Delberthot

Personally, I've never owned a combo loud enough to gig on it's own without PA assistance for anything other than background music with a drummer using brushes apart from my old Trace 1110 4x10" Unless your band is very quiet and it's a quiet audience then I don't believe that a 1x10" combo would be loud enough for anything more than as a monitor for on stage but then I don't know what combo you have - if it was a Trace 1210 4x10" or an Ashdown King Combo 8x10" then yes it probably would be.

I think that you are complicating things unnecessarily. I have two completely different basses, a Musicman Sterling and a Rickenbacker. I set up my sound using the Musicman and then adjust the BDI21 to suit the Rick. The BDI21 is off when I am using the Musicman and just functions as a DI and when I switch to the Rick, I turn on the BDI. Any sort of EQ pedal should do the same thing, the BDI21 just gives more options than, say, a Boss GEB7

I completely agree with the comments above - I've only bought 3 out of the 6 or 7 Ricks I've owned brand new and 2 of them had finish issues. Personally I think that the main reason is that the finish they use takes a while to dry properly and given the backlog of orders that RIC have for these, they just can't keep them long enough for it to set properly before sending them out and so issues are going to arise. Well, the good news is that I did get a replacement which was perfect. I also swapped the surround with the thumb rest for one without and much prefer it. The pickup on this one isn't as wonky and, again, the setup out of the case was perfect. I did have to open up the nut a little on the D string to accommodate the D'addario EXL165s (original string being a 55 and this one was a 65) but I was careful and used an old string to gently rub the nut enough (ooer missus) to open the slot so that the string sat in the channel properly. I will be gigging this for the first time tonight at a corporate gig in Edinburgh and it will also be the first gig for my Behringer BDI21. I'll try to get some pics tonight at the gig

Was the email from Strings Direct or D'addario? I subscribe to the D'addario one but when I clicked on it, it only covered the US & Canada.

Our of interest, where did you see the bogof option on the Stringsdirect website? I got an email, noticed it was only USA & Canada so PM'd Adam (D'addarioUK) who gave me a list of who was doing it in the UK and when it was running from but never managed to find anyone actually doing it, including Stringsdirect.

CCR - I heard it through the grapevine

I've had about 140 basses over the years, give or take one or two. I did it because I saw something I liked and wanted to try it - on some occasions several times over as I've had several Precisions, Stingrays and Rickenbackers. It's been a lot of fun. I've had some corkers, some that should have been great but turned out to be terrible despite having 4 figure retail prices and it's been a real blast trying out different basses. The truth is that if we're talking solid bodied basses, you only really need 1. Not a bass for this and a bass for that. The average person in the crowd couldn't give a monkeys if you are using the right bass for the right song as long as it sounds good so that's it. 1. I've been playing in wedding/function bands for the past 25 years and the right bass was the one I had at the time whether it was a Thunderbird or a Yamaha TRB6 fretless. I remember turning up to a wedding gig with a Warwick Thumb NT5 and a Modulus Flea bass. I played an entire rock gig with a 12 string once as well. If you play in a band that requires an acoustic, upright, uke etc then that's different but solid bodied basses it's 1. That being said, if you have the money to buy them & the space to store them then have as many as you want. have 10 precisions in different colours to suit your outfits or one of each of: a Jazz, Precision, Musicman, Rickenbacker, fretless, 5 string, 6 string, 8 string and 12 string to satisfy yourself that you have 1 of everything. Don't sell them because you feel you have too many unless it's one that you wouldn't miss

Well maybe Rick James

We had one of those cardboard flight cases for our mixer for years. In fact it was the box the mixer came in so still had the foam inserts to keep it secure in transit. By the time we sold it, the box was more gaffa tape than cardboard

It's still fared a lot better than mine. I defretted my one with a huge flat file before chipping the paint off and eventually binning it in 1991 and getting a Riverhead Jupiter

I've been curious as to how close they are. I can't imagine that they'd be a million miles away to keep the costs down but then again Fender will be buying them by the truck load to fit to their basses as well as selling them separately

Ha - I had one of those as my first bass. £99 from the Littlewoods catalogue in 1987 I have in the past seen knobs with a "D" shaped hole underneath for those type of pots but I would think that regular round shaft knobs would fit as long as you tighten the grub screw into the rounded bit and not the flat bit otherwise it would push the knob in at an angle Be careful with the bridge - the chrome peeled off on mine.

