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Markbass are good sounding amps, in a mix they fit very nicely.

Who knows! I have wondered what happened to it though... It was my entry to the world of bass and I'm still trying to master it some 40 years later!!

Great pic!! Wonder if the bass has survived as you obviously have.

No T-rex tooth nut?

Someone, don't remember who, explained this a few weeks ago: on people's profile page, there's a field for sending them a public message. I gather people have no idea whatsoever that this means the message becomes a status update (it doesn't say that it does), and that they also do not contemplate the meaning of the word "public".

I haven't tried the Spectracomp but I've used the Hypergravity, and assuming it's similar you ought to be able to achieve all that with a 2- or 3- band preset, especially if they have gain on each of the bands. Tbh a good 1176-esque preset ought to get you most of the way there without even needing multiband. In general I find: - fast attack/fast release will even out the note attack and sustain, which helps with upper-mid clarity but can choke the bass end a bit hard which is where sidechain HPF comes in handy. - slow attack/slow release will emphasise picking attack over a controlled deep note to give you that soft-picked soul sound. - you can adust ratio and threshold together in a compensatory fashion so that you achieve similar amount of overall gain reduction with either high threshold, high ratio, or low threshold, low ratio. However you do it I find aiming for 3-6dB average reduction is about right for really filling out the sound. For fast settings this'll mean very briefly hitting quite hard (9dB plus) on peaks especially if you dig in or slap. - if you're multibanding, the switch frequency from low to mid-band takes a bit of fiddling to suit pickups and your taste in the low mids, which is quite critical to the body of the sound IME. My own general-purpose pop/rock/funk preference is chaining a slower compressor into a faster compressor, with a ratio no more than 4:1 on each, each taking off the aforementioned 3-6dB. A lot of people will do it the other way round (1176 into LA2/3A is conventional wisdom) but this way worked much better for me.

Excellent, thanks for that @Hellzero.

Oddly enough, letting the lows through either uncompressed or with less compression than the highs and mids can help the lows sounding bigger and deeper, try playing with the HPF on one of the Origin Cali units to hear it in action. IME, keeping the mids and highs in check is usually more beneficial, although I do use a single band comp as for my tastes, what it does to the whole signal is more important to me on a gig than a more studio like quality to the low end. But it's down to personal preference. From what you're describing you might possibly get on with the Boss LMB-3, which I mentioned above as being my go to. It keeps the lows tight, add a massive mid range punch but can roll off the highs a bit. You can use the Enhance control to add some high end back in but it honestly sounds a bit cack, like a cheap 80's active preamp. I fund cranking the treble in the amp to taste a better solution.

I have finally joined the club, and now own a short scale bass for the first time since 1984, when I sold my off-white Fender Musicmaster for £50... if only I knew! Ongoing lower back issues have forced me to consider something light and less strenuous to play, especially for long band rehearsals, so after much research and trying out a couple of basses from the fairly limited options available to me locally, I ended up ordering a Reverend Sentinel in Black from Merchant City Music in Glasgow. I'm very happy with my purchase, the sound is tight and punchy, the quality of the bass and the components is excellent and I love the 50s retro look of it - to my eyes it is much better proportioned than a lot of short scales seem to be, which I think is mainly down to the head stock size. Great value for the money, and I'm sure it will give me years of excellent service. I'd highly recommend it to anyone who hasn't tried one. Here's me with my old Fender back in the day...

Yep! I actually did. I didn’t know it was 32” until I asked. Felt quite comfortable and sounds great even down to low ‘B’. Balance was great for a headless (didn’t feel body biased) on the strap. Then the look…….👀 a stunner! You won’t be disappointed in any way. (now if my storage and wallet (and wife!!) were still on good terms with me, you’d be in for a battle🏋️‍♂️) ps: got the pics and a video as proof (but I’d have to charge for my ego/copyright infringement 😱🤣)

I'm still confused by folk mistaking the status updates section for private messaging.

Not withstanding the fact that I haven't worn trousers with enough surplus material to "flap" for over 45 years now, I think had I ever been in a band that required me to play at volumes that produced a noticeable shift of air from my rig I'd be even deafer than I am now! I've owned a big rig in the past, although it was made out of smaller component parts than the example for sale, but each of the three individual items was still a two person lift for ease of moving, and without a road crew there is no way I would contemplate having one again. Then again if I was in a band successful enough to be able to employ a road crew I'd be playing places where even a big rig would be an irrelevance. From experience something like the rig for sale needs to be running close to max volume to get the benefit of the power amp valves and therefore is too big for most small venues, and due to the poor dispersion characteristics of the cab in bigger venues will only work as a personal monitor so long as you are stood directly in front of it. Your band mates will still need to have your bass in their foldback and you'll find that the moment you are not stood directly in front of it you'll get more from the foldback than you do from your rig. And that's if you're not using IEMs. Add to the fact that very few PAs will mic up bass cabs of any size and, if they did, a close mic on one driver is not the same sound as the full cab from a couple of feet away, so what your audience hear will have little to do with the rig behind you. I'm now a Helix user and I only use amp and cab models as a special effect, as IMO most of the time they make my bass sound worse, which re-enforces what I have thought for a long time is that instrument amplification for bass guitar is the weak link in the signal chain. These days I straight into the PA from the Helix and it sounds great both on stage and FoH. I have plenty of dirt when I need it but I can also sound super clean if I need that too. Most of the time I'm somewhere in between these too extremes. Finally if you need "The way they pulse the air, the harmonics, the bloom and the trouser flapping." for the right atmosphere, then I would suggest that the songs you are playing are not up to scratch.

Well, they haven't contacted me about it yet and I reckon that if they were that fussy / hard nosed about it, then EB would have wanted the old bridge first before the new one was delivered. I'm going to assume that if I hadn't heard anything by Christmas then I will look to offloading it in the new year. After that, if they come calling for it - tough! Should have been a bit more on the ball!