Aidan63

No, I'm just guessing but based on how many used instruments are listed for sale on Ebay and Reverb, for example the UK accounts for 1/4 of all used Bass guitar listings available to the UK on Reverb worldwide, so I'd say per head we are big consumers, lots of us have multiple instruments, we've bought and continue to buy a lot of stuff, even in these straightened times

I bet preBrexit the UK was 30%-40% of Thomann's sales and I bet it is now like 10%-15% and lower margin and more ball aches for them; you can see that price difference between them and the UK retailers has lessened, are we so desperate to always get the lowest price that we are prepared to risk issues or a crappy delivery or return, sometimes its worth paying a little bit more to support a UK retailer, whether big box shifter or real shop or like Andertons both; good deals often to be found on 2nd and 3rd page of Google if you look that far with smaller retailers

that's me told 🙃

why use plywood ?, a bit of oak or other nice hardwood will add a little bit of weight and as long as it's not all at the neck end won't destroy balance of the instrument and good for taking fixings if you leave a void for a wooden insert for the controls you could use wood to fill and make a feature of it or fit a J-Retro or similar on board preamp

I asked a few years ago and they had no plans to do flats then, it's a big investment in materials, and r and d, and machine time, it's probably the latter that is the biggest restriction, ultimately for not much in sales. If they did them I'd buy some, but probably only 1 set per instrument, in 10 years 😲

Does anyone who deals with them regularly know if they have any plans to ever do flats or tapewounds ?

I am in rural mid-Wales, so not near any big shops, so looking for a good and easy distance purchase and return if necessary option; second hand prices are often on the steep side for the instrument I am interested in, and even when reasonably priced many peeps, rightly, don't want to ship because we can't trust the couriers to do it right every time, hence the question - so far jrixn1 seems to be the only one to have experienced a return with Fender. I'm asking on here because I want to be informed before talking to their sales people who will I am sure promise the earth, but in reality might not quite live up to the advertised 'easy process' as advertised

like the gold foil jazzes were perfectly fine basses, keepers for life type ? with the online discount at the moment they are similar price to most dealers in the UK, direct selling is the model Fender and the other big boys want to go to but returns policy and implementation is crucial and I would feel a lot better if I had to return because I didn't like it to the manufacturer than to a shop, especially if the manufacturer took control of the return as that is the biggest worry when returning anything, will it arrive back at seller in 1 piece as it left you ?

most that have tried this bass find them overpriced neck heavy and offer nothing that many other cheaper PB pickup instruments offer cheaper better

and returned it, because they didn't like it ? Under distance selling regulations with their advertised 30 day easy return policy

forgot to say it has headphone out too and there's one listed in for sale for a barginous £185, nothing to do with me 😲🙃

it's as if they were designed for a high mass bridge but ended up with bbot instead as people expect tradition from Fender (or because they are cheaper, thus more profit) which ever bridge they fit Fender always have the description big up the choice made

watch out for used Phil Jones Double four, especially the earlier version with the external power supply as they can be run using a power pack, that's what I use for practice, 70w, sounds great, works with double bass: decent tone controls, passive and active in, very small, very portable can be used with a bluetooth dongle as a general music listening machine as it has an aux in; there was one for sale at BassDirect complete with powerpack and carrybag for less than £300 a few months ago, was only there for a couple of days as it was a great deal, the combos on their own often go for around £2-250 used

The problem is if you as a small business simply publish your email address online you have to deal with masses of unsolicited scammer type emails, but if you set up a contact form it works well initially so you think great, cracked it 😀 and then as the software used to make the website (wordpress for example) gets updated to help prevent scammers and as the isps constantly update their defences to reduce spam the contact form becomes unreliable and is often blocked by the isp, or ends up in spam. So you end up having to do lots of maintenance of the site and testing and updating, which is fine if you are in the IT business but if you just need a presence for the non word of mouth customers to find and contact you then it has become increasingly a pain, thanks to criminals all around the world and AI. I have found it gives best result if you call companies where possible, they will usually give you a better email address to use if they can't deal with the enquiry wholly by phone, like fred @thebiz.com where fred is the actual person who can sort your enquiry out. The biggest companies are often the worse for contact form not working, maybe because they assign that inbox to someone who leaves the company and they don't reassign the function or have a catch all set up to monitor incoming mail where the 'duty' person everyday checks the stuff that is in the spam filter or hasn't been final delivered. But big companies publish the phone number and have a reception/telephonist person who can route your enquiry generally.

nice work - can you use it to make a B90 😉

yet all the old bands still play (or reform again specially to tour) to huge audiences at sell out gigs at wtf ticket prices, sucking out the available spend from the music economy. I worked the Rolling Stones gig at St James' back in 1981 or 2 and realised that in 2 nights the RS had sucked out the equivalent of 6 months local bands nights out of our local impoverished community, that was really the beginning of pay to play for local bands who a few months previously would have got £50-150 per band per night and some beers for playing a 100-300 people venue that would have been glad to have them, and many of them had such a following they could sell out the bigger small venues - anyone remember DanceClass ? for example. Used to get local bands on the Tube too, and some of those were filmed at odd venues like Coach Lane Campus of the Poly (now University of Northumbria) rather than in the TT studios, and the union put on the Eurythmics on the top floor (the RedBar) to a paid up audience of something like 38, (ex the Tourists who ?) they turned up with a mini Bose PA and were amazing despite the lack of punters; 2 nights later Sunday disco in same room 250 plus packed out and whizzed and up for it.

A friend of mine has a tattoo ring as he works with his hands and big bits of wood and other materials and big tools at height, he nearly lost the finger once when the original wedding ring got caught on something so it was the safest option, he doesn't wear a watch or any other jewellery for the same H&S reasons

As it's flat then make your own from a piece of bone I'd say, or have one made for you by local tech/luthier who can explain the process and dial it in for your neck and string choice and playing style Lots of videos showing how to on YT, twoodfrd channel is ace and shows lots of nut making, including some basses including fretless

I did a bit more googling and found someone who does personal IRs, and has some bass rig IRs already, so maybe worth contacting RobHobson, with the Boss IR2 pedal you'd be sorted; maybe 😃

Any survey of the 'great' fretless players will generally show they mostly favour round wounds, there was a really good discussion about it during an online seminar/forum a few years ago presented from Berkley College; it's probably still viewable somehow, but I am sorry I don't have the link, iirc Steve Bailey who is/was? main man at Berkley for Bass would be point of contact, and there was a thread about it here on General at the time; it was a lockdown thing that hasn't afaik carried on much since though that was the intention but I may have dropped out of the loop and it is still going on unbeknownst to me That being said I have half rounds on mine at the moment 🙃

Top seller is Alex, great price and ace service, many thanks for the case

I assumed there would be Studios/engineers/techs/musicians offering a capture service but a quick Google didn't throw up any such results; surely if you invested in IR sampling hardware and some good mics you'd want to make a bit of money back on your investment ?

What about the new Boss IR2 Pedal. that seems to have pretty much every trick in the box in a compact pedal, good review on The Studio Rats channel on YT today

Is that Mick Karn's ? 🙃