bassist_lewis

I have a 30" scale Serek Midwestern 5 and the low B is great, possibly the best I've had, and I've owned 34 and 35" basses. Before I got ym first short scale 5er (Callowhill) I did a LOT of research into scale length and the effect it has on the quality of a low B. The bottom line is that scale length is only one of several factors that contribute to a great sounding B string. The overall construction of the bass - neck material/dimensions, how it's built (1/2/3/5 piece etc), the quality of the neck joint and even just the properties of the piece(s) of wood used - all have an impact on the sound. I believe Jake Serek gets two bits of flat sawn wood and glues them together in such a way as to create the same effect and stability of quarter sawn. In the past Alan at ACG has used carbon inserts to add stiffness to his short scale 5er necks.

The string you use will also make a difference, but there don't seem to be hard and fast rules as to what strings work best, though a lot of players are finding that a lower gauge is (counter-intuitively) better. Electronics have some impact, but they will just enhance what is already there. They won't compensate for a bad B.

What I did find interesting  was a story from Spencer Lull (I think) of Mike Lull bass/guitars on a the SBL podcast (somewhere on YT). They once built a 34" scale 5 string bass and the B was awful. No one understood exactly why, but it wasn't good enough to sell, so they just rebuilt it (poor buyer was made to wait!). My takeaway is that every builder has their methods of getting a good B, regardless of what scale length they work with, but even then there's an element of chance/magic/je ne sais quoi when it comes to getting a great B.

Hope that helps!

8 minutes ago, LukeFRC said:

It feels topheavy with the Moog and ampeg at the top! 

They don't fit otherwise!

As we're doing shelves now

30 minutes ago, Alfie said:

 

Not a pedalboard, I've gone down the pedal shelf route 

What are those along the top???

I'll be uploading my shelf pic imminently

These are really beautiful and solidly built boards. People always comment on it whenever I take it out gigging. Lots of space for pedals on the top deck and underneath (see pics/specs below), and comes with loop-side velcro attached. Selling as I'm downsizing to a smaller setup.

The board has three Connector Box 'holes' that are very easy to swap over. Currently it only has jack and XLR outs (I plugged straight into a tuner), but you can get other modules from the Schmidt Array site.

Sale includes the lid (stickers will be removed before posting), light and gig bag.

Specs:

350 mm wide hybrid "flat top" / two level pedalboard

•  the upper deck is 105mm deeper than our standard decks and therefore has space for two rows of pedals. It is mounted on locking hinges, so it remains in the vertical position when opened and has ball latches underneath to lock it in the closed position when down

•  the front area is prepared for you to install various different switching systems.

•  the angle of the upper deck is ergonomically designed for foot switching comfort

•  the inner area also has space for power supplies and pedals

•  top deck and the inside floor are finished with high quality Velcro

•  the side panels are finished with rubber to grip the stage and also to act as protection and Lid location

•  Supplied with 1 x IEC power socket (male outside/female inside)

Pick up from Edinburgh would be ideal, but can meet up at a reasonable distance. Delivery to mainland UK and Europe is £60.

9 hours ago, vbance said:

Love me a Jive, and the new paint work (have to resist buying every time I see one)

18 hours ago, Quatschmacher said:

Terrible or beautifully coloured, depending on your point of view. 

Mightn't we say it is very obvious when it's in your signal chain and leave it at that 😂

5 hours ago, green3101 said:

How do you find the MBD? I was eyeing the one on Joe's Pedals

This is probably my favourite documentary ever. I'm a moderate Metallica fan (I prefer they early work), but I find the story told in this film fascinating. I don't agree with the OP that all they needed was another bass player; they got another bass player immediately after Cliff died and the mess we see is what resulted! To me, Lars and James are what you get when you have massive success very early in life: you believe your own b***s*** and can't see anything you do as wrong. They're fighting like 18 year old kids because they've never had to learn how to work with other people, and it seems James had A LOT of "stuff" he should have been working through rather than drinking and abandoning his family to go shoot bears in Russia. Kirk comes across as surprisingly reasonable the whole time, trying to bridge the gap between Lars and James and make the band work, as does Bob Rock.

To me the therapist gives them a lot of tools for communicating with each other. You can very clearly track how their language changes across the film: they're asking if they want to 'go deeper' on something rather than getting into a fight, and Lars even concedes his love of the name Frantic when others disagree with him. I also love the therapist's jumpers, they are absurd.

