NancyJohnson

The difference here is more likely about PMT (plus GAK/Andertons etc) selling many different lines to the masses (and thus relying on stock photos), while Peach are dealing with small numbers and have the time to photograph their entire inventory. Read into this what you want.

I've put in a couple of enquiries recently, no response either. U-Retro 3 and something for a P-Bass, both out of stock on his website.

I have a mate who owned a Jackson USA guitar that had a slight twist in the neck between the nut and about the 5th fret, heat/steam was useful there, combined with rapid cooling. (If you trawl You Tube, you'll find plenty of video of carpenters bending wood using steam.) I worked for a medical company that did these machines called 'Hot Ice'; it was a medical unit that could be used to resolve muscular issues by repeated hot/cold cycles in quite specific areas. Borrowed one for the weekend, we just clamped the guitar up, sprayed with a little water on the neck, applied the pads, heated it up, twisted a little, cooled it down and repeated. It always seemed to move back a little on cooling, so the final trick was to over twist it a little so it kind of settled back to what passed as normal.

There's a lot of good advice on Basschat; it just takes a bit of time to find the right answers. Report back on how thing pan out; every nugget us going to be useful to somebody.

Just to clarify on the terminology for neck issues; let's just use the terms back-bow (headstock arching away from you, strings bottoming out somewhere along the fretboard) and front-bow (headstock pulling towards you and high action mid-fretboard). Assuming the truss rod is fully operational and the end nut/bolt/whatever isn't maxxed out, the expression righty-tighty and lefty-loosey comes into play; if the neck has a back-bow, the truss rod is doing too much work and needs to be loosened (lefty/anti-clockwise), if the neck has a front-bow the truss rod isn't doing it's job and needs to be tightened (righty/clockwise). As my late father would say, 'You don't need to schrawnch it,' so quarter turns, allow the neck to settle, tune up and repeat if necessary. Overriding factors here can apply to string gauges/non-standard tunings and even amount of wood in the neck (I owned a Thunderbird with a very skinny neck that moved at will). I bought a 45 year old '70s Mustang neck a few years ago from a guy in the US - unbeknownst to me the truss rod was toast (or possibly made of toast) and the previous owner had put washers down the trussrod adjustment hole to try and give the nut something to bit against, but it was a lost cause; I sold it here as seen and I often wonder whether the buyer had any luck fixing it.

Find a luthier (or someone adept at working with resins and finishing)...Simms?

Or a Mark Phillips Custom.

The Rickenbacker issue was, as I understand it, more about John Hall throwing his weight around and getting bullish with legal threats while trying to (understandably) protect his company's product/brand. The sadness is that this forum just seemed to be easy meat and was made an example of; their gear is still visibly on sale (including copies) on a number of selling sites and Talkbass in the US. I think this level of protectivism backfired miserably though; while I'm sure they're all out there, I can't recall the last time I gigged with anyone who played a Rickenbacker in any guise.

I think the issue with filling those is the cleanup after. Initial thought was that rather than trying to create something to fill it (and then glueing it in) you could mask off the area and pour a little bit of resin into it, then sand/polish it back.

Not through JMB, no. I depped for a London band called Rocket66, which came about more by association than anything else. Covid started, so I followed this with two huge amounts of recording for two different bands, all done remotely. Currently bandless! Doesn't bother me.

I was giving this a bit of thought earlier and was primarily thinking about JMB. On the couple of occasions I've put an advert up on there, I've just wanted to post from an accuracy perspective and honestly think that works detrimentally. In no way am I bigging myself up here, but I did have a couple of experiences where I was a way more than country mile more adept than the guys I went along to play with; these guys were advertising themselves as gigging musicians with a ton of experience, but they were in the event played like beginners, were directionless, had no material and were struggling to hold together three/four minute ideas. After one session (with three guys I was never going to go back and play with), I was told by a guitarist that he was desperate for me to come on board 100% to shake some sense into the other blokes and prove they could achieve someting. I started using the key terminology for the older player; 'mature' and putting links up to stuff on Spotify/Bandcamp/Soundcloud, but reckon that when people listen to what's up online this alone works against me (same bloke said he'd listened and was kind of in awe of that content and wondered whether his group of guys could emulate that somehow). Just don't know whether it's better to phrase things a bit looser, rather than saying stuff about transport/gear/links. Just keep it a bit vague.

Just looking for a quick answer - is it possible to install and (more importantly) operate a John East Uni-Pre 3 (or 4/5) without the active/passive switch (so it's active all the time?). Or would I just install the pre-amp and leave it in the 'on' position in the cavity? Thinking of installing one on a bass I'd prefer not to make a hole in.

I'd concur with the honourable member for Glorious Sexy Harrow, @Happy Jack, that Join My Band seems to be the easiest to use and navigate, although the big issue is actually getting responses from people who seem desperate to be part of something!

I guess there's two derivatives; but the MIM models don't employ the suspended units (like the Justin Meldal model below), it'll be a regular P-unit. @shoulderpet, care to elaborate?

At least the machines look like they're on straight.

Oh, it's always a good trick to scrape stiff screws on a dry bar of soap before driving them in; it just lubricates things.

Could be a number of things: Wrong sized hole drilled at factory or not deep enough (possible, so you'd be screwing into solid wood or possibly a knot), pickup rout not deep enough so pickup is bottoming out (also unlikely), if the pickups have springs to aid adjustment it's possible the springs might be fully compressed (I don't think Fender use conical shaped springs that compress to a flat spiral), too much foam (if at all) under the pickups. It's unlikely you'll strip the screw or the wood content; people have been pulling pickups out of Fender basses for decades - the chances of damaging anything is minimal/zero. Easiest thing would take the strings off and just pull the pickups out and investigate. You can't really do damage, it's just four screws.

A bit, umm, vague. The only things that allude to being Fender are the pickups, which would probably be difficult to verify unless you could identify them from the photo or get them out. All said and done, it's about as genuine as all those Limelight, Bravewood and Squire basses carrying Fender decals.

Yeah, but think of the positives, you'll all be in one general area. Best to you. P

ABY box. You know that an ABY works two ways, right? Two in, one out or one in, two out? If you suffer from ground loop hum, see whether there's a ground switch on either of the heads, but only use it on one of the heads, not both. All this does is effectively drop the earth on one of the amps; you will still have an active earth on the whole circuit back through the ABY; just make sure that when you're using either of the amps in insolation that that amp is grounded (ie, switch the grond loop on).

Top tip! If you need a quick fix, buy a loaf of bread with one of these. Punch out a tight hole, pop it down the machine head shaft and nip off the rest. It works just as well. Those damn washers seem nightmarishly difficult to locate.

We seem to have travelled the same road, but would say you should never look back. We are creatures of habit and one bass aside (which has a test Markbass LongEvo set on it), the rest of mine are wearing Elixir Nanowebs; we change things for a reason, be it cost, feel, tone (*subjective) or longevity. If the LongEvo strings were a bit easier to obtain (and at a more competitive price) I would probably move over them. Personally I'd never go back to Rotosounds unless I was getting them for free and changing them after every session, which is I suppose what ol' Ged does have the luxury of doing.

You can buy them direct - but they're €40 a set (plus you'll get stung for duty, too).