pikeman

Another vote for the Carlsbro Stingray head. Total junk. If I remember rightly, it sounded OKish with the compressor on full but then had no volume to speak of. Turn the comp off and it just sounded like crap. I sold it to a keyboard player who loved it. Go figure.

......but you do get 5000 Nectar points. A bit of a bargain.

Welcome from another Suffolkate. Now you've done one gig you'll be hooked for life. I hope the band goes from strength to strength. Steve.

I had a Squier VM Jaguar and traded it as I found it a bit on the heavy side. A couple of good suggestions already. For really lightweight I can recommend the Ibanez SR500, Really light and a very fast, slim neck. The CV Precision is nice and light , sounds good from stock and has my favourite precision neck of all time. I've even fitted a CV neck on my JV. Good luck with the search.

James recently bought a fretless Jazz neck from me.Very good communication and prompt payment. Thanks for a smooth transaction James. Steve.

We once had a nightmare of a gig. One bunch of youths thought it was great fun to unplug one of the stage monitors, one of our roadies, a take no prisoners Aussie, got a bit fed up with them and after the third unplug and a few warnings planted one very firmly on his nose. This didn't go down too well but at least they had the good manners to let us finish the show. We could see what was going to happen so we spirited the roadie backstage very quickly carrying my bass while I held off part of the mob with a mic stand. A very scary moment. Funnily enough it all ended quite amicably after our guitarist, who was a black belt karate player laid out the two ringleaders. Oh happy days.

Welcome to Basschat. I have to agree, Barcelona is one of my favourite cities. I'm there for 4 days this month on a photo shoot.

Too late for that now. Welcome to the Hotel California.

Musicson were all the rage when I was playing in Spain back in the 70s. (happy days). Everyone wanted Marshall back then but with the import duties in place at the time a good 4x12 was beyond most working musicians. Musicsons were OK but not great. I doubt seriously if it will handle your Mesa at anything other than low volume. Nice vintage cab though and has brought back a few good memories.

I had one of these and it's a fine instrument. Lightweight with a very fast neck and a vast array of sounds from deep reggae to biting treble. A great bass for the money, I only traded mine as I preferred my Precisions.

The width of the GK is pretty much the same width as the Compact but around an inch deeper. I have the older version of the Compact with the plastic corners which didn't line up very well with the corners of the GK so I made a platform from hard foam insulation covered with black gaffa, weighs nothing, undetectable from a distance and possibly isolates the 2 lightweight cabs from vibration. One of these days I'll spray the GK grille black....or maybe not.

I used to use Goo Gone on my (photographic) studio floor for removing the sticky residue left by some Gaffa tape. Recently I've been using plain old WD40, sprayed on, left for 10 seconds and simply wiped off with a paper towel. Works much better than Goo Gone on a laminate floor, never tried it on a bass. Feeling brave??????

I was recently in this situation. Normally the Compact was fine by itself but other times I had trouble hearing myself clearly when stood very close to it.I took a gamble and bought a GK mbe212, £209 from Thomann. Ideally I'd have like another Compact but funds just don't stretch to that to another at the moment. All I can say is that I've been knocked out by the sound of the Compact./212 combination.The 212 produces more mids, My treble control on the PF500 is now at 9 o'clock instead of 12 o'clock, all other tone settings on 12 o'clock and the tone backed off a little on the P bass...... oh and the volume backed off from where I used to have it. I love the sound I'm getting now, you can hear the characteristics of each cab and they compliment each other well IMHO. The 212 tweeter is useless, unless you like fret noise, so is permanently off. I'm happy with my sound now, the band likes it too so £200 well spent.

[quote name='MacDaddy' timestamp='1356094952' post='1906733'] according to Billy Sheehan, when you are stood up the bass should be in the same position on your body as when you are sat down practising. That way all your angles are the same and you are not changing position. [/quote] That's exactly how I have mine, I find it the most comfortable for me.

