lemmywinks

I'd stick it flat on the floor, I think you're covering the vents on the side there?

The LP Studio has been around for donkey's years, a proper USA Gibson without the fancy furnishings for £1k, it was around £600-£700 a few years ago too when a friend of mine went shopping for one. Also at one time Ephiphone had a Les Paul in the £900 range, now they have the Elitist models circa £500.

He keeps listing them singly, don't be surprised if another pops up in an hour or so! There's also another seller listing them at £33 with best offers available so you may get that for the same price. Apart from that the next cheapest ones were around the £50 mark.

There are also guitar gigbags for good prices too if anyone needs them, from various sellers. I've put our guitarist onto them, maybe he'll stop transporting his Fenders and high end Yamahas in flimsy starter gigbags. Then again maybe not.

I noticed those a while ago, look great for a cheap bag but those Blake's look amazing, just a brand I hadn't heard of before. They look more like a premium semi rigid bag than a cheap fabric one which is why I have now bought two. Watch them arrive and be rubbish now!

Crikey, from briefly scouting the internet these weren't cheap. I picked one up for my spare bass but I'm tempted to grab another.

There seems to be a few sellers on eBay clearing these gigbags out at crazy prices, cheapest here: https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Blake-Bravo-bass-guitar-case-New/253605991627?hash=item3b0c1854cb:g:6RQAAOSwgAJa50x2 Ordered one myself so will know what it's like shortly but does anybody have experience of them? From what I can gather they were a UK company supplying high quality gigbags but they seem to have gone out of business hence the sudden influx of bargains on eBay. Looks like a great quality gigbag with features and build quality you don't see on a £30 bag. No affiliation just saw something cheap and thought I'd share, don't blame me if it falls apart!

I ran a LMII and a 1212r for years, never once struggled to get a great sound or an absolute ton of volume. Just seemed to fit perfectly in whatever mix I was in without any effort at all and definitely a pairing which is more than the sum of it's parts.

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Rickenbacker-4003S-Bass-1982-OHSC-STEREO/153005296837?hash=item239fd38cc5:g:gmYAAOSw~O1a6PaO Did a bit of digging myself, looks like he's already flipped it using your photos and description!

If he's paid with Paypal then that's a terrible idea, buyer could say the bass wasn't delivered and the OP has zero proof it was. Ends up with no bass and no money. If you're handing it over personally then refund the Paypal and ask for cash, otherwise get them to leave positive feedback before taking the bass.

I think you've misunderstood, those perspex cages are to control on stage sound and prevent mic bleed, they have no impact on what the audience hears but give the engineer a better palette to work with which leads to a better mix. Now can all this silly faux masculinity be put to bed please? Having a loud valve amp wallowing all over the stage doesn't make anyone a tough guy/gal, it just makes you a PITA for whoever is engineering your gigs.

The thing is I'm sure we've all at some point been in a similar band to the one mikel is in and had the same attitude, I certainly did many moons ago. For the last 7 years I've been playing with a group that strives for clarity at a healthy volume, our drummer is a former pro (as in pro drummer, not as in selling himself, although I wouldn't rule it out...) in his 60s and he's partially deaf and has tinnitus. No way I'd go back now, the on stage sound is fantastic and super clear.

Somewhere along the line amongst all the corporate branding, collector-targeted pricing and buying up random companies to produce tat with a a Gibson logo on it they forgot to make serviceable, pro grade instruments at a price a working musician is willing to spend. They have been relying on brand aspiration and rich collectors for years and this has come to a head, I know only a handful of gigging musicians who regularly use their guitars, maybe things are different with classic rock bands but still... I have a friend who is one of those "I want the guitar my heroes played" type guys, traded a lovely LP Studio (black with gold hardware, great sound and played itself) and £300 cash for an absolute dog of a LP Standard. Had a neck repair in the usual spot and can't hold its tuning for the duration of a song, weighs a ton, sounds terrible and can't be set up to play anything like his old Studio. He's well chuffed with it though, it's a burst LP Standard which superficially resembles what his heroes played, even though they wouldn't touch it with a bargepole. This to me is what Gibson are now - a prestigious brand with nothing behind it. A new regime would be the best thing that could happen to them. Besides it's not like the Gibson of today bear even a slight resemblance to the company of old who made all those great guitars you hear on classic albums, that went long ago.

Keep the yellow!

Markbass cabs (especially the tolex covered ones) look great IMO, definitely better than those crusty looking Vox amps either side of you!

You have to be ruthless really, if a song doesn't work it has to go even if every band member loves it. I've played with a few people who don't get that and it holds the band back, nothing worse than seeing a dance floor empty while the band are having a self indulgent moment. Realistically there's plenty of musical circumstances for people to play what suits or gratifies them but a party/function band ain't it.

