mcnach

I try to start with amp controls as neutral as practically possible, and bass controls similarly set.
With almost any amp, it's already very good.
Then I adjust as required.

I often add a bit more bass for some songs, and remove for others.. but this is on the John East preamp, so it may not work the same way in the original 3EQ. I may add a bit of treble too. Mids are variable... soemtimes I don't touch them at all... others I boost a fair bit... it really depends on the room and the rest of the band (3 guitarists!) how much and what freq I need to boost to help me cut through better.

My point is that I find that with the flat preamp (or bypassed entirely) it already sounds great, whilst I had to do more knob twiddling with other basses.

Ha! I know just what you're talking about...

I had a very similar experience when I got my 2EQ Stingray.
Still in the honeymoon... I think I found real love.

Crazy thread... but fun read waiting for the washing machine!

[quote name='Kev' post='986076' date='Oct 12 2010, 07:06 PM']What a pedal

Recently took delivery of one on here and i love it, synth tones are superb and synth modes 5-9 actually track better than anything iv had before, deep impact included. Awesome! Insane that boss have not resused these sounds in other pedals (GT6B synths are truly terrible)

Internal sound source synth modes are, as usual, awful and completely unusable (no idea why Boss persist with these?) I am not finding the t-wah as good as other people seem to, seem a little harsh to me...

Compressor seems pretty good, can be quite noisy but i am sure it wouldn't be a problem in a live band situation.

Can only find one overdrive setting i like, the fuzz and distortion are pretty rubbish tbf. Octaver is perfectly good, like the flanger and chorus, delay is very good imo. Reverb is quite digital but i wont be bothering with that anyway. Looking to buy an expression pedal to complete the package at some point.

However this pedal is all about the synth, really, really good

Anyone got any settings they would particularly like to share?[/quote]


synthy sound clips, please???

[quote name='Delberthot' post='988698' date='Oct 15 2010, 12:39 AM']I'll always argue that if the action can be properly adjusted then any bass can be used to learn and gig with.

I've gigged with one of these £40 basses before, albeit not in pink:

[url="http://cgi.ebay.com/PINK-Metallic-Electric-BASS-JAZZ-style-gigbag-Strap-NEW-/270646834263?pt=Guitar&hash=item3f03cef457"]http://cgi.ebay.com/PINK-Metallic-Electric...=item3f03cef457[/url]

I've laid the gauntlet down many times but no one has ever tried to call my bluff


23 years playing and I'm using a bass that cost me £95 to gig with every weekend.[/quote]


I love it. But you didn't get the pink one...

I agree with what you say above. It may not be the best bass with the best sound or feel, but a cheap bass can be perfectly adequate. I bought a s/h Westfield B4000 (Jazz bass copy) in some ugly translucent green for £40 on eBay, plus £10 delivery. Just because it was so cheap that I figured it was worth a shot (Westfield does have some pretty decent stuff, in my experience).
It turned out to be a great bass. I had to adjust the action and intonation, and it would benefit from some mild fret levelling which I haven't done yet, but it only affects the very high registers and I rarely venture there. The pickups were surprisingly nice too. I've gigged this bass a couple of times and if it were my only bass I would not feel that that I was at a disadvantage.

I wish my first guitar/bass had been this good. And it mostly came down to my now knowing what to do with an instrument. When I was a newbie I'd try an instrument and find it hard to play and decide that model/brand wasn't for me, when it was simply that the particular instrument I had tried was not set up nicely. In most cases.

Having said that... I still prefer my Stingray, of course.

[quote name='Stacker' post='991408' date='Oct 17 2010, 06:28 PM']I remember seeing this bass player a band in Edinburgh when I was a teenager who had an old Rick 4001 and he'd put a Strat pup in where the foam mute used to be. He said, as I recall, that it "brought out the highs"! What utter bullshit! I think he just had it in there as a conversation piece!![/quote]


sometimes you just have to nod politely and let them be...

one man's beauty is another man's horror.

It's horrible!

the neck at the nut looks pretty narrow, more Jazz than Precision...

I'd recommend you go second hand.

You get access to better basses, and as a beginner you probably don't have a clear idea what type of bass is *your* bass, so buying used allows you to change basses quite painlessly (from a monetary point of view) if/when you find your current bass is not IT.

You mentioned the SR300. I bought an SR400 a couple of years ago used, with a hard case, for £140...

Have a look at the Warwick Rockbass series too, they're pretty good basses. An active Corvette will be quite versatile.

by the way, what happened with the gig?

