NancyJohnson

I know some people really like 'em. Not me, but anyhoo, get 'em while they're hot: https://www.gak.co.uk/en/gibson-limited-edition-five-string-eb-bass-vintage-gloss-natural/87261

Cough, on the subject of spelling errors, cough, I drove past a kebab van a few days back and on the side of it was a painting of an angel...you know, floaty blonde girl, wispy dress, wings, halo. The name of the seller? Angle Kebabs.

Good use of raft.

He's a member here, isn't he?

There's a couple of live tracks up on You Tube with the new guy, from the Sirius Radio gig where he made his debut. The new track and and an old one. He does have that SW vibe going on. I really would like to see them come back big; they're just too good not to.

Thing is, it's really just a visual aesthetic and likely has any effect on the tone. (If they're all manufactured this way, they're all going to sound pretty much the same, so you're not going to have a reference point anyway.) Also, didn't MM just bring out a 4-string Stingray with A 5-string pickup in it?

OK, briefest of updates. A couple of weeks back, the NRT5 was in paint. Right now Lull are waiting for the bridge to come back from being chromed as the original had a flaw on it after the chroming process. Mike Lull is apparently chomping at the bit to build it/bolt it all together (and get me off his back too, I suppose). The waiting is getting unbearable. I honestly don't know how some guys wait 18-24 months for a bass to get built.

Black Friday? I was in John Lewis, Reading on Saturday and picked up a pair of Sonos Play:1 thingies for £149 each, £50 off. And, yes. I know there's a new version before anyone says anything, but frankly, I'd prefer not to have an all hearing Alexa thing in my house.

Early Japan. Those first two albums. Man alive, they were nothing like the Roxy Music copycats that came towards their first demise. Scratchy glam, punk, cod-reggae, weirdness. Derided by many and adored by even less at the time. It was just so good.

I've got a Presonus USB interface. I have a Sony cassette deck, connected that to the interface via a pair of phono-to-1/4" jack cables, but the line out signal was too hot, so I bought a little box that sits inline that lowers the output level of the cassette deck. Works fine, but god, it's a slow process.

When I saw the prototype of the EB on a website, it did just look wrong. The body was all curvy but the headstock just looked wrong all square...they could have done something so much nicer IMO, or at the least put some clover leaf machines on it. Anyhow, both the EB look awful.

Dagnabbit! In the diary.

Uncle Henry has gone?

XTC. Everything on shuffle. Makes my day go fast.

I believe Gibson are supposed to be $600m in debt. The brand has been mismanaged for years; they've been passed from one holding company to another since the late 1960s, they've misguidedly acquired too many businesses and closed them down indiscriminately, too much litigation against other brands for copyright infringement, the recent issue with the illegality of ebony and mahogany imports led to a huge fine and loss of most of the wood as well. They also have one of their manufacturing plants up for sale. But what do Gibson do? Rather than buck the trend and shift some manufacturing overseas to take advantage of cheaper labour costs, they stick with USA production and hike prices annually. Little innovation and what they have bought out recently has admittedly been awful. Look at their 2018 range...I mean honestly, who is going to pay £7,000 for a Les Paul because it's got a 'collectors edition' mark on the headstock and a number, when they can pick up a 2017 model for a third of that? It's a nonsense. They're not a bijou maker turning out small numbers (like Gabriel Currie or Frank Diemel), so they need to stop thinking they are; Andertons list nearly 200 [edt] Gibson guitars on their site with a retail of over £1,000; nearly half these retail for over £2,000.

Hamer were bought by Fender. Crying shame, but at least my FBIV will appreciate.

I saw what you did there.

I bought a couple of sets of the 5-string Nickels. I've used them before...and at £18 a set, it was too good a price not to turn down. Christ, if Spector are putting their name on them you'd hope that they weren't terrible.

Yes, sorry, GT1000FX. It's 'just' a powerstage; to be honest, to my ears it sounds fine, whether or not it's supposed to be for guitar or bass. I had a day up in the Midlands with the Matrix guys about a year ago and their attitude ultimately came down to the unit being fine for whatever you needed to push through it...bass, guitar, keys, PA. It's reasonably priced and weighs very little...I have it housed in a Gator 4U rack with a Korg tuner. Easy!

If I could submit a two part scenario, I use a Matrix GT100FX-2U power amp and have previosuly fed this with a Tech 21 Sansamp/RBI pre-stage and now a Geddy Lee Sansamp pre-stage. Until I went this route, I went through a ridiculous amount of gear...from lowly entry level Carlsboro combos, H/H, Orange, Trace Eliot, Ashdown etc etc. The only all in one unit that was equally good was a Tech 21 Landmark 300, but it just wasn't loud enough. The current rig does everything I could ever want. Loud/quiet. Clean/dirty. Phat/thin. An pretty much everything in between.

I've run one amp for probably 95% of the time I've been playing, but the old swing-o-meter for basses has gone from 1 to a perhaps a dozen or more at any given time over the years. Thing is, I find that gear in shops distinctly underwhelming. Doesn't matter where either, the small/large standalones (GAK/Andertons), the chains (GuitarGuitar, and obviously the bit US ones, Guitar Center/Sam Ash), it's all a bit meh. It was like shopping for clothes at Gap. I just took a look at the Bass Gallery in stocks. There wasn't one thing that I'd buy (but the Normandy Archtop looked quite nice...). The big brands tend to bore me stupid now, hence I'm going with someone who can make what I want that doesn't resemble a coffee table. Anti-gas is good.

I believe you just have a bout of anti-gas. It'll pass soon enough, once you see what's new at NAMM in a couple of months.

Sadly the thread doesn't have any real closure. Neeph, get on it, eh?

Didn't we have a headless Thunderbird in these pages a while back?