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Mel B from the Spice Girls. Her rap in "If you wanna be my lover" was top banana.

The point is, the tone between a modeller and the real amp has become indistinguishable... especially at gig volumes. Bass through headphones sucks? Are you serious...? It all depends upon the quality of the headphones/IEMs that you are using. Lets have a look at some of the facts here... modern IEMs can go down to 10hz (that's actually lower than you can hear) - and will certainly go lower than the PA systems that are being used when you have gone to watch live bands. The speakers in IEMs are literally a couple of cm away from your ear drum and at that distance are capable of putting out far higher SPL at your ear drum than you could ever imagine compared to the the PA stack. If you want to hear bass, there is no better way. Eleven Rack. Get it sold. Awful stuff. You say that you have sold the Line 6 stuff... was there a Helix in there? Valve amps. Sound better? Historically, absolutely. Now? No difference. I like valve stuff as much as the next guy... but you are kidding yourself if you think that modern technology can't churn out the same tones. Remember, there was as many crap valve amps made as good... and lets not talk about the reliability issues associated with valve amps. And carting them around. And having them sound different in every venue... etc... Here's the thing... when you go to a gig, you aren't actually hearing the raw amp... or speaker... what you are hearing has gone through a mic, through a preamp, through a desk... with infinitely more processing than you could ever hope to have an equivalent of on a traditional amp - before going through the PA amp (probably class D - you know, those things with zero heft) before going out to the front of house. The modeller simply removes the variables - the amp, speaker, environment and mic and gives your the same tone, night in night out without compromise. If you want hard hitting - my PA, I guarantee, will put out more than any bass rig on BC. If you must have the feeling of air, then get a fan... or get a kinetic feedback board, or a subpac... or a woojer... If you want to go deaf, continue as you are and when you got that tinnitus that won't let you sleep at night, ask yourself how much of a happy place your brain is in now. I don't know sh**? Yup. Completely clueless, me.

Well there's more nonsense in the thread now

A long time ago I was introduced to another bass player at a party and we got talking all things bass. We had similar interests in music and he invited me round for a bass jam some time . On arrival there was a very nice Wal sitting there . It had an ebony fingerboard but the fret markers on the side were where they would be if it were fretless. An easy fix really. He said he wasn't happy with it and was selling it for £300.00. I stupidly didn't buy it because Warwicks had just come into fashion and we both really wanted one of those. My point is the bass was genuinely owned but the seller had no interest in it and wanted to move it on. Which he eventually did for £300.00. He really wanted that Warwick Thumb! So it could have been the best bargain of my life and if I saw a Wal at a car boot I'd have been in there like a shot. If it had been recently nicked from a musician then I'm guessing the FB muso pages would be full of "stolen gear..." To the OP. Its yours , you bought it in good faith. If it were me I'd be braggin about it at gigs...."yeah so got this for £50.00 at a car boot....amazing eh?...anyway so this is my EBS amp. Found it in a skip ect ect" Show us a pic. If anyone claims it was theirs then they need to prove it. I have a catalogue of pictures of me playing my Jazz bass at gigs, rehearsal rooms, the occasional studio on FB, other social media like Youtube, its in family pictures at my house in the background. I mean it wouldn't be hard to prove it were mine but it would be very hard to make a claim if it wasn't. I believe you bought this in good faith and think its above and beyond the call of duty to want to reunite it with the original owner so good for you. I personally wouldn't! Show us a pic!!

I once bought a used Wal from a shop in London. Took it to Pete at Wal HQ for a service and he said it had been nicked a few years earlier. I gave it straight back to him, and he gave me a brand new Wal as a thank you

In modern times I'd say Prince. Could play anything and do it exceptionally well. Wrote all sorts of music, sang, danced, did choreography and produced. Phenominal talent.

A drummer 90 miles away and doesn't drive - it will never work. You now have the singer with issues, this person also picks up the drummer, every time you have a singer issue it will effect two members of the band.

I think Bach. I remember hearing he could improvise entire fugues which means playing stanzas forward, backwards, upside down etc (the stanza, not the performer!!). As for contemporary musician, I haven't much of an idea really.

