JPJ

Thanks Andy 🙏

My modest little board designed to cover my three needs, EUB, fretless bass, fretted bass. That Sushiboxfx Finally v2 ‘with bass in mind’ is just such a thing of beauty 😍

That Sennheiser is a lovely mic and works really well with female vocals, but it’s a bit of a beast to get used to after the venerable SM58. I thought it was me until a recent multi-band event mixed by a very competent and locally recognised sound engineer, who like me, struggled to EQ it to avoid feedback from the monitors. Once you’ve tamed it, its a really good mic, nice and clear, but don’t on any account plug another mic into that channel - the comparison is shocking 😂

Quick question to anyone who has done a defret - what thickness veneer to fill the slots?

As promised, updated board pic. Been doing a little recording work tonight, and the Fender Tony Franklin P was just singing 😍

Thanks Gaz 🙏

I use a venerable old pair of iColor 3 halogen stage lights, running a DMX-based sound-to-light program from the matching mini-lighting controller. The iColors are coming up to the end (if not passed) the end of their working life, and I’ve had to replace not only the lamps but the lamp holders on several of the lens. What’s everyone using for a simple stage wash similar to the old iColor’s?

As a few others have already said, this is exactly what the SansAmp pedal range is designed to do. I’ve had a very mixed experience with Ampeg. My local rehearsal studio has the SVTIII amps through either the 8x10, 6x10, or 4x10 cabs. I cannot for the life of me get a decent sound out of those amps and instead take my own combo to rehearsals. By contrast, using one of their all valve models through either the 8x10 or 6x10 cab and its tonal heaven with everything set pretty much flat.

This little beauty has made its way on to my board and into my heart.

If any Basschatter’s are at a loose end on Saturday 29th in the Newcastle upon Tyne area, I’ll be making an exhibition of myself fumbling around on fretless and EUB at the fabulous Billy Bootleggers in the Ouseburn Delta kicking off at 5pm. Female fronted Americana/Country type thing. Come say hi, I don’t bite (unless you ask me nicely) 😎

Hi John, I would still fill the fret slots but then veneer over the whole board

That was my plan but whilst shopping for Brazilian rosewood veneer I came up with the brain wave of veneering the whole fretboard 😂

Nice solution, I've just bought one of these from Thomann that does the same job with my TC BG250 208 combo all for the princely sum of £15.90. It folds flat but I doubt it would fit in a cable bag. https://www.thomann.de/gb/ortega_oas_fl_amp_stand.htm

Just re-read through this thread and I saw mention of kickback stands. I’ve got some ‘acoustic’ gigs coming up where I will be using my NS EUB through my Fane Sovereign equipped TC BG250 208 combo, and knowing the gigs are a bit limited for space, I bought this little stand off Thomann for the princely sum of £16. https://www.thomann.de/gb/ortega_oas_fl_amp_stand.htm Coincidently, the angle of the stand matches the angle of the leg of my IKEA desk. This pleases my CDO (OCD but in the correct order 😉)

All true of course. I use flat wounds almost exclusively these days and the Warwick is currently strung with La Bella low tension flats that really suit this bass. The frets are in blind slots (unusual at this price point) and I was thinking of using a 1mm furniture veneer so I would hope that would last a good number of years.

Looks like a nice desk. The Aux outs on TRS jack - does this mean they are stereo?

I’m seriously thinking about defretting my Warwick Rockbass Alien five string. I was browsing veneers online to fill the fret slots with and then I had one of my brain wave moments, why not veneer the whole fretboard for the ‘no lines’ look. Has anyone done this or am I mad to even think about it?

I’ve always loved cream DiMarzio’s - just so ‘80s 😎

So, after an evening of extensive testing I’ve settled on this going at the front of my board, driving my EBS Stanley Clarke for bass guitar. The EBS already has a great DI out, and I’m happy with my EUB tone. So this is a preamp in front of a preamp and it just adds the thing I felt I was missing, particularly from my fretless tone. At the same time I’ve decided to simplify my board by removing the Plethora X3. It’s a great bit of kit but it doesn’t get used with either band so I’m lugging it around for nothing. Stand-by for the updated board pictures to follow 😎

