Leaderboard

I am well chuffed to have taken delivery of this ACG Graft 4 today.

Hi All, After a week of waiting I finally received my Ibanez SR655e and I couldn't be more happy! It feels like the body was moulded just for me. As a bonus it also came strung with flats so I get to try flats! Excuse my poor photography it's not my forte

Went to the Earl Haig jam night and did a few songs with James Oliver, none of which I had heard before. "Do you know Nadine?" "Never met her!" I have jammed with him before, but still a bit intimidating as in the last month he's done gigs with Horace Panter and Norman Watt-Roy on bass 😱 Went ok though!

NBD Decided to pull the trigger on this, arrived today. New to Sandberg, wanted a new Fender Jazz to replace a Mexican deluxe a regrettably sold 3 years ago, but heard good things about Sandbergs and having shopped around saw this in sale (Bit of a bargain) had a quick run-though, one issue/possibly, it seemed a bit quiet, noticed the pick ups specially the neck was very low only about 2mm above the body and bridge maybe 4-5mm figured this was not right? So lifted them both 2-3mm higher and it sounded allot better., enough that I had to role volume back bit when boosting pre amp to about 75% strings look like Daddarios but label says Sandbergs own brand, can anyone confirm, they seem a bit on the higher tension side might have to change them, see if they bed in. add some real photos later, its much more yellowy:butterscotch than the stockings photo (not in a bad way) https://www.bassdirect.co.uk/product/sandberg-electra-ii-tt4-creme/

Spend a day each at Bass Direct and The Gallery and try anything and everything that takes your fancy. It's the only way to find out what YOU like.

ontop of having an avedissian tbird in the bridge and Dimarzio will power in the neck it now has a Underhill full English active 9v pre amp which is based on the wal mk1 so I have a Lpf rather than tones for the pickups and a pick attack boost video incoming

I found this fella on Gear4Music's Ebay site. It had got a bit of a bash on the rear of the body and was reduced from £419 to £230. It has a Jazz style neck and a 2 band EQ - I do like Jazz necks and I really liked the 2 band EQ that I had on my old USA built Stingray SUB - so decided to pull the trigger and pay £230 for what sounded like a lot of bass guitar for the money. When I received it I was pleasantly surprised that it's 2 band EQ made it sound very like that USA SUB I used to own. I also really like the Jazz neck, which had a really nice low action straight out of the box. The fit and finish is excellent but the fret ends are a little bit noticeable (not sharp just noticeable). I'm used to, relatively, expensive and old basses where the necks are rolled and the frets are filed via a setup, or just decades of use. I already own a USA Stingray but this sounds preferable to my ears and I prefer the Ray 4's neck as well. I can see it being gigged regularly. Here's the bass and the insignificant dent.

I've owned and gigged my Warwick Thumb NT for over 30 years. Admitted, I'm not a three gigs a week player, and I've always looked after my gear very carefully, so mine is as good as new having replaced the barrel jack a little while ago.

Bass Direct just received a Green one which I've just purchased (perhaps a bit rashly!, I almost always like to try a Bass first, and usually go second hand). My Bass maths to justify it is that I've got a Jazz up for sale which should sell for more than the Cort, so it's not a cost - it's a saving! Exciting times. Now the waiting game (which I hope is quite a short game - next day delivery). Will report back. Edit: After I'd bought from Bass Direct I had been speaking to Guitar Guitar and they mentioned they price match. Bass Direct are now sold out of the Cort Space for the time being (£699) but Guitar Guitar have them in stock for £749, so you might be able to get £50 knocked off that price, although perhaps they only do it if other shops have them in stock and available to buy there and then. Thomann have them listed for £655 but not in stock for months - I've noticed a tactic is sometimes with long wait times they have a lower price while it's not in stock to keep you hanging on and not buying elsewhere, and then when it is in stock they put the price up. Another Edit: Grrr Parcelf*cks! 'Unable to locate address' It's a residential street with nothing out of the ordinary, the house shows up on google maps etc. No attempt to call me to try and find the address if that's really the issue, just an automated 'not happening today' which makes me think the driver just can't be bothered. And Parcelforce customer service app/call seems almost designed to wind up customers, but at least I could confirm that the correct address is on the package, so it is slackness from their side.

It's absolutely sickening to think that a bass made in the 90s would be considered 'old'.

You do realise, I hope, that you have the blueprint for “perfect basschat wife” right there ? the most used phrase around these parts is “if I can sneak another one past..” followed by “well she does have a lot of shoes/handbags/kittens” you can quote me Now 3D print her

Sides are nearly finished. The final kerfing was glued in this afternoon....

