NancyJohnson

Just off topic, we used to own the same sofa. Tetrad Eastwood. As you were.

Aren't these things just snake oil? I've been playing for over 30 years, never have I needed 'to control the pressure of string dampening effectively cutting the overtones and sympathetic resonance during recording, live performance or techniques like two-hand tapping'. Hmmm. I suppose there just comes a time where people will just buy anything under the misconception that it'll improve percieved tone.

I've owned the kidney-shaped guitar and bass PODs, it terms of the OP asking about 'only effects', I'd cite here that I've never been a fan of simply plugging anything into the front of any amp, so my chosen route would have always been POD output into effects return. This way you're bypassing the pre-amp colourisation and sumply utilising the poweramp side of the head/amp. Rolling this forward, this was the joy of using a 4U rack with a poweramp - sticking a 1U Sansamp in the rack gave me the option of an independent effects driven set up. If I wanted to go with a different bit of outboard gear (BDDI etc.), it was simply a case of plugging it in.

Just as an addendum to the original post, the P-pickup, maybe this'll help someone moving forward. The image below is identical to the P-pickup on mine. I've numbered the magnets A-D. Magnet A had come out and was magnetised to B, likewise C&D, but C&D were both unattached (they fell out!). Apparently this is a problem with 70s/80s DiMarzios. I was told on the Hamer forum that they just need to be glued back in with cement glue/contact adhesive. Evostick to the rescue.

The used to be a show on Discovery called Chasing Classic Cars - the host used to do a voiceover in the opening credits about it always something like, 'it's about the thrill of the chase'. After a 30 year wait for a Hamer (that arrived last week), I'd probably say that this is more apt until the inevitable GAS kicks in at some point (a Darkglass 1x15, which is apparently in the works):

OK, this might go on a bit, but this is pretty much it. When I was a wee lad, Hamer were the new kids on the (guitar) block; sure, I was aware of Gibson/Fender etc. but my exposure to these brands was likely via Beat Instrumental, Top Of The Pops, the Bell catalogue (and so on). I can still remember the fevered, 'what was that guitar?' conversations at school the night after seeing Slade on TOTP where Dave Hill would be playing the Super Yob or a Burns Flyte. (This would never happen now, I suppose, which saddens me!) Anyhow, in the early 80s, Hamer were carrying out some fairly persuasive and proactive marketing...I'd go up to Denmark Street with my mates and many of the shops there had piles of these full colour US-letter sized flyers for the various Hamer models (The Special, Sunbursts, Vectors, Standards, Prototype - just type 'Hamer Flyers' into Google and you'll see how radical this was); we'd all pick up the flyers and have them taped to our bedroom walls when we got back. Despite none of us having the available coin to actually buy one, we did feel that Hamer was our brand, which was odd considering we were just a bunch of home-counties kids; Hamer were a little bit mental, a bit risky, a bit exciting and a bit edgy. We were all huge Cheap Trick fans too, which kind of sealed the deal. On one trip to the smoke, I happened upon the Cruisebass flyer below...early to mid-80s. There was a small pile of these postcard-sized things and the same shop also had the bass itself (in the same red and black livery) hanging on the wall and it was just beautiful. Cue angels singing. Smitten. The price tag was ridiculously expensive, my memory is clouded, but I think it was well over a grand, maybe £1,250 or more. Back then I was doing filing in an office and earning £250 a month, £50 of which went to my mum in housekeeping(!), so it was unattainable - which is why I ended up playing Ibanez stuff for so long (£187 for a Ibanez Roadster RS924 was pushing it). I was always looking for one; I'd owned other Hamer basses...a Scarab, Chapperal and I still have a FBIV (Thunderbird), but I've always wanted a Cruise. Sure other basses curried favour (predominantly Thunderbirds) and a couple bobbed to the surface for a while (Rickenbacker), but the Cruise was always there just under the surface, just rare enough for them to be out of reach, with sellers believing they're worth way more than they realistically are. I paid £600.00. I know it's not much, but think about it for a moment, it's a handmade (boutique?) bass, made in pretty small numbers by a team of less than a dozen luthiers in a little woodshop in the Chicago suburbs. These were the same people who made these made the guitars used by hundreds of bands from (love 'em/loathe 'em) Cheap Trick, Judas Priest, Skid Row, Kiss, Def Leppard, Lita Ford, The Police, Aerosmith, Nick Lowe, The Pretenders etc. etc. Roll forward to 2021, @cetera was the first of many to let me know this was up stupidly cheap. It was always coming to me...

"Make sure you get my biggest fan in when you take that photo!"

