Leaderboard

Well. The lesser spotted 1500a and 1600 seen together, here in their natural habitat…they graze…

So I took this today as part for a deal from one of my favourite independent guitar shops for my Thunderbird, Geddy Lee Jazz and some guitar bits I moved on. It's a new 2021 American Pro ii Jazz Bass in Dark Night but as it has a rosewood fingerboard rather than the standard maple board, it's a limited edition run. I much prefer rosewood boards on Jazz basses, so it suits me just fine. It's a lovely weight (8lbs 14oz) and plays really well. I'm not really a Jazz Bass fan as the ergonomics don't work for me but it was a compelling deal. I won't unwrap it as such as I may well move it on imminently. It's a very striking colour scheme and the built quality is excellent as it has been on the other American Pro II's I've seen.

Hi All, I've just fallen victim to his Boss DD3 pedal, paid family and friends over paypal like a plonker! he seemed so decent as well, anyways i'm now on hold with action fraud through paypal to hopefully get somewhere.

I've had updated pics in.... it's obviously getting near to being shipped... getting excited...

Well this arrived yesterday, I’ve been looking for one for a while and a practically new condition one came up, not really been played, only tested and it still had the plastic on the pickups and tuning pegs , I have to say that the compound neck profile is amazing (not that I venture much up the dusty end 😁), it really feels great. It’s taking me a while to find the sound I like with the controls, any advice greatly welcomed , It’s quite a joy to play 🙂

This thread has goaded me into finding out what is the thing I don't like about two pickups together. Phase cancellation. Two similar explanations from a TB thread: From a math perspective it's just plusses and minuses cancelling each other out. One pickup hears a particular harmonic on the upswing of the wave and the other hears it on the downswing. The result is no sound for that harmonic. Some of the harmonics over one pickup will be 180 degrees out of phase when over the other pickup. Combine them and those frequencies cancel. Gone. Can't be heard. So when I switch from P to PJ, hoping to hear the extra bite from the bridge pickup, I just feel disappointed that some of the richness of the tone has suddenly disappeared.

Passive blending of pickups causes insertion loss. It's a drop in signal strength that increases the closer to the middle / completely balanced position you get. The only ways I know of fixing the problem is either swapping the polarity of one of the pickups or by using an active balance control like the EMG ABC unit. The latter only works on EMG pickups, alas. I've only done the EMG option

And erm…as quick as I post…I need to change the pic. BB1500a - in great nick, just needs a little TLC.

I like all three and if I was completely honest would not vote...but I did, for the BB P pickup. I think they all sound great but that P pickup tone is just so awesome, it really makes you sit up in your chair. The thing with the Stingray is that the tone is so easily identifiable and sounds so cool but I really think that the P and PJ tones of the BB are just more useful across more types of music. Actualy I wish I hadn't watched this video as my GAS is starting to rise again and I thought I had beaten it. Damn.

Wow, that really would stop any neck dive wouldn't it - and as an advantage you could probably also tie your boat to it in a storm!

My favourite bass at the moment, 32 inch Ibanez Mezzo with a few modifications:

Not one to do this usually but I purchased a Bacchus last week from Bass Bros and the service I received was top notch. The process from start to finish was first class and Will even got in touch with me to ask what strings I would like when restringing and doing a set-up. I will definitely be using these guys again in the future. https://bassbros.co.uk

Hi! I made this comparison with a poll if anyone is interested in hearing how these two basses compare playing different basslines.

Forgot to add - free set up and a set of strings. DRs!

Update: https://www.talkbass.com/threads/trace-elliot-design.1521151/page-3#post-26177678

I'm about to do this very thing to get some ancient recordings from my 80s synth band digitised along with any of the local band demos that have IMO stood the test of time. 1. Use a good quality cassette player. Ideally one with dual capstans and separate motors for the capstans and tape tension. Nakamichi, and the high end Aiwa or Sony decks should be suitable. (I've got an Aiwa F660.) 2. Play the tapes as little as possible. Once to set the levels and then once to actually record the contents. If you can set the levels so that you are just under 0dB in your DAW for the hottest off-tape signal then you can just get on and play them all once. Be aware that the tapes may have been recorded at up to +10dB for a good quality Chrome or Metal tape so attenuate the signal at the interface appropriately. 3. For leads, I can't help you. I have phono to just about everything leads so I'll be experimenting to see which gives the best match. I'd probably start a phono to jack line level and take it from there. 4. If the tapes have been recorded with Dolby B, turn it off for playback and use EQ in the DAW to re-balance the bass and treble. However, if they have been recorded with Dolby C or S then you will need to have it activated on playback. Make sure your cassette deck has the appropriate NR. 5. There are all sorts of tape enhancement/restoration plug-ins available. Start by having a look at the mastering tools available in Logic. You shouldn't need any compression as the recording process should have already taken care of this for you with tape saturation. Certainly all the analogue tapes I've digitised in the past have already had plenty of tape compression on them, and apart form hard limiting some very excessive peaks I've not had to used any compression at all.

