's combination - one of my favourites, so much so that I have a '63J in precisely these colours The original tort guard is a thing of great beauty .

How about the 30th Anniversay Live album? Has most of the best songs on it and production is good if I remember correctly.

Dr Duck's Ax Wax is your friend - use it on any guitar related parts that need cleaning

My old flat mate had a couple of top 20 singles in his own right but gave up playing and became manager (or co manager) of Wham, Lisa Stansfeild, Yazz, De La Soul, Snow Patrol, The Verve, Richard Ashcroft, La Roux, Soup Dragons, Badly Drawn Boy, Klaxons, London Grammar, Boy George and lots of others. Got some writer and producer credits on some #1 singles and albums as well. Even managed some sort of co-producer credit on the Bodyguard soundtrack which sold zillions! Actually another flat mate was Billy Idol but Generation X were already making money so I guess he was already famous rather than making it after I knew him (although he must have been bigger solo than in Gen X). Around the same time I used to go clubbing with George O'Dowd - when he dropped the 'O'Dowd' and added a 'Boy' he did rather well for himself

[quote name='LukeFRC' timestamp='1406497659' post='2511989'] you had alluded to this a while back but not mentioned names! I don't get this - surely power output is a given measurable thing - it's either 500w or it's not! You don't get this sort of thing as much in the PA amp world it seems (unless you're behringer) [/quote] The person who discussed this with me is a very well respected tech designer from a quality amp manufacturer with a reputation (in the trade certainly) for being very straightforward & honest. His gear pretty much never overheats or breaks down mid-gig. My understanding was that Genz used the same power module but effectively squeezed every last drop out of it to get the 900w rating and this then only comes in short sharp spikes. Whereas the other manufacturer sets it up differently to be operating at more of its genuinely 'usable' power around the 500w mark. I am a complete technical ignoramus and I specifically asked him to try and explain the differences to me in a way I could understand and this seemed to make sense. Effectively what he was saying, if I understood him correctly, was that by setting the power module to run at it's most efficient setting it would deliver more or less the same perceived volume whilst avoiding nasty overheating issues and potentially 'popping' on a gig. It felt to me that what Genz were doing was a bit like overclocking a PC to make it run faster and I have some personal experience of PC's overheating when set up like this so it seemed to make sense. Of course this could just be one manufacturer 'dissing' another's products but certainly some of the early Genz 900w heads had quite a rep for over-heating and, to my ears, they all start sounding a bit harsh when really wound up loud

[quote name='fretmeister' timestamp='1406473040' post='2511726'] Well the Prodigy at 250W is louder than my 900W Genz class D heads. I'm glad I'm not facing a Strategy re-valve though. That's an easy £300! [/quote] There are some people out there using the same power amp section that's in the Genz 900 but only rating it at 500w

[quote name='fretmeister' timestamp='1406485171' post='2511854'] So why haven't the CN112 price dropped too? [/quote] Out of stock More coming in a few weeks though - they are already in transit

How far south are you? The furthest I ever got was Galveston, or maybe San Antonio which must be roughly the same latitude. I had a great time there

[quote name='fretmeister' timestamp='1406383578' post='2511066'] I never go anywhere without a spare amp or a DI! I did hear about the fuse issue on obbm's one, but he also tells me it's been rock solid since. So fingers crossed! [/quote] I'd forgotten about Dave's internal fuse blowing when we tried to test it I was actually thinking about someone I heard that knocked theirs over and killed some valves, then powered it up without checking (they were at a gig) and it fried somethig and smoke came out Can happen with any valve amp of course but because the Prod is a bit lighter than most it could be easier to knock off a cab and it looks like it's sitting quite close to the edge of yours. I hear that loads of people in the US are using them with CN212's to great effect. With Berg prices currently a lot cheaper I can imagine this is a really tempting setup

[quote name='planer' timestamp='1406374528' post='2510989'] Since this seems to be a common question, what's the chances of making this a sticky? We could add to the thread over time and turn it into a world-class bass weight database. :-) [/quote] I don't think weights of the main mass market instruments are uniform enough to build a decent database (unless maybe it was continually updated by averaging each duplicated listing). As an example I've weighed Fender J's and P's ranging between 8.5lbs and 12.5lbs and even recent 'identical' US Standards have been between 8.5 and 10.

I don't want to alarmist but I'd take a spare amp (or at least a DI) with you when you first gig it

I used Comfort Strapps for years but converted to Mono about 18 months ago. They aren't as 'bouncy' as a Mono but I find the spread the weight a bit better and are more comfortable for me. The Neotech straps are similar to the Comforts but a bit wider and maybe slinkier. I still prefer my Mono though

[quote name='GCYPbass' timestamp='1406213902' post='2509394'] Thanks Mykesbass. I read many good things about Carvin BX and B series and I am more interested in B series (especially B1000). I just don't get on well with Graphic EQ. Have you had any chance to try Carvin B series heads? [/quote] [quote name='GCYPbass' timestamp='1406213902' post='2509394'] Thanks Mykesbass. I read many good things about Carvin BX and B series and I am more interested in B series (especially B1000). I just don't get on well with Graphic EQ. Have you had any chance to try Carvin B series heads? [/quote] The B1000 and 2000 heads are very clean, clear and 'muscular' sounding. They don't have all the flexible graphic eq pre-amp stage but the onboard eq is surprisingly flexible. The six band controls offer a lot of different tones - you have to be a bit careful with the lowest lows and highest highs because there's a fair amount of power available. Very, very different from a Streamliner which I find a bit muffled and wooly (but I know a lot of people love them and my 'wooly' is their 'warm'). However I'm not a big fan of Genz amps in general so I'm probably not the best person to ask! I guess the Eden sits somewhere between the two tonally. I haven't tried a WT head to head with a B series Carvin but might be able to have a blast next week.