lemmywinks

A cheaper option would be one of the cloned Sire preamps off AliExpress for about £24. I'd stick an East in it though if you have the room. A passive tone control is useful in active mode as well, gives you a lot more, err, control over the treble as you can boost a wider range then roll off the spiky bits from the 80s.

Surely it's the seller leaving himself open to a scam by requesting Paypal and collection only?

I've done the odd local charity gig, for free, depped for a mate's band at a barely worthwhile fee, short spots at a mate's wedding for free (when I've been a guest) etc, apart from that always make sure you get paid. We've all been told enough about this wondrous newfangled currency called "exposure" enough to know where it leads to when you don't.

My parents were both long term smokers, lived in the same house for 40+ yrs (my mum is still there). Everything has this coating - the glass on their painting/picture frames, TV screens, the wallpaper etc. I took down some of their paintings when we decorated and you could see how yellow/orange the rest of the walls were in comparison to what was behind them. I got rid of their old CRT TV when they finally got a new one and the screen was orange, to the point you'd think there was something wrong with it as everything looked like an old Western movie with that filter! You only notice how bad it is when you start trying to clean items. Disgusting habit that gives you cancer, makes you stink like a vagrant, empties your wallet and covers your prized possessions in horrible orange gloop. My mum has finally stopped smoking now, within a couple of weeks we noticed we didn't have to change our clothes after we'd been round.

Just spotted this, seems like a bargain: https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1ABjPjuXWM/

Would rather have a premium gigbag than a hard case. Gonna wait until these appear on the used market for <£1k and have a think.

Crazy bit of kit isn't it? I've been living at my mum's recently as she's just had a hip replacement, I also had 30 songs to learn for a dep gig a foolishly agreed to do. Just stuck the Pocket Master case (has earbuds and a USB cable) in my bass gigbag and have a full, silent practice rig ready to go in a few seconds that doesn't involve aux or power cables. Just plug the bass/earbuds in and get going.

Here's the frequency centres for the Mki: The bass control actually mimics a USA Bart preamp (ie too low centre point and not enough around 100hz/120hz for me) but I don't think they sound that similar in person, the mids are voiced quite differently. On the Markbass MB-1 the lows are centred a bit higher and it sounds better IMO, check out Handsome Dan's review of the Cort C5 here to see how the MkI pups sound with it:

I've had a few basses with the licensed MkI stuff in, the pickups are ok and I've always half heartedly defended them on here because they're... well... ok. They aren't an upgrade over pretty much any in house pickup and are there as a cheap way for Cort to slap a high end brand on their spec sheet at a low cost which is something they've always liked doing! If I picked up a bass with MkI pickups in I might keep 'em, I might not. The MkI preamp is where most people should direct their anger though, hated that thing and if I was looking to improve a Cort/Ibanez with licensed Barts then that's the first thing that would go as the rest is sound. The Markbass pre (licensed again) they're using in some models now is a much better (but still not great) preamp choice IMO, as is the in house Vari-Mid used on a lot of the Ibanez range. The in-house (think it may have had a Fishman license slapped on it) preamp in my old Korean C5P was also much nicer IMO, while it worked at least. Horses for courses obviously, some people love them stock but most don't and people always seem to blame the pickups which actually sound decent enough if wired passive. Every bass with USA Barts in I've played has been excellent, nothing that I'd change on any of them. My main bass is currently a Cort GB Modern 5 which has USA Nordstrands, Babicz bridge, lic Hishot Ultralites and the lic Markbass preamp in it (which I'm going to change at some point), ended up costing me £460 used after I'd sold the hard case it came with. It sounds light years ahead of the last lic Bart equipped Cort I owned (a B5), most of Cort's licensing deals are a great way to add quality and value to a sensibly priced bass but that MkI preamp is just not for me really.

They do, it's a Z series so looks different to the regular Babicz bridge.

Tobias Classic is one of the ATG bass designs ever for me, it's fantastic that they're back and looking as good as they do regardless of who's building them. Given that they were always an odd acquisition for Gibson who never really knew what to do with the brand it's surprising they're being produced at all tbh.

Yeah it has the licensed Bart Mk pups and pre which aren't great which is why I allowed an extra £500 for the Tobias' USA Bart setup. I don't think the wood makes much difference to overall cost, the Space series use maple/purpleheart/walnut and it doesn't really add a premium so the Gibson tax does seem to be around £500. No idea if that Babicz bridge is an in-house licensed part or a USA Z series, they aren't cheap though. The A5 has (assume licensed) Hipshot tuners and bridge so basically equivalent hardware spec anyway.

Cort A5 coming in at around £800, Thomann have the Tobias Classic V at £1.8k so allowing £500 for the (not inconsiderable) spec upgrade it does look like you're paying £500 extra to Gibson. That trans black model though:

Had exactly the same issue and sold the 32" scale bass I briefly had, could never get used to it. I can go between 35", 34" and right down to 24.75" and just play normally, I sometimes play my daughter's 30" bass and am fine on that but 32" just completely threw me. Just felt weird.

There's a Warwick Gnome iPro on FB Marketplace for £110 right now, that's the 280w version of the Gnome micro head. Slightly bigger but more powerful.