simisker

Many, many bass manufacturers give no thought to their instruments' user interface, and sadly Dingwall are no exception. Congratulations on solving a problem that Dingwall couldn't be arsed to solve for themselves 👍🙂

I may have slightly mocked the name early in the thread, but I ended up buying a Soloking Meteora-style guitar from Andertons last year, and it's a brilliant guitar for the money. I was extremely surprised/impressed by what I got for £250 [iirc]. £150 for one of those basses is just mental. Alder body, stainless steel frets, rosewood fretboard... what a ridiculous bargain. Go grab!!

There are also the Yamaha YH-WL500 wireless headphones, that are specifically targeted for musicians, and have latency on a par with the Waza Airs. I use them for monitoring my non-critical DAW/hardware synth jams, and they're more than up to the task.

Wow, that looks positively Soviet-era 😲 I remember when I was researching for my own Maruszczyk build, it became apparent from other owners' testimonies that carbon rods were an unspoken must-have. So would this explain why Maru truss rods work in the opposite direction to most other truss rods? Is that a symptom of the shonky ghetto nature of their truss rods?

That's a brilliant idea! Do this!

..

When I bought my custom Elwood three years ago, I ended up having to pay import duty some months afterwards. I didn't have to pay to 'release' the bass from customs or anything; it was shipped to me by PP once ready. The duty came afterwards in the shape of an invoice from DHL, if I remember rightly - 150 quid or so [I wonder if Adrian declared a lower than accurate value... 🤔]

I guess I'm seeing something different to you guys. All I'm seeing is something that's Cort quality* - including the clearly misnomered premium** gig bag - for TWICE the price. Or, for the same price, you could get an actual MTD Kingston. Oh, hang on, wait: 3 free months of lessons in the Gibson App? Fair enough, then 😛 * Not that I'm being disparaging about Cort quality; quite the opposite! It's just that they don't slap £1.5k-2k price tags on their instruments. ** IMO, if a gig bag doesn't have a proper padded handle, it's not premium. End of.

Nerdiest bass: any 'coffee table' single-cut bass*. Ultranerd points for when you reel off all the exotic woods involved. 'Cos you sure as hell ain't buying one for the cool rock 'n' roll looks * for the record, I have one**. ** Wenge, Walnut and Flamed Maple.

Yes, it's possible - Alan fitted my ACG Salace with a P-Retro and a battery box. It's a great preamp.

Heh - no, true... because they're aware of the fragility of egos. Or if they aren't, they soon would be made aware Maybe it's because I come from the indie/rock/alternative side of the tracks, but I've interpreted a 'band' as an artistic collaboration between all members [in variable proportions, obviously/famously]. And maybe I'm being presumptuous, but it's this collaborative definition that, I think, is what OP/Beato/Richard Osman et al have all been all been implying when they refer to a 'band'. Beck wasn't a band. CMat isn't a band. Idles ARE a band. At least, that's how I'm interpreting it. Just don't ask me what The Fall were

True, but then you're not a band member, you're a hired hand.

I think that's fair and a level-headed approach. The elephant in the room, as alluded to by the OP, is that bands as we maybe knew them are either dead or hibernating, and us bassists... well, we're supporting band members. With a few remarkable outre exceptions, we kinda need a band. (As much as I'd love the idea of solo bass guitar becoming 'culturally ascendent'! :D)

I'd never thought of it as gravid, but now it's obvious and I'll never be able to unsee it

From the late Chris Cross' collection auction? I was tempted myself, it's an iconic bass - I thought the all grey look was cool AF. Congratulations! Of course, the pressure is now on to also acquire Midge's Ibanez