asingardenof

As a result of becoming chartered recently I'm due to receive a bonus from work, which obviously means NBD is going to happen. My budget for this is going to be around the £500 mark, and after a lot of debating on this subject (@Merton can confirm!) I've narrowed my choice down to either a new Sterling Sub Ray 5 or a secondhand G&L L-2500 Tribute. I tried out the Ray 5 a few months ago and was very impressed, and the neck felt extremely comfortable to my tiny hands, but I suspect if I were to buy this it would become a mod platform, with some mostly aesthetic changes to the bridge and tuner and possibly an upgrade to the preamp at some point. I've always been a bit GASsy towards the G&L, and have watched a fair few reviews and know it would be an awesome bass. I have, however, heard that the necks are pretty chunky, and having dispensed with my one and only previous fiver for having a tree trunk for a neck that made playing it very awkward I'm keen to not repeat the experience with a reward to myself. My problem is that new L-2500s in the wild are few and far between, as are secondhand ones, obviously a testament to how good they are. What this means though is that I can't try any out (the nearest one I'm interested in is in Nottingham, a 1½ hour drive away), which is where I hope some of you good people come in. Can anyone who has tried both comment on the difference in neck profiles? I've also dismissed a Warwick Rockbass Streamer for the same reason - are these really chunky as well?

How are you streaming? Are you able to use an output from the PA mixer through an audio interface via USB and use that as the "microphone" Windows uses?

I wasn't trying to be comprehensive

Valve amp wattage takes you further than solid state wattage though

Battery connections not connected properly. Egg on face.

Today a friend and I have had an attempt to replace the broken preamp in my Sire V7 with a Sadowsky drop-in replacement. All of the soldering seems to have gone OK, including the trickier than expected task of attaching the pickup ground wires to the back of the blend pot (not as easy as various videos would have you believe!). Before finishing everything we decided it would be prudent to test everything. So we booked up my little Vox headphone amp and plugged it in. In passive mode it works fine, and the volume and pickup blends knobs all work, which is a relief given how long we had to leave the soldering iron on the pot to get it hot enough for the solder to stick. But when we engage the preamp, nothing, not a dicky bird. We've checked the soldered connections on the spliced battery harness which all appear to be fine, and used a fresh battery, but still nothing. I've messaged a local tech to get their advice and maybe book it in, but other than the connections on the battery harness not being as sound as we think they are, or possibly the preamp module being borked, does anyone have any possible suggestions for what night be the issue?

Having spent years on various volunteer-run committees for organisations I feel the pain of everyone having views but nobody wanting to actually wanting to contribute to improvements.

Agree on all of those. Steer clear of the Old Speckled Hen AF variety though, it's weird.

No, but it must have been close from the reaction.

I'm not sure why that's relevant to what I posted. Someone asked about the price of a 90s Korean P-bass, I said what mine cost in 1998, then worked out what it would cost in today's money and compared it to the equivalent current model and noted they were more or less the same. That's it. I wasn't referring anything back to that post about instruments in the US from the 60s other than to say it gave me the idea to work out the equivalent current price.

Only time I've ever been breathalysed in nearly 29 years of driving was when I was living in Dublin and had been out for dinner for my birthday. I'd had one Guinness and some JD sauce on a steak, and the young garda who pulled me over looked more amused than anything as he let me drive the 100yds or so I still had left to go home.

I suspect that Sadowsky chap is quite keen on it as well.

I was only considering the individual case of my bass.

Decent price and decent gear for a first bass and amp. I agree with the comments about getting it set up, which you can do following YT videos or if you can find a local guitar repairer/luthier you could ask them to do it and then take notes so you understand what's being done and why. You'll need a lead to connect the two if you don't have one, and you can pick up a Fender or Planet Waves one reasonably inexpensively but both will be decent quality. Other than that you'll probably want to learn how to play it, and a good starting point would be something like Bass Buzz or Scott's Bass Lessons YT videos, and then go from there. Have fun and welcome to the world of bass!

Inspired by the recent post on the comparison of US costs of instruments in the 60s in today's prices, I thought I'd do something similar here and in today's money my Precision would be worth £430 new according to the BoE inflation calculator (https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/monetary-policy/inflation/inflation-calculator), which is more or less the same as a new Squier Classic Vibe today.

Tetris Master Level!

You don't notice it while you're playing so I don't find it to be a big deal. There are less attractive headstocks out there.

Ah, the Michael Gove theory of statistics

Depends if it was an Affinity or a Standard. My Korean Precision Standard was £230 when I bought it new in 1998 but I believe the Affinity series was cheaper than that.

Apparently because of the hot weather they were super busy or something. I might put in a complaint but don't expect anything to come of it as they'll just trot that out and shrug probably.

Ford Mondeo. I was very pissed off that they were talking about having a local contractor come out until nobody wanted to and I had to wait for the morning patrol to start. I've been with the AA and they weren't any better from memory, so I might investigate Green Flag or another alternative when renewal time comes around. To be fair I've never had a bad experience with an RAC patrol, it's always the arranging of them to come out that's the major headache.