Unusual but not impossible. The Audiovox 736 "bass fiddle" by Paul Tutmarc was around from roughly 1937, with the 936 bass amplifier. And in the 1940's Paul's son Bud marketed the Bud-Electro Serenader solidbody bass. They went largely unnoticed though, so when Fender introduced the Precision in 1951 it was widely but falsely regarded as the first.

This was the setup for Saturday. My first time setting up a full pa.

This crowd say they ship worldwide https://www.sheethappenspublishing.com/products/sheet-happens-blank-tab-book-4-string-bass-4-string-bass-edition?variant=43034200703196 Sam x

Well, not today, more like a month ago, but who's counting? For your consideration a Kramer DMZ4001A kindly sold to me by @roger (excellent chap by the way!). I just got it back from a quick electrical service as the preamp was playing up a little bit, well a lot - a capacitor went (well after Roger sent it to me - it played fine at first!), and I thought it would be interesting to play through the settings. They are: series/parallel flat/tone 1/tone 2 And the way they interact is pretty mad: You're looking at the same line 6 times, straight into a UAD interface: parallel flat, parallel tone 1, parallel tone 2, series flat, series tone 1, series tone 2. By the time you get to the last you can see something is going on (excuse my playing!): Kramer no norm.mp3 Here is the same thing but normalised so they are all the same volume: Kramer norm.mp3 Playing into an amp you'd get radically different effect across the settings. I really like parallel flat and parallel tone 1. It plays really well. It keeps it's tuning really really well and compared to my 74/76 P-bass it has a much stronger fundamental tone, I assume because of the neck and how it's attached to the body. And I love the pickups - it has that P growl with extra body. Anyway! Who cares what it sounds like!? Here is what he looks like (I've named it The Winstone after Ray Winstone, because, let's face it - it's a sexy beast!): (that big grey cap is the one that went) - this is the only schematic I can find: http://www.vintagekramer.com/Electric/wiring-dmz4000preamp.jpeg - apparently not that trustworthy!

I don't know how the rest of you feel, but i think anyone who doesn't have a small semiconductor fab in their shed and a resistor winding station in their bathroom is just a poser.

I'd add Status to the list. Definitely works of art, not sure on the new 'non-carbon' models but the older graphite neck/through neck S2s crop up frequently and tend to hold their value.

KZ ZAR IEM ear pieces arrived today. Maybe they just suit my ear shape, but they are a better fit and, although bulkier, they provide a much better seal which was immediately obvious. The very much reduced "leakage" from external sounds is also going to have the added benefit of providing better ear protection, which is more than worth the entry price of these for me. I've just A/B'd with my Sennheiser IE300 which I found comparable to, if a little quieter than, my KZ ZS10s, and I can hear bass & backing tracks so much more clearly with this KZ ZAR pair. Very happy with them - already feeling like they could be a contender for the best bit of gear I'm going to get in 2024!

It's the only kind I'll get now! I'll settle for it 😁

I took the plunge with my first kit. Let's see if i can figure this out. It's a HPF/LPF clone kit from das musikding

I played a 4 string a couple of weeks ago for the first time in over a year since making the switch to 5. There were a bunch of musos at the gig with a possibility of someone else getting up, so I took something that wouldn't confuse them too much. It turned out that the only other bass player to get up was left-handed anyway and brought their Hofner violin bass with them 😁 Still, it was quite interesting to switch back for a night after my 15 month "immersion" in the land of 5 Oh, and I thought this thread was about 5 strings being a bit more mainstream these days? Well yes, they are. If you like/prefer them, that's good. If you don't, well that's good too. It's not a competition

Quick postscript to this build. I just replaced the Kent Armstrong jazz pickup with a Bartolini 9J-S1 that I bought from @loudspeaker. I did this for purely aesthetic reasons (I wanted the pickups to match) and I'm dead chuffed with how well the level of wear on the new Bart matches the one that's already there. I'd wondered if perhaps the new pickup would bring about some dramatic improvement or change in the sound, but honestly it's almost exactly the same. I recorded the bass before and after, and even with big monitoring headphones on, it's near impossible to tell the new and the old pickups apart. Something worth considering when you're next planning an electronics upgrade.

Neck dive was invented by lightweight tuner manufacturers...

I have just picked this beauty up.

Holding Back the Beers ～ Simply Red

Marketing emails will have been sent using a bulk email service like Mail Chimp, and although it will have a Bass Direct "return" email on them, they won't have actually come from that address.

