Skybone

Pick up a second hand Line6 HD500x for around £200-250, add the HD Bass pack for about £20. Great preamp, loads of great effects on board, loads of connectivity on the back, ideal for stage and studio, and a fraction of the cost of a Helix.

The 2005 didn't have the Vintage Circuit, it became standard on 4003's from 2006. Nice bass @BrunoBass, enjoy!

Curious how @Stofferson is getting on with his Ric?

Asomvel

Another vote for the TC Electronic UniTune and PolyTune. The PolyTune is great for the guitar, works fine on the bass, but can drop into "six string mode", which is just annoying. The UniTune works fantastic on bass, it's very accurate, and is cheaper than the PolyTune.

You can get a roll of sticky back plastic (Blue Peter?) from places like B&Q for about £5.00. Goes on easily, and should peel off as well. Might need to clean off any glue residue, but this shouldn't take too long.

What I would do, is use the B3 as your preamp, and plug it directly into the Effects Return of your amp. You can still run a DI from the B3, and you get the advantage of having an on stage 'monitor' to hear yourself. I'm running a similar set up, using a Line6 HD500x into the effects return of an Ashdown 300 combo. Sounds great to me, and I know that the amp is easily capable of handling the low end, where I was never that sure about an active PA speaker / FRFR setup being able to. Pretty sure they are, but I didn't have a big enough budget to get a 'decent' speaker. The Ashdown was not only affordable, but is fairly uncoloured (to my ears).

I'm another satisfied Schaller straplock user, never had any issues with them in over 20 years. I've used Dunlop's, but have always found them to be fiddly to install (the circlips), as well as fiddly to use. Horses for courses of course. I do prefer the old style Schallers, which have the separate strap button & come with 2 different length screws. I was a bit sceptical about the new design, combining onto the button.

I always found that the skin on my fingertips reacted with the nickel on strings, causing dead & flaky skin as well as making the fingers a bit more sensitive, and not able to play for too long before needing a good break from playing. This changed after swapping over to stainless steel strings, no more skin reactions, can play for longer as my fingertips hardened up, and with the added bonus of the strings still sounding bright, and lasting for around 6 months.

And there was me thinking that in amongst the usual Eurovision dross, there were actually a few decent songs. Well, half decent, commercially viable pop songs, that would get some air play on various radio stations.

I remember seeing FNM with the original singer, Chuck. Great show, tiny venue.

They're all annoying.

Hawkwind;: Space Ritual. The bass just drives the whole album.

I'm another one who doesn't like practice amps, I'd rather play without an amp than use a practice amp. I'd go with the Zoom B1 over an amp (and possibly a B3n over the B1), as it'll give you a bit of flexibility if you want to integrate some effects into your "playing out" rig.

They have been released, it's just that they're like rocking horse poop, and priced accordingly.

Didn't they buy up Digital Village (DV247)?

Certainly hope they'll be "rolling" out that new bridge on to all of the production models.

Although it was a guitar amp, the Matamp I used to own was a superb piece of kit, and the customer service was brilliant. After a year, I ordered a replacement face plate for the amp. When it was ready, I took the amp over to the factory, they fitted it, checked the amp over, and then didn't charge me a penny for any of it. Must have been there a good couple of hours minimum. Good craic, excellent service. Added to the fact that they also sourced a specific vinyl to cover the amp & cabs especially for my order.

I haven't bought back any instruments I've sold, bit have bought the same versions of them before. Unfortunately it wasn't that great a reunion due to the passage of time, but it was good to reminisce for a while.

Thread resurrection time! Has anyone done a pickup swap on their Faker? What have you tried? What do you want to try? Been looking at the Gemini Pickups site again, thinking about getting a set of the Tsunami pickups. Tried the Retrovibe "Classic" pickups, they were ok, but didn't quite have the sound I was after, not interested in trying any of the humbucker options either, I do like the single coil sounds. Thoughts? Opinions? General observations? Etc

https://thousand-mile-stare.bandcamp.com/album/overrun Here's a link to the Bandcamp page for my band, Thousand Mile Stare. It's all original songs, in a classic, heavy rock style, have a listen. This was recorded last year, live, with our old drummer.

If the full blown Helix is over kill, then maybe look at the HX Stomp. A full blown Helix, but in a small box, a lot less connection possibilities, but the same sounds. However, I'd agree with @Dood, and spend some time setting it up for your needs. I have a HD500x, and to be fair, I only use 3 or 4 patches. Each with the same amp & cab setup, but with different effects, so I can switch between the patches to give me the sounds I need for different songs. I have other patches set up, but I don't tend to use them much.