Sparky Mark

You'd hope so, but it seems Fender supplied the majority of left handed basses in righty or "almost lefty" cases. I will add that when Fender introduced the American Standards circa 2008 they upped their game, including their cases hopefully.

You can see in the first post that my right handed P bass fits fine (although upside down) in a lefty P case. It seems odd to me that Fender would adapt the internal configuration of the bottom part of a lefty case but attach the top part hinged such that you are carrying your bass upside down and the wrong way around?

To me that is a right handed case because when you carry the case the bass is upside down. When you open the case you should be able to pick the bass up in the correct orientation without having to flip it over and turn it correct side up.

I never met Martin but his character shone through Basschat such that we all knew him. So so sad. RIP Martin.

Cutting at 340Hz removes that nasal sound for me. Boosting a little above and below to taste.

I much prefer the cheaper faded (satin) finish to the (sticky) high gloss finishes on Gibsons. Gloss is beautiful but not as comfortable to play for me.

What Markbass head is all valve? They only ever made the Classic 300 and thats been out of production for donkeys years.

I gigged two AE112 for quite a while before dragging my HT112ER and EX112ER out for a trial before selling those old fashioned heavy ceramic cabs. The result of that exercise was that I sold the AEs as the HT was worth the extra weight. In fact my current faves are two HD210 cabs.

I'm happy to go with the concensus and agree it is a bit harsh. Having worked on mission critical electronics during the transition from PTH to multilayer PCBs, thru hole to SMT and lead to lead-free solders/RoHS, I've seen just about everything that can go wrong do so. Ironically, I wish the blindingly bright blue LED on my compressor pedal would start to degrade; it's like looking into the Sun.

Understood, but I will add that new component selection is most definitely the responsibilty and a critical part of the design process. No component without a fully proven reliability record would make it onto the BOMs of products I am involved with.

Dear Andy, You've made a couple of serious accusations that I feel I have to counter. It's obvious from your emotional reaction that you invest personally extremely heavily in your designs. I understand that and have the greatest respect and admiration for your brilliantly detailed contributions both here and on Talkbass. You express your views very directly at times but they always come from the right place. My critical observation of a feature you have to admit was problematic is definitely not a personal attack on either you or any American citizens. I have spent the majority of my adult life working for US entities both on mainland USA and around the world and the vast majority of my instrument collection are US designed and built (Fender, Gibson, Musicman, Rickenbacker, Tom Clement). I am most definitely a US fan. However, sometimes things just don't work out as planned for many reasons as you have described and the way this issue was apparently dealt with by GB is laudable but doesn't mean it never happened. I'm sure we learn more from the things that go wrong than go right first time; as I have by starting this debate in a thread created to discuss amp gimmicks that did work. Yours sincerely, Mark

Okay, so it was a product design issue of which the actual amplifier design was only one aspect. Unfortunately, early adoption of these LEDs for aesthetics purposes only, resulted in this all too obvious fault in an otherwise perfectly satisfactory product. It's also unfortunate that not everyone lives in North America and able to benefit from the free repair service.

Agreed, but there are so many good amps around at any one time that a reason to discount one is welcome on occasion.

Other than another 1990s Trace, no there isn't. End of.

Yeah, but if they couldn't make simple LEDs work reliably that doesn't bode well for other aspects in my book. A perfectly good design compromised by a tacky marketing gimmick (IMO of course; YMMV).