Cato

When you start learning bass (or guitar for that matter which have much shorter necks) there's an initial period where you fingers struggle to stretch the distances you need them to do to play easily without constantly moving your left hand around. Keep going long enough and eventually the 'stretch' of your fretting hand will increase. Having said that, every popular format of bass seems to have a shortscale versions these days. Fender are a notable exception but given the explosion in popularity of shortscale basses and the fact that companies like Sire are already making shortscale versions of Fender models I doubt it will be long before they get in on the act. Which is a long winded way of saying there's no real reason not to go shortscale if you try it and find it works better for you.

We're the only ones who know what bass stuff is worth. I reckon you'd be more likely to have a £600 Mim Fender stolen at a gig than a £3000 ACG, just because far more people are aware of the Fender brand.

I use them for my Bass VI strings. Far superior to Fender's own.

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And

Damn.

I've one these in the basket a couple of times now and just about managed to talk myself out of it. I think they're beautiful but oddly it's the budget price tag that puts me off. You can get them for under £300. I'm not a gear snob and own and play a couple Squiers alongside more expensive instruments but I just worry that this is going to turn out to be not as nice as the stuff I've already got. Also they're big and I'm running out of guitar/bass space.

I like the shape of the Talman but I'm not keen on those finishes.

Back in about 1990 I went shopping for my first 'proper' bass since learning on an 'Axe' I ordered off the back of a magazine. With a budget of £500 I ended up in Musical Exchanges in Birmingham trying to decide between a used Wal (I'd never heard of them before that day) and a brand new Washburn Status. I ended up up getting the Washburn... Many years later I was staggered to learn the prices that Wals were being sold for. Missed opportunities and all that, but I'd spent a good couple of hours with both instruments and the truth is that 17 year old me preferred the Washburn. I've still got it.

At the same time as the premium brands are going up in price, budget instruments are astonishing quality these days. In the last year or so I've bought a sub £500 Gretsch skinny stringer that I'm currently using more than my US pro 2 Strat and a Squier bass vi that's one of the most fun instruments I've ever owned, good enough that despite my new found love for the bass vi I feel no need to 'upgrade' to the recent Fender reissue. I'd happily gig with either of them

I'm not keen on 'by appointment only' guitar shops. There's a pretty good independent guitar place near me that went that way during covid and has kept the system. Most of the time if I pop into a guitar shop I'm doing it on a whim, I might buy something if I'm really impressed by it but most times I won't buy anything more than a pack of strings, if that. If I have to make an appointment I feel like there's more pressure on me to buy, it's like if I don't make a purchase I'm wasting everyone's time.

Might be legit, might not. Personally I wouldn't touch it with a barge pole. There's an epidemic of fraud online and the social media companies don't seem able or willing to deal with it themselves and the UK police simply don't have the resources to address the thousands of attempted frauds perpetrated on those platforms every single day.

I love the look of these, though I reckon a tort guard would work better. What puts me off is 34" scale length. While most of my current basses are 34" the O Bass looks like it's going to have balance issues because of the small body/long neck combo. Happy to be corrected if anyone with real world experience of one knows better.

If I went full on DeeDee Ramone these days for more than 30 seconds I'm not entirely sure I wouldn't get stuck.

The Joe Dart models seem to be a backwards evolution of Leo Fenders greatest hits. We've had Stingray, a Jazz and now a P. Wonder if we'll see a '51 style Precision next.

Seems to be the way Gibson are going with the brand. The recent Epiphone Korina Flying Vee and Explorer models were only a couple of hundred quid cheaper than the equivalent Gibson models. There's been a few Epiphone models over the last year or so at 1k plus. I reckon the Epiphone brand is being repositioned into the upper mid range price bracket while US Gibsons are undergoing corresponding dramatic price increases. It'll be interesting to see what happens to the more budget end of the range, whether they keep the Epiphone branding across the range or introduce something new to seperate the cheaper models from the 1k+ models.

Many bass drive pedals come with a clean blend feature so that it-'s possible to still retain some clean punch to the driven sound. The fact that there's an absolutely bewildering number of drive pedals out there suggests that what constitutes a 'good' bass drive is highly subjective, probably the only way to find out what works for you is start trying some out. Buying and selling in the BC effects classifieds should hopefully keep the inevitable costs of such an endevour to a minimum.

I bought myself a Spark Go just before Christmas. I mainly got it for skinny string but I've had a brief play with putting a bass through it and it sounds suprisingly decent for something not much bigger than a coke can. It's never going to get the air moving like a 4x10 but as long as you keep your expectations realistic it would make a perfectly usable home practice set up The bass presets aren't mind blowing but it should theoretically be possible to set something up that's more 'me'. You could certainly set a clean amp sound and then run a multi FX in front of it, although given the plethora of effects available through the Spark app, you might decide you don't need the zoom. The other possible solution would be to find a bluetooth speaker with an aux in jack socket and a 1/4 inch to mini jack converter There's been a revolution in small speaker tech in recent years and I see no reason why a lunchbox sized bluetooth unit with a couple of drivers couldn't work as decent mini active speaker for an FX unit.

I've always fancied a theremin so I've signed up for the preorder. Cheers for the heads u0.

I switched to Dava picks on skinny stringers a few years ago, which are really grippy and generally do a great job. However since I got the Bass VI a while back, which I only play with a pick, I've discovered the Dava's are too fragile for banging out chords and are prone to snapping, so it's been a return to purple tortex dunlops, which are much more robust.

I'm sure it plays amazingly, but just on aesthetics alone, that's very special indeed.

I quite like the lower horn on the Stingray-a-like, it's something a bit different, it's the preamp that's more likely to be the deal breaker for me, I pretty much exclusively use my V7 fretless in passive mode because I don't get on with the stock preamp. I'd still like to try one though. I'm not as keen on the single cut , but then it's a style I've never really liked aesthetically, whether it's this Sire or a £15k Fodera.

I may be wrong but I think that iteration of the Irish Centre closed it's doors before covid and the building has been unused since. There's a 'New Irish Centre' opened in Kings Heath which I think may be run by some of the same people although I'm not sure whether the new place is still a regular live venue.

Bit of an impulse buy this one. I'm sucker for retro looking guitars and sea foam greenish colours so when I saw this it was pretty much a case of instant attraction. I bought it thinking that maybe I'd want to change a few things, new tuners, maybe stain the laurel fretboard a bit darker, but since it arrived I've actually been really impressed with it. The tuners are fine, and the laurel actually has quite a nice grain to it. When I change the strings I'll pop a bit of lemon oil on to see if it makes the grain pop a bit more but I'm not sure staining it would be an improvement. Having never had a guitar with P90s before I wasn't sure what to expect. These seem to have most of the brightness of my Telecaster's single coils but with a slightly thicker tone, more bass and mids, a little bit different from my other skinny stringers. All in all I'm very pleased and as happens so often these days I'm left asking myself how they do it for the money.

There must be a plethora of deceased music stars who's families could be financially incentivised to allow their loved ones to tour again in Avatar form. There's probably a whole Vegas show right there, Buddy Holly and Hendrix supporting Elvis at Caesar's palace...