Ed_S

I’d say maybe try a Spector (or by extension perhaps a Warwick) as I find the physical feel of them is still sufficiently conventional but quite noticeably different to a Fender, and they generally come with active humbuckers and/or preamps as suggested above. I do like an Ibanez SR, but for my money the Spector has a bit more ‘personality’, for want of a better word.

My first 6 was years ago - an Ibanez BTB406QM in trans blue. I had the matching 5 string in trans black and that was my main bass for aaages but for some reason the 6 was one of those uninspiring instruments and looking back I was just too inexperienced to do anything about it like replacing pickups etc. Also I was using it to play fairly straight up metal with a pick so it was needlessly heavy and wide as I had no use for the extra string, and when I contrived a use for it.. it sounded thin and pretty naff. Anyway, both BTBs moved on eventually and that was it for 6s until the end of last year when I was instructed to select something for my birthday and given a £500 budget. I spotted an Ibanez SR506e on offer at Dawsons so headed over to Manchester and ended up getting it for £450 - with train tickets and lunch at ‘spoons I came in pretty much on budget. This time I’m using it to play generally lighter acoustic/pop-rock with fingers and really enjoying it. The only issue I‘ve had was that the frets sprouted pretty much as soon as I got it home, so I fixed it ...then they did it again a couple of weeks later, so I fixed it again. It’s been alright since but the board just seems to be incredibly dry - it absolutely drinks bore oil and then just goes back to looking dry! 🙄 I’d still recommend it as a nice 6 to get started on - especially the most recent version after they changed the pickups to a slightly different model of Barts. I normally hate Barts but these are really good.

Mine’s 3.64kg - it’s a 2017 but maybe gives an idea of what to expect from a current one.

You and me both! If the 4s were 35” scale like the 5s it would probably have tipped the (bank) balance.

I reckon if I were in the same situation I’d buy the cheapest reasonable neck going, see if I could scrounge a pickup and some wiring components from the many overflowing bits boxes that must be out there, have some fun making the bitsa so I’d done it and scratched the itch for as little extra outlay as possible, and then sell it as a whole instrument for as much as possible! Then sell one of the Japanese P’s and keep the other.

I put one together a few years ago.. White MIM Fender P body from the bay - official spare part that somebody had bought and never got round to using. Mighty Mite licenced P neck with rosewood board also from the bay - seemed to be one that somebody had bought purely to practice applying dodgy decals as it had never been fitted. Tort guard left over from my departed Squier CV 60s P because it was cheaper to use one I had than buy one I liked. Badass II bridge and Schaller straplock buttons from the hardware bits box. Wilkinson tuners, Fender official string tree, neck plate, dome knobs and all screws from various Amazon sellers. A SD quarter pounder, CTS pots, Switchcraft jack, Sprague cap and wire from the electronics bits box. Couple of hours to knock it all together, a set of strings and a setup, and that was it - essentially a MIM P for about £350 when a proper one would have cost closer to £550. Granted, I was using up some bits I already had so that reduced the cost and perhaps made it more worth the effort. I was also incredibly lucky that the neck was true and the fretwork pretty much perfect. Since it was built it’s lived at our rehearsal studios and it’s been great - it plays and sounds as it should, it’s been through some hideous changes of temperature in the gear store there and it rarely comes out of the case even needing tuning. It’s taken some dings and, in fact, since I’ve not seen it for 6 months due to current events I guess could even have been nicked by now.. and I’m not overly worried since it’s a cheap bitsa, which was entirely the point. I say do it if you want to - but probably don’t do it to try and save any money, and certainly do it knowing full well that you could end up with a total waste of time and money!!

I can only speak for myself and from my own experience, but over the years I've owned 5s from all the brands you listed except Dingwall (also Yamaha, Fender, ESP and probably others I can't remember) and whilst all of them felt subtly different in a number of ways when comparing them to each other, all of them felt fundamentally different in exactly the same way when comparing them to any 4 I'd ever owned. Was it the same feeling of 'wrong' for all of the brands you listed or something different about each one?

The Tech21 Q-Strip is a handy tool - might be worth a look given what you’re trying to achieve. Para Driver is also a good shout. I’ve never actually owned the pedal but I use the rack version of it - the RPM - pretty much every day when I’m sat playing along to Spotify and it sounds great. Not as good at overdriven sounds as the BDDI/RBI or VTDI/VTRM, mind.

I put a board together with both the comp and the driver on it and I really liked both of them. The BC-1X is better than my usual EBS MultiComp for cleanliness - very impressive bit of kit and always nice to have some metering. No idea about battery life, though - always had it on a PSU. The driver works best for me as an always-on, with a dedicated overdrive in front of it to offer a bit more push when needed. In fact I’ve found a picture of how they were put together on my phone... We were putting a covers side project together with some but not all members of the main originals band so I didn’t want to use my usual bass and board but also didn’t want to think too hard about different pedals from different companies and making them all fit together, so I took the quick/easy route with all Boss gear and it worked out great. One of the songs we played was Undertow by Mr.Big and the stacked overdrive was just right for that.

