mcnach

It takes me a month or more before I start liking new strings!

I think what happens is that the player no longer becomes part of the ground on those basses... If touching a metal part (bridge) quietens the beast, then that's why coated strings are noisier. It probably means you could do something to improve the grounding on that bass.

I think I know the right guy for them...

Queen, live in Budapest... what an amazing band.

Ah, the things we do... There's pedals I've bought and sold 2 and 3 times... The Aftershock has the potential to be amazing. Reading a bit through the manual I keep going "whoa! it can do what???" but I fear I'll choke soon and switch to some small basic pedal instead if I'm not careful. The editor app is a whole entire world in itself!

I just got an Aftershock and after reading this... my head hurts. But I'll be back when I'm not tired... maybe on Saturday morning with a coffee and at a time I can make noise

I just got an SA Aftershock... what a beast! I just wanted it for one fairly high gain kind of sound, and liked that I can probably tweak it until I'm satisfied exactly with the amount of low end and everything... but this pedal can do so many things! So... presets and an external switch, eh? Interesting...

Oooh, Retrovibe have some cool steel surrounds for MM pickups. Great if you want to have a go yourself but your woodworking skills are not very good! http://www.retrovibe.co.uk/parts/other.html

Might be, or not. Probably worth emailing David at Retrovibe and ask. He was pretty good when I had to get in touch. The blurb also states "this is the only mini MM pickup with 4 wires blah blah" but the picture clearly is not a mini MM... so I'd definitely ask him before buying a pickup, to be sure. The one on the Vantage I used to have (back in 2011 or so) was a ceramic pickup and I really liked it. If they still use the same pickups, they're a great option.

+1 and if you have a solder iron but it's not very good... buy another! I have used an underpowered one for years. I bought it when I was a student so I got the cheapest I could get thinking it would not last long and then I'd buy a better one. The thing refused to die and I still have it... but eventually I went and bought a decent soldering station. Nothing too fancy, but you can set the temperature, it holds the iron and there's a nice bit for the wet sponge etc. It wasn't very expensive. What a difference it made!!! Suddenly all my soldering works were beautiful, and it was easy, quick... So, really, get yourself a decent iron if yours is not up to the task. Soldering becomes almost a relaxing experience

Hmm, they don't seem to have that pickup on the site

Every single MM type pickup I tried (I went through a few on my old OLPs) had perfectly adequate output by themselves. In fact, the Stingray preamps provide tone shaping capabilities but nothing much in terms of boosting the signal (of course it boosts if you turn the bass EQ control up ) So... OP, don't worry about volume issues. My favourite is probably the Seymour Duncan SMB4A, which is not the most Stingray-like in sound (but as you won't get it at the Stingray sweet spot in a Precision it doesn't matter), but it's very good sounding and nicely balanced. For more 'classic' Stingray sounds, the Nordstrand MM4.2 was pretty good, although I still preferred the SMB4A, which was fortunate as it's not expensive and can often find it used for around £50. The GFS ones get good reviews, but it was a bit lacklustre when I tried it, in my opinion. Not a fan of Delanos either. Whatever Retrovibe used to put on their Rick/Jazz hybrid looking Vantage basses... it was surprisingly good, and I bet it was cheap too.

Pawel just bought a set of strings from me. Great communication, easy going, smooth... I'd definitely not hesitate buying anything from him or selling again. Thank you, Pawel.

I think that's to prevent complicated situations where one person pays online but another collects etc... However if TheGreek sends money to Third Party while telling the seller "I'm coming round tomorrow to collect and pay in cash", and Third Party shows up "Hi, I'm TheGreek, here's the money, can I have the bass please?"... that should be no problem, surely.

Very enlightening, thank you! And also reassuring me that I wasn't imagining things... I have sometimes used the HPF on my Mesa D800+ adjusting it to what's probably around 80-100Hz and turning up the bass control a bit. It seemed counterintuitive to me, but I liked the way it sounded. I thought people would say I was mad !

Krakatoa, formerly The Moorings. I love the place. Cool and helpful sound guy, and my girlfriend was there and she remarked on the good sound he got on the front... if all the venues worked as nicely as this one!

that is what i understood