I’m going one step further. Currently investing in my future pedal endeavours by planting trees for carbon, mining ore for metal and have a couple of silicon and germanium saplings ready for planting out - It’s the only way you’ll get the authentic tone 🤪

that's the PedalPCB version of a Broughton High Pass/Low pass

Ooooh nice, I’ll be watching with interest as I was looking at the vong filterung a few weeks ago. Is that the same kit or a different one?

There's a cost to looking *that* good. I have paid my membership fees in the past and will likely do so again

Fame by association. You’re keeping good company there.

He's much better now, although he got hit hard by a virus a few weeks ago. Played standing up and was on top form.

Our vocalist used the TC Helicon reverb unit (foot pedal version) to good effect so their current range would be worth a look as per Mykesbass post above.

TC Helicon is a cracking piece of kit. It works stand alone as a vocal effect, but can also add harmonies which it will work out if you plug a guitar into it. Worked with two very good singers who use them to very good effect.

I haven't played Moon (yet) but have owned (and still own) quite a few other niche Japanese brands and, in my experience, they're generally a substantial improvement on your average big F (USA, MIJ, old and new ones which I no longer own) in every aspect. Forget the name on the headstock, trust your hands and your ears.

In my 45+ years of playing bass and buying them, I've rarely (not saying it doesn't happen) seen a retailer that will specifically set up a bass for a customer... and that is new instruments never mind used. I know of a couple of bass specific retailers who say this in their info but without a customer sitting next to the guy setting it up, I don't know how that is achieved. To answer the OP - all frets wear but Warwick frets do better than most but be aware that they are a wide(ish) low(ish) fret when new and some folk used to tall skinny frets can get jittery and think they are in need of a refret; as a generalisation, if the bass plays OK, leave them. Barrels are £5 - £10 so no big deal and if it is 30 years old it'll likely have been done any way. Electronics are standard and shouldn't be an issue. However, check the preamp works OK as 'sometimes' they can die but if it operates normally don't worry about it. Battery compartment lid WILL be broken but a strip of gaffa sorts it. Truss rod shouldn't be an issue as shonky ones should all be sorted by now but worth looking at the nut/adjuster to be sure someone hasn't been chewing away and rounded it with a non metric key.

A used bass is a lot like a beautiful woman...

Always factor in the price of new strings and a full set up into the purchase of every used bass. It may play perfectly when it arrives but in my experience, I’d say 75% don’t. Plus I like the peace of mind that comes from having it fully checked out, cleaned and set up. I’d say this will cost about £150 (depending on strings). if you’re buying from a shop of course they *should* (but don’t always) set it up to your requirements. if buying privately, then pay PayPal proper so you have some recourse if it’s not as advertised. Tell the seller you’re going to get it checked out and set up by a professional and you’ll chat about any issues.

Some reverb and harmonics, maybe?

My somewhat uglier Micro cab:

Saturday (so not quite last night, sorry) was the very first ever gig for my new project Pop Punk Prty. It was, in my estimation, a little too early to be 'out there' and we all felt very unrehearsed. However, it was better than I expected! If we play like that on our 5th gig I'll be annoyed, but for a first gig I'll take it. Rig was my trusty (and suitably pastel green) SB-2 into my HX Stomp. Everyone on IEMs apart from me (I have soundman duties) so I've got one of my QSC wedges. To complete the rig there's genuine 00's baggy jeans that were sourced by my wonderful friends at Tender Hooligan. Gosh I'm fat.

Deadlight Dance had our album launch at my local pub. I was mostly on the mandocello with occasional mandolin and three songs on my bass vi. We sold a few albums to a respectable sized crowd and my absolute highlight was we got sketched - the picture is to be framed in the pub wall! I thought we played well and I particularly like my growing confidence in the bass vi.

Nice gig at Leicester’s Donkey music venue with my blues/soul trio the Andy Wales Band. First outing for my recently-acquired Ashdown ABM500 head too, which sounded beefy and fat - apart from briefly leaning my bass against the front panel which pressed the switch to turn off the EQ (why would anyone want that?) leaving me wondering for a few songs where my lovely sound had gone…. Lesson - always know the position of your knob. Good turn out tho including interestingly various punters who’d paid for a nearby blues festival but didn’t like it and instead spotted this gig in the listings and came along (and seemed to enjoy it!)

Hey All, So I picked up first Sandberg this weekend. A 2008 California VS4 Heavy Aged.