Osiris

Just had an easy transaction with the lovely @Raymondo who bought a bass from me. He turned up when he said he would and paid promptly in cash. We then retired to the pub and spent a few hours chewing the fat and being daft. Ray is another Basschat legend and I can't recommend him highly enough.

Cheers @Raymondo it was a pleasure!

Yes, the shorty is the TMB30, everything else is a 34" scale, as far as I know. I love mine, it's one of my favourite basses ever even though it looks like a melted Mr Men character.

John recently bought a case from me and it was a doddle from start to finish, he paid instantly and was friendly in his comms. There's not more you can ask for as a seller!

Yes, unfortunately they're not as light as feather as the Mikro is, as you say they are much more chunky. The neck too is very un-Ibanez like with a more Precision-esque profile. So there's a lot more wood overall which, obviously, adds to the weight. But I don't think of mine as being excessively or unplayably (is that a word?) heavy. See if you can get your hand on one, pick it up and try it on a strap to see if you think you could live with it.

I don't know the exact weight of my Talman but it's not light. I also have a Mikro, the 4 string version (Shameless sales plug - it's currently up for sale in the classifieds!) and the Talman is noticeably weightier, but the body is surprisingly thick so there's a lot of timber in it. But it's not prohibitively heavy, IMO. On my wide strap, approx. 10cm wide, it's comfortable enough on a 2 hour gig. At a guess it's around the 4Kg mark. Ish.

Richings Park and ride?

Had my second meet up and car park dodgy deal with Frank this afternoon and it was as painless and easy as the first. This time I took a case off Frank's hands, we'd been chatting privately and I'd mentioned I was on the lookout for a semi rigid case, to which he said he'd got one he was looking to move on which he very kindly gave me. Not only that, he steadfastly refused any payment whatsoever and wouldn't even let me cover his petrol for the 3 hour round trip. What can you say to that? Frank is a man of his word and a Basschat legend to whom I now owe not only a coffee but a cheese sandwich too. I look forward to honouring my side of the bargain as well as announcing the birth of our first child.

If it's a Chorus effect type sound it could be due to the pickups being too close to the strings. Try lowering the pickups to see if that helps, you just need to give each screw half a turn or so, maybe a little more.

In the pink Range Rover.

It is, of course, all personal taste but I find all of those things I listed earlier utterly minging 😉 Oh, and I forgot to mention gold finishes too, anyone playing one clearly drives a pink Range Rover and is married to a football player.

Sunburst (pronounced Turdburst) of any description. Tort scratch plates of any description. Gold hardware. All hideous in their own way and become exponentially more vile when combined. F holes. Why?

I briefly had the Battalion but soon moved it on. The clean channel with its 4 band EQ is great, more versatile than the Fender in that regard, but to be honest that was the only thing I liked about it. The drive section was fizzy and no matter what I did with it it never sounded like anything other than a cheap and nasty distortion pedal. There's some great sounding demos of the drive online but I couldn't get it to sound anything like those, it just sounded cheap, for want of a better description. The compressor was very dark and took away a lot of high end, so it worked best with the drive section, but it was too dark to be of use with the clean channel. Obviously it's down to personal taste but I much prefer the Fender, IMO it sounds much more grown up.

I'll have some too, please.

Honestly guys you can't go wrong with it, it's simple to use and sounds great. And on a gig I'd happily use the compressor too, it does the job, it's really not bad a compressor and if it means not having to mess around with another pedal then so much the better.

Another satisfied customer

Michael bought a gig bag from me, prompt payment and no hassle.

I've got one and like it a lot. I've not yet gigged it as I use a Stomp with either in ears or backline but I'd have no problem using on a gig and I can't see how it wouldn't cut it live. I don't do any home recording so I can't help you out there either! But having used it a lot at home I'm happy to share my thoughts on it. For the money you get a lot of useful and usable features especially when compared to some other bass pre-amp pedals. The EQ is simple but very effective and will dial in petty much any sound you're likely to need. The centre frequencies don't seem to be stated anywhere but they feel like they're in about the right place, the bass EQ control is a little low for my tastes but I play short scales exclusively these days so the inherent short scale tubbiness could be part of the issue here, although I only use it for cutting rather than boosting as that helps to add clarity with a shorty. The mid control has a wide sweep and goes from scooped slappiness to a nasal grunt. The treble control is pretty much where I want it for adding clarity without getting brittle and even rolled right back it still leaves the tone with a usable amount of definition. The compressor feels like it's an optical design although this isn't explicitly stated anywhere. I'm not really a fan of optical compressors but it works well although it's not always quick enough (there's no Attack control) to catch big spikes, this could be an issue if you slap but it works well enough with finger and plectrum styles. It also has a clean blend for dialling in some parallel compression. The threshold control seems to have a limited usable range, essentially only really usable below around 9 o'clock with passive basses, I suspect a hot bass could be problematic. There's a single LED meter but you can feel the compression kicking in before the LED lights up so it's kind of redundant. It's not my favourite compressor but it does the job. The drive section is very good, IMO. It's more of a warm and rounded drive so if you're looking for a Tech 21/DarkGlass scooped clank look elsewhere. It seems to have an inherent mid boost (think Tube Screamer style drive) and a fixed clean blend, both of which work really well when playing along to backing tracks. At low gain it does a good 'hint of breaking up' sound and when pushed it gives a pleasing smooth distortion, neither fizzy or bloated. There's a toggle switch to change the position of the drive and compressor, I personally like to use to comp before the drive so that it can be kicked in for a gain boost. But using comp after drive gives a more controlled tone. The pedal itself is reassuringly heavy and feels well made and pretty much bomb proof with solid feeling footswitches. I'm not overly enamoured with the anaemic pi55y yellow finish, the white lettering will make it a nightmare to read on a dark stage but the blue LED's in each control will help you see where things are set in the dark, but due the pedals colour scheme you'll need to memorise which control does what if you want to change things on the fly on a gig. In summary, I think the colour scheme is a questionable design choice, black lettering would have made more sense than white, IMO. But blue LED's are cool, they just are. The compressor is good but not great and the pedal itself feels solid and has excellent EQ and drive sections.

I've been playing bass since the mid 80's and have had many books over the years but the one that I highly recommend for a beginner as well as more experienced players is 'Bass guitar for Dummies'. Someone bought me a copy years ago as a novelty Christmas present but it's still a book that I occasionally refer to. It's written in a simple, straight forward way and explains things clearly without blinding you with science. My version also came with a CD but I guess the latest version will have online audio. If you can ignore the Americanisms and bland humour it's a great tuition book that starts with the basics and goes through to more advanced concepts. https://www.amazon.co.uk/Bass-Guitar-Dummies-Patrick-Pfeiffer-ebook/dp/B00H7JE36O/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=bass+guitar+for+dummies&qid=1594537893&s=books&sr=1-1

@GrahamNN3 I have an Olympic white PJ Mustang with a Pao Ferro fretboard that I wouldn't mind swapping out to a maple neck. PM me if you want to discuss the possibility of swapping necks. Thanks.

I thought you might.

That quite literally makes my eyes hurt. 🤢🤮