Ed_S

I keep wondering whether to get one new while I still can, so that when I start to feel nostalgic for my first amp head (ok.. it was a HA2000 but near enough) I can take it out for a rehearsal and remind myself how light it wasn't. I did like that amp, though - it sounded good and for 120W into a nothing-special 8ohm 4x10 it was amazingly loud.

Personally I found the Elf to be pleasant in tone but lacking in power through a pair of One10s. I know a lot of people say they can gig with it, and absolutely fair play to them if it works in the context of their band, but it couldn't get loud enough for my purposes. Of the other amps mentioned, I've used Markbass CMD121p and Fender Rumble 500 combos and found both to be completely capable.

I started on a 4 but moved very quickly to 5 and stayed there for 10 years, then moved back to 4 for the next 10 years, and now I'm back to 5 again. The 4 had some advantages - I think some shapes just look 'right' as a 4, they're often a bit cheaper and lighter than the same 5, they're generally less expensive to restring, I always found them slightly more engaging to play due to having to think my way around the board, they were a bit easier to 'rock out' on, and I came to realise there was less chance of getting a bad FoH sound from venue sound techs when playing one, as they would usually see a 4 string P and instinctively know how to leave it sounding like a bass instead of trying too hard and making a mess. I never found myself unable to play a suitable part on a 4, so I reckon it's absolutely enough... but it's just not my preference right now.

Indeed - I was taking it as a given that any QR would be present in addition to a text URL, rather than in place of it. Just making the point that they don't always have to go to the same place, even if that's the default most of the time. The same technology does provide an answer to your question, though. Use the website address, then if you later decide that you don't want to maintain a website and just want visitors to land at FB you can forward the domain to the FB page. It's not the only answer, and it might not be the best answer for you, but it's an answer.

My thought was that it allows you to point to something totally different, like perhaps the website of a festival you're going to be playing, or your bandcamp page to buy new merch, or your YouTube channel for a new video, or whatever. The front person says "just scan our QR to take you straight to..." and it does, irrespective of when the business card, flyer etc. was printed. Obviously if you don't see any personal benefit to doing that, that's fine. I haven't personally gone the QR route, but one of our guitarists who does web stuff maintains the .com for our website, and I bought the .co.uk, .org.uk and .uk which currently forward to the Facebook, X and Bandcamp pages respectively, and ensure that if somebody types the 'wrong' address they still get something that leads them back to us. If I generated the QRs for those three domains and subsequently decided that I wanted .org.uk to point to whatever the new Meta Twitter thing was instead, then I'd change the forwarding, not the QR, meaning my existing cards and flyers were all still valid.

I'd stick to the main website address in human-readable text, and then for the QR just buy another cheap domain linked to the band, generate the QR code for that and use web forwarding in the hosting tools to point the 'QR domain' towards whatever made most sense at the time.

Both guitarists from another band playing on the same bill as us bought our shirts from the merch table and put them on to go and play their set. A nice gesture, but somebody wrote a review referring to them by our band name and tagging us etc. So wearing your own shirts on stage is probably better than another band who could conceivably be mistaken for you wearing your shirts on stage. Well.. unless they're significantly better than you 🙂 We have been known to wear our band shirts, but they've tended to be either a slightly different design or a colour that we don't sell as merch.

I employed TinyTone's services recently with similarly efficient and pleasing results. Amongst its laundry list of problems, my Harley Benton PJ5's tort guard started to spontaneously delaminate (if you can even call it that.. it's see-thru tort-patterned sticky-back-plastic on a weird orange top surface) so I sent them the peeling mess and they posted me a nice b/w/b replacement. Wouldn't hesitate to call on them again.

Anything else would be pants.

