Cato

Short version: They like the Sire as much and in some ways more than the Ray34.

I've noticed that the £1k+ Epiphone skinny stringers often tend to turn up in seasonal sales at places like Andertons with significant discounts. Might be worth waiting 6-12 months and see what the G3 is going for then.

When I first started out in the early 90s there were a couple of times in my first band where we were offered support slots with older, more estaished local bands only to be told after we turned up on the night and starting setting up that we owed them £20 for 'PA hire'. We knew we weren't going to get any kind of fee for the night but that was a bit of a kick in the teeth. Left a bad taste in the mouth just because of the way it was sprung on us on the night, but not knowing any better, we paid up.

Looks the business, not sure if it's an illusion caused by the colour scheme but the headstock looks a little less 'square' than the one on my mk 1 V7 fretless and maybe a touch smaller?

Fingers crossed for you. I want to see one of these reviewed by an actual customer.

A few years ago I was thinking about getting the Hagstrom Phantomen skinny stringer this is based on. Aesthetically I think it's a great design, somewhere between and RD Artist and an Explorer, but distinctive enough to be it's own thing.

There's fretless models on Andertons but no time scale for when they might arrive. I have to say I'm not sure I can think of another manufacturer that does fretless versions of , I think, all their models the way Sire does.

From what I've read about it the band and their management get most of it, and Ticketmaster get the rest. What would be hilarious is if the venues hosting the shows who presumably agreed a price with the band before hand now demanded double the agreed fee due to 'market forces' and 'unprecedented demand'

For once in my life I'm going to stay strong. I wasn't even thinking about getting a new bass when I woke up this morning. Chances are there will be a z3 or z7 in my future at some point, but not today...

I've just been looking at this at Bax. https://www.bax-shop.co.uk/electric-bass-guitars/sire-marcus-miller-z3-4-string-rosegold-electric-bass-guitar Very tempted but I'm slightly concerned as to why it's £65 cheaper than the other brand new Z3s they're offering. They're saying 12 days for delivery.

What really grinds my gears is the process - keeping people on edge in a queue for hours wondering whether or not they'll get tickets at all, then finaly giving them the buzz of getting to the front of the queue only to be told they can only have their tickets at 2-3 times the advertised price and they've only got a short window of time to make their minds up and complete the process or it's game over. If you asked a psychologist to design a process to manipulate people into paying over the odds I doubt they could come up with anything more effective.

When I was a student in the mid 90s I used to get my annual Glastonbury ticket from a hippie shop that mainly sold joss sticks, scented candles and whale music cds.

The dynamic pricing thing is outrageous. £150 face price standard standing tickets being trebled in price by Ticketmaster due to being ' in demand'. Says a lot both about the brazenly mercenary business model of Ticketmaster and Oasis themselves for allowing their fan's devotion to the band to be exploited in a such a cynical fashion. https://www.nme.com/news/music/oasis-fans-react-to-ticketmasters-dynamic-pricing-3789361

I seem to recall there were only 2 or 3 years between the Pro replacing the Standard and the Pro ii replacing the Pro.

Andertons are doing a Fender Pro ii sale as well. Makes me think there may be a new range launching, unless it's linked to the over production issues they were having a while back

Noel Gallagher has since said that his single biggest influence was actually Slade and I'd say you can hear a lot of more Slade in the music of Oasis than you can hear the Beatles. Of course in the 90s it was a lot cooler to claim the Beatles as your biggest influence than Slade who at that point had about as much indie street cred as Status Quo.

I saw them a couple of times at Glastonbury. The first time was in an afternoon slot on the NME stage just before they got massive, the next year they were headlining the Pyramid. They didn't blow me away either time, they played the songs well enough, but there wasn't a lot of energy or movement on stage and pretty much zero crowd interaction. Having said that I'll always have a bit of a soft spot for them, they were a big part of the soudtrack the 90s back when I was in my teens and 20s so I generally associate them with good memories. Though, even with that nostalia I have no interest in the reunion gigs.

Pricing aside I'm slightly confused about the thinking behind this. Is there that much demand for a passive Ray? If you want the classic Ray sound on a budget surely you'd look at the active options like the Sub or the new Sires for not much more. G&L did the Kiloton tribute a few years ago, which was a budget passive Ray type affair and while personally I thought it was a very good looking instrument, neither that or it's full fat US made sibling seem to have set the world alight.

I've never played anything that retails for more than about £2-3k at today's prices. I'd love to try a Ritter or an Alembic just to experience what a bass at that end of the price spectrum feels and sounds like. Also never played an Ibanez, absolutely nothing against them, various models have been on the 'possibles' list when I've been thinking about getting a new bass at various moments over the years, I've just always ended up choosing something else.

Just had my confirmation email.

When I picture a 'Ray that's exactly the bass I'm thinking of. Natural with a black guard, absolute classic.

My Embassy is 7.2lbs. It's lighter than my solid body skinny stringers let alone my other basses.

This is the laurel board on my Gretsch skinny stringer next to the rosewood on my Precision Deluxe. The board on the Gretsch is completely untreated btw, I've never even oiled it. I don't think they're vastly different. I have seen some laurel that has a less attractive greyish hue to it but it's far from universal. I imagine the new Casady basses will have a fair bit of variation in the boards from bass to bass.

I didn't get the error, I got 'thank you for your order' or some such after the payment page but I haven't had a confirmation email yet either. Money has left my account too. Hopefully it's just an administrative IT oversight.

For me this is a relatively inexpensive toy (certainly relative to some of the instruments I've bought over the years) that I'm getting to scratch a long held itch. If I find a practical application for it that's a bonus.