Merton

Unless you’ve been following the build thread you won’t know who Conway Instruments are. So check out this for the history: All you get here is porn (and specs): 5 string fretless, 30” scale with through body stringing Black limba core, English ash top and limba back Limba, maple and cooba set neck, pau ferro board Nordstrand MM5.4 pickup with coil tap and series/parallel switch There's more to it than that but it’s the basics. I’ll let the pictures do the talking. She’s stunning to look at, lovely to play and sounds huuuuge.

A few more pics in the sunshine. Collecting this evening, cannot wait!

Love Ashdown amps, I have three! The ABM is my favourite solid state head ever, the RM800 is my favourite Class D head ever and the CTM100 just my favourite amp ever. I don’t have a CTM100 anymore sadly, but I do have a Little Bastard which is almost as wonderful I also find they work even better with Barefaced cabs but our local rehearsal studio has the EVO IV ABM600 and 410 cab and it is a match made in heaven, a thing of beauty. Based on that experience alone I would say the EVO IV cabs seem to be a step up. Welcome to the gang!

Next week, it’s come up fast! Last In Line on Wednesday and then the following night Stone Temple Pilots. Whoop.

As long as you promise to clean up before I get there, next time I venture up to our Manchester office I’ll make a detour and bring this with me

It’s almost finished! We’ve been having fun with the switching of the pickup, the original 5-way rotary switch turned out to be a bad idea so we’ve gone to two toggle switches. I can’t remember what they actually do so will let you know once I have the bass... Today Phil has basically finished her in terms of doing an initial stringing to let everything settle and acclimatise. In about a week he’ll give it the final intonation, truss rod and action tweaks. So we’re nearly there. And to celebrate...:

Lovely I’ve got s set of LaBella stainless steel rounds on my 32” ACG Finn and they are bloody lovely. £26 fro Bass Direct. My new 32” Zoot Funkmeister (almost finished!) will have DR Sunbeams

I do the same with my basses, pop my head into the room where they’re hanging on the wall just to have a look 😂

Oooh lovely

Glad you go through it ok I did a gig in a marquee last weekend and the drummer complained that I wasn’t loud enough with my Ashdown/Barefaced rig. I was plenty loud enough, but he wanted more. Thankfully our soundman is also a bassist and he had an Epifani 112 in his car, so we plugged that in as well. It was very definitely loud enough after that. Outdoors with rear ported cabs can sometimes be a pain; after reason something on the old Bassworld site I used to stick the desk’s flightcase about a foot behind my old Trace V-Type Combo if there wasn’t a solid wall just to give a chance for that to reflect forwards again. No idea if it actually made a difference but psychologically it did 🤣

Sunbury’s not a million miles away from me... If you can make it to Surrey this eve (near Gatwick airport) you’re welcome to borrow my Ashdown ABM500 and/or Barefaced Super Compact

Contact Larry Hartke direct on Facebook. He used to publish his mobile number and would take calls from anyone and everyone. If you can find it online anywhere he even said the other day he’d still take the calls!

Alan; he doesn’t hang around does he...

Alan sent me a pic to finalise pickup positioning. This has 6 string pickups on it so look slightly oversized but it gives you an idea of where Alan’s at. I’m unbelievably excited by this, my Finn 4 is my go to bass and this is going to make a superb sibling.

Bargain. I made the mistake of having my EVO serviced by a local amp tech and it cost almost double that. Ashdown will get it if it needs any tlc again.

I think some of the IIs were assembled overseas but having owned both UK and Chinese built ABMs I don’t think there’s enough of a difference to worry. The big difference is from the III to the IV, the power amp has been redesigned as has the valve drive section, not to mention the 9 rather than 7 band EQ. I own a gorgeous EVO from 1999 which I adore, but the drive you can get from a IV is totally different. The valve drive in the earlier Evos just gives an extra girth - like the old 90s Trace Elliot pres, whereas I feel the VI gives you some more grit and phatness. If you can stretch to an EVO IV I say do it

Haha not at all dude Black limba is v sexy in its own right 😎

P.S. this:

Give it a few months and then this, the Zoot and both mine and @eude‘s ACGs will be finished. We may have to have an interim one before the ACGs are done though 😎