Honestly, you all have no idea how pleased this makes me. I've lusted after one of these for about 30 years and snagged this one on eBay last week. Obviously, there's going to be good and bad stuff to consider when you're talking about a 35 year old guitar, so let's cover the bad stuff first (like you do). It was VERY grubby and unplayable out of the case; a frankly horrific back-bow on the neck (I slackened the truss rod by may two full turns), the bridge was at best 'gooped-up', so I needed to douse the part in WD40 to just allow the intonation and grub screws to move. The nut slots are quite wide, but the nut does its job, so no issues. The P-bass pickup wouldn't adjust up or down, took it out, the old foam wasn't doing anything, but more alarming across both elements of the pick-up, three magnets surrounding the poles had come out and two were magnetised to the other side (imagine two books next to each other with the poles between and then two on top of each other with the poles on the spines) - a chap on the Hamer Fan Club site enlightened me to the fact that 70/80s Di-Marzios were all prone to this problem. [Edit: I've added details further down the thread...the problem/solution might help someone in the future.] I've never seen anything like this before. After I reinstalled it (with springs and some soft foam underneath), I did feel that the D&G strings were quite a bit lower in output than the E&A. The strap buttons were loose, so I've taken these out and am waiting on some felts to arrive before I install a set of Dunlops. [Edit: I'll be cleaning the board and oiling it later today.] OK, moving to the aesthetics/good stuff, it does look fantastic to me. Paint is good (7.5/10), zero checking, but there is a bit of chipping around two of the machines and a little (inevitable) bucklerash on the rear (although no paint loss). It is very light (weee). [Edit: There's still a lot of meat on the frets.] After a set up and a bit of additional tweakage, it plays wonderfully, got the action down to what I'd class as 'clean with a bit of rattle. Tried it through the Darkglass and the dUg last night, I have to say it sounds decent enough through both, but feel that theDarkglass favours an active bass, this does sound nicer through the dUg. Nice dirt/grunt with everything open. Neck is lovely... Moving forward. Hmm. I will get a (black) scratchplate cut for it at some point, but no rush. While I do love a tweak, so at some point I'll swap out the pickups and loom. Again, no rush. This bass was more about the getting than anything else, I'm happy with it as it stands. I'll be 100% after I've done with the tweaks. Might even stain the board...

Basses aside, I recall an interview with Ace Frehley where he mentioned that during the Gibson endorsement period, Gibson would send dozens of production line Les Pauls to him (no Custom Shop back then) and he'd play all of them, keep the best, return the rest. Irrespective of what people think of him, I think it just shows the range of disparity in stock instruments and QC.

Ever been 'Party-Seven'd off? I was in a support band at a rammed punk gig in a college when I was about 17, Party Seven can (partially containing 'liquids', likely p*ss knowing the guy who threw it), came up from the crowd, span past me and hit the drummer full in the chest. He was on a riser. Fell off the back. Hilarity ensued.

One alternative to getting bottled off, I suppose.

I've recorded about 40 original songs in the last six months, have enjoyed the whole RFH process immensely (see the Lizard Sweets stuff in the Recording area); no band members gawking over you, time to get your best efforts.

My mum and dad used to go to Burns Night things when I was a kid. I guess I just saw it as another dinner/dance thing an excuse for a night out/p*ss-up. Dinner/dance. It just seems like something from another time. My late dad used to say it was like going to Wedding reception without the wedding.

Fading from memory? I used to struggle at times when I was doing band stuff full time. When I was (a lot) younger, I'd have this recurrent dream; I'm now a multimillionaire musician, writer, composer, producer and I've somehow been collared by (showing my age here), Eamonn Andrews for This Is Your Life. I've grimaced my way through the show and am now surrounded by brown-nosers, lackeys, second-cousins met at family picnics etc. At the end of the show, Eamonn announces, 'And to close the show, we're going to take you back to where it all started...' The curtain pulls back and I see four old guys I remember jamming with maybe 40 years previously. I hear the intro to a song I vaguely remember and someone hands me a bass. This is when I wake up. Screaming. Well, maybe not.

New stuff from me. Trippy, rocky. I'm unsure what this actually is. #duuurtybass

I've commented elsewhere, but let's see. The reality here is that Gibson had little interest in reissuing the NR until Bach started using/borrowing the design nearly ten years ago, afterwhich it took them another two or three years to reissue the first batch (in Pelham Blue and Sunburst). I owned one of the sunbursts from new, the expectation/excitement of buying brand new (I think it was only about £800/850) was quickly turned to horror and frustration due to Gibson's QC. This is covered elsewhere. Of the 2021, nah, not for me. You'd have thought, that with Gibson constantly pimping out their Les Paul and SG reissues, that someone would have at least looked at the original schematics and put a two part bridge on it, at the very least put the knobs in the right place and given the option of a single pickup Thunderbird II version. I mean, really, how difficult would it be to program the CNC machine to achieve this?

They did a Pelham Blue NR about five years ago, with black hardware/pickups.

Well, Gibson, you had the chance to make 2021 special, but alas no. There really is nothing like not listening to your customer base. So what's bass highlight? Sorry, lowlight? A chromed up, Non-fecking-Reverse reissue in a few dandy colours with a three-point bridge. Sheesh. Man alive, what a treat. No Thunderbird II, no two part bridges. No Grabber or Ripper (these will probably arrive with Gene Simmons' face on them, I suppose). Ack. Basses aside, no sign of a 50s spec double-cut Les Paul Junior, either. Anyhoo, what a treat. At least I have a minty Hamer arriving in a couple of days.

I was having a good dig through my photos and aside from a couple of vanity shots done for insurance purposes, these are the only decent photos I have of my old one and I suspect I only took these when I put it up for sale. These were taken June 2012. You can see how close the string spacing was at the nut and how the lower bout gave really easy access to the dusty end. It was a thing of beauty really.

It's just the shape that seems to irk people; I know my association here is generally Thunderbirds, but that's about as traditional as it gets for me, so the shape didn't deter me and probably made me all the more determined to use it. I actually liked that the design irritated/amused people in equal measure and as an additional plus, nobody on the circuit I was gigging in played one. (All these old punk guys with Precisions covered in stickers would be falling over themselves for a noodle and saying how decent it played/sounded.) Ultimately, it's just a bass. They all sound pretty much the same.

Are you inferring because a basswood Sterling (made on a production line in the far east using cheaper labour/hardware) costs £300, that there needs to be some kind of price correction/correlation against a premium product made in the US by Sterling's parent company costing £2,000+, or that basswood isn't any good?