fretmeister

I've tried all of those. The La Bellas are definitely out for you - they are the sound of Motown. TI Jazz are lovely but are low tension. The Rotos are massive tension and they are very bright for about a week and then the brightness falls off a cliff. Steve Harris of Iron Maiden changes his every single show. John Deacon had them on his P bass too and you can hear how different his tone is to Harris'. Fender - nice string indeed. Reasonably bright, nice feel under the fingers. I do wish they changed their gauges though. The E can be a bit floppy compared to the rest. EB Cobalts - I have these on a PJ at the moment. They are not bad but I do find they feel a bit weird under the fingers for some reason. Once they die I will not get another set. They are bright but you still won't get a Marcus Miller type brightness out of them One you haven't mentioned - EB Group Flats. These are the other EB flats. Stainless steel. They are not quite as bright as the Cobalts but it's very close once you've EQ'd everything to taste. They feel much nicer to me under the fingers. They will do a good 1970s chunky slap sound brightness. Hope that helps a bit.

I've been thinking about this more - I have 3 shorties, two of which are P only and the other is PJ. And I have a medium scale PJ. So with that in mind I think I might just make this bass a ray only - at least for the moment.

I've had his before and they are good, but they don't do bevelled edges so can't get the BWB look.

Just looking for a black/white/black P bass pickguard without any pickup holes. So far I've not had any luck with my google-fu.

Yeah, That Hans Zimmerman Live in Prague video is mind blowing. I loved the bit with Guthrie when HS wanders over him for a solo. In an orchestra with genuinely elite musicians Guthrie then finds another gear and HS is clearly in awe. Amazing stuff.

Wouldn’t surprise me. I might start a thread and get everyone with a P, MM etc to measure from the nut to the start of the pickup casing. Could be interesting to see the variation.

I've measured up my existing P bitsa and the P pickup is in the right spot but that would mean the MM is about 2mm out of position towards the bridge. I'm guessing that 2mm won't make a lot of difference as intonation settings change by more than that when string gauges are changed and so on. Or of course I could take out the split P and get a hum cancelling 50s P pickup instead and then have both in their traditional positions. I've never tried a 50s P pickup. Could be interesting!

That's a lovely looking thing. I think I want my MM pickup more in the traditional place.

I'm not sure the East will fit - it's a bitsa build with a P bass body. I'm not familiar with Retrovibe - I shall investigate.

I've been looking at the Aguilar 2 band as that is available as a stack knob, but what else is out there please? ta

I wouldn't have quite as many switching options though. Just P / P+MM / MM And then have a series / parallel on the MM only. I have a good MM pickup lying about already...

Maybe some of them were?

More. Seems to be a real ‘hole.

That sounds really good.

Pole piece spacing maybe? Or maybe the casing size? Fenders sometimes have different size J pickups.

Not soundchecking is extremely unprofessional. No faster way to clear a busy pub than starting the gig and sounding shit. You'll never get booked again.

The best bit about the video is showing that 15 inch cones do not have "a sound" and that they can be very very different. As much as I am a Mark Bass fan, their 15 inch cabs have always been a bit flubby. I did the common 151HF with the CSM 102p combo for quite a while and I never could et the EQ to work well with the 10 inch cones and the 15. Sounded much better with one or the other. Eventually I got a pair of MB 121 Club cabs instead and used them for a while. Two identical cabs = dead easy to EQ without a problem.

I have come to the conclusion that 99% of drive pedals were designed by someone using a P or J bass as their test instrument. Over the years I've had endless drive pedals and almost all of them sounded good with the controls at noon with a P or a J but needed a lot more work to sound like that with anything active. I don't know if it's a low impedance thing that EMGs and others have, or if the active nature is producing a wider frequency range or what, but I haven't come across a single pedal that was better with an active bass straight out of the box. It is definitely not just a signal strength thing as with an active bass lowering the volume usually results in keeping the frequency curve just at a lower level. That doesn't happen with a passive pickup. If it is true that most designers are using a P or J as the test bass then it is normal to assume the pedals would work best with those options. A designer would have to be mad not to use P and J due to the massive amount of users of those types, but I do wonder what would happen if they picked a Stingray or something as an exclusive test bass for a pedal.

BTW reviewed the Michael League signature model a little while ago.. Sounds nice... like any good P bass.

Well my T2 failure is an absolutely wonderful fuzz on guitar, and balls on the bass! 🤣 If it had a clean blend I think it would probably be very good though.

Tort anything ought to be considered a war crime so if I'm ever appointed as the head of the ICC that will get a lot of people in a lot of trouble. 10 years in the dilithium mines at least!

You could stick one of these in it: https://www.emgpickups.com/bass/accessories/btccontrol.html It's the smallest option. Treble and Bass on a single stacked control.

I’m a big fan of those EMGs. I pair them with an EMG EQ and I always add some bass end from that. I hardly ever touch the middle and treble controls but they do come alive with a bass bump.

You've used too many blocks. The LPF and HPF are in a single block. But I take your point.

I recently got a Stomp to go with my Helix rack and I'm quite enjoying the challenge of making my bigger patches work with a single path on the stomp. It takes some effort, but I feel I'm getting to know the HX system all over again.