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When I worked in the retail side of the hifi industry an old wise manager said. " Those cables make a difference to the amount in the till. "

Not sure if that counts as irrational

It was a bit odd! I think the idea was to get people line dancing in the space but that only really happened when the dancing girls were on before us!

On the basses I have with through-body stringing I always use it. Not for sound, or string tension, but to make sure those darn ferrules don`t fall out and get lost!

Erm... It is. Most stringed instruments gradually gain resonance as the wood seasons over time. Damn, the 'ToneWood Police' will be here soon - better scarper!

Thomann have a b-stock 7-string bass for £399. https://www.thomann.co.uk/harley_benton_bz_7000_ii_nt_b_stock.htm Over the years I've seen a few 12-string conversions (the first was off an OLP 5-string). I see stuff like this Harley Benton and do wonder whether it would be ripe for a project. The missus immediately vetoed the idea ("It's £400 and it'll cost you that again once you've tinkered with it, so no!"). How hard would this actually be? Plug the headstock holes, new machines. New (intonating) bridge and nut. Yes, people here would be going, 'String tension!', without really having the science to back up whether the neck would survive

Welcome to the forum Joel 😊

Evri. as an organisation.

I already have, but the amp stages are a bit current hungry and require outboard power, especially for 2 x 6 string pickups. They're very low noise and distortion and I'm not willing to compromise on the design to get it battery compliant. A simpler summing node design with 1 amp / pickup is about 95% as good, and no one would ever hear the difference. Details, as well as the outboard processing (y'all should be able to guess what that might be), later. Not intending to release it commercially. I have other more important projects in the near term, but it's all based on my older existing designs.

Cars are like guns. People who enjoy using them, shouldn't be anywhere near them.

Personally I like the tones of Simon Gallup (The Cure) and Craig Adams (Sisters of Mercy era), and both helped shaped my early playing days.

@Mike Brooks

I'm going to try to hang onto this cab and see if I can use it occasionally. It would also be interesting to take into the studio next year when we're planning to do some recording. Please have a look at the speaker frame. This speaker mounts into the cab from the front, so I would have thought it would have had some kind of gasket around the rear edge of the frame. There's certainly remnants of all kinds of gunk around the rear edge now. I was wondering if it would benefit from a gentle cleaning up and applying a new gasket before refitting into the cab? Please share any thoughts you may have, and also if you know a source for a suitable gasket. I'm also thinking about casters. It appears to have had some before, but they would need to be really heavy duty, and perhaps secured with T-nuts inside rather than just woodscrews. Rob

