"Mark Knecht" &lt;markknecht(a)gmail.com&gt; writes: Thank you -- I'm glad you liked it. The "guitar" sound's actually an Irish bouzouki (there's a picture on http://offog.org/music/instruments.html). The percussion part's me slapping the body of the bouzouki. :) -- Adam Sampson &lt;ats(a)offog.org&gt; <http://offog.org/>

"Mark Knecht" &lt;markknecht(a)gmail.com&gt; writes: I went to their shop in Crawley (a couple of hours' drive from here), since I wanted to try out the instrument before I bought -- and it's a good thing I did, since I was originally planning on getting the similarly-priced Ashbury bouzouki, which turned out to have a fingerboard far too narrow for my fingers. ;) They had a really impressive selection of instruments when I went (including second-hand), and were quite happy for me to sit there for a couple of hours trying out all of them until I found one I liked -- the local music shops here in Canterbury only have a few mandolins in stock, and don't sell bouzoukis at all. I have bought strings and bits from Hobgoblin over the web, and been very happy with the service. I don't think I'd want to buy an acoustic instrument without playing it first, though -- there can be significant differences even between instances of the same model... -- Adam Sampson &lt;ats(a)offog.org&gt; <http://offog.org/>

On Sun, Feb 19, 2006 at 08:17:24PM -0800, Mark Knecht wrote: It all depends ... I currently have five basses, three of which are from ebay and one from a bassist's forum called the Dudepit. Plus a guitar from ebay too. Plus a mixer, my Delta 66, a bass cabinet, a mic, etc etc. On ebay, I check feedback mercilessly, ask annoying questions, and if anything feels at all wrong, move along. And I bear in mind two more things: * what if I don't like it after all? will I be able to sell it for what I paid? Is it worth the hassle? * what if UPS / FedEx / USPS / etc. destroys it? Am I willing to either take the loss, or go through their maddening claims process? If I can't live with the answers to those questions, I don't bid. I learned the hard way. I once paid $400 for what was essentially a piece of firewood. The lesson learned was that ANY disclaimer text on an auction is enough for ebay and paypal to give you no help whatsoever, even if the auction text is otherwise blatantly wrong. You will never get your money back if there's a disclaimer. Period. Misrepresentation of goods? Doesn't matter. The guy had some sketchy feedback; I should've known. I sold it for $150 to a guy who had the skills to laboriously cut, sand, and glue on a new headstock, replace the truss rod, etc etc. -- Paul Winkler http://www.slinkp.com