This is what I believe @Thump is talking about. I've had this one for a few years, it's a fine piece of kit and a doddle to use. https://www.amazon.co.uk/Generic-Super-Portable-Cassette-Converter/dp/B00YQZ521W/ref=asc_df_B00YQZ521W/?tag=googshopuk-21&linkCode=df0&hvadid=309953091299&hvpos=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=7899797203090088465&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=1007037&hvtargid=pla-564073872608&psc=1

And the Police, and Action Fraud by the sounds of it too... We only know of bassists affected, and only those savvy enough to search around and land here. So you can probably assume for evert 1 person we know that's been scammed, there are at least 10 that we don't know of. This is a big case, the guy has a history of fraud and other convictions too, so I think this would definitely be of interest to something like Rip Off Britain. Who ever among us has the most detail on this case should raise it with them, see if they want to investigate and report on it.

I'm using a Fender PJ bass for a buge chunk of my gigs lately. The way I use it is that essentially it's just a Precision, but I can turn the Jazz pickup on if I need any extra bite for playing any harmonics or slapping.

I reckon those control knobs give you BBC1, BBC2 and ITV.

You could try and get some media attention... That programme 'Rip Off Britain' is still about, you can contact them on the below email address, they might have an interest in this scam as its been going on for years and nothing has been done. [email protected]

Cheers for the clarification - I definitely misunderstood!

If the bedroom is of an adequate size, then this is all he'll need.... ...and maybe a couple of roadies if he ever wants to move it, but it looks damn cool.

I've got 2 and love them. IMO a PJ is always a P, but with extra tone shaping options. I've got TI flats on my Mike Lull PJ5 and a piece of foam under the strings. I've been playing this bass for 10 years, as I say, I love it.

Same here, Duff is one of my faves, love his tone/playing yet when I get that tone it just sounds “wrong”.

It is, randomly on posts - the server is critically low on disk space and until the problem is properly resolved, the system isn't caching properly. Hopefully it can get sorted soon

I have edited things a bit to clarify @Nothingman's post.

Quite the opposite for me, it's my favourite configuration particularly when the pickups are blended. What is it that you don't like? I have found, over the years, that I tend to set up my bridge J a lot closer to the strings than the P. Most folks tend to set the pickup height visually, in my experience, so that they look about the same distance away from the strings. I go by ear, so that the bridge pickup has plentiful balls and, when blended, gives immense growl to the meat provided by the P.

I’m very interested in the outcome of all this. I don’t have a Facebook account anymore, so was surprised to find out somebody was using my full name and photograph abs connecting with my friends and family. My wife, one of my friends and I have all reported the profile (I uploaded passport etc) but FB have taken no action. In addition, recently I discovered I was being swindled by my former accountant. Money aside, being scammed is a horrible horrible thing. Facebook really don’t take this stuff seriously enough. Good luck to anyone looking for some reconciliation in all this.

cheers all...... had a good think over the weekend. I'm going to give it a month, see if anything changes, then if not you MAY see a Limelight 'Pino style' P bass and a 1973 Fender Jazz for sale.........

I tried googling this, which was enlightening: https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-lm&q=smartass

I like the look of the claw bridge, but I think it would work best on a more contemporary bass design. Looks a bit incongruous on a P/J bass really. That goes doubly for the torpedo bridge -- I can see that working best on a Ritter or maybe Marleaux bass. Agreed 100%. Hiding the ball ends would complete the illusion. I'd half forgotten about the 2Tek bridge. Looks like it weighs a ton... great for helping with neck dive (e.g. my Thunder 1A), but not if the bass is already heavy (e.g. my Thunder 1A).

More info see below ... https://the2tek.com/

I played at two interesting services this morning - one at 09.30 and again at 11.00. Stormy weather conditions, covid and school holidays meant that some band members were absent, leaving only three of us to carry the music. We had the pastor's wife on vocals, a young (20 something) lady on flute and me on bass. Another female vocalist came to the rescue and pastor's teenage son (still at secondary school) tried his hand on cajon for the first time. We did three songs to the depleted congregations of about 35 people for each service. I just kept things simple - hitting the root notes on the beat and trying to stay in time with the cajon. The young lad did very well. It did sound a bit empty at the early morning run through but once the congregations joined it it didn't feel so thin. I played the intro for the final song, "Your Word" by EMU music. When I say intro I mean the first three chord root notes - F# D A. The cajon joined in for a repeat then everyone started the first verse. It was fun but a bit nerve racking to keep every thing together. I had to smile when thinking of those American "mega churches" that have more people on stage than most UK churches would have in their congregations. We lacked the numbers but we still made a joyful noise to the Lord!