I was reminded of this thread and thought I'd do an experiment over the last few days. A side by side of the OC2 and OC5, focusing on the -1 octave solo'd (does anyone use any other part of this pedal!), both at home via a small combo, and in the rehearsal room with a powerful rig, and both solo'd and in a mix. To start, I should point out that my OC2 has the -2 octave disconnected, which boosts the output volume to the pedal. Side by side with an unmodded version, there is zero tonal shift to my ear, but importantly this makes the -1 octave volume absolutely identical to the OC5, overcoming the usual volume dip these pedals suffer. Having them at the same volume really helped this experiment. I should also note that this is a made in Taiwan OC2, that needs the ACA adapter (12v, which is then knocked down to 9v in the pedal) - Note on this at the end. Also note that the OC5 was set to Bass and Vintage modes (which replicates the OC2). I'd like to give special mention to the fact that in poly mode, with the -1 octave solo'd and the Range knob set to 'lowest', the OC5 is a useful tool for some sub frequencies if you play it as though it was a mono octave pedal still, for those who don't want to destroy the building with a Dod Meatbox. The rest of poly mode is, IMO, very meh, but that one trick is a nice addition. So, the comparison... Here is what I did. 1. Side by side solo'd at home via Markbass MicroMark combo - focused on tone and noticeable latency. 2. As above, but into multi effects - OD, fuzz, envelope filter etc. to test how they played with other pedals. 3. Both of the above steps in the studio via a Markbass SD800 and Schroeder 1212L (LOUD). First without the tweeter, then with the tweeter dialled up - solo'd with three other musicians forced to close their eyes, listen and give me feedback. One of them was a drummer, so you can disregard their thoughts 4. As per the previous step, but in the context of a track with drums and keys/synths. 5. Absolutely everything above, in both active and passive mode on my bass. Here are my/our findings.... Latency - Absolutely no difference at all. In fact, I sat and played a few lines with my eyes closed and had others change the pedals so I didn't know which was which... and feeling wise I couldn't tell them apart (again, remembering that I am talking only about vintage mode on the OC2... in poly mode, yes, I can feel the latency). Tracking - Identical. I've seen lots of folk say the OC5 tracks better, but under a microscope and with clean playing, there is no difference at all. If the OC5 does track better, then my playing style doesn't allow me to highlight it. Both track down to an A on the E string without too much issue, and can track lower if you're very careful and don't end the additional artefacts in the sound. Tone - When solo'd and studying them sounds hard, the OC2 has a 'tiny' bit more breakup on the lower notes/E string when you dig in. It's so minor that I have to check over and over. Aside that, neither I, nor the other folk could tell a difference between the two, with a focus on my playing style, I was able to circumvent that extra breakup. Also note that without the tweeter on the cab, this difference was inaudible. I should note that it's not a pretty OD, it's just clipping and don't something I'd ever 'want' to replicate. Now we're talking ears, not a frequency analyser - and that's what matters - what we all hear. I like to think I have decent ears (former mastering engineer), but I am in no way an authority. To me, however, it was impossible to tell them apart. Literally identical on the A-C strings (I play a 5, strung E-C). Active vs Passive - comabred to each other the OC2 and OC5 sound and respond identically to the passive setting. In active mode, the very slight breakup we mentioned about the OC2 on the low E kicks in with a slightly softer playing. I play soft any way, so I had to force it to make this happen. I usually use the bass in active mode and nothing about this test would make me want to change it. In fact, I'd say the active output form the bass actually helps the tracking of both pedals a bit. With other pedals - The response and combining of them with other pedals was identical, it even made noticing the OC2 tiny low end breakup impossible. The feedback above was unanimous from all (only I can comment on latency), no one could hear a difference at all and in fact, I'm the only person claiming there was a touch more breakout in the sound on the E string. After a few hours of this questionable pointless experiment, here are my pros for both... OC5 Easy to find at a reasonable price. Nails the OC2 sound with zero latency. Has other options, even though you'll likely ever use them, but maybe for that one song. Still under warranty if you have an issue. OC2 People think you're cool because you use an OC2. Extra bonus test - I also tried running the OC2 at 9v, even though it needs 12 via a power supply. I did this because I know many people out there do this without realising that the ACA version needed 12v and have come to voltage starve their pedal for many years. Aside the dimmer LED and drop in volume, which many folk thought was just the way the OC2 was, this introduces much more noise and breakup into the tone. Being honest, it's still totally usable, and for anyone that accidentally got used to using an ACA OC2 this way, the difference in tone between that and an OC5 is quite notable. And while the voltage starved OC2 doesn't sound great to me, it does 'add something' which is very artificial, which I can see people liking it in its own right. That is, of course, not the point of this comparison though. So, which one stays on my board? The OC5, but only becuase it's easier to replace if someone spills beer on it. I could happy pop either on there and no one would know the difference. Thanks for coming to my TED talk.

that does indeed apply to my acg-eq-01 jazz with it's 8 pots ( volume & blend, LP filter & filter gain for each pu plus variable frequency and gain high frequency pass through). Easy to get lost in there! Not to the Wal tho ( a mere 4 pots and three pull switches) on which 90% of settings are good!

I literally have zero interest in "vintage" basses so no I won't be telling you that. I currently don't own any basses that offer through-body stringing and it can stay that way as far as I'm concerned.

My old vinyl Hawkwind album warriors on the edge of time has a track called the demented man on the cover, but the inside of the actual record says ‘the demented king’ . Dunno if they are all like that but still enjoy listening to it. Used to love playing the album with a few cans and smokes back in the day… x

Eventually I will do the individual buffers for each string.

It's amazing how much can be missing and it makes very little difference. I saw a video once on YouTube (so clearly doing my own research and am now an expert in this) about a American who kept removing bits of his electric guitar to see the effect. Most of the guitar had gone and he was down to strings between two tables and pickups. Being realistic, had he cheated, I simply don't know, I do know that my 3d printed guitars sound to me, fine, a slightly different tone, but I suspect that the cheap pickups may have something to do with that. I have zero wood in the body of my 3d printed basses and guitars. I try to use a decent wooden neck, a decent bridge and decent electrics but that's it. I don't spend a fortune (or even a large amount). At the SW Bass Bash 2025 @Phil Starr did a great blind listening test with a range of speakers from a 6" to a 15" in various cabs. They all sounded very good but the 8" was very well liked. Perhaps somebody should organise a blind listening test of a range of basses at a bass bash, I have no idea what the criteria would be but it might be interesting to hear. I'll happily put my home made basses in. Rob

None. The 66 slab sounded huge and recorded better than any bass I've used. The Jazz is wonderfully resonant. I can't compare to the original, of course, but neither bass is/was deficient in any respect.

Im just wondering if missing such a large chunk of wood would have an effect on the sound/resonance?

I saw the video of this on your IG and wondered what was going on with the seated bit in front of the main crowd. I’d of felt so awkward if I was sitting in that bit with a big crowd of people watching over my head! Sounded good though 👌