[quote name='daz' post='973448' date='Oct 1 2010, 02:04 AM']your band dont sound like 'mates' to me. Maybe they think the bass dont matter? Seem like a bunch of selfish c**ts to me. f*** em.[/quote]


My feelings exactly.

I don't know the whole situation, so it's hard to say without knowing the whole atmosphere etc... but I'd normally take this as my cue to grab my bass and say "so long, folks".

Hell, I've walked for less than that!

I need to deal with adults, people who are reliable (to a reasonable extent, we're talking humans, and furthermore... musicians ) and who respect me as much as I respect them.

[quote name='mep' post='985005' date='Oct 11 2010, 10:54 PM']Musicman Stingray, job done.[/quote]


My Stingray would be the one too. It does everything and it does it well. Plus it looks so good, that I think if I ended up stranded on a desert island with it, I could survive just by licking it

[quote name='KiOgon' post='985695' date='Oct 12 2010, 01:35 PM']Ok I'm a fussy old bastard but why shouldn't I be? This cost a lot of beer tickets & I've got a few niggles, what to do?

Pickguard, doesn't sit flush on the body around the pots - I think there might be a wire trapped under but don't want to take it off yet to see. The knobs were fitted oddly, one high one low almost scratching the surface, not quite, so I've raised/lowered those OK.

Neck pocket fit - not perfect but I can live with that, (I think).

Fender decal - I can see & feel that it's 'stuck on top of the laquer', I don't know if that's how they do it on Nitro finishes?

Truss rod hole/infill at top of neck - Is not in the middle, I didn't notice it at first but it's one of those things that once you notice it's there in your face every time you pick it up!

Apart from above - it's beautiful & plays very very nicely

Photo's not brilliant I know but I tried to show what I mean. Your opinions please?

Cheerz, John[/quote]


personally, the pickguard I'd look at myself... it could be a very minor thing easily corrected.

but the neck pocket fit would be clearly the most important. If it's not right (and there are no pictures here to see), I'd send it for a replacement. Not a cheap bass! Some things I can live with, cosmetics, but a neck/body fit is an essential part of the instrument.

edit: ah, just saw the neck thing... not as bad as I had imagined... in fact, and this is the sad part... it's not terribly unusual to have those gaps on Fenders... no guarantee next one would be better

[quote name='jezzaboy' post='983854' date='Oct 10 2010, 10:10 PM']I was in the local Crack Converters the other week and they had a Westone Thunder 1 for £50!! It was a bit tatty cosmetically, the body and headstock was well chipped but was informed that it played ok. It was very mucky with some tarnishing on the brass bridge.

I walked away and after being out the shop for 10 mins, went back and got it. Gave it a good clean, new jack socket and strings, a bit of a set up and it plays really well! The neck is in very good nick. It has a very high output for a passive bass. It`s pretty ugly but it`s got a certain charm about it. Bloody heavy though and as far as I can tell all original (apart from the control knobs which I put on) from 83.

[attachment=61016:DSC01707.JPG]
[attachment=61015:DSC01704.JPG]

Jez[/quote]

Hmmm, put a MM pickup instead of the P, and it could be really tasty!

I have one of those, love it!

bummmp

b-bump

[quote name='tubepigeon' post='984333' date='Oct 11 2010, 12:40 PM'][url="http://basschat.co.uk/index.php?showtopic=1136"]http://basschat.co.uk/index.php?showtopic=1136[/url]

Same as that...offers? Great bass, sounds and plays fantastic, looks great, and got hellish reviews when they came out. Only problem (not really a problem but worth mentioning) is that the battery cover is missing - spookily, the same as the one on basschat!

Cheers, Tom

Read more: [url="http://toonrockpages.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=sellingandbuying&action=display&thread=34861#ixzz1237bJmCT"]http://toonrockpages.proboards.com/index.c...1#ixzz1237bJmCT[/url][/quote]


nice looking!

might be really tempted, depending on what sort of money you're after... if I don't find the JE preamp I need first

This is a used John East preamp I recently bought off another basschatter here.
Stingray preamp, 4 knob version blah blah blah, if you're reading this you probably know all the blurb... if you want more details, just ask me :-)

I have the 3-knob version on my 2002 Stingray and I *love* it.

I was going to use this one on my recently acquired SUB5 bass, but I really should have bought the 3-knob version, so rather than drilling new holes on the sub5 and risking damaging the finish of this beauty, I have decided to sell this one and look for a 3-knob version instead.

bump!

This is a bass that started life as a Wesley Monarch model.

Classic combination of alder body, pretty maple neck and rosewood fingerboard.

Bolt-on neck, attached via a solid plateless 5-bolt joint.