I've got a bit more done to this today. I had to redrill for the Wilkinson replacement bridge. I had one with brass saddles which I wanted to use to complement the other brass bits. A quick measure to get in the right place, and it can't go in the right place. Ideally you want the G string saddle on its maximum adjustment (well nearly maximum just in case of poor measuring) towards the neck, and measure that at 34" (or whatever your scale length is). The others will always need longer string runs to intonate properly. Or that's what I remember. Anyway I didn't bother filling the bridge screw holes as they'll be covered, and possibly used depending on which bridge I used, right? Well with the bridge sat where the old one was, the G saddle is on about half adjustment when the scale length is 34", not the ideal maximum adjustment, or minimum depending on how you look at it. I've fitted it in the same place as the old one and hopefully they'll be enough room to intonate properly. I've refitted the old loom for now as although the original pots looked terrible, the mankiness on them seems to be some sort or yellow wax. Underneath this they are clean so I've left them as they are, I'll see if they worked properly before making a decision on replacing them. If it ain't broke and all that. I got some brass volume and tone knobs from AliExpress. They are a close match to the kind you see on Westone Thunders and again, I thought they'd go with the brass theme. I've never liked the black speed knobs that I think they're meant to have. They are taller than I'd like but have a cool oversized look, which I quite like given that this is just a bit of fun. I was going to take a few mil off the bottom but I don't think they'll sit any lower on the shaft (pack it in children). All this, plus the shape, is beginning to remind me of one of those gaudy Alembics, shudder. 😄

I find that, annoyingly, the first rendition of an idea is usually the best. I'll come up with a basic idea and think, that sounds good, I'll expand on that. Then I'll add bits that accentuate certain instrustuments or add counter melodies to other instruments, build on that main riff I came up with, add little lead ins to the chorus, maybe a little solo riff that plays off the guitar solo, add some dynamics. Then I'll hear a recording of the original basic idea I came up with and think, oh that's perfect. Note to self, stop trying to overcomplicate things.

Mixing is even worse. 2 hours listening to a track and I can't tell the difference between a flute and roadworks.

I watched countless videos of single coil and double coils Ps and what sounded nicest to my ears were those with the Seymour Duncan SCPB-1, so that's what I went with in the end. No electric funny business after all, which is quite unlike me. The Warmoth stuff has been good to work with. The neck pocket is snug, though would have been too tight if I had sprayed the neck with lacquer instead of an oil finish. I've rolled the fretboard edges and had to slightly widen the output jack hole but that's the extent of the woodwork, pilot holes aside. Fret dressing and polishing was straightforward. It's coming together nicely. Schaller tuners, brass nut, old Gotoh bridge leftover from a previous upgrade to another bass, SD pickup and shielding done. Just the pots, output jack and associated control plates left to do from a functional perspective before I string it up. I'll add a bridge cover and Cabronita-style mint scratchplate for the sake of aesthetics too.