So many years ago I bought a Fender DLX five string that was my first foray into the world of low b (or thumb rest depending on your point of view). I struggled with the Fender active preamp and eventually I bit the bullet and replaced it with a John East J-Retro and instantly got the tone I’d been seeking. When that bass was sold it was replaced with the first of my Overwater basses, a J series five string that’s been my main gigging bass for most of the last fifteen odd years, that came with what I considered to be the perfect combination of DiMarzio UltraJazz pickups and the J-Retro circuit. Subsequently I traded into an Overwater Perception five string, and immediately upgraded the circuit to a semi-custom J-Retro (same circuit but in a five knob arrangement). Then when I bought my Overwater Original series five string I removed the filter preamp and replaced it with a U-Retro. The Perception went on to be refinished and defretted by the master, Dave Wilson. Then I got a new gig. I wanted a traditional looking four string bass, and realised that fretless would be perfect so I bought a used Fender Tony Franklin Fretless Precision and immediately fell in love with the simplicity of a passive P bass, so much so I added a beautiful Lakland Skyline fretted P to the stable shortly after. Going back to the Perception and the Original Series, I realised how dark their tone was. No amount of knob fiddling would release the Mwah on the Perception, and having followed Funkles Wal’alike mission I decided to reinstall the filter preamp into the Original Series. So yesterday, I reinstalled the original preamp into the Perception and boom - happiness! Mwah is back as are the harmonics. The J-Retro will stay in the Jazz as it works as it should and sounds great, but I now have a slew of basses that all have their own character instead of a bunch of clones. Its funny how your tastes change over time isn’t it 😂😎

Not yet, I’ll be experimenting this week. I’ll be trying it after the Stanley Clarke and seeing what the EUB sounds like through it.

So, first impressions are everything right? Well in that case I’m in love 😍 Plugged the Finally in tonight between my bass and my EBS Stanley Clarke preamp. Instant warmth, bounce, girth whatever you call playing through a tube. This thing can be super clean, with that natural sounding valve compression thing going on, or as dirty as I think I’d ever need (in fact way dirtier than I’d ever need). Run with the gain at about 9 o’clock and the level at about 2 o’clock and it just sings. Harmonics ring out loud and clear, dig in a there is a little bit of overdrive, play normally and its just your bass but ‘more’. Being able to switch between dry and wet makes comparisons easy, and for some reason the Stanley Clarke seems to like having this in front as the eq just seems so much warmer. Now bearing in mind that I have had a Micro Thumpinator on my board for years in the last position in my chain before my amp, I’m also surprised by how much the hpf contributes (bear in mind I am testing this at bedroom levels via my TC BG250 208 combo). Construction is rock solid, the aluminium housing is beautifully finished in a metal flake silver finish and the valve is glowing with a nice purple glow. Switches feel reassuringly solid, and it’s obvious that the unit is built with quality components as the gain and level controls have a lovely expensive feeling of stiffness about them. Also, Nathan obviously realises that we’re all going to stick Velcro on the bottom so he hasn’t bothered with the little stick-on rubber feet. I will have a bit more play about with this before I settle on a position on my board but given that I double on EUB and fretless with one of my bands, this is most likely going to end up at the front of my electric bass signal chain, after my wireless receiver and before the Stanley Clarke. This might mean relegating the Micro Thumpinator (always on with no adjustable controls) to the underside of my Pedaltrain Metro board (something I’ve been contemplating for sometime). Conclusion: After years of searching, I think I might have finally discovered my ‘secret sauce’ pedal 😎

You couldn’t make this up. 24hrs after Phil’s intervention, and guess what - yes the pedal was delivered this morning whilst I was at rehearsal 🤦

Years ago, a band I depped with used to use 2 or sometimes 4 Mackie SA1532z - 3-Way Dual 15" Tri-Amplified Floor Mount P.A. Speaker Columns. These were heavy old beasts (a genuine 2 man lift) but they worked really well in a pub rock scenario, and paired with Mackie 18” subs made a canny mini-festival rig for those bike rally in a tent gigs. I’d like to see what the Basschat version of this would be today. My guess is the 2 x 15”s would be replaced with one or two Neo 12”s, there would be one or two 8” mid range drivers in there plus a real high performing ‘tweeter’. A real one-box-per-side solution to the pub rock conundrum 😎