The first song I learned was Def Leppard - Animal. No real reason behind it; I was just listening to them a lot at the time and that track seemed to be as good a place to start as any. Importantly, though, the first thing that I actually played along to was a TV theme tune because it happened to be playing as I'd just finished tuning my first bass after getting it home and out of the box for the first time. But then immediately afterwards I printed the tab for Animal and learned it. I quickly realised that I'd had much more fun instinctively playing along to 30 seconds of a recognisable theme tune belonging to a show I didn't even watch - something sportsy like match of the day or grandstand I think it was - than actually learning a song 'properly'. Almost everything from that point forward has been played by ear as a result of just knowing the song from repeated listening. In fact, every song I've ever actually sat and learned since has been done that way because I don't like it, so I won't ever listen to it enough to know it organically, so I have to do it by the numbers.

If I was in a band that normally commanded a fee, my answer would be “yes, if it’s still mutually beneficial to do so”. If it keeps a decent but genuinely struggling venue going and in the process it shows you in a good light, gives you something to post about on social media that’s not yet another ‘one in each corner’ video in your respective back bedrooms.. and maybe even keeps your band going given the number of musos openly questioning whether they even miss gigging.. then it could be worth it to get out there and do something rather than nothing, irrespective of monetary recompense. If it’s all very one-sided and just money down the drain for a naff outing from the band’s perspective, then.. don’t do it. As it is, I’m not in that kind of band so my answer would be “yes, if it’s looking acceptably safe to do so”.

Go on then, I’ll play. Only in the spirit of fun, though; I drew a line under this years ago, so no pointing any fingers, please 🙂 The neck pocket isn’t flat to the back of the neck and it’s also slightly too wide leaving a ridge, there are strange little oblong marks around the edges of the block inlays, the pickguard curves aren’t smooth and the chamfer angle and finish is.. variable, the battery cover corners are a different radius to the route and quite crudely finished, there are areas of orange-peel where the poly didn’t get buffed fully to gloss, and a bird’s eye has fallen out of the back of the neck to leave a hole. High-end custom builds, eh! 🙄

That’s a great looking bass and sounds like a bit of a bargain, too - well acquired! In defence of the GIOs, I have a GSR200b which doesn’t suck. It’s not pretty like the one we’re here to admire but it stays in tune, the fretwork is great, it’s the lightest bass I own and it has a conventional width nut. I genuinely like SRs but the neck on the 4s is just a bit too narrow for me so I actually prefer the GIO in that respect.

Get it refinished in pristine poly, re-fretted with stainless steel and Plek’d, chuck a bridge on it that doesn’t rag your hands to pieces and re-wire it with a hot pickup. Then gig it.

More strings don't necessarily make better music, but I think they do sometimes raise or change expectations. I have heard non-muso friends as well as bandmates say that they were disappointed not to get exhibition playing out of guys who tote basses with more than 4 strings and only use them to 'serve the song' with a less involved line than they felt the aesthetic promised. It's something I bear in mind whilst not letting it bother me too much!

Possibly not the right thing to have said to the guy I encountered, but no.. I’ve never thought so myself! Was a nice enough bass - the colour scheme was cool but I actually ended up taking the black hardware off it and putting chrome bits on to match the tuners - partly preference and partly to un-roger it. Either way it sounded great, but the neck was a bit too chunky for my liking and I’d just gone the Sandberg SL route so was raising cash to recoup some of that outlay and it ended up leaving along with a MIJ 70s FSR P. I miss that one much more but it was too damn heavy and, come to think of it, had the other thing that I would walk past any instrument for having these days no matter how much I liked it; body-end truss rod adjustment that needs the neck taking off to access!

Ha! That Jackson's great.. I want one Though I've just googled it and seen one with a trem... that's taking it too far!

I had somebody quiz me on the Roger Waters P that I had for a while... I really know nothing about him other than the obvious, and am fairly indifferent to his band, so it made for a difficult conversation given that you could tell the guy was a superfan and thought I was as well. Probably thought I was a bit of a prat for saying "sorry.. dunno mate.. it's just a black p-bass to me" or brief words to that effect as I bundled my gear off stage to let the next band go on. By extension that's probably his lasting memory of my band, so given that in the original metal scene you really can't lose 50% of your average mid-week crowd, I'd have preferred not to have been in that position. The SR is similar to many others, yeah - I guess they're all much of a muchness! That one just really appealed to me when I was browsing round the local shop and they had one in... the finish was much better than the weathered black 305 and it just felt good.. but the inlay killed it dead. I really.. REALLY.. like the look of the red Adam Nitti 5 string too, and that pretty much has nothing to say it's a signature apart from the price, but again, I don't know anything about the guy and I've never knowingly heard him play a single note. Might remedy that this afternoon and see what he's about. Not sure about a white fretboard one - that wouldn't have appealed to me very much had I seen it, so maybe scrolled on fairly quickly!