Just wanted to tell you guys about the customer service I recieved from Mark this week: A while back I ordered a couple of sets of La Bella Super Steps from Bass Direct which arrived quickly and in original packaging, on Sunday I decided to re-string a bass ready for some gigs this weekend, I opened a fitted one of the packs only to find that the D string was completely dead....to say I was slightly disappointed would be an understatement, anyway the following morning I rang Bass Direct and explained the issue, Mark asked me to email the details to him and he would raise it with La Bella which I duly did, Tuesday afternoon I get home from work to find a brand new set of Super Steps on my door mat! If Carlsberg did customer service was the phrase that sprang to mind!

Just starting the ball rolling well in advance by confirming that the date for next year's bash will be: Sunday 8th of April The venue will be the same, namely: The Memorial Hall, Cheddon Fitzpaine, Taunton TA2 8JY The Scrumpy family and helpers are very much looking forward to seeing everybody again, plus some new faces. In the meantime, watch this space for additional info - especially after we've all got the Christmas and New Year stuff out of the way.

Hello! I have been using basschat as a source of information for some time now. I decided to register because of the yellow-note on the home page I started playing bass in the 1980s. I did not care much about brands and stuff at that time, I was too busy playing and writing music, just as it should be! But I remember a Samick Jazz and a crappy Precision-type thing, among others. Then in the 1990s I got a Fender Jazz MIM fretless, which I traded for an Ibanez SR800 fretless, which I feel is built much better. Then I stopped playing for about 10 years. A few years back I picked it up again. Now I have the SR800FL and a Fernandes FRB100, plus several cheap basses I have bought here and there for testing parts and modding. I tried playing jazz, but I just can't . Also tried Death Metal, which is fun. But I think my style lies somewhere in the middle, if it means anything. Thank you for keeping up this site!

Someone has to

Finished one today; very versatile box of funk. I really like it.

The trouble with a lot of YouTube clips, is that they're normally so compressed and the sound tweaked to the extent that you can't really hear the bass that well.... Anyhow, here's Matt aka "Matt the Hat" as he's known locally with Jamie Smith's Mabon

i. Its very rare that you're hearing the fundamental on your bass... so for your bottom B, you are hearing the harmonics at 62, 104 etc... and the magic of your brain filling in the missing fundamental... Rather than me go into detail, check this out - https://www.studybass.com/gear/bass-tone-and-eq/the-harmonic-series-and-timbre/ and specifically the section "The Missing Fundamental Effect". I can guarantee that your Vanderklay is not reproducing the fundamentals at all or at any significant volume. ii. It all gets summed, whether it's at your ears or whether it's by a mixer. By minimising whats happening on stage you should get less phase cancellation. Why do CDs not have weird sh*t when they come out a set of hifi speakers? You are essentially doing the same. If you were to get a digital mixer, you could be cleaning all those wild signals up with the compressors and low pass filters also, so it would sound even better. If you get some meaty speakers, they will just give you what your mixing desk is sending out, no sweat. iii. Those 735s aren't heavy - perhaps saying easier to carry is a bit unfair on the QSCs. The RCFs are an easy one box, one person lift - I know lots of people that have them - and have proven that they can do what I'm talking about here. That 3" VC really is the secret behind the RCFs. 3 and 4 inch voice coils are generally not found in cabs at this price point, especially ones that are made out of plastic. Once you hear them, you'll understand right away. With regards to my preference of 15s over 12... I find that 15s are generally better than the 12s equivalent - for moving air, especially in the lows. These tops will do most bands without subs - and thats putting bass and kick through the tops (assuming your kick is properly compressed and gated). 12" subs are never great, 15" subs are generally a lot better... hence why when going for tops and no subs, I prefer ones that can do a good take on a sub... hence the 15s on top. iv. There's positives and negatives for both. For portability, I favour active. If I was to be doing a much bigger gig with separate crossovers and speaker management is in play, then passive is where it's at. But those gigs are wildly different situations. For most, actives is clean and simple and has the built in DSP to protect the speaker. Power goes in here. Signal goes in here from the desk. Job done. I'm sure that they'll be many people that would argue its similar for passive...but theres plenty of examples of that all over the rest of BC. Funnily enough, only last night, I was at a music quiz at a hotel - and the clown running it was using a zoom mic off a recorder into a bastardised set of cables into some Sony hifi plastic tat. He was switching cables for the iPod he playing music through. I just decided to go home and pick up a 312 and mini mixer to save the evening as it was woeful. Mixing desk and speaker, job done. Don't think I could have been arsed if I had plumbed an amp into the rack or anything like that. Anyway, short answer, doesn't really matter. EDIT - jack above nails iv.

