mcnach

They're both decent instruments. I think the choice comes down to personal preference... ideally by trying them personally in shops until you find THE ONE. REgardless of what you go for, I would budget a little extra money (i.e.: don't spend it all on the bass yet) to take it to someone who can set it up nicely for you, ensure all frets are levelled and the nut is cut correctly etc, to ensure it plays the best it can play.

+1 It's something I noticed very early on about guitarists that could play really fast (I grew up during the 80s guitar hero period): their fingers seemed to glide and not move that much compared to mine, who, as a beginner, was flapping my fingers all over the place.

I'm not sure that hand size is much of an issue for this. I don't have big hands, but I prefer wide fingerboards. When I started on bass, after years playing guitar, I preferred thin necks and my two favourite basses were a Jazz and an Ibanez SR300. It didn't take long to get used to it, and I started preferring chunkier necks. Especially for 5 string basses: I like to keep the inter-string spacing the same so that I can switch back and forth more easily (but I can manage on thinner necks too, I just like bigger ones more).

Same here. I found some 5 string basses that were really nice, especially that Lakland 55-02, I really liked that one. The thing is I never found a situation where I absolutely needed a 5 string. Yeah, occasionally I wanted the additional lower note, but it was never a deal breaker that I couldn't do without. Yeah, some songs were a lot easier to play being able to move across strings... but not impossible to play otherwise. Then I find myself not using specific basses just because they are 4-string, despite the fact that they sounded better, to me. So no... eventually I went back to 4-strings, several times. Maybe one day I'll find a 5-string bass that I like better than anything else and that will be it, but until then I don't feel like choosing an instrument based on the number of strings.

Thank you, it was an interesting video (I do love my octavers) but it was hard to hear how clean or otherwise the LPF effect is. He seems to be using it mostly as an envelope filter 'wah' kind of effect.

I thought it had a LPF and you could set the controls so that it doesn't "quack"? I tried to find a definitive answer but failed. It does seem to be an excellent envelope filter 'though.

I did consider it, it does a few additional things that I would definitely enjoy, but I could not find examples of it being used purely as a LPF, but my understanding is that you can, can't you?

Well, it's happening. I'm getting an adjustable LPF, switchable ranges 44-490 or 175-1600 Hz (I could not decide which would be better for me, so... both just in case), gain control and fixed HPF at 30 Hz (I didn't really need that, but it won't hurt, it was part of the design and I'll just go with it). From SFX, UK-based business. It's essentally a Thumpinator HPF plus dual range adjustable LPF.

No, I haven't, good call! I have contacted a couple of other people and I *may* have found something really cool from a UK builder... watch this space. If that doesn't work out the Bright Onion guy is a good call, I completely forgot about him, thank you!

Oh that's pretty cool. Good to know, thank you!

Yeah, but that's the LPF *plus* HPF and the price he's asking is... pretty high. The LPF only pedal is $95 new, which even with shipping and duty etc comes out substantially lower than what that guy is asking for the LPF+HPF ($165 new from the builder vs £215 used from that guy above...).

Oh I see, I missed that. For the longest time I thought Sandberg were Swedish (???), not sure why, so I was wondering whether you had a similar scandinavian confusion.

Are you talking about Sandberg? I'm pretty sure they're German.

But I bet you'll hear it growl, so you can locate it that way

Speaker simulations: not quite, I'd like to be able to go pretty low at times with the threshold frequency. I have a Mooer Radar that I use sometimes, and it has a built-in HPF and a LPF. However the LPF only goes down to 3000 Hz, which is too high for my purposes. It's really there only to adjust the treble attenuation of the built-in cab sims, unfortunately. I wish it went lower, it would be a fantastic pedal then (It's still pretty good, just not as a stand-alone LPF).

I didn't know about that pedal, thank you! Yes, it's rather larger than what I want, but it looks REALLY interesting. Definitely one to remember about, thank you!

I've got one , thank you for the suggestion, it's a great pedal that one. It's pretty good, but it's stuck in a pedalboard I don't want to disassemble. It's also quite big, and you really need to run it at 12V for it to work well which also means a separate power supply in my case. At 9V it's not quite there, although it still works reasonably well.

Thank you, I saw that one but it's a little dear and I only want the LPF section. If Broughton were shipping to the UK, I could get a new small footprint LPF-only (adjustable) for a fair amount less than that one. That's my plan: waiting until they ship to the UK again... but as I don't know when that will be, it would be nice to find an alternative, just in case.

When you loosen the truss rod (anti-clockwise indeed) you don't need to loosen the strings, although if it feels too tight it won't hurt. I only loosen them when I go the other way.

This

If the bass played well before, it is probably just that you have a smaller relief due to the lower tension strings, so all you need to do is loosen up the truss rod a little. Don't touch anything else for now. Most times that's all you need.

Yeah, that bass is capable of a much better tone than that. Rounds would work just fine, but reducing the treble (clank) and mid-scoop would sound a lot better. As somebody who plays a Stingray for 3/4 of my gigs, I find it surprising/frustrating that a lot of multi-bass demos just seem to go for that kind of sound. I'd have never bought one if that's the sound I'd get. The Precisions sounded best, for me. In particular the first one, the red Pino signature Precision. Beautiful.

Tortoiseshell. Ugh.

There's the Broughton one, of course, but they're not shipping to the UK right now. Is there anything else out there that's not packed within a large pedal? I can't seem to find something that's not bundled with a lot of additional functions (and price tag to suit)

Beast!!!!