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Misdee

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Everything posted by Misdee

  1. Misdee
    I've had nothing but positive experiences buying from Bass Direct over the years. I've had a couple of very nice new basses and various pedals and accessories from them. I've never been to the shop but the staff have always been pleasant and helpful by phone and email. I'm just glad that there are still a specialist bass gear vendors with retail premises in the U.K. We all take it for granted but they would certainly be missed if they were gone.
  2. Misdee
    Something I have noticed over the years about peizo-equipped EBMM basses is that they usually tend to be pretty heavy. Somehow the peizo gubbins seems to add a bit of weight. Unless it's just a coincidence.
  3. Misdee
    I've got a 44-02 fretless and the truss rod has never been a problem, but the 5 string versions have got graphite reinforcement that the Skyline 4 strings don't. It might be that the extra stiffness from the graphite makes the truss rod seem a bit unresponsive, but it probably just needs leaving a bit longer after adjustment to make it's full effect apparent.
  4. Misdee
    You can adjust the relative volume between active and passive on the Lakland LH3 preamp with an internal trimpot.
  5. Misdee
    It could be anyone who makes those kind of choices who doesn't remember Howard Jones the first time. Howard had a DIY element to him too, by the way. I think his first synthesiser was built from kit bought mail order from Maplin. I don't think it's important to win Eurovision, because it's not really much of an accolade. Far more fun to take part and fail spectacularly due to the gauche taste and frustrated prejudices of countries who couldn't produce a decent pop song if their continued existence depended on it. If there's one thing the UK doesn't have to prove to anyone it's how to do pop music. We're really rather good at it without even trying. It just comes naturally. I still enjoy Eurovision, but it's threatening to become too self-conscious. It was more fun when British people enjoyed it for being rubbish because all the other countries in it didn't have a clue most of the time when it came to pop music. That was it's charm. Now it's still rubbish but with delusions of grandeur.
  6. Misdee
    I've just been trying to find the song on YouTube. Looks like there isn't one yet. From what I can see he's essentially a Howard Jones for the smashed avocado and oat milk latte generation. I suppose with the right song he's got as good a chance as anybody.
  7. Misdee
    That's what I said. I find the political dimension of Eurovision quite hard to follow. They're anti-Israel, right? Okay then, great, so at least we know where light entertainment in Azerbaijan stands on those kind of issues. I'm sure that makes just as big a difference to those fighting on the frontline as it does to me.
  8. Misdee
    I've been browsing bass shops in Japan recently and I noticed the price of vintage Steinberger XL basses has gone up a lot lately.
  9. Misdee
    Then I'm sure that must be right, but they made a point of telling me how MK had flogged a relatively new bass they had given him. Like I said previously, I have no idea of the details of this incident. It came up as a topic of conversation because there was a switch on my custom Legacy Elite that Joe called the Mark King switch. Mark King didn't have that switch on his bass, but Joe Zon thought that with the switch engaged it gave the bass a Mark King-like tone. .
  10. Misdee
    The grand irony, Chris, is that for much of the 1980's when I was hankering for a newer modern instrument I was playing 1970's Fender P and J basses because they were relatively affordable. How I wish I still had them now! I remember getting my first active bass, an Ibanez Musician bass in 1985 and being so happy I couldn't sleep for two nights. I wish I could that excited about a new bass nowadays. From there on I was always trading upwards. The thing is, fashions change and what was most current becomes most dated in the fullness of time. Then it takes even more time for people to revisit and re-evaluate what was good about that bygone age. Hopefully that's what people are doing with regard to the bass guitar in the 1980's, because if you love all things bass, I don't see how that era will ever be bettered.
  11. Misdee
    Some of the basses which have been considered niche designs since they were introduced post-millennium would have been accepted with open arms back in the 1980's. The MusicMan Bongo and Status Streamline, for example, would have flown out of the shops and into the hands of bass players keen to be seen embracing modernity, both in terms of sound and design.
  12. Misdee
    Steinberger L2 - the only bass I have never owned that still torments me. I even had the catalogue in the mid-1980's. What I didn't have was enough money to buy one.