Yes, Fiona Bruce would DEFINITELY convince me to go to more car boot sales!

Well, if the Antiques Roadshow hasn't convinced you to go to more car boot sales, this thread definitely should!

Hence the term 'His knibs'?

I would take the QSC over the Yamaha... but would take a RCF 735 over the QSC - easier to carry, similar output - but more importantly, the all important 3" VC in the horn that enables it to have a lower crossover to free up the woofer to be more effective in the lows whilst given your vocals a lot more headroom. The 310s will do you for monitors but you will likely to need to roll off the some of the subs as you are asking a relatively little box to do quite a lot. I would go for a XR16 in that price range - digital and controllable via an iPad/android/laptop. Most important thing is that it opens up a lot in terms of gates, eq and compression on each channel. You'll be able to track down feedback a lot easier... as you have 31 band eq available on all outputs - and is perfect for crafting inears mixes if you want to explore that route at a later date. And it's tiny and can sit next to you on stage. The functionality of the Zed60 in comparison is miniscule.

Something worth knowing is, to remove dust knibs in the lacquer, don't sand in the usual way. In stead of using the rough side of the W&D, turn the paper over and use the back. This will usually remove the knibs and you can often then avoid needing (yet) another coat. Besides, the next coat will bring yet more knibs anyway.

Yeah, Stu. You've already gone way above and beyond. Looking forward to the pics when you're ready to share and for your big "Tah-dah!" when you reveal what you actually paid for it. Lol. Like @Highfox and @bassjim have said just don't disclose the serial number. If someone emerges who does want to claim it as their own the two pieces of proof needed would be "What was the serial number." "Can you show me a photo of you playing it so we can compare the wood, the grain, the figuring and any other identifying features." You bought it in good faith, the burden of proof to show it is the bass that was stolen and not just a.n. other Wal rests on them. Personally, I really can't see someone putting their hand up and claiming it's theirs. In the meantime, enjoy your Wal...!!!

I like your style.

Good point Ascars about the music. Its a style of music i'm most comfortable with and what i was looking for to be honest. It may well all be genuine and if it gets up and running i may find out they just aren't good enough at doing it and that would have to be the end of it for me. Time will tell tho

Well this is interesting, isn't it. I post some thoughts on an FRFR speaker I bought and look where we end up. I bought it to amplify my bass signal from the DI of my Ampeg SCR-DI. Last album we just finished? Bass - Ampeg SCR-DI - Desk. And it sounds like, Er, a bass. Recorded just like most bass tracks for the last 60 years - straight into the desk. I like the recorded sound, and to replicate that live, I have bought a cab that lets me do that as neutrally as possible with no colouring from a bass cab or amp. But this thread ends up as a modelling vs valves vs massive amps vs well, you get the point. Emotive subject huh? I always thought bass playing was about what you did with your fingers. Then again, you know what they say - opinions are like bumholes - everyone has one, and usually they stink. I would also like to subscribe to the "I know s**t" gang as well please!

I was referring to the clear, sorry if it was misleading as you're still spraying colour coats! You can stop spraying colour when you're happy with how it looks, but a few extras can't hurt. Then 1 full can of clear following the rule of 3. You don't want to sand your colour coats unless really necessary, or you could get thin spots or burn through. The thinners in the clear Nitro will dissolve any roughness to the colour coats. Do your future level sanding of the clear coat (to remove dust knibs etc) in between clear coat sessions. For the neck you don't want to sand the tinted lacquer or you'll end up with an uneven tint, which can be difficult to even out. However the decal does need a good level surface. So spray a very good (level and glossy) final coat of tint. If you flatten it off and apply a decal over it you may also see scratches through the decal depending on the colour, so best avoided if possible.