Thanks! I'm still genuinely surprised at how good and loud it sounds, not as much of a compromise as I first thought it would be. You'd assume the amp section of those little learner combos would be as rubbish as the driver and housing but paired with a decent cab it sounds very nice, wouldn't guess it was only 10w either.

Set up an action camera recording the audience for one of your floor fillers, do the same for one of his self indulgent B sides or album tracks. Watch them back as a band to gauge the audience reaction, if that doesn't make a difference then either bin the drummer or leave. What do the rest of the band think about it?

Korean Samick, nice basses. Mine were bought and sold for around £100 so you got an absolute steal. Couldn't really fault them - nice hardware, well built, lightweight and sound great.

Bought a tidy little PSU from Al Krow, pleasure to deal with.

I'm going to leave it as is until I can redo the whole thing, I already knew my dimensions were slightly out before I'd finished due to the warping of the metal case which is visible in some pictures. I've got the hang of cutting acrylic now though and the last cut I made was smooth and arrow straight, my jigsaw is only a cheap single speed jobby. I'll have a look at using a blowtorch for next time, realistically I'm only concerned about the front looking smooth. I can get a full set of polished pre-cut pieces for £14 delivered which is another option, albeit a more expensive and less fun one.

Cheers guys! Although it'll never be the greatest amp in the world it's nice to turn junk into something genuinely useful.

I recently sold my bass rig in favour of an FRFR cab and great it is too, however it did leave me in a dilemma as I only owned one amp head (a trusty LMII) and now have nothing to power my little EA cab which I use for home practice which I can leave set up in the front room. I had my eye on a Trace Elf or the little GK amp (MB200 or something?) but they are a bit overkill for plugging in around the house. I did think about a cheap combo but I want the sound quality of the EA cab which is lovely and crystal clear. So what to do? Enter this total POS, a local collection won on eBay for the princely sum of 99p (yes, 99 English pence, excuse my cluttered workbench). It's a cheapo Kinsman 10w kiddie's practice amp, same thing you see rebranded under 100 different names but it's essentially a BB10. As you can see it's had a hard life, it's completely crushed and it sounds terrible. Originally I was going to rehouse it but the little 4" speaker is shot to pieces (or more likely just wasn't any good in the first place) which leaves the amp. No prizes for guessing what happens next! So out comes the screwdriver and we can see what's inside! Here's the details: As we can see the amp was born on the 23rd of July 2011 and is called Jim. Now Jim and I have become firm friends I can see about liberating him from his awful particleboard prison and making him a new home. Time to snip some wires and get the dremel and soldering iron out. Luckily there's already a couple of holes here so both will be widened so I can fit an IEC socket and a Speakon combi jack, the Speakon I already had (bought a pack of two when I fixed an old cab) and the IEC socket was £1.30 on eBay. Originally I was going to fit a 1/4" jack for pure convenience but that would mean actually buying one and not being able to use my short speaker cable so that idea went out the window. I did have some pics of the widened holes but my old phone died, the combi jack hole was incredibly neat and the IEC hole much less so. Any untidy edges were covered with a layer of black vinyl (99p - eBay again) on the outside anyway so my cack-handed metalwork is well hidden. I decided on semi transparent acrylic for the case which was £3.49 for an A4 sheet including delivery, wood would be easier for me to work with (I hate cutting plastic) but I thought the acrylic would look smart and I already had a bag of M2 hex screws to hold it together, unfortunately I misjudged the sizes due to the amp frame being slightly uneven and bulging slightly (probably happened when it got damaged originally) but meh, it will do for now. I used the original feet and screws from the original combo where possible so I didn't have to buy anything else. So here's Jim in his new clothes! So seeing as I had some screws and a Speakon socket lying around to begin with all in all this cost me: Amp - 99p Acrylic - £3.49 IEC socket - £1.30 Black vinyl - 99p Total - £6.77 As you can see there's a few rough edges there along with some poorly cut acrylic, I didn't sand anything down as at some point I'm going to redo the acrylic sleeve entirely - I seemed to have got the hang of cutting it with a jigsaw on the very last cut I had to make and know where I went wrong the first time. It will do for now though, besides another £3.49 sheet of acrylic would push the cost of the build right up and I'm not made of money. So I bet you all think it sounds terrible and has no volume when paired with my EA cab right? Well it actually sounds surprisingly good, more than loud enough for home practice and isn't at all deficient in the tone department either. Sure it looks like a child's lunch box but it makes for a solution a problem with the absolute minimal spend which is ideal for me. Now I can buy another expensive preamp pedal and not feel guilty about it.

Keep an eye out on the used market for RCF cabs, you won't be disappointed.