I had TT and TM superlight 4s before moving back to 5s and getting a Central. I'd say I liked the TT most out of the 4s as the superlight body (mine were both earlier cedar ones) didn't seem to convey a lot of natural low end but the TT just went with that and sounded like a Jazz, whereas the M pickup in the TM always seemed a bit overly twangy and I found myself continually trying to sort it out with the preamp EQ. The Central isn't a lot heavier but has what I'd call a more conventional tonal character unplugged, which then balances nicely with the quite lively pickup and preamp when you plug it in. I'd say they're quite different propositions.

The preamp in my Central doesn't pick up Radio 1 faintly in the background, whereas the preamp in my Stingray Special certainly does. Whoever thought that out needs an award of some variety. They're both really nice basses with a lot of crossover in the sound, but they smell totally different. The back of the neck on the MM has their gun wax thing going on, and the fretboard on the Sandberg has maybe a linseed oil (..reminds me of glazing putty) aroma.

I was exclusively into pointy 5s for most of the first 10 years of playing, then switched to conventional 4s for the next 10 years, then the pandemic hit and I went back to 5s again but this time conventional ones. Just the other day I pulled my very last remaining 4 from storage intending to sell it and finish the job, but every time I try, I end up deciding to keep it as it's a bitsa and worth very little. Maybe one day I'll get called to one of those mythical auditions you hear about where you're told that only a 4-string P will be acceptable, and I'll be glad I kept it. It's tuned BEAD so at least I'd have most of the right strings. Or maybe it'll just take up space until next time I fail to bring myself to move it on. And repeat. I'm back to 5 for all practical purposes, anyway.

I'm at about the 23 year mark as well, and my first real amp was a Commando 15 mk2. Thought I'd got the world, and in fairness it felt about that heavy with its single strap handle on the top. I was always convinced that handle was going to break, but somehow it never did. Great to see a 12 still in reasonable shape and getting a spruce-up to keep it out and about.

I've only been at it 23 years, but I've had a few in that time and am currently running with... Gigging workhorse #1 - Ibanez SR 5 Premium Gigging workhorse #2 - Sandberg Cali Central 5 Jazz - Fender USA Pro Jazz V Ray - EBMM Stingray Special 5H NS - Warwick Streamer S1 5 (on order for months - might arrive early next year) Precision - Sandberg VS5 (planned acquisition at some point in the future)

They're really good aren't they! I got one not that long ago in gloss 'anthracite' with a PF board. The board on mine is reasonably figured and interesting, so with a bit of oil on it to bring out the pattern it actually looks quite decent, but I agree that ebony would have been a better choice. I used to have a pair of superlight 4s which I moved on when I switched back to using just 5s, but I missed having a Sandberg so I went and tried a few different models and it was the Central that came out a very clear winner over the others. Hope you enjoy yours as much as I've been enjoying mine 🙂

I've seen some with two where there's a built-in effect or fret marker LEDs etc. as well, so one is for the preamp and the other is for the accessories. Don't think I've ever seen a production bass with two wired for 9v just to extend the runtime, but I believe EMG used to suggest it as an option in their wiring guide alongside the 18v system for increased headroom.

Flats seem to be a novel thing that I find entertaining for a few hours every so often but really don't need. Fender 9050s were probably my favourite all round, Rotosound probably my least favourite, Chromes sounded fine but felt grippy and unappealing, and Galli Jazz Flats were impressively smooth but didn't sound very inspiring. I eventually worked out that I'd actually sold several basses over the years because I'd stopped playing them... because they had flats on them... so I won't be buying any more!

My main boards are pretty much just that. [1] tuner -> [2] high-pass filter -> [3] compressor -> [4] preamp They both have a PSU and a wireless receiver, and one has a passive A/B to switch between wireless and cable, but fundamentally they're 4 pedals. Then the DIY rehearsal board goes one better and ditches the HPF. I've come to the conclusion that they're all I need, and I hate doing the pedal tap-dance, so the tuner being all I need to operate suits me perfectly!

