Russ

Only in as much as European bands have 26 other countries they can tour in with no restrictions, and the UK now only has one (Ireland). The visa, customs and cabotage conditions are just as strict for European bands going to the UK.

Not particularly aware of any online personalities who play Wals. It's all Geddy Lee, Justin Chancellor or Mick Karn fans who want that particular tone. In recent years it's largely been Justin Chancellor fans driving sales as a lot of people want something akin to that Tool bass tone.

If they were to expand their operations, they should go the Spector route - Eastern European manufacturing. That way you still get a high but more affordable price point. The Czech Spectors are fantastic basses, as well as the likes of Mayones, Maruszczyk, etc (made in Poland). I had a conversation on here a couple of months back, where I mentioned that I wished that Jaydee would make something a bit more lightweight and modern and a bit less 80s, and the counter-point was made that they do what they do, and that's what the people who buy them want. Fair enough. I guess Wal is the same way. You are starting to see some companies (Herrick, Rautia, Bassculture, even Nordstrand) making Wal-style pickups, and John East and Lusithand making filter preamps, and ACG making the whole kit and caboodle, so something akin to that Wal sound is available in other form factors now if you want it.

I know several bands based in the EU who have had to turn down UK shows because of the post-Brexit visa and customs situation. They're all smaller bands who basically just can't afford the red tape. The old days of just piling your stuff in a Transit and getting on a ferry are over. Venues in both the EU and UK are reluctant to book bands from overseas because they're not convinced they'll actually be able to show up! One of them did hit on an idea though - they put on a couple of shows in Dublin, and laid on coaches for GB-based fans. They worked out that even doing that is cheaper than dealing with all the visas and customs charges. The £300 charge that chris_b mentioned is per band member or crew member. Plus, for customs, they have to itemise (and possibly show receipts for) all their gear and personal effects, and pay VAT for any merchandise in advance. Most bands aren't registered as businesses, let alone VAT-registered. There's also the issue of cabotage - that, if you're driving a commercial vehicle (even a Transit or splitter van), you can only make 3 stops in the EU before you have to turn around and go home. You could rent a van on the continent to get around this, but that's yet more money most younger bands can't afford. What a cluster-fornication. 🙄

I say learn to play it. You're on the right site for hints and tips! If you did want to sell it, I think the one that The Galley had up for sale a few years back was up for £1200 or so. It was up there for a while but it sold eventually.

Yep, definitely an Eccles. I think that's a slightly newer one, without the metal bar in the top horn and with a proper strap button. It also looks like a "slap plate" has been fitted at the end of the fingerboard. Beautiful looking thing though, a proper piece of objét d'art. @Andie84What are you planning on doing with it? Hang it on the wall, play it, or sell it?

I thought it was a remarkable looking thing, a lovely piece of sculpture, and I definitely appreciated the thin-ness and light weight, that all the hardware on it was completely custom (including a metal piece extending out from the top horn to hold the strap, which you had to tie on like an acoustic strap) and the unusual construction. I was just underwhelmed with its sound, which is a shame. Apparently the shop in Denmark St (I think it was Hank’s) got one of them in every six months or so - Mr Eccles apparently only made a couple of them a year, so there can’t be many of them out there. Eccles basses were definitely not made in the 60s though - early ‘90s at the earliest. I think he stopped making them in the late ‘90s.

Found the pic. Is this it?

I know the ones. I remember trying them back in the mid-90s in one of the Denmark Street shops. Short scale, fretless, apostrophe-shaped plates around the control knobs, custom-made bar pickups, tuners you had to use with an allen key. Stunning looking things, body and neck made from a single piece of wood. Very light, but not particularly good sounding. I've got a photo somewhere, I'll have to dig it out. Other than knowing of their existence and having tried a couple out, I can't tell you much more about them, alas.

Nate's a great player. He's been getting some good gigs lately too. He toured with Devin Townsend a year or two back, and he's just been announced as the bass player on Porcupine Tree's upcoming reunion tour.

Just realised I've never actually posted a pic of my three. Let's remedy that.

@MertonSo far so good. Not had a chance to gig or rehearse with it yet, it's been in its bag most of the time, but I'm pretty happy with it so far.

Is it just the CHB and SWB basses that are going to be made in the UK from now on? Is the Retrovibe range going to continue? Kinda had my eye on a Tony Butler Retrovibe as a nice modding platform - thinking of modding it into a Rick/Jazz/Wal hybrid by adding Herrick or Rautia multicoil pickups and a Lusithand filter preamp.