EHX Pitchfork - short review Pitchfork arrived and my initial reaction is positive. It tracks well, down to the open E without glitching. Result! Minimal latency for a digital pedal: perhaps a touch worse than the TC Sub n U in monophonic mode in that regard - but the EHX doesn't glitch like a trooper below an Ab like the SnU does when the SnU is on monophonic setting. Latency is slightly more noticeable on octave up than octave down, but I think that is just down to octave up being easier to discern aurally. However there is a discernible difference in tracking latency as compared to the sure footed 'vice like grip' of my analogue COG T16 which is still the most authentic and enjoyable sub octave down that I've yet found. The COG and other analogue pedals don't provide an octave up and the COG does start to glitch below an A (on the low E string). So swings and roundabouts, I guess! I like the 'true' clean blend the EHX offers, and I also like (by digital pedal standards) the 'authentic' non-synthy octave down (I'll get all the synth sound I want from my dedicated filter pedals). The 50% blended clean plus octave down is just a lovely, rich, full bass line and will likely be my main setting for the pedal. The ability to adjust settings on the fly trumps this over the SnU for me as a 'live use' pedal. It doesn't have the granularity of interval adjustment and wider functionality that the Boss PS-6 offers or the degree of fun pitch shift on the PS-6, but the pitch shift is still very usable on the EHX. The Boss was also built very solidly - as Boss pedals so often are. But I just couldn't get around the noticeable latency on the Boss where the octave up, in particular, felt like two separate notes; which is why I moved it on. Conceptually the PS-6 is a great pedal (and I can understand why a recording pro guitarist took it off my hands). If Boss manage to address the latency issue on a PS-7 model I would definitely get one.

Post rock and roll I'd say Prince or George Martin ( and my mate Andy Peacock who is a musical genius! )

I've had something very similar happen to me in the last couple of months. Got contacted by a friend of a friend (a guitarist, I know him to say hello to) who's spent the last year or so putting a band together and they had just started getting some gigs and coverage. But his bass player, drummer and singer quit for assorted (and apparently genuine - I did check) reasons, do I fancy it? I say why not, he says that he may not be able to do anything until the New Year for other reasons, but he'll send me some tracks to work on. No problem, I have other stuff going on. In the meantime I find a drummer and singer (just by chatting to a couple of mates in the pub) and forward their details - great, it's all coming together... ...get the message back that "something major has come up, not sure when I'm going to have time to get back to the band, it'll have to be on hold for now" Doesn't phase me at all. If the guitarist gets it all together and the band happens then great. But for now it's not happening so I'll carry on with other stuff. There's no practical difference to me whether there is a band which isn't rehearsing right now or no band at all. Don't need to burn any bridges or spit my dummy out, I only have a decision to make if the guitarist ever sorts his life out.

A long long time ago I sometimes used a Gibson SG in my band, it wasn't a good look like an elephant with a stick of rhubarb I remember someone saying.

That'd be safer in the long run, if it's an aerosol you'll want to use at least the whole can of clear, but exactly how much finish you need on the bass depends on how heavy your coats are, how even they are and of course what your desired end result is. If you have a textured orange peel like surface you'll need to remove more finish when it comes to wetsand and buff. Also keep in mind that if you're using an aerosol they don't have very high solid content, so most of what you're spraying will be thinners which will evaporate. So more lacquer is generally better, you'd have to be really laying it on thick and use multiple cans of clear to end up with a thick finish with aerosol Nitro.

sigh ....

I have a ridiculously busy life but make time where I can, I get 40 minutes lunch break at work and use about 25-30 of that for practice at least 4 times a week, then I practice every night between 7 and 8pm when my daughter is watching star trek voyager (yes I know), then we do a 2-3 hr rehearsal at least every other week and usually two or three times in the week leading up to a big gig if we have new material. I even bought a cheap travel bass to take on holiday last year! I think the secret is to find small pockets of time you can squeeze a bit in, even ten minutes messing about with a new part or keeping something fresh helps. I have a very structured system as well (thanks to something I read on here ages ago), so I make sure to split the time up between a fun warm up, technique, new songs and then practice of stuff on the set list. I go over the whole set list over a period of 6 days. I love doing it and I am not the sort to sit in front of a tv for hours so it fits in well for me.

Franz Schubert was thirty-two when he died, having completed seven symphonies, over six hundred songs and a whole bunch of other major works. I'll admit to not having listened to it all, but of what I have, there's not much dross in there. Most of his stuff is still being played by top musicians to this day, and is unlikely to fade away. Just sayin'.