The neck is slim, and plays great without fret buzz. Strings are not new, but it hasn't been used much since last re-string so they're pretty bright. Tuning stability is excellent, especially considering the slim neck.

The original pickups were replaced with these humbuckers with hidden polepieces. Not sure about the source.
Original electronics have been replaced and a 3-band preamp has been installed, with a passive/active switch.

Controls are:
1) volume (pulled: passive, pushed: active)
2) pickup pan selector, centre detented
3) mid-frequency control: centre detent
4) concentric bass/treble controls: no centre detent (like original Stingray)

Bass is in great cosmetic condition and otherwise. It was my back-up bass (to my Warwick Corvette $$) for a while and I've used it in rehearsals and once live, but it was always very well looked after. The neck pickup is quite close to a P-bass, whilst the bridge pickup is a bit more nasal than a Jazz bridge, with a bit of extra bass it cuts through very well, and the mids control will give you more cut than you're likely to want.

Not an expensive bass, but one that works well and sounds pretty good and can be gigged without trouble.

I added very small dabs of phosphorescent paint over the side markers (tried to photograph them, but they don't show as they're so small). Very useful for low light stages. If there are black lights on stage, they will shine very brightly. I used a keyring UV-light torch thing to charge the dots briefly if I needed. It's the same thing I did on my Warwick, and I used to charge the spots with the torch by shining the light briefly up and down the neck before a tricky song if I wanted the extra help. They emit light for some time, but they're brightest only for a few minutes after charging.

I wasn't thinking of selling it, but I seem to just play the Stingray/Jazz types now and could use the extra cash.

Here's the animal:

Bumping the PJ...

a few enquiries but nothing further yet.

[quote name='Silent Fly' post='982037' date='Oct 8 2010, 09:25 PM']This was what my digital multimeter said


I was equally surprised. I assumed the battery was new(ish) until I noticed some clipping when I hit the low E.[/quote]


It makes me want to leave the cable plugged in permanently and just see how long (and how low the voltage, more importantly) until it stops working well. I like measuring things

[quote name='stingrayPete1977' post='981796' date='Oct 8 2010, 05:26 PM']unless its an old one before they realised that it never switched off,DOH![/quote]

I thought it was originally designed to be permanently on, because they thought the current draw was so small that it would not matter much.

If SX and Rondo had been active when I was living in the US... I'd have returned to Europe with a nice crate of guitars & basses I think!

I bought a SX guitar when there was barely any mention of them in the net (2004 I think? maybe 2003 even), a Les Paul type with P90s. I got it from a shop in Germany who were importing them directly and I paid something like £120 including delivery. I had some spare cash and I though it looked fantastic, so even if it were crap I could hang it for decoration... but it turned out to be an amazing guitar and I didn't even replace the pickups! A year later I took part in a... ah! that was 2004, so I must have bought it late 2003! As I was saying I took part in a guitar meeting (from uk.music.guitar) and got to play it onstage with a nice amplifier.. and I got lots of compliments about the tone, and people asking what it was. Once they saw it near they noticed the small cosmetic details that betrays its origin (not a high end guitar at all), but it felt and sounded great and many preferred it to a Gibson Les Paul Junior reissue that was there at the same time.



I ended up selling all my guitars except for two, when the bass bug bit hard... I sold Ibanez, Fender, Gordon Smith, Yamaha, a lovely japanese 80's Squier and many more... and I kept my Fender Stratocaster and the SX!

[quote name='stoatsbrother' post='981183' date='Oct 8 2010, 07:51 AM']Ok - cannot see an answer to this on doing a forum search - and I'd be very interested in the views of others.

I have a 14 year old son who plays a Yamaha RBX 170, but is ready to move on. Playing a mix of stuff, and needs a bass with a wide tonal range, relatively narrow finger board, yet is active and slappable.

Probable get quite a lot more s/h I guess.

He has a brilliant PRS SE 6 string guitar - and I guess he might be looking for the equivalent in basses, a high quality instrument at the bottom end of the range of a great maker. And he doesn't need a 5 string, or a fretless (because he can borrow mine...!)[/quote]


MusicMan SUB4 Stingray active bass, used.
No, it doesn't have a narrow neck like a Jazz... but they're GREAT basses and despite being single pickup basses, the preamp will give you a wide variety of sounds. I have the 5 string version and I love it. There's a beautiful white one on eBay right now that I'd buy if I didn't have a 4-string Stingray already (or had some extra money). The pickguard is ugly, but easy to replace.
Versatile and... slappable you say? Till the cows come home, but it does eevrything else too.