The Last Bass Outpost

I love my Chinese-made Peavey NTB 5-er I picked up at a pawn shop. I was in there killing time a few years ago vaguely looking for a budget 5 string to play out with, and picked it up just to noodle. The dang thing blew me away instantly. I played plenty of US-made Cirrus basses, its upmarket inspiration, when they first came out, and all of them left me cold, but my cheapie little Chinese Peavey kicks serious ass, as do my VB-2 and Classic 400 amps and 4x12TFX cabinet, which seems to weigh about as much as two SVT cabs put together.

They have pretty much abandoned Trace Elliot as anything but a budget line after all kinds of QC problems with their updated versions of classic Trace Elliot amps, which was a shame because while they didn't sound like old Trace Elliots, they did have a unique tone that wasn't exactly "Peavey" either, but those amps were even LESS reliable than the ones produced under Gibson ownership, and that's saying something.

Update: my Titebond wa so old it had separated inside its bottle, but I had some equally ancient Elmer's wood glue that I have been using for Amazon furniture that only needed some minor diluting. I glued the headstock carefully as instructed and clamped it for four days (work kept me away from it). The break is set nicely, strong as new, with only the ugly buckled polyester finish on the lower side of the break showing anything ever having been amiss with it. It's still too high on the neck to interfere with first position, so I'm not worried about sanding down the finish and smoothing it.

Been playing it for about a week. Tuning is stable. Interestingly, its strings appear to be stock, but are worlds better than the stock string that came on my other Epi VP, which I bought new. The neck profile is also slightly chunkier on my new bass, and it has a darker, punchier overall tone. The neck is closer to my Les Paul than to my other Thunderbird, and I like that. Loving it and for $200, I'm exceptionally happy with it.

I was perusing Guitar Center's used gear section one night killing time when I found an outstanding deal on an Epi Vintage Pro T-Bird, $350 for a black one in basically new condition and one of the better-made Indonesian models. There were plenty of pics, a rarity for GC, so I pounced. After a few days of no contact for a shipping notice, I suspected something was up. The warehouse manager called me and said that they couldn't sell the bass because it had been broken by UPS when it was previously sold and they were going to send it off for repair. I asked if I could buy it if they could give me pics of the damage and do any better on the price and and save them some hassle. He sent me four very good pics showing a super clean break.

 He said he had to speak to the GM, but he would get back to me. The next day, he called me back and said I could have it for $200 plus shipping and tax but it would be "all sales final." I agreed and he agreed to refund me the difference. It took a bit to get to me, but it's been here for a couple of weeks now. They have not yet refunded the price difference, so I still have an option to return it, but it looks to me like the bass only needs a decent glue-repair and it will be good to go. I took more pics on my phone, but I'm still learning imgur and haven't figured out how to port them over yet, but here are the four he sent me initially:

I have done some woodworking in my life, but I want advice from you guys since you have forgotten more about it than I will ever know. What method and materials would be the best way to fix this break?

Good vid, but his explanation of a Baxandall tone stack is wrong, way wrong.

A little background on the Heritage B-15: it wasn't even built by Ampeg (which for the time period is a VERY good thing), but was license-produced by George Metropoulos of Metropoulos Amplification. I've never heard one, but would love to.

I did NOT need to see this thread!

I've always wanted to try a multi-scale bass, specifically a Dingwall, just to see if I could get a good fat tone out of it and make it work for me. Modern "metal" is boring computer generated video game music to me, and.most active preamps usually leave me cold, but I'd give it a shot. If the basic tone is there, I'm sure I could find some surplus 70's or 80's Ibanez pickup (who, not coincidentally, have one of the VERY few active sounds that is fat the way I like outside of MM/G&L) to put in it. I beat the shit out of my basses and having more consistent tension across the neck would be a really nice thing for feel. On EVERY bass I have that's 34" scale, the jump to the G string always buries everything else, because technically, every other string IS a short scale and the harmonics really come alive without becoming too bright or brittle. Sheldon has clearly found his market and successfully hitched his wagon to it.

