Sean

[quote name='TheGreek' post='1099775' date='Jan 23 2011, 04:15 PM']As an avid eBay watcher I've just be looking at what's available at the moment. There are currently several Squire Jazz basses for around the £70 mark. Now I've never been a real Fender fan, despite owning the Fender Zone in the "Gear Porn" thread, so I've no idea how well respected these basses are. Since they're made in Japan can't we expect Japanese build quality - i.e built to a high standard? Surely they're worth this easily - haven't there recently been quite a lot of recoomendations for these basses as first instruments? I'm sure that somebody said that Squire's were up and coming as investments..I know that something is only worth what somebody else is prepared to pay, but £70?? Please enlighten me on this...[/quote] Squier (note spelling) hasn't manufactured in Japan for many years. Japan is a high cost country for manufacturing and consequently only premium guitars tend to get made there. The vast majority of Squier instruments come out of factories in other Asian countries like China and Indonesia where the overheads are a great deal lower and as a result Fender are able to be more competitive in the market. Old Japanese Squiers fetch ludicrous sums of money on eBay and in other places as they are reckoned to be some kind of holy grail of a byegone era of Japanese manufacturing. It's all hype but there are some good JV Squiers around, just be aware that you can get a very good Japanese Fender or US Fender for the same money. The £70 pieces of "firewood" that you see on eBay are more than likely to be the plywood instruments that are Squier's Affinity series and worth peanuts in comparison. Though as with everything, try before you buy and do your homework.

I bought Rob's Status. Super smooth transaction, loads of good communication, well packed and prompt delivery. Top basschatter.

[quote name='thodrik' post='1089449' date='Jan 14 2011, 03:32 PM']From what I have heard the M3 Carbine is a standalone amp rather than a replacement for the Walkabout. The Carbine series are supposed to sound a lot different to the Walkabout, generally a lot cleaner sounding at high volumes. I hate to see the Walkabout be discontinued, as its great amp. The lack of clean headroom on the Walkabout is a problem for some, but brilliant for folk that don't want a really really clean sound.[/quote] Agreed. The Carbine is a totally different sounding amp to the Walkabout. Carbine is indeed a much cleaner and immediately more punchy amp whereas the Walkabout is warm and overdrives much earlier; it has a valve preamp and a valve driver for the mosfet section whereas the carbine just has the valve preamp. Both are awesome but very different. You gotta love those Boogie user manuals, such charm!

It seems odd to me how many people obsess over the minutiae of pickup config sounds and as soon as something this radical comes along that seemingly provides everything you could wish for the herd turns against it. I'm a P/J man totally but this system looks fantastic especially for anyone who uses different basses live.

[quote name='TheGreek' post='1087336' date='Jan 12 2011, 10:27 PM']..but did you know that Cetera has a black one - again somebody will need to keep him talking... [/quote] Yes, it was he who enlightened me as to what they were. I drooled over that one for years until I found out what it was.

I think it's fantastic! A great advance and certainly doesn't look too complicated for gigging and I like simple stuff! I think this might well be the next bout of gas. It certainly looks more elegant than the Enfield super8 pickup system basses which tried to solve the multi bass problem by having various J, P and MM configs on one instrument but by having one huge ugly pickup and a very complicated array of controls - well from my experience of a quick fiddle. Also, having the ability to share pickup configuration files with other people is great; imagine forum posts of the future asking about how to get a certain bass tone, is it a P, is it a Stingray, you just email them a file and they upload it to their instrument, job done!

[quote name='TheGreek' post='1087092' date='Jan 12 2011, 07:27 PM']Always like these - a bit Japanese Metal, I know, but fell in love with them when I saw one at a Bass convention in the 80s..Built originally by Mick Jaggers brother I believe who went on to work for Lotus..I would love to own that Cocabola Alembic Mark King from the American Guitar Centre that's been advertised on eBay for ever (at £5300 in the current financial climate??)..and the spalted Wal in the Wal thread..ahhh..GAS overload!!![/quote] +1 You beat me to it! I always wanted one ever since I first saw the One Hit to the Body video with Bill Wyman playing one. There's a documentary about the filmshoot for that video where Jagger asks Wyman, "Is that one of the new ones?"

[url="http://basschat.co.uk/index.php?showtopic=74284"]Here[/url] on Basschat there is The Major's Boot Camp - a great resource for anyone learning to read. Tons of it.

[quote name='Lfalex v1.1' post='1083609' date='Jan 9 2011, 09:09 PM']I recommend a decent pair of headphones in the long run, too. I have a pair of Sennheiser HD 415 (mk1) which are excellent. I'd opt for a circumaural, closed-back design to improve isolation and leakage. Any of the good manufacturers should do something suitable..[/quote] +1

The Pandora PX5D has drum loops, tons of effects and can run off a usb cable from your computer. It can also be used as an audio interface. Runs on 2 x AA batteries which I found much better than the Pandora PX4 running off 4 x AAA, also runs off a mains adaptor. It doesn't store tracks but you can listen to tunes thru your computer with it as it effectively becomes the computers soundcard. I tried a Tascam for a while but didn't get on with it and can't remember why Pandora gets a good seeing to every day though

Try [url="http://www.thebassment.info/"]here[/url] And [url="http://thelibster.com/"]here[/url]

I use TI flats on a 5 and they seem great. The 135 gauge works well with the 34" scale too.

No brainer, Al. Go for it. Enjoy the Dingwall. I would take the advice on keeping a beater/workhorse bass (under the bed?), though in case you need it for a dep gig or a jam night or whatever. Few hundred quid on a Jap Fender or similar would cover you there. Whatever you decide make sure you enjoy

Sterling! Growlier.

[quote name='dave_bass5' post='1080246' date='Jan 6 2011, 06:40 PM']To me it looks like fender have shipped some MIM parts back to the USA to assemble, and added American hardware.[/quote] They did that before with the California Series Specials

[quote name='dlloyd' post='1079712' date='Jan 6 2011, 12:13 PM']Wow. The OP's posting history too... particularly posts made on Dec 20 and 28.[/quote] Unbelieveable! I suppose we all just got off the boat.

The KA196 power supply for the Korg Pandora and other 4.5V Korg gear is ridiculously expensive at £25 - £30 delivered from most places. Does anyone here use an alternative that is decent?

[quote name='mep' post='1078050' date='Jan 4 2011, 10:51 PM']To be fair I think it is pretty obvious from Alex's article that the horizontal axis is Hertz and the vertical axis is Decibels?[/quote] Yes, I agree. I raised this as a lad who works with me, who also has the magazine, asked me what the axes represented. Not everyone is savvy to this stuff and in an article that's meant to educate you can't be too clear. [quote name='alexclaber' post='1078576' date='Jan 5 2011, 02:13 PM']Just got this through the door - aaarghhhh!!! The badly cropped random photo appears to be a cropped enlargement of fig. 4 and thus the real fig. 1 which the article keeps referring to has been omitted. Brilliant. The first plot does say dB on the y-axis but I'd assumed the axes were obvious, so that's my mistake. Here are the correct illustrations before I hop off on the warpath...[/quote] Thanks for the graphs, Alex and an article that is practically useful for most gigging bassists.

[quote name='G-77' post='1078002' date='Jan 4 2011, 10:18 PM']Im in West London if that any help, I know one of our member over on Statii has a streamline 5 in Newport if thats any help. Happy Jack order a Streamline within 48hrs of having a go on mine!!![/quote] Newport?! Crackin'! That'd be tidy for me, more or less going home ;-) Who's that?