Thought it might be Ben & co. I was struggling to think of many other guitar manufacturers in the West Country!

BC is proving to be a rather good advert for Ibanez EHBs as of late. They are great instruments, and I love how unbelievably light they are. They look absolutely tiny on me though!

Stunning. Are those tiny white LEDs in the fingerboard, or Luminlays or something? Or is it a trick of the light?

Mine is under 9lbs... just. 8lbs 12oz.

My 2007 Bongo 5 weighs about 10lbs and is a bit of a boat anchor. My 2018 fretless 5 is much, much lighter, with the newer lightweight aluminium hardware, and tips the scales at a little over 7lbs. My most recent Bongo (a sixer) weighs a little under 9lbs, and I reckon most of that extra weight is from the neck. If you're going custom, a lot of builders are using a timber called paulowina as a decent lightweight replacement for ash - I know ACG, Sei, Sandberg and several others now offer it as a body wood option. I've heard good and bad things - the tone is supposed to be good, but it apparently dings quite easily.

Take the scratchplate off (or get a clear one) and the whole bog seat vibe goes away.

Agree with everyone here who points out that there's absolutely no need to tune down that low. There's no audio equipment short of an actual PA system with subs that can reproduce a 23.1Hz fundamental - all you'll end up hearing is the first harmonic anyway. For instance, if you want to talk heavy, D!ck Lofgren from Meshuggah plays in the same octave as the guitars - their lowest notes are A or A# so just a step or half-step down from the regular low B. Just EQ it nice and low with a bump in the low mids.

Still playing with it. It's good. And my BF Big Twin II is a good pairing for it, since it's got the power handling capacity to properly do it justice. Regarding what I was saying about the input monitoring, an active/passive switch might have been nice. I was using my MM Bongo (VERY hot output) and it was distorting slightly at about 50% input gain. My J-Retro-equipped Jazz and my Spector were super-clean at that level. Did the A/B test with my Mesa WD-800. The Mesa isn't as loud, the tone is a little smoother thanks to the valve preamp, and I really appreciate its highpass filter control to dial out the super-lows. More versatile EQ too. But it's nowhere near as punchy as the Trace. The Trace is, for want of a better expression, more lively and feels "bouncier", if that's actually a thing. One other little niggle though - I've just packed it away in its gig bag and the bag has a carrying handle but no shoulder strap. But at least there's room for the amp, the footswitch and a bunch of cables.

OK, first impressions: This thing is LOUD. And - let's get this out of the way - it does sound like a Trace, especially with the pre-shape engaged. It's got that characteristic scoopy punch in spades. The compressor is great, possibly a little heavy-handed, but I recall the original SMX compressor was no different. The volume goes down noticeably when it's dialled anything above around 10 o'clock. EQ las a lot of flexibility, the two mid controls seem to affect quite a wide bandwidth, so there's a lot of sounds in there. I like the footswitch, but it might have been nice to have a cordless Bluetooth one - the MIDI cable kinda gets in the way. Rack ears are cheesy. Only thing I'm not liking so far is there's no input gain monitoring LED or anything like that. It'd be nice to see if I'm overloading the preamp. Might have been nice to incorporate that into the LED that lights the gain knob. Going to A/B it against my Mesa WD-800 next.

It's here. I'll post some thoughts on it later once I've had a bit of a play.

The head has shipped - I should have it Wednesday or Thursday, so I'll post some impressions once I've had a bit of time to play with it. I'm actually quite excited - really hoping it's not a letdown.

I've travelled a lot, and had various issues with neck warp on some of my basses, to the point where I've had to have the necks on a couple of my basses "reset", or, in one case, had it refretted using compression fretting to straighten the neck out. Here in the US, the variation in humidity is crazy, from bone dry in winter to sopping, walking-into-a-wet-towel territory in summer, so graphite necks that don't move are very attractive to someone like me. I was gutted when Moses shut up shop, as they offered replacement graphite necks for all different sorts of basses, from the standard P/J style, all the way up to replacement necks for Ibanez 6-strings. I was going to commission them to make a graphite neck for my 5-string Bongo, but, by the time I had the cash together, they'd stopped making them! As for the traditional/modern thing, I've tried out P-basses with flats that just happened to have a Status neck, and they sound like a P-bass should, just a little clearer and with a bit more of a "bump" in the low-mids. To anyone in the audience, they wouldn't notice the difference.