[quote name='MrTaff' timestamp='1355913960' post='1904255'] I like mine, I don't use the modelling much, it's mainly for the stuff like choruis, flanger, autowah and to change the eq between fingers & pick, all of which it does fine for me. I considered replacing it with the b9.1ut before coming to the conclusion that it's just too big, it's another big piece of gear to carry that for my use won't really make much difference in sound, whereas the b2 fits in a backpack along with my cables, tools, etc. [/quote] I use mine in pretty much the same fashion. I use it mostly with different eq settings with different banks for both fretted and fretless. I never have to touch the amp (set flat ) except for the initial tweek depending on the room. I very rarely use effects but I have a few set to different banks. The tuner is a nice bonus but really the pedal is just a very good pre-amp for my use with enough variation in tones to suit me.

As Richard is fairly local to me, I picked up a Squier VM fretless jazz from him, or rather from his wife as he was out earning a crust. Richard is great to deal with, we agreed a price very easily and the bass is a beaut, he really looks after his gear. A great deal from start to finish, I have no reservations in recommending Richard, a total pleasure to deal with. Merry Christmas mate. Steve.

As promised, I've had the MBE 212 for a couple of weeks now and had chance to try it in a band situation together with the Compact. Luckily, I think I made a good choice. I love my Compact, ideally I'd have bought another to go on top but pre-Christmas funds just don't stretch to one at the moment. The MBE is obviously voiced differently to the Compact but the blend of the two cabs is a sound that I really like, the depth of the Compact mixed with the extended mids of the GK, neither overpowers the other. I must say the tweeter on the MBE is total rubbish unless you like hearing fret noise, so that's permanently turned off but the 12inch speakers have plenty of treble which have had to be kept in check. I can now hear myself much better standing very close the cab ( 6 piece prog rock band ), especially using the fretless and the sound is immense, deep and clear. I may go for another Compact at some point but for the time being I'm very happy with this pairing.

Until recently I had a Mk2 Selmer TandB which I bought new in the 60s. Great sounding amp. Plug you bass into input 1 on the bass channel. I used it with an Ashdown 8 ohm 1x15 and it sounded pretty good. The best cab I ever paired it with was a Trace Elliot 1510 cab but they're a bit hard to find these days.

I bought a fretless jazz neck from Tony. Great guy to deal with, good comms and obviously well versed in the art of packing. Deal with confidence. Thanks Tony.

[quote name='RandomBass' timestamp='1353502614' post='1875242'] I'd be interested to hear your findings. As for Thomann delivery, stuff I've ordered from them has normally taken about 4 working days to arrive, including a cheapo bass cab just last week lol. Cheers Geoff [/quote] Me too Geoff, I'll post here when I've given them a workout.

I pulled the trigger on one of these this morning from Thomann. At just over £200 it seems silly not to. I'm wondering how it will match up with a Barefaced compact to give me a little more ear level monitoring. If it sounds bad together I'll just leave it in our rehearsal room. Anyone know how long these take to arrive from Thomann?

How many of us use effects on our basses? Surely this is just the same. Not everyone is blessed with perfect pitch and in my case anything that helps is grabbed with two grateful hands. I've recently started using a vocal effects unit to help my rather poor backing vocals and in the band mix it really does help to fill out the sound.

I've had many fine basses over the last 40 years Several 60s and 70s Precisions, a pre EB Sabre and a Wal fretless. The only bass I've ever regretted selling was a Warwick JD Thumb Custom, pure magic. What I kept and have had from new was my Squier JV 62 Precision which I defretted 20 odd years ago, it's going nowhere. My current main gigging bass is a Squier CV Precision (daphne blue) which plays better than any Precision I've owned and is totally stock.I never thought an inexpensive bass could be so good. I'd still have the Warwick back in a heartbeat but I bet it will be for a lot more cash than what I sold it for.

[quote name='muttley' timestamp='1348996656' post='1820381'] Anyone have an opinion on Status Hotwire flats in relation to the above? They're a lot cheaper than other brands. [/quote] I use the Status half rounds on my fretless. Very smooth on both your fingers and the fretboard, lots of mwah and quite toppy in the higher register with the right eq. I'm very happy with them. Steve.

Greaser bought my VM Precision in kit form. He firstly bought the neck and when I later decided to sell the body he took the first refusal. As he's local to me we did the deal in person. A top class bloke . Deal with confidence. Steve.