Quote from: uwe on February 06, 2023, 05:55:11 PM
Everyone gets a keepsake once in a while, even if it takes 63 years, uhum, POWERS that be allowing ...

China has their own collection.

With early Slayer, which Raining Blood is, the bass is just an afterthought, a hint of an atonal clank hiding underneath Kerry King's massive guitar tone giving Tom Araya something to do besides scream and headbang. As they got older, the production DID get better, and to their credit, they never tempered their attitude and even had some sonic experiments (within the "broad" spectrum of punk to thrash) but this is where they pretty much ended up:

I'm super curious about this preamp! It's nice to see something different than the plethora of Ampeg or Fender clones out there.

I don't like "You're so Vain" anyway. (The melody always makes me think of "Two Outta Three Ain't Bad" which has a less stilted structure, like Meatloaf heard it and "fixed" it a few years later.) It's definitely NOT a song suited to Olivia, but she did better with it than I expected. Her album is basically a giant middle finger to an ex that was older and dumped her, so I'm sure that's where the idiot producers got the idea to recast her as Carly Simon against an older "anonymous" suitor who spurned her. Likewise for Alanis, whom I imagine would do even worse with it. Dave Coulier is no Warren Beatty. If nothing else, Olivia was a professional. Gotta give it to the mouse; his graduates are seldom slackers. And yes, that guitar solo was awful. Not too crazy about the horns either. That's not a song that calls for bombast.

Her wardrobe choice is pretty consistent with how she is dressed for awards show performances lately and it looks like to me that her image consultants are trying to offset her small chest while still trying to show it off. Or she could just be a 19 year old who knows she is pretty and likes to show off her body. Her sex appeal doesn't sell me anyway. I like her voice and attitude. I expect that she's got some great music in her future. Here's her video that I like so much:



..and it's even funnier in the context of the Beavis and Butthead episode which featured it.



I absolutely cannot see the original video and not laugh now.

My ballroom dance teacher from the days when the ex was dragging me to it introduced me to The Masochism Tango, and yes, it was.

If you're using a laptop or PC you can bypass any paywall by right-clicking on the page> left click 'inspect'> left click the 'options' icon in the top right> scroll to the bottom of the options menu and left click 'disable java script'> then refresh the page and close the 'inspect page'...

The right wing propaganda outlets are smart enough to not use paywalls. It's too bad that actual journalists keep shooting themselves in the foot.

To show just how "serious" Walmart takes its self checkout:

And the organized gangs of thieves are only encouraged by PUBLIC corporate statements that employees who try to stop them will be fired.

Quote from: westen44 on December 08, 2022, 06:48:17 AM
I saw on the news Walmart may have to shut down some stores and also increase prices just because of the massive shoplifting.  This is organized retail theft.  Other stores such as Target are also affected.  I actually caught the figure for target.  They've lost $400 million in 2022 from shoplifting.  Of course Walmart is higher than that although I don't know the amount.

Don't buy into what is essentially corporate propaganda. Walmart's "theft" problem is their self-checkout, which they intentionally do not maintain in order to report "theft," which they will then use as justification to start closing stores and cutting employees. The profits they made during the pandemic were unsustainable, but their accounting departments attributed it to an increased online/pickup experience despite the fact that in-person shopping was illegal in much of the country, and reason that by expanding online, they can attain those profits again. Target and Best Buy are doing the same, purposefully under-staffing and under-stocking stores to drive more online business. All major national retail chains are undergoing major restructuring to try and maintain Covid-levels of profitability. It's crap and a lie. Best Buy's CEO, my old boss, even went so far as to actively discourage customers from coming into to stores on the Today show this time last year, saying that employees feared for their safety because of theft while never mentioning that she had completely eliminated the loss prevention arm of the company.