Acebassmusic

Yes, yes and "yes...sort of"! 🤣 I've lost count of the number of great bands I've seen that you can't hear the vocals very well and in a number of cases I mean "can't hear the vocals AT ALL!" As @Lozz196 says it's usually due to kick drum canon syndrome that everything else then tries to match. @GreyBeard makes a great point. To me when I'm at a gig where the volume is too loud for the venue space, the sound seems to distort and become unpleasant. @BassAdder60 Many bands & engineers seem to have the ethos of "if you can't hear it......turn it up" Well, shock horror, news flash, volume knobs work 2 ways up AND DOWN! 🤯 If you can't hear the vocal turn everything else down a bit. I have tried this approach with my band but has fallen on deaf ears....literally. This applies to all instruments. When I go to a gig and theres an instrument on stage that I consistently can't hear then to me the mix is wrong. I may be in the minority but I'd rather see a band thats got a great sound and not simply a loud sound. I suppose with the advent of cheap watts its much easier to twist a knob and be loud than put some work into learning about sound 🤷‍♂️

Yes to a number of your comments. I have hit that wall several times over the last 40 years of playing. Sometimes its down to me getting frustrated with my playing / progress, sometimes the music or gigs, whats happening with my life and sometimes my fellow musicians I can fully understand the demoralising effect of projects falling flat and having a negative effect. I've gone through similar and thought why bother and then the next band puts a smile back on my face. 😁 As far a equipment is concerned my turnover of basses (or other equipment) has subsided (not stopped of course) as I've tried many different ones and can pretty much look at a bass / specs and rule many out. This is not 100% accurate but due to the experience I've gained is usually pretty close and has saved me a lot of money 🤣 I still "bass chase" but the number of times it turns into an actual purchase are now very reduced. Maybe your desire to buy gear has been sated through your experiences. You know "got the tshirt" and all that. Sounds like you have a supportive partner and I would say that if its financially sensible, hold onto your gear for the moment. Don't force getting back playing and take a bit of a break. Who knows in 6 months the desire might be back 👍

That used to be my bass which I bought 2nd hand in 2009. Great bass and very easy to play for a six. I played it for 4 or 5 years and the only thing I would have changed was to have had graphite rods fitted as the neck was a little susceptible to the weather. Must get myself a 5 string Sei........

I've modded a number of basses over the years sometimes for aesthetic reasons and sometimes to "upgrade". The first one I did was when I was about 17. I had bought myself a brand new Squire jazz in white poly about a year beforehand but was obsessed with the look of neck through wood basses and wanted to try and emulate one. In my wisdom what did I decide to do? Yep, break out the nitromors / heat gun / sandpaper and take it back to wood. Part 2 of the plan required me to mask off the centre section of the bass so I could stain it to look like my desired neck throughs. Did it end up looking like a prized Ken Smith.....er not quite! 🤣 I'd underestimated the ability of stain to leach into the other areas of the wood. No photos have survived thank goodness. Did I learn my lesson and decline to modify basses after this first calamatous excursion?....nah! Over the years that followed I've refinished a JD calibas, replaced several bridges and hardware with more functional ones and changed out several pickup / preamp combinations. All much more successfuly I might add. 😁 Apart from installing a updated preamp into my Overwater which was a simple swap out, the last major modification I did was to my Roscoe. It'd had several owners so at some point the original Bartolini pre had been removed, an hole drilled in the body for a mid-control and the pre swapped out for something else. This setup wasn't working correctly so the last owner had taken it into a shop to get it changed out to an Audere, all now working tickety-boo. 👍 I quite happily bought the bass and played it for a number of months but was never quite happy with the Audere sound and as I had a Sadowsky preamp going spare.....Only problem was it was a 4 knob pre going into a 5 hole body. The solution was to wire the pickups to a double DPDT switch so I could fill the 5th hole and get parallel / single / series options. Reworking the electrics / pre / wiring was the easy bit. Once I got into the cavity and emptied out the old pre it was aparent the wood had been "modified" as well as a heavy coating of shielding paint. This was no recent change as there was evidence of years of tinkering in there. There was only one thing for me to do, break out the Dremmel to remove the shielding and router to flatten the cavity for the pots. Rather nervously and VERY carefully I spent hours Dremmeling (?) the shielding off and routing small amounts away. Eventually I got it so that all the pots and switches would now fix flat and copper shielding would adhere successfully. I've added a couple of before / after photos showing the controls and the cavity. The sound from the bass is now what I was looking for with the flexibility of the DPDT switch added in 👍 Controls before and after: Control cavity before and after:

The subs is extra to your standard login. Well worth it I think to help keep the site going👍

Oops, sorry didnt realise that. 😬

Not an easy question to answer as there are so many different ways of interpreting "the value of an item". The only info we have to go on is: 1) it's a bass - depends on the make, model, features, condition and desirability of the bass. A Wal will currently hold it's value, my old first kay bass would not even make good firewood! 🤣 2) its discontinued - why was it discontinued? Was it a limited run, end of production, bankruptcy or did people just not want them? Theres another thread about Fender Dimension basses where they are rated as a good bass. However traditional Fender fans didn't buy them in lorry loads as they weren't the traditional Fender shape / spec etc. Some basses that were discontinued in the 80's or 90's now attract mythical status (which changes over time). 3) not many sold - is this due to availability, exclusivity, not a good design, limited run etc? Over the years I've owned a number of "non-standard" basses that were not easy to determine the value when I came to sell. Usually searching the internet for similar basses helped give me a range of values. What would I pay to own the bass? What would I be happy to let the bass sell for? There's also a forum on here that you can post photo's and further info and the community will help you assess it. It's linked here - "Wotzit werth?!!" The responses to valuation questions are pretty accurate as there is a lot of knowledge on the site. Also in so much as "keeping it real", if a price is proposed that is too high or too low then someone usually comments to bring some sense into the proceedings. I would post the bass details on "Wotzit werth?!!" first which will hopefully give you an idea of the range of value. Decide what price you would be happy to sell the bass for then advertise it at that price. If it doesn't sell then re-evaluate (it could just be a slow market and nothing to do with price). Good luck.