Ok. Unlike sound limiter systems that cut power after the music has exceeded the threshold (usually for 3-5 seconds), these in-house systems work with a brick wall limiter (think 20:1 compressor if you understand what that means) across the LR outputs that feed the amplifiers. How a band sets up for such a gig is usually pretty straightforward. So in this case, the wedding band are expected to turn up with a silent stage setup - this means modelling systems for the guitars and an electric kit. Keys and additional instruments should be direct or if that is not possible (eg for vocals, horns (ha! Don’t even bother)) miced up if required. (So yes to vocals, no to horns as they’ll be (too) loud enough already. All mixing is done by the band mixer, and then the L R is sent to the venue system. All monitoring needs to be done via IEM, which the band provisions. (So if this isn’t a normal method of monitoring, lots of bands will immediately be faced with a nightmare playing such a venue. Why? Because there’s the cost of the IEMs themselves - but also the need for the band to have a mixer that can provide enough IEM mixes for all the players) So once you get your mix sounding lovely, it then goes off to hell to be processed by the venue system. So let’s look at what is going into that system. All the instruments that are going in have a huge dynamic range. So as an example, when playing your bass, you may have a 12db difference between playing softly and digging in, or hearing the attack when playing with a plectrum. Now it’s not unusual to have a compressor on a bass, but what happens, is that it’ll be set at a much lower ratio and set to release quick quickly, so all it’s doing is squishing the extreme initial transients while retaining the overall sound of the bass. Again, on the vocals, you’ll have a softer compressor, smoothing out those transients. So in general compressors are generally good at “smoothing” the intruments so it’s more pleasant to the ear. But the key thing to remember is that the compression in these situations are low ratios with quick release times. (For those still not understanding compression and what I’m stating, here’s a rough guide. On a compressor you set a threshold at the point you want the compressor to act. The ratio states how much you want the compressor to reduce the signal. So for example, for 3:1, every 3db above the threshold, the compressor will only allow 1db through. 5:1, every 5db above the threshold it will only allow 1db through. The compressor will also have attack, hold and release. Attack is the time it takes for the compressor to act, hold is how long the compression is held for - and the release is how long it takes for the compression to stop acting upon the signal. So for example, for a a snare, or vocal plosives, a compressor will tame the transient associated with both those extreme initial input levels - but once that initial transient falls under the threshold, the compressor will naturally let go. The key thing is that the compressor should sound pretty natural and still allow all the instruments to breathe. In recorded music, say in the studio, you have the advantage that you have the programme material in advance (in that it's pre-recorded). You can run the signals through multiple compressors, automate faders and really spend your time controlling the output of each channel and the final LR for mastering. You can’t do that with live music. You haven’t got that level of control or a crystal ball (although if you know the music well enough, you can ride VCAs like they do in the west end to ride in those transients - but again, that’s not practical in this situation). So let’s talk about what is happening when it goes into the venue PA. When the venue has the venue PA installed by the suppliers, the system is fed with pink noise (which gives you a flat output at every frequency along the audio spectrum) - and this will be heard in the venue. What should happen is that the PA is tuned to the venue so there are no hot nodes/frequencies. Great. Next, the amps are set so the maximum output of the system with this pink noise is 96dB. Great. So every single frequency that is output is maxed out at 96dB. Now onto the bands desk - its a fair assumption that the bands output from the desk is not exceeding 0dB on the fader. Ideally that output should be skirting around -12 to -3dB. Now remember what I said about transients, well, it should come as no surprise that bands don’t play pink noise. Band music has transients that occur at different frequencies. Let’s talk briefly about traffic light sound limiters now. Imagine your band playing at 96db RMS (the average sound level shall we say), there will be times that it’s below 96 but also times that it’s above. The limiters usually have a traffic light system that will warn you that you are over 96 - so that snare hit may flicker the orange or red lights - but as long as it’s not for an extended period of time, you are good. So in short, you can have a band playing at a nominal level but still enjoy a level of dynamic range. OK back to our crippled venue with it's own installed PA. Remember that I said that maximum volume output is 96dB? Well, that your maximum spl that you transients can hit. So if you want your band with some level of dynamics, you really need to be playing at 88dB. To put that into context, that’s lower than that of a hairdryer. (And also take into account that a hairdryer output is more akin to pink noise (so naturally sounds louder) than the RMS of music). This is where the problem starts. So as far as the venue system goes, 88dB does not get a party started but does get you the maximum dynamics out of the system. What you then get is people complaining that the band isn’t loud enough. So what can you do? Well, you could push your LR fader. Immediately you hear the band get a bit louder… but what is happening in reality? Well, your transients start to get super squished by the brick wall limiter on the front end. This causes a number of things to happen, your dynamic range is reduced, so whilst the RMS is higher, the music becomes less exciting. It causes the transients to become clipped (more on this later), which can then be heard as audible distortion if pushed too far. Clipped transients actually tires your ears - meaning listeners ears will get more fatigued… so as the night goes on, the listeners ears perceive the mix to be getting worse. The result is that they usually ask you to turn up. So as you’ll probably see, turning up actually makes the problem worse. Right, let’s get back to these clipped transients. As I’ve alluded to, the front ends of these systems are protected by a brickwall limiter. The installers know that bands are going to keep pushing up the output to the point where clipping will happen. So either the instructions will tell you to not give any more beans from your desk if a clip light is being observed… however, it also doesn’t look good on the company if the system is both clipping on the input signal (hence introducing distortion) and clipping the transients - so it's also heard as audible distortion. So what do the installers do? Lower the gain so that the front end doesn’t clip as easy… net result, your real world desk dB is down the number of dB they’ve introduced as additional headroom on the front end of their system. So all in all, it’s a complete disaster for those expecting a decent sounding band. Meanwhile, any prerecorded music sounds great as it’s been stripped of any excessive transients, and has been mastered and limited in a super controlled environment. But of course the punters don’t understand that and want to know why the disco can be louder than the band. Oh and for those wondering where the measurements are taken? Well… 1m from a speaker is not unusual (when being calibrated) - and anywhere within the room when the venue get their own meter out. Anybody else figure out what the problem is with that?

This thread disappointed, was expecting