basexperience

Mate, this is a very cool. idea. I did some digging and cucumin, the "active ingredient" in Turmeric, is pretty good at a number of things, including (it appears, in research on rats, anyway) inhibiting the formation of collagen fibrosis. I'm going to take it for a few weeks and see if the growth rate of the lump in my palm slows (at the moment it's way too quick for my liking). Thanks again for this. If anyone is interested - here's a paper on cucumin and its effect on induced pulmonary fibrosis in Rats - https://dupuytrens.org/DupPDFs/2003_Punithavathi.pdf - it looks like it worked there: indeed Cucumin can actually work as well as ibuprofen to reduce inflammation if taken in high enough doses. Available capsule forms I've found seem to include black pepper and ginger in there to help counteract the digestive system effects of the cucumin - we'll see how that goes.

I bought a Rikkers a few years back, after I tried one at the LBGS. I was lucky enough that the whole process took more or less exactly a year, so I picked it up and the show, which I suspect meant the bass could be classified as a show bass (although it wasn't - I had my hands on it within minutes of the show opening 😁). Has your purchase progressed yet?

What do you make of the research Neal Millar is doing? Would you (as I would) consider collagenase injections and needle aponeurotomy (using a needle to break the fibre strand) before any kind of open would surgery? I think I'd rather have some kind of minimally invasive procedure, with less risk of side effects and fast recovery (a week for these procedures with no limits on using the hand afterwards apart from your own judgement on pain levels). That research into using anti arthritis drugs as a cure sounds promising. If my condition moves at the same fairly slow pace as yours has, I hope I can get on any study they put together. Good luck to you, hope you can continue as-is for as long as possible.

Hello all, I got my diagnosis this week, one day before I turned 50, which was a bit of a plopper. Right now I don't have anything impeding my playing, but I'm living with a sense of dread as I play most styles, including 2-hand tap. That being said, reading your posts has offered some hope here. Thanks for sharing your information. I've done some research and there's a promising line of research on something approaching a cure using existing approved anti-arthritis drugs - https://www.edinburghnews.scotsman.com/health/arthritis-drugs-can-cure-hand-deformity-2910754 - I got in touch with Neal Millar, the fella running the study, and there could be some kind of trial in a year. I've volunteered and he said he'd put my details on file and get in touch if/when. Meantime, I'm eyeing up potential non-surgical interventions (the idea of having the skin on my hand removed is completely out, that's an ancient approach which doesn't work and isn't worth the risk for the result) - needle aponeurectomy with ultrasound guiding appears to work well to free existing constricting fibres. The collagenase injections appear to be risky if used on the fingers themselves as there's a real risk of accidentally dissolving a tendon, which means big surgery afterwards, but use in the palm is a lot less risky. Again, I'd want it guided by ultrasound to avoid breaking down the wrong collagen. I guess the only plus to this is I have some time to do some research before anything needs doing. Right now I can still get my hands flat. I have a great consultant too, works out of the Dunedin hospital in Reading. Thanks again and best wishes to all you guys Andy W

My god, you’re not kidding. I’ve had the LWA500 for a few years now - it’s an excellent little amp.

Aha - thanks for this: I’ll check and see if I can get hold of a new gold tailpiece for the fretless... in the long run it’ll be cheaper than buying single 135s with tapered ball ends, I reckon.

If you can find one, the old Tobias Toby Pro-6 is a great bass.

Exactly. It’s a HUGE bargain. The 500 has plenty of grunt for a pub gig, and I’m running it into an 8 ohm 2x10 markbass traveller. Into 4 ohms it’ll be huge! Also - the LWA gets you an onboard compressor. It’ll run without load as a headphone amp, too, and IIRC there’s an aux input...

Hi all, I've got a 5-string streamer fretless which I love for the combination of warwick mid-growl and fretless - but it's got one problem: I moved to D'addario XLs a while back, love the strings on the other 5-strings I've got - but the tailpiece of the bridge won't hold the low B in the string retention slot - the way the windings are tied off means the ball won't slot in. Anyone else have this problem? Did you find a solution? If it's just "find a different string", then that's OK too... it's just that I didn't want to use Warwick strings on it any more... Cheers! Andy W

Very nice! I'm wagering that's some serious cash for 2 custom builts. I'm lucky enough to have a 2002 Ltd jazzman (the swirly bubinga one) and I do love warwick 4-strings for the tone - with D'addarios on it it absolutely pokes at gigs. I did use Warwick black strings for years until moving to D'addario XLs (nickel) - the difference is huge.