What???? Turn DOWN??? 😲 Radical statements like that will get you in trouble 🤣🤣 How many time have I heard that phrase "I cant hear XyZ...can you turn it up?" I've found in many cases turning up just compounds the problem. The book Basic Live Sound is a great little book. 👍

Yes, one guitarist has just had their ears tested and found 50% hearing left in 1 ear. 😲 Another thing to consider during any technical rehearsals is the tone / sound of each instrument and how they interplay. I mentioned in another thread about earplugs that my time with the band may be limited because of volume levels when rehearsing that when I mimed for 4 songs, because of the bass heavy guitar tones and volume no-one noticed I was missing. 😭😭🤣🤣

Yes, yes and yes! I used to have technical rehearsals with my old band whenever I got new PA toys or there'd been sound issues on a gig. At the gig I would be the bass player, backing vocalist, lighting guy, sound engineer and band leader so anything that simplified things beforehand helped a lot. For the technical reheasal I found it best to get a pub / bar / big room to do this in undisturbed for a few hours. The first time I did this there were grumbles from certain band members about us wasting time / bored / we could do this at the gig etc..... all duly ignored as this was MY practice time to make the band sound better. I set the band up as if we were playing a gig with full PA and monitor mixes but had the desk out front so I could hear what was happening and adjust accordingly. I could now spend some "me time" understanding how the combination of mics, effect, monitors, feeds etc interact and get used to what desk changes work and what dont. Familiarity with the equipment was first done by reading the manual beforehand 😲 and then in action during the rehearsal. Trying to adjust or fault find, under pressure on a gig is not fun. Band members could also get themselves a long lead or wireless so they can get in front of the PA to hear and understand the difference between stage mix and FOH. It also seemed to reduce the instances of "phantom volume changes" during the gig 🤣. Proposing a technical rehearsal (or even soundcheck at gigs) with my current band has fallen on deaf ears.........

Yep, ASC Pro17's get my vote as well. I must have used them for the last 15 years both playing, rehearsing and attending gigs. 👍 Just finished rehearsing tonight with a bunch of very talented musicians that I've been with for 2 years. Unfortunately I'm seriously considering giving it up. 😢 I can see so much potential to take the band from "good" to "excellent" by working on the sound, both the balance, dynamics and overall volume levels. However only the singer is appreciating what I'm proposing. Her husband, one of the guitarists, has serious hearing loss in one ear and is refusing / ignoring / "still in teenager mode" as far as volume, guitar tone and sound levels are concerned. The last few songs we played tonight I mimed. Yep, I turned my bass down to 0 and pretended to play along.......no-one noticed and I even asked the other guitarist how the overall sound of the songs were....."Great" was the reply and then I told him I'd mimed.......😲 I asked myself "If they couldn't hear a difference, do they need a bass player?" Sorry for the grumble....back to the OP....I use ACS to protect my hearing but feel in some situations I shouldnt need to. I find that many of my peers have hearing loss and play louder to compensate.....thus compounding their hearing loss so then they turn up more The usual response is "We used to play this loud in the 70's". No you didn't because the gear you're now using is twice as powerful with more headroom and the old WEM 3x10 PA columns maxed out at 50w per side wouldn't allow the vocals to go higher. I've been playing for over 40 years now and am tired of the "quantity over quality" being dictated by ego's. But then, is it just MY ego that's saying "my way is the right way?" 🤣🤣

Best not look at BassBros then....😲 I have a Puma 900 and its a powerful and great sounding amp 👍

I totaly agree. It's a shoddy attempt at slapping random bits together. You should be ashamed! As a fellow Yorkshireman I will take one for the team and forward my address so you can send it to me and I will deal with it appropriately..... .....and back to reality....that's a really nice looking bass! The body reminds me of a W&T I had. What makes you think its "not good enough standard"? If it was mine I would try selling as-is first before stripping it.

There's a T-shirt to buy? Where? What size? Vintage? Is it any good for metal? Darn.....looks like I have T-GAS now! 🤣🤣

I'd love to try and go IEM for gigs but unfortunately don't think my band will entertain such new fangled stuff.....at the moment.....but I am working on it 🤣 I may have read your post wrong but are you only providing on stage volume for the drummer and not yourself? If its just for the drummer then you're being very generous looking to buy a GRbass for essentially their use only! 😁 If it was me I'd look to provide them with a jack / xlr output from my rig or the PA and let them choose / buy whatever monitoring they fancy. 🤔😁

I guess we're uncool then 🤷‍♂️ 🤣

Just sold my Sadowsky to Livio. The deal was smooth with good communication and quick payment. Hope you have fun with the bass. Thank you 👍

I too was there! Don't remember seeing you though...lol 🤔🤣🤣 The bands I can remeber being on the bill were Accept, Y&T, Van Halen, Gary Moore, Ozzy Osbourne, AC/DC. Quite a line up.