Just because of the way a lot of people seem to be wired up to think these days, I keep clear of signature models. I rarely know anything at all about the artist behind a signature bass I like the look of, so that'd probably just result in awkward conversations with people at gigs who do. But if your chosen celebrity misbehaves in some way or is shown to have done so in the past, depending on the severity you could be left with more than a few songs to cut out of the covers set; you could have a few grand tied up in an instrument you're uncomfortable to play and can't sell. On-topic, this is one I'd really like if it weren't for the inlay and headstock scribble: As for relic jobs, the more genuinely it looks like a bass has had a hard life, the more genuinely I want to treat it to a refinish.

All the Ibanez 'Dynamix' pickups I've handled look like that - matt textured cover and circles in the pole pieces. If it's one of those then I certainly wouldn't call it an upgrade. They're not bad, but I've only ever taken them out - never installed them! Edit: Here's one I removed earlier...

I've played 5s in standard, 5s tuned down one and two half steps, a 4 tuned to C,F,Bb,Eb with the chunky strings out of a 5 set on it and the nut slots widened (it's currently just as happy in C#,F#,B,E and it's only a Squier VM P with a SD quarter pounder, so nothing special in spec, scale length or construction terms), and even an extra long scale Shuker custom which was built from the ground up to be tuned B,E,A,D and is made of super-dense wood which weighs a tonne. I've also played a lot of gigs on a 4 in standard tuning using a Digitech Drop pedal for certain songs. The Shuker got converted back to just being a very heavy extra-long-scale in standard tuning with normal strings because it wasn't getting used. The Squier rarely gets used either unless I'm recording with it, but ironically always sounded better than the Shuker ever did. The 5s are just like some mystical beacon saying I want inappropriate FoH sound from engineers in small venues, so I'll stick to 4s unless I get to do my own sound. The Drop pedal is my favoured solution since nobody notices / cares that it doesn't sound perfect, but similarly they don't notice any interruption to the flow of the performance since there's no need to change instruments. I wouldn't favour the Drop pedal if I needed it on all the time - I'd use a 4 tuned as low as necessary and modified accordingly - but for a couple of songs in a set it's great.

It's entirely possible! When I got it, I assumed that EMG must have dropped the -HZ branding from the pickup covers to try and stop people from seeing them as a compromise instead of a choice. Looking at it the other day I just assumed that the dealer had sent me one of these instead of the basic model since that product picture might as well be my bass 🙂 Either way, they're both great and they have a sound very much of their own. I would rather like one of the satin blue MMs with the maple board, but I've resisted thus far...

This thread has reminded me to get my Rebops out (sounds rude..) and give them a play! Sadly, they're a classic tale of instruments bought for a project that looked really promising but ultimately went nowhere. They were both bought in early-to-mid 2017 as being "Rebop 5 Dlx" models, but the more I look into it I can't find the Aguilar DCB G4 pickups on the cherry red one ever coming as standard, but it was second hand so maybe it shipped with EMG HZs and had them swapped out by the previous owner? Also the pickups on the black stain one which was ordered new are proper active EMGs instead of HZs so does that make it a '40CS' model that I didn't actually order? Don't get me wrong, I don't really care at this point - they're great fun to play when I remember to dig them out and I have no specific plans to move them on - it'd just be interesting to know what I actually ended up with!

Aesthetically I find basses a bit like motorbikes in the sense that some bikes look great just on the stand and others need the rider sat on them for the shape to properly come to life. I really enjoy a good P bass, but I find it much less boring to look at one in a picture where somebody's playing it than I do when I'm looking at a picture of one sat waiting to be played. It could even be the epitome of 'not for me' like a fretless in sunburst with a tort guard and gold hardware, and I'd still be more interested if somebody was playing it.

The ABM1000 is one of my favourite amps anyway, but I particularly enjoy running it through my generation two Super Twelve. I can’t imagine the current BF cabs being any less capable! I had an ABM500-III and an ABM600-IV, and whilst they’re both long gone they left me with the impression that the 500 would benefit greatly from a cab that was easy for it to drive, and the 600 could drive most cabs well but wouldn’t overly tax anything half-decent. The 1000 really needs something that it can give a good kicking without upsetting it, and whilst I’ve seen criticism of BF cabs in terms of handles, feet, tolex glue, general aesthetics etc. I’ve not seen many say they have poor power handling!