  13. Misdee
    Maybe there was more than one bass. The story was recounted to me in 1998/1999.
  14. Misdee
    I had a custom Zon bass made for me in the late 1990's and used to speak to Joe Zon and his sales manager Mark regularly at that time. Mark King came up one day in conversation. Joe and Mark were both more than a little miffed that a bass they made for Mark King had turned up in a pawn shop or some such like, not long after they had given it to him. A lot of work had gone into that bass with MK's specific requirements in mind and they were a bit insulted he had just tossed it at the first opportunity. Joe was a big fan of Mark King's playing and I think he was genuinely upset. What the ins and outs of this tale were, I have no idea. I'm just recounting what Zon told me about it.
  15. Misdee
    Two very handsome basses there. I noticed the other day that EBMM are offering Transparent Red as a new colour option in the Custom Design Experience website.
  16. Misdee
    To me, the Lakland is a bit more polished and refined, the Stingray has a bit more brute force and thump, but both are great in their own way. The Lakland has got so many tones available using the various pickup combinations, the MusicMan has got various flavours of that distinctive Stingray sound using the pickup switch. In terms of how they sound, both are top-draw. I prefer the wider string spacing on the Lakland, but I dislike the 35 inch scale. The neck on the Stingray feels really good, but the spacing is a bit too tight for me and the G string tends to be too close to the edge of the frets. I like both basses but I couldn't live with either because of those things.
  17. Misdee
    Extortionate charges from bass makers for posting out screws is one thing, but if you really want to get charged lots of money for next to nothing in return then employ a solicitor to do something for you. They have taken it to a whole other level.
  18. Misdee
    Hi Chris, I'm not gigging at the moment unfortunately, mainly due to some serious health problems, but I'm still playing the bass everyday. I've got a few nice basses nowadays, but the one I use most of the time is my USA Lakland 44-64 PJ with a Jazz Bass neck profile. It's very well-made, comfortable to play and the classic sounds available with that pickup combination are the perfect choice for most of the music I play.
  19. Misdee
    I was referring more to insurance for the operative putting the pickups in the envelope. There's a lot can happen when you're putting something in a jiffy bag, especially if there hasn't been sufficient staff training.
  20. Misdee
    It's not just the postage you're paying for, though. It's the expertise of the person putting the pickups in the envelope. And then there's insurance, of course.
  21. Misdee
    Hi Chris, I remember you from the original Bass Center in Calabasas back in the late 1980's when I was house-sitting in L.A. You were always so kind and friendly, even though I was only looking or buying some strings ect. You could even understand my accent, probably because I sounded a lot like Barry Moorhouse. Glad to see you're still enjoying some beautiful basses. If someone described that Rickenbacker to me I before I'd seen it I would have said it's not my cup of tea. Seeing those pictures though, it looks stunning. Some basses look good in certain colours when others wouldn't., and that shade of green suits that bass. If it was a Fender, for example, it wouldn't look good at all, not to my taste anyway.
  22. Misdee
    I still prefer my indentured potato farmer Britpop casualty story.
  23. Misdee
    Just like I said, in the real world you can still pick up a decent used Stingray for under a grand if you are patient and keep an eye out. Some poor soul in Lincolnshire who thirty years ago fantasised of breaking free from a life of servitude on the local potato farm and playing bass for Oasis has just sold the last vestiges of his youthful dreams for £850, and is probably glad with that sum.
  24. Misdee
    The opposite of my experience. Very strange. I got a dollar price, contacted EBMM customer service for shipping costs. They then instructed me to go through the process again on the Custom Design Experience Generator and the price would pop up at the end in pounds. It did, but too many pounds for my liking.
  25. Misdee
    I contacted Ernie Ball recently about buying a bass from them. They were very helpful, gave me a door to door price in UK £ including all shipping, taxes and fees, making it all very easy. The only problem was/is that the price they gave was approximately £250 more than if I sent the money via a currency service and paid the duty myself, as I have done many times before over the years.
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