mcnach

I've used (live) my MB-5 SBK stock without any perceived 'muddiness'. I don't get the same sound I get with my Stingray (no surprises there, passive vs active) but it is not muddy. Maybe he just likes a brighter tone.

No, not yet. I decided to wait a little and enjoy it as it was now that the tuning had settled.

Burn Highway Star Knocking at your backdoor ... so hard to just choose a handful! But Burn is probably my favourite.

It turns out that this was a gateway bass... I've ended up buying also a Gold Tone ME. The Gold Tone has a 23" scale. I wasn't sure that 3" would make a huge difference (stop sniggering at the back!) but it feels substantially easier to play, and the lines do help. I'm happy on unlined fretless with the usual 34" scale basses, but the 20" Uke required a lot of focus. The 23" Gold Tone is a little bit easier... and it turns out that getting used to it helps me when I go back to the 20" Batking. The Gold Tone is also a nicer sounding bass, but I still like the Batking too. It has a bit more of that double bass-like 'thump'. Build quality is not much better than the batking, to be honest, but it sounds and plays really good [1] and being solid body with a bolt-on neck it would be very easy to modify/fix. They're really simple instruments. [1] Initially I was not terribly happy, as the E string was a lot quieter than the others. It turns out the saddle was not sitting properly and when pressing on it I'd get a 'pop'. Pressing on the saddle and plucking at the same time showed me that all I had to do was ensure the saddle pressed well against the transducer below. I was going to return it but the fix is simple and those saddle transducers cost less than a tenner (yup!), so no great loss if I messed it up. As a quick test, I put a small piece of plastic between the string and the saddle and that fixed the issue entirely. There are similar reports on Talk Bass with this kind of transducer on various other brand basses. It looks like cutting the thin strip between the offending saddle and the rest is usually enough. It seems a lot easier than the hassle I had with DHL last week to get the bass delivered... so that pushed me towards keeping it. Not ideal after spending over £500, but I'm really fed up with Evri and DHL so I'll fix it myself. I'll try to get some kind of discount from the seller instead... fingers crossed.

A few years ago we recorded one of our songs as a one off. My girlfriend's brother was studying music production and needed a band to record one track with him as part of his coursework... so he asked us. We wrote one new song and away we went. In the intro there were a couple of places where I did something similar to what happens in September. On purpose. Nobody said anything. Later I get the final mix "oh, and I fixed those mistakes in the intro"... :sigh:

As a teenager I hated country, but now... I still haven't changed my mind. So that's twice a 180, right? There are things that I like better/worse than I used to but I don't think I've come to truly dislike something I used to like. In general what's happened is that as time passed I discovered more music and my tastes just widened.

AliExpress is huuuuge. You can't judge all of it just like you can't say all eBay sellers are the same. I've bought a lot of little things over the years from AliExpress. No more issues than I've had on eBay. I've been unhappy a couple of times and I got my money back easily. In fact, I'd say that as a buyer, AliExpress is easier than eBay. Just be sensible, like anywhere else. I once got a pair of brown shorts that were labelled as being red, on eBay. It happens. That's what returns/refunds are for.

That's my understanding. I think it used to have a guitar 'bank' and a bass bank of 3 presets each or something like that, and later they just made it to hold 7 presets of whatever kind, there's no longer bass or guitar specific banks, you're free to have all 7 being for bass if you wanted to.

not for long...

Hotone Soul Press II? Only 4 leds 'though, so it may not give you the resolution you are looking for. https://www.hotoneaudio.com/products/press/Soul Press II

Big fan of tapewounds here. I use the D'Addario black nylons on my fretless Precision. I used the Rotosound Tru-Bass ones too, which gave this bass more of a "double-bassy" character, but I'm liking the D'Addario more. It doesn't do that thump as well as it did with the Tru-Bass, but I find the D'Addario a bit more versatile and feel better (to me).

Every Sire bass I've tried has been really nice... but heavy. If weight is a concern, definitely try before you buy. Not that Squier guarantees lower weights, but at least there seems to be a better chance, judging by my limited personal experience.

Yup. Most don't seem to put the MM pickup at the Stingray position. Weird that.

No EQ issues here, but I suppose you can use an EQ app and have a preset saved that you can apply when you're using your phone with the NUX? I have a handful of different EQ presets, depending on what speakers/headphones I'm going to be using, so maybe this is why I didn't notice any bass-heaviness on mine?

That's the very same one I got. Same seller. He was just advertising for a bit more, so I got mine for £135. Love it. Now that the tuning is pretty stable it's a lot of fun. It took several days of constant retuning to get there, 'though. Warning: I like it a LOT... but it's making me look at the Gold Tone 23" solid body basses with lewd (not literally, but you know what I mean )... I might get one of those too. They can take standard flatwound strings too. Labella makes a set specifically for the Gold Tone basses.

Mine looks much like the picture above.

I've got the 4.5" version. Pretty happy with their sound.

Mine also came with a few too many turns of string on the A tuner post :shrug: Fun little bass eh? Amazing how well built it seems to be.

They vary. The MB-5 SBK (black 'stealth' Stingray style) is 16.5 mm. Mine weighs about 9.5 lbs. The JJ55OP/PJ55OP are 18 mm. I've got one of each. The JJ is around 9.5 lbs as well and the JP closer to 8.5 lbs if I remember correctly (there is a thread about those basses and I stated the actual weight there).

SBMM SUB is 16.5 mm. The USA SUBs were 17.5 like the Stingray 5.

Merry Christmas!

morning or afternoon?

That's the seller I got mine from. Took 2 days to arrive.