Al Krow

What's the amount you had to pay including tax and shipping?

Ah ok. That's useful to know and goes some way to explaining why the Blonde V2 is £179 vs £35 for the Joyo American i.e. better components and paying for their own R&D with the Tech 21 rather than ripping someone else's R&D off!

Yeah, thanks Stew - but it would be good to get this clarified. Those of who are regulars on BC all want to "play by the book". Totally agree it doesn't have to be a drama, for sure! But clarity is always a good thing. Maybe the house rules are set out in black and white somewhere and I just need to be pointed in the right direction to remind myself of them.

Ok now I'm confused. Why should commenting on something "being a bargain" be problematic, if it genuinely is? It's often helpful to have that pointed out to folk anyway - they can go away and confirm the point for themselves if they need. There are LOADs of comments about things being a bargain in the FS, including from the mods.

Yeah and the one on here was just £18 and I missed it by a couple of hours! And there are probably as many folk who prefer their Joyo American to the Tech 21 Blonde as vice versa, so it seems fretmeister's comments are spot on. I really should stop being skinflint and just get a new one, right, given they are a fraction of the cost of the Tech 21 kit.

Well it's an interesting one Andy - I'm a founder member of my main covers band and it's got to a stage where we're getting regular and well paid bookings with three of the five band members connected up either to agents or other contacts. None of the main line up have left in the last 3 years, so it's a pretty stable crew. We've only had a bass dep in for a couple of months. She's actually not been playing bass that long (3 years) but she is a full time musician and whilst I'd consider myself the better bass player having heard her, the band almost certainly won't notice (lol!), and she does have a lot to offer. But now that I have the chance to step back, I'm kinda making the most of it! I hate driving across central London in rush hour at 4mph and I will be putting my foot down (obviously not while driving at 4mph) and getting an Uber or offer for them to dep me going forward for gigs on the other side of London, certainly for mid week gigs. These should be are easy for the dep to get to as she's in a different part of London to me. If it means my band mates avoiding Uber fares I suspect they'll be tempted to go with the dep for those. So it could well be the start of a slippery slope.

Yeah I did think of you Mark - and that would have been most kind. But losing Friday and Saturday to travel for 2 x 45 sets even though it was very well paid just didn't appeal. I think it was at one of the hotels - some annual dinner thing.

I think that was me 😉

Well I wouldn't have really dreamt of turning down gigs before. Tbf I'm the last band member we've found a 'regular' dep for but having finally done so (I guess there had been no need previously as I've not missed any of our gigs, or if I had we simply hadn't done them). But this is the second "not sure I can make that one, guys" in two months. The previous was in the Isle of Wight, which would have written off two full days, albeit for an even better payout. But my dep is a pro, half my age, and more than happy to take on well paid gigs, so it kinda feels like a win win. She also sings (which I don't), has a PA (which the band have relied on me to provide) and drives, so basically I've written my own P45...😁

Yeah we got stung with 5 x £60 = £300 (!!) of parking fines at Wembley BoxPark over two gigs. Managed to get them all waived on appeal fortunately, although the non driving band members were pushing back on the fines coming out of the gig monies...quickly changed their tunes when we said we'd get Ubers going forward then!

In which case, I've got two guitarists in my bands after one, so first dibs please

I just turned down a well paid gig. Suggested to my bandmates that they offer it to our dep instead. We've got a few mid-week function bookings coming up - I just turned down one in Reading mid-week in a few week's time. It would have been 5 to 6 hours of travel there and back plus 2 hours of setting up / putting away and 45 mins of loading / unloading the car. And that's on top of the gig itself and they want to make use of the PA for some party set lists in between so another 3 to 4 hours at the venue. It's a decent pay day at £175 per head, but 9 or so hours faff for 2 hours of actual playing on a school night? Ugh! I absolutely love playing and can happily put up with a few hours travel / setting up but this doesn't appeal at all. The dep lives in NW London so will be an hour or so each way travel for her and I don't have to deny my bandmates the opportunity of a gig. Slippery slope / beginning of the end? Would you have done the gig?

I think you may have mentioned that the pedal you had bought had been even cheaper? But tell you what - the fact that you had recommended this particular pedal got me seriously interested in it! And I just missed out... The original ad was posted 19 days ago. You commented 7 hours ago and it sold the same day. Tell you what - feel free to comment on any of my FS threads any time you like!

Ok this is slightly cheating, but I reckon that this probably gets you 90%of the way there for 10% of the cost? It's cheating because my point is that there is a Tech 21 "sound" and all the Tech 21 pedals seem to be variants on this (very successful!) theme. The Joyo I understand is a clone of the Tech 21 Blonde and obviously the Blonde will have the Tech 21 sound... ...and I seem to have just missed out on the one in the FS, so I'm hoping that Dave has already managed to get this on his Stomp

"Rockstar decides not to look like an accountant" Not sure that's gonna be headline news?

This should do it....

I'm more sceptical. The Fender P he's using should be capable of delivering a pretty classic Motown sound straight out the box. No need to fork out an extra £299 or is it £399(?) just to avoid having to dial your treble knob down a touch.

'Fraid I'm struggling to remember...!

I've actually off loaded my Mastotron since my earlier post on this thread and have taken quite a shine to the Tech 21 Red Ripper pedal, although it's out of production and doesn't seem to come up used that often. It really does provide versatile sonic options, though!

Yeah true. Although the preamp has often been cited as the weak spot on that one.

Yup, his tap dancing skills were consummate. But in a studio you have an armoury of sound engineering and editing which is not going to be available to you with a live rig that is essentially back line.

Ok that's going to rule out the budget Yammy BBs as they are purely passive. Shame as they are a cracking bass for the money!

+1 for the Yammy BB425

Are you after active or passive? If active, 3 band EQ or fine with 2 band?