All the rich person stuff is hilarious to me. James driving his ridiculous Goth car in a knock off Wehrmacht helmet; Lars clearly being forced by his wife to sell his Basquiat painting(s) for millions of dollars; having drivers; Kirk with his California ranch and subscription to Rich Guy Magazine.

8 hours ago, LukeFRC said:

Hello!

how many of you use a C4 without a preset switcher? 

I've never used a switcher with it, but that's because I've only ever had 2 sounds I needed for one band. Leaning down to flick the switch looks a bit dumb I guess but its only two songs.

In my early 20s, before I was gigging professionally, I practiced 2-3 hours 5 or 6 days a week. At that time I would definitely feel the need to play, on reflection I think because I was worried I wouldn't make the progress I felt I needed to make to work as a musician. Then in my mid to late 20s I was gigging 2-4 nights a week or more, and I pretty much stopped practicing unless it was to learn songs for a gig. At that point I was glad to be away from the instrument that was my job.

Now I'm a secondary teacher and I've been reducing the number of gigs I do a year (mostly weddings, though trying to transition to more original or interesting covers). I definitely have a feeling of withdrawal from the gigging more than the instrument itself, more out of habit as I spent 3 or 4 years gigging several times a week. My girlfriend tells me a get real weird when I don't have a gig on a Saturday night! I aim to practice or learn a song I wouldn't otherwise have to learn a few nights a week but life is tiring and busy. I haven't touched the bass at all this week (though I might take it to the jam later).

On 03/01/2024 at 23:25, lidl e said:

 

I know im overthinking, but anyine else ever ponder this? What did you decide?

You are... but so am i...

I tend to put it in the case as I would use it i.e. the case lid is opened away from me and the pedalboard is orientated as it would be when in use (top of the pedals are to the bottom of the bag). That way when I open it I can put it in position without rotating it. It does mean I'm carrying them upside down though... and that feels off...

18 minutes ago, krispn said:

Is this the all mahogany one? 

Yes!

I'm putting this up for sale as I prefer a chunkier neck, and have quite a few basses already and this one just isn't getting played. It's done one recording and one gig since I got it in September. It's a cool bass with amazing build quality. The humbucker pickup sounds great, and if you pull up the tone knob when it's rolled down you get a big thick dub tone from it. It weighs about 3.8kg and balances perfectly on a strap.

I've replaced the strap locks with Dunlops (will work with a regular strap or Dunlop strap locks), but will include the originals in the sale. The maggot screw that locks the A string bridge saddle into place (front to back) is stuck inside the saddle, however it locks in place with the string up to tension and doesn't affect playability or the intonation (you can buy them direct from Sandberg for 10E but they don't ship to the UK!).

Comes with a gigbag and tools. Collection or meet up at a reasonable distance would be ideal as I don't have an appropriate box to hand, but a courier can be arranged at buyer's expense.

Best purchase: Iron Ether Xerography Deluxe. Easily competes with my Moog Low Pass Filter and takes up a quarter of the real estate.

Worst: harder to answer as nothing was expressly bad, but the Origin DCX Bass wasn't quite what I thought it would be. I also bought a Sandberg Florence, which is very cool and well made, but I'm just not finding the opportunities to use it.

On 24/12/2023 at 23:10, BassBunny said:

Tom McGuire and the Brassholes. Awesome band with a really tight brass section.

https://youtu.be/Ds76T0AT93I?si=G5A2QA-8VfvZanIZ

That's my friend Mikey playing sax, he's an amazing player and a lovely guy to boot. They've been going for like 10 years so its about time they were getting some love outside of Glasgow.

On 25/12/2023 at 21:51, fretmeister said:

High Fade.

Love a bit of good funk.

And I replaced their bass player (Ollie) in his old band 😅

My fave new music this year is probably GoGo Penguin, great trio jazz that is listenable and innovative at the same time.

25 minutes ago, scrumpymike said:

The comparison below was posted on here earlier and is very useful. I can see myself joining the ranks of Mustang owners before long, probably with either a JMJ or Vintera ll '70s. Thomann's UK online store is a good place to compare all specs and relative pricing in one hit although interestingly the JMJ specs are the only ones that don't give the neck width at nut. I believe it's the wider 40mm+ version same as the Vintera, which is my preference. Can someone confirm this?

 

Mustang comparison review

The JMJ is 40 or 41mm at the nut.