Perhaps somewhat unusually I played 5s for the first 10 years, then switched to 4s for 10 years, and am now 3 years into being back to 5s. I've had a couple of 6s along the way, but have concluded that they're not something I personally need. Still not 'pointless', though; just not useful enough anywhere near often enough. Playing with fingers I'll use all the strings I have, but playing with a pick I tend to mostly just anchor my little finger on whatever the thinnest one happens to be. If I didn't do that then I think I'd probably have settled on BEAD-tuned 4s for my heavier-genre pick playing and 5s for the lighter fingerstyle stuff, but at this point I have no desire to try and change whatever passes for my 'technique', so 5s make sense for everything.

A couple of flavours of SansAmp, which are plugged into a mixer with a DBX compressor on the inserts, out to Beyer DT770 headphones. The mixer has a channel for my PC, an aux jack for my laptop and Bluetooth for my phone, so I can easily play along to most audio sources without having to set anything up - it's always ready. I have a HX Stomp on another mixer channel as well, but I haven't managed to make it do anything for bass that I prefer to the sound of my SansAmps just yet. It's fine for the rare occasions when I play guitar and just want a very rough approximation of my old 6505 for half an hour until my fingers hurt.

Having had a few of each over the years, there's just something about the finish on the back of the neck of every USA Fender which I like markedly more than that on any Squier / MIM / MIJ I've owned or tried. That's the main element which sets them apart for me, and whilst I've had MIMs with noticeably better fit and finish than USAs, and a Squier that sounded better in isolation than maybe any other P I've heard at any price, given that as soon as they're in a mix the sound is so negligibly different, it has to come down to the feel. Of course, different people prioritise different aspects of the same selection of items and make their choices accordingly, and I'd never say somebody was wrong for preferring a MIM or a Squier - they all get the job done.

Just retired my old TU-2 that's been with me for years. It's still as good as new, but I find the TU-3 locks on to the note much faster - especially the B. I've personally never found it jumpy as some have mentioned. My lass bought me a TU-3w, which stands up in the corner of my desk, always-on, for when I'm practicing. She asked me what I'd like for my birthday, and stipulated that it should be something that I wanted but was probably stupid and I had no way of justifying spending my own money on. First thing that came to mind was the recently released Waza tuner. I also have a little board with a Korg PitchBlack on it. It was really cheap in an Amazon sale so I bought one and proceeded to not use it, but then last year when I had a massive gear clearance I decided to just build a board with some of the pedals I wasn't sure whether to keep or sell, and that was the tuner I had. It's alright.. it works. I like the TC UniTune clip-on that I keep in my toolbox for when I'm restringing and just need a quick check to get things roughly right. I once tried it backstage at a gig and it was hopeless - it was picking up every vibration from the band playing before us and had no idea which note I was playing.

It's always the under/over method for me, but I don't start with the connector pointing away from me or direct my thumbs like the guy in the video a few posts back. I just use the index finger and thumb of the hand feeding the cable to roll it alternately back and forth and create the loops towards the hand collecting. It messes with the heads of my thinner-strung bandmates who are very much A and D merchants respectively, and know never to touch my cables.

They're certainly out there, but maybe also consider a portable battery 'power station' to use with an amp you already have? Probably not the lightest solution, but has the possible advantage of being a generally useful thing to own when not on bass busking duties. I got a Jackery 500 to keep my work laptop/phone/router going in the event of a power cut, and although I can't say that I've tried it, on paper it looks like it should be able to keep my 300W amp going for at least an hour.

Fair play, I'd not spotted that it was a 1x12 instead of a 2x10, but it could probably still work in some capacity if it had to. I had a Rumble 500 combo and it was excellent as a utilitarian bit of kit. Not too big or heavy, sounded good and was plenty loud enough. As a result I'd certainly have fewer worries about using a Rumble 210 cab than many others out there, so maybe if I was in your position I'd think about the b-stock one that Thomann have at the moment for £317. If you could stretch the budget a little, Andertons had a 500W TC head for £249 in their sale, so that would be a workable rig but I have no real experience with how those heads sound. Probably perfectly acceptable.