It's an early 80s Hohner, made by Cort in Korea. Up to about '81 or '82 Hohners were Japanese, made by Moridaira, but manufacture of these types of instrument moved to Korea in the late 70s/early 80s due to rising production costs in Japan, and the move by the Japanese guitar industry towards higher-end original designs. This bass probably pre-dates the mid 80s Hohner Professional range by a couple of years. Always liked the bog-seat saddles & abalone inlays on the MIK Hohners.

Had a quick look around myself, and I don't think the socket is for an extension cab, otherise it'd be labelled as an output. I can't find your precise model, but based upon other similar Stagg amps it's likely to be either a headphone output or an cd/mp3 input, meaning you can plug a cable into the amp to play practice tracks through it. In either case, the socket is likely to be stereo jack. Any chance you could give us a photo, to be sure...? Separately - whilst not wanting to confuse matters - an extension speaker could very feasibly be connected by a speaker cable terminated in standard sized mono jacks. This is a common connection method for older or lower powered amplifiers to speakers. Things didn't go Speakon (specifically for instrument amps) until relatively recently. However, nothing I could see on any Stagg bass amp suggested that an extension speaker was possible. I expect the amp is running at it's lowest impedance anyway - so adding a cab would reduce impedance further. Hope some (or any) of this is helpful to you.

It's funny, before it was pointed out to me I loved the look of this, but now I'm really put off by the silver cloth; it doesn't really work. Basschat may have saved me some money for once!

I bagged an as-new Sentry on eBay. Thanks for the tip, @CameronJ!

Oh yes, Sanborn - No one else sounds like Sanborn.

Looks weird with the silver grill.

NPD!! sold my old faithfull EBS Unichorus and bought an MXR Bass Chorus Deluxe!! Absolutely delighted with it,especially the flanger which sounds fantastic. The EBS flanger was very subtle like a flanger/chorus, but the MXR sounds much more like a flanger! I love it it looks great too,definately put MXR on my radar.

Wings - the band The Beatles could have been.

Yes you have it all correct. Post pics when you are finished. Nothing like walking into a pawn shop and finding a great guitar for $60. Yeah it needs finishing but that I can do nicely myself. I bought a Fender Strat for $65. It had been played and it was full of scratches etc. I had the materials here to refinish it. It was red. I hate bright red on anything. I used a heat gun to strip it. The poly finish comes right off in chunks with a little heat. Since it was going to be 3 color sunburst the wood needed to be sealed with clear. I put like 5 coats of clear on it and used the clear to level the body. I used 1200 as the last before coloring it. I put down the amber in the center with more coats of it around the edges to give it that orange cast. Then I shot black free hand around the edges. I put like 10-12 coats of clear over it all then buffed it out. I finished the neck with high shine gloss. The fret board was rosewood so I finished it with tung oil after using 1000 steel wool to polish the fret and clean the fret board. I changed out the electronics to better quality and added into it a push pull volume pot so it could have the bridge pickup and neck pickup togehter. I added a push pull pot on the tone control so the tone could use both the .22 microfarad or a .47 microfarad capacitors for changing the tone. I got rid of the two volume thing so the master volume handled the guitar. In the other control I put in a cut control so as you turn down the volume you can keep the bright side of the tone. When it was done a guy that plays in a local band wanted it so bad he was offering me $1000 for it because of it's custom everything. I let him have it for 800. I had roughly $250 in it with the parts and paints and original cost.

Some years ago, (30ish) one of my friends was working as an engineer at The Gallery studio in Chertsey. This was at the time property of one Phil Manzerera of Roxy Music. In the office and on various parts of the building there were the gold and platinum discs for record sales not just by Roxy Music but artists like Cliff Richard and the like. All had recorded those works here at the Gallery. Apart from the odd session I was given (its all about who you know) I was frequently hanging out there as we used a lot of the down time for free to construct our own masterpieces. It dawned on us that at some time or other not only all of Roxy Music but also the Cliff had probably at one time or another used the bog for a dump. And now so had we. Does that count?

Already need to update, but this was taken earlier in the year Wals Rics

They look like they're from Claire's Accessories