The Boss CE-2B uses the same BBD circuit and clock driver as the CE-2. They're discontinued but they're not ridiculously expensive, around £130 on Reverb.

Welp, I got another board. For the last year or so I've been using a Schmidt Array 350XDM as my main board, and though it looks very cool and everyone drools over it, its VERY heavy, and I'm hardly using the potential of the Atom, even with my electronically inspired jazz trio. So I'm testing out a pedal train Classic JR. The aim is a reasonable size and weight to allow for the optimum number of pedals to cover all bases, plus some wiggle room size-wise (considered a metro 24 but it wouldn't have allowed for any shuffling).

I think this will cover any wedding gig, plus my original stuff, and there's room on the lower half to add a 4th pedal (provided it has top mount jacks), or swap out the C4 for something else as required.

5 hours ago, mouthmw said:

I have the Octabvre mkiii, and I've tested it against OC2, OC5 and MXR BOD. They don't sound the same. Octabvre mkiii won't get you that classic OC2 hollow tone, even with the tone all the way off and Tim switch engaged (for more lows). Octabvre has more mids and is more pronounced in the mix, sounds fuller, which I love. But it won't do that OC2 thing (which admittedly has a very infectious sound). I'd say MXR got closer to that tone (but not quite there either), and OC5 is almost identical to OC2 in vintage mode. I haven't even noticed latency with OC5 and you get more gain on tap compared to OC2. Once you start upping the tone on Octabvre, it really gets closer to Mutron and even further away from OC2. The gain on tap is fantastic on Octabvre, and you can easily solo the sub with its separate control. I didn't like tracking on MXR, and found Octabvre and OC5 to be pretty close tracking wise, but Octabvre to me remains the best tracking analog octaver. I've tested those pedals with my passive P bass and my 3 band Stingray.

To be a pedant, I'd argue the tracking is best on the OG big footprint Octabvre mki 😱

3 hours ago, Bassybert said:

Reading that (and I’m not sure why I did to be honest 🤣), it seems to me the modus operandi for all this is to test the ceiling people are prepared to pay for his pedals.
 

Substantial price increases inbound.

 

I really don’t get all the furore around pedal culture. Most of it’s snake oil selling and marketing bull. 

It the same kind of BS around model trains or whiskey or Star Wars memorabilia or cans of Monster or stamps or Warhammer 40k. People like collecting stuff and the market will decide what it's worth.

I alluded to it in a previous post, but I kinda get him getting as much out of his customers as he can. The US sounds like a pretty hellish place to be anything other than very well off.

He's hardly the only person making great pedals. Celebrity Pedals makes a Taylor Swift themed octave called the Taylor Shift. That's a winner in my book.

19 hours ago, thisisswanbon said:

Quick shot until a better one can be had... didn't realise how blurry this was until it was too late 🤦‍♂️

 

Zip on my pedaltrain snapped and it was cheaper to change the board than the bag!  Went with one of the new Donner ones for a bit more space... it came literally half an hour before I left for our gig at the Newcastle AC Milan match so hastily threw this together...

 

Addition of the Joyo monomyth last minute as an EQ and drive/back up preamp... but nothing is kicking my Digbeth off the board, that thing is unbelievable! I got some power outputs the wrong way so SOMETHING was running at 18v instead of 9v but no idea what... sounded IMMENSE in my in-ears though, but needless to say re-cabling will be done! Will most likely move the 1spot too, not many mounting options underneath unfortunately though...

 

Sweet board! Love the old school Octabvre mini. It was probably the Jive or the Cali76 running at 18v. Anything else would've been burnt out!

Spencer just posted 7+ paragraphs addressing the auctions, scalpers and the pricing. He makes some fair points about the pedal market and the manufacturing industry.

Lovely!!!

6 hours ago, GreeneKing said:

I’m managing FX GAS (poorly). Microthumpinator, tuner and compressor to start, then the wonderful grizzly that is an always on subtle overdrive. 
Then the EBS Billy Sheehan Ultimate came onto my radar. Why? I’m far from sure but it gives me proper distortion if I should ever need it and has an FX loop in both clean and dirty channels. A switch in the dirty means the BS is always on and an Xotic RC Bass Boost gives me just that in the clean loop. 
Then I thought I’d try an octave pedal to fill on some sonic space. I’ve experimented with both a Sub n Up and a Micro POG and the POG won. 
So I have a great clean sound, boost that adds colour, mild  distortion and not so mild with the BS boosted. 

Noice 👍 what size board is that?