I bought an LWA500 a few years back at the LBGS - definitely never regretted that. Fits in an amazon basics tablet case (neoprene) beautifully! It's a backup amp which has been pressed into service mid-gig, and I've used it countless times on small gigs and jam nights with a 2x10 Markbass Traveller. Really loud for 16Kg of total weight, and the perfect height to sit on. The old-school lighting under the controls on the LWA is welcome too... I'd get the 1000, but I still have a Pro Bass IX which I do use occasionally (despite the massive weight!).

Did you seriously manage to break a trussrod? I've had 2 warwicks for nearly 20 years and adjusted the rods a fair few times: they never need more than a tiny turn anyway, and seem reliable enough... what did you do??

Guy Pratt has a signature model coming out, under £500, based on his extremely valuable fender jazz - if you’re a fan of the tones he gets, could be worth it. He says he actually takes it out on the road, so it’s a good sign. Get out there and try some stuff, though. Half the fun is seeing what the signature sounds are of some of the basses, to see if they fit.

Hello lovely BCers. My valve head is in for repair at the moment; 3 gigs in 3 days, and the third one saw a poorly secured stage monitor slide off a subwoofer and crash onto the suspended stage. The massive vibration from this busted a valve, and blew a fuse (we think). Does anyone know of a shock absorbing system which would fit between a cab and an amp, to try to help mitigate sudden shocks like that? Ta peeps Andy W

He’s on twitter saying it’s under £500! Woo!

Something something sounds like a Wings track something something 😉

Dude, that's a monster board! Like some of your choices. I've just completely reworked mine as well - I got a Ditto X2 and wanted to alter the routing to make it easier to use, as well as having a space for my wireless on the top right - The Mooer bitcrusher is excellent - the FCB1010 is actually controlling patches on the Future Impact and the envelope filter, as well as providing midi expression pedal control into both. The two boss expression pedals are plugged into the filter and the boss SYB-5 - so my filter pedal actually has 2 expression pedals - mad flexibility while stood up. I can't tell you how good the SYB-5 is with the expression pedal, it makes it a supremely expressive synth. This board was constructed for a synth based project, but it's going to get use in a funk context as well - I've got a lot of flexibility in here. The FunkFace has great retro funk tones, with the valve filter on board, the FI is supremely flexible, the MarkBass has the best tracking for faster stuff, and combining valve fuzz, octaver and bitcrusher sounds pretty synth as well. All with a final mini wah onboard as required. The Ditto is just for my own creative fun.

I got the Mooer bitcrusher after a recommendation that it was a "true" bitcrusher (and not just a ring mod) but for a low low price. It's certainly been what I was looking for sound wise, and the alternatives I saw (including some truly eyewatering boutique ones) were impressive but massively over specified for what I needed. I think you have a point - I'd wager the truly high-end will still make a living, boutique etc as they're in a different pay grade, so to speak. But you do have to wonder if your midrange producers (like BOSS) will get squeezed out...

I was lucky enough to pick up one of those Zender valve filter pedals with a good discount at the LBGS earlier this year. Spotted it on my way out! I'm not sure if it reflects the other pedals they've made, but it's well built and certainly has a lot of excellent noises on tap. The overdrive is pretty useful on its own.

Another old bass centre memory from me too (a couple, actually...) - I remember taking my Warwick Pro-Bass IX head back there for repair using a luggage trolley on the tube, and I bought a 2x10 TE cab (also pre-neo and weighed a ton) sometime back in the early 2000s as an extension cab for the Warwick CCL I owned back then. It truly was an epic place. Getting that 2x10 back to the car near Ealing Broadway via the tube was not something I'll forget... although it did make a good seat on the tube between heroic platform changes.

Actually, I have the FI and the SYB-5 on my board - partly because the SYB sounds amazing with an expression pedal on it: some of the distortion tones are huge sounding, and one or two of the synths are really good too. The FI is supremely configurable, but the expression pedal support (I am using MIDI / FCB1010 with Uno at the moment) is limited in what controller IDs it can respond to. Hopefully PandaMidi will continue to update software on request 😉

I'm enjoying mine, although I still haven't tried the PC editor on it yet. I've managed to get an FCB with the Uno chip to change patches and I've mapped an expression pedal onto some patches though: flexibility in spades!

How's the new version of the Super Synth? I have the original one, which I really like. Have you tried the PC editor yet?