If the thumbnail image of a Youtube video shows the right thumb anywhere near the end of the neck then they get right to feck. I don't play like that and to be honest how many of us make a living slapping all night, or even at all? The same goes for 'tasteful' chords and other such nonsense. Play the bass like a real person would play it - that is about 99% of us who either play with fingers or plectrum. Play a riff that allows us to hear the notes rather than sounding like you've fallen down the stairs with the bass in your hands, give us variation between playing near the bridge and moving towards the neck. We don't need a million notes, we don't need to hear your chops - if you want to do all your w@nky pish then do it on another video - you're meant to be showing us what the bass sounds like, not showing off. Show us what the controls do and how they sound in different positions It's really not difficult at all And breathe 🤪

I'm finding the current D'addario EXL220BT strings too low tension and fancied a change so I've ordered myself a set of Fender 7250ML strings. Going to see for myself if the rumours are true that it is D'addario that make them. Worth a punt at £12.80 for a set delivered from Amazon when it's £18ish for a set of EXL165s

I love my setup and this is the longest that I have kept the same combination of bass, amp and cab in years. There's always been something coming or going over the years that it's nice to be able to set up my gear and just enjoy playing instead of thinking about what I could get next. The Rickenbacker was just for the hell of it 😀 I'll be gigging it in 2 weeks at a corporate gig. Tube ampology bezel in place of the cover and obligatory D'addario EXL165 strings fitted

I'm exactly the opposite - I find that dry, clean fingers are so much easier to play with than wet/greasy/etc ones. My solution years ago was to position a small clip on fan pointing in the direction of my right hand. It means that my fingers don't sweat, my strings don't get sticky and everything is smooth to the touch. If you're looking for smooth rounds then D'addario XL nickels are the smoothest I've ever used. That was really important to me when I made the switch from flats a couple of years ago Plus isn't nose grease etc going to significantly shorten the life of your strings as the grime gets between the windings?

Have you tried the D'addario balanced tension EXL160BT set before? 50, 67, 90, 120 I had them on my Sterling and they were still very playable but I prefer my usual EXL165 strings

I'm doing something similar. So far I have Behringer octave & phaser pedals that cost a grand total of £34 for both of them delivered from Amazon. I've been looking for something like the Boss LS-2 for much cheapness so that I can mix the dry and effected signals but haven't managed to find anything yet - I know they go for around £50 delivered on the forum and EBay but I'm looking for something that costs half that new.

I've noticed a lot of players using that really crooked right wrist technique with the hand bent right back on Youtube videos - surely that's just asking for trouble years down the line? Another example here:

It was me 😉 I took it off to fit a bezel and it was then I noticed that the pickup was wonky The new one is on it's way to me now and I should get it tomorrow but it will be Thursday or Friday before I get a good play. I also received my replacement bezel through the post today as well. I had bought the one with the finger rest incorporated but felt that it was getting in the way so Rickysounds were good enough to swap it over for the standard one.

It looks like an "O" right before the RFA and only "I" or nothing would fit in that space so "P AORFA maybe?

The stamp in the middle looks to me to read "X 6 26 79" so 26th June 1979?

Scales like those can be incredible inaccurate and difficult to get the right weight. The easiest way to weigh you bass is to get a set of bathroom scales. Weigh yourself holding the bass then weigh yourself on your own. The difference is the bass You may or may not get a shock at how much you actually weigh rather than the weight of the bass 😀

If your tuner is having trouble with the E then play the harmonic on the 12th fret by lightly touching the E string right over the 12th fret an pluck the string Some tuners, including some fitted to a bass amp, aren't sensitive enough to hear the E string, let alone the B so I've had to do this in the past. Regarding the thumb, as per Newfoundfreedom's post, do what feels comfortable to you. there is no right or wrong. Depending on the bass I will use either the pickup or the E string, sometimes both