mcnach

wow, that sounds nasty, very painful! 😲 I heard about some people having a reaction to nickel in strings but I always assumed it was a much milder effect.

So sad. He made really nice cabs It's not looking good with regards the survival of the company, is it? @Contrebasse I hope you get this sorted soon, it's a very poor show.

A Nordstrand MM4.2 by any chance?

No, they don't. The EQ is part of the preamp and it's bypassed entirely. The bypass switch (pull on the volume knob) is only really there as an emergency button in case I forget to replace the battery or something. There is no room to add a passive tone control without reorganising the whole preamp, otherwise I'd have added one. If I was going to remove the whole preamp, then I'd put a passive tone control for sure. In fact, maybe I'd try a Tonestyler control with an additional pot to control the 'depth' of the Tonestyler. They're really cool alternatives to standard passive tone controls.

It's a common misconception that the MM pickup is low output. It isn't. The preamp, when set flattish, does not really increase the output level in any significant form. Of course, you *can* boost it... a lot! But not everyone wants or needs that. Anyway, yeah, that passive pickup is comparable in output to any other passive pickups. The built-in EQ on that preamp just allows you get get to a number of 'classic' Stingray tones easily, while on passive form you get access to a different set of sounds. I wish the Stingray came by default with a passive tone control in addition to the active EQ.

I can't listen to the clip right now, but as a fellow bypass-switch-installed Stingray owner, I agree that a passive Stingray sounds pretty damn good. In my case, it sounds much like the active one... it seems that I normally set the controls to pretty much flat normally, perhaps cutting down treble a bit. That onboard EQ sees very little action on my bass

🤣

I was only joking. What I meant is that since you built them, you had to fit the bridge/saddles and in doing so the intonation was set right for your strings/action... that's all

well, if you built them, then technically you adjusted it

and I found it sounds better if I turn the amplifier up a few notches 😛

... and it gets better the more you play it I forgot how cool Telecasters are! I still go for the whammy bar at times but I'm getting used to it. I brought the neck pickup up a bit and that improved the sound. I may still get something better there, but not in a hurry. Frets feeling much better too as they get used. The Classic Vibe my friend has is nicer. It's hard to describe, it just feels like a really good guitar... but he is very good setting up his instruments so his CV Tele is perfect. Once it's been given a little attention, I can't imagine this one being much different, except for the pickups. The CV Squier pickups are very nice. The SX neck pickup is just adequate. Don't get me wrong, it's fine as it is, which for the money is crazy. I just know it can get a little bit better. Thank you all for indulging me

I have used a couple of different stands to tilt combos/single cabs. My favourite is the appropriately named Stagg GAS 4.2: STAGG GAS 4.2 It's simple, adjustable, folds nearly flat, and less than £15. I used mine a lot and it's still in good condition. I also had the 3.2 previously, which folds completely flat and takes next to no space at all which is nice, but it's not adjustable and I found my CMD121P combo would wobble a little on it although it was stable enough:

A bit busy just now but I managed a good half an hour of guitar noises... The guitar is beautiful, flawless finish, I tried hard to look for cosmetic issues but found none. The closest was perhaps the fret slots, viewed from the side, the filler is a bit paler than the surrounding wood. That. And then I remembered how much I paid. It was in tune when I took it out (nearly, I did retune it, but I've heard bands play live with guitars that were more out of tune than this one straight from the box), which suggests someone tested it before postage, or maybe it was the display model (it was the last red one they had). Frets are pretty good. The action is set low enough (I'd like it a bit lower) and plays nicely everywhere until you get to around the 14th-15th fret where the strings choke a bit: it's usable as it is, but it needs a little adjustment so that it plays smoothly all over. The frets are not shiny, they look like the guitar has been out for a while, which again makes me think it was probably a display model, but if it was they really cleaned it up (or not many people ever tried it :D) , except for the frets. As such they feel a little 'scratchy' when bending strings, but I'm sure after a couple of weeks of regular use (which it'll get) they'll be just fine. Fret ends are smooth as... Neck is pleasantly wide and chunky. Not baseball bat style, just... the right amount of girth, for my liking. If you are a fan of the Ibanez RG series necks, you'll find this a bit too deep, but I think it's the right size. Oh and lacquered, beautiful 'vintage' tint. I love lacquered necks. I'll probably cut the nut slots a TINY bit lower. I was thinking it would need a new nut, as a lot of budget guitars come with pretty horribly cut soft plastic nuts, but I'm not in a hurry with this one. As it is, it plays well enough, a little harder than ideal, which is very clear when I switch to the PRS, but... £139! I am surprised I get something that looks as good and is perfectly usable out of the box. I haven't mentioned sound yet. It sounds... like a Telecaster. It's very good, especially the bridge pickup, it's got that edge that Tele bridge pickups have and it's lovely with high gain, which is what separates the meh from the yeah pickups. The neck pickup is a little polite and lacks a bit of 'sparkle' compared to my ideal Tele sound. It sounds good enough, but I'm looking for negative points and I can't find anything else. Ideally I'd have something a bit better there. I have a black pickguard for it... however it doesn't fit. It's what happens sometimes when you go for non-Fender derived clones. On the SX the neck pickup is mounted on the pickguard rather than straight into the wood underneath, which suggests a wide pickup cavity underneath (they often do that so that they can produce different models with different size pickups... humbuckers etc using a single body design). The bottom of the neck is also a couple of mm longer than a Fender-derived version, so the only way I can fit this pickguard is moving the pickup 2mm down, which may be easily done if the pickup cavity is large as I suspect. No biggie, 'though. One day I'll adapt it. If not... I can use the black pickguard on the purple Tele that I'm getting for my birthday in September Seriously... £139? Add a decent setup and this can be a seriously decent guitar. @madshadows you were right, it's a very pretty metallic red. Hard to make it justice on a phone picture.

ooooh... what did the very nice courier brought me today?

That's really cool, thank you!

Doh, I should have read the whole thread first. SPB-1 it was indeed I had that one on my old Maruszczyk Jake and it was nice but a bit polite for my liking. The EMG GZR may be more to your liking (it was for mine).

My SPB-1 looked just like that P pickup. There are other models that may look like those, but the SPB-1 is 'popular' enough, so I'd say there's a good chance that that's what it is.

Not necessarily *more* mids than your favourite roundwound, but their frequency profile is stronger on the mids, lower mids in particular. However, there's also different flats that sound very different from each other. Thomastik Infeld Jazz Flats are pretty bright with very strong mids, while Labella Flats are more about their 'thump', and Status ones are very dull (not in a bad way necessarily) but then you get Ernie Ball Cobalt Flats which are as bright as their nickel roundwounds that have been used for a while... It's a jungle out there!

No, @ikay was talking about the potentiometers, not the tone capacitor.

SX: https://www.basschat.co.uk/topic/434753-i-want-a-cheap-telecaster/?do=findComment&comment=4185136

Fiiinally... the guitar is on its way. Credit where it's due, they kept me informed all along that it would take a bit longer than usual and kept in touch during the week as if I were buying a top £££ instrument. Hobgoblin Music, thank you.

one thing is clear: we have a LOT of time in our hands and we enjoy overthinking things

That's brilliant! I have a little version of that, just a heavy block with a couple of fixed arm crocodile clips, but that's great! I need to get me one of those

Ideally yes, but not every gig venue has a suitable PA in place and not every band has a big enough PA for those situations. It's not often that I *need* a pair of Two10 cabs, but I've played enough where I would have struggled without. Having said that, a lot of people never find themselves in that situation, but many are so you can't generalise and say that what works for one person should work for every one. In addition, it's not just the volume. I get a better balanced stage sound with a couple of Two10, I guess the minitower allows the bass sound to be better distributed on stage without needing to turn up to compensate. I've used a single Two10 in a small bar (Glasgow's Clutha 2) in an 8-piece ska band without PA support and while it was not earth-shattering it did reasonably well (two would have been better though). Those cabs (One10, Two10 etc) are really good.

in a nutshell a bit like quoting the blurb from an audiophile company about their superior power cables...