randythoades

I have the Zoom B3 and use it for EB and DB. It is a good little unit. I use it as a preamp into the PA instead of amp now and it sounds great. The DB effect thing on it sounds a bit falsetto me and I manage to get a DB sound out of my Aria EB for some blues stuff by using flats, volume to about half, tone almost to zero and adjusting the strap so that I can hold the bass much more vertically. That way I can pluck the strings like I would DB and sounds ok to me.

Lovely, thanks for the replies chaps. I will have a look for an unlined neck. Cheers

ikay Thanks for that. I was intending to paint over the existing side dots and do some more with the tuner when all fitted. Thanks for the advice, always nice to know that one is not being a complete numpty before splashing out a load of money.

Hi guys, just thought I would pick some brains here. I have a seldom used home built pBass that I converted to use with Squier Tele bass neck which is medium scale. I like the medium scale neck, I have them on my MIJ Aria Pros, but I now have the fancy for something different. I play a lot of upright bass too and wanted to transfer some of the feel and freedom of an upright onto a fretless bass guitar. My question is this... can I just put a replacement fretless J or P neck on the converted body? I have had to rout a slightly longer neck pocket and move the bridge by about 10mm to get the intonation of the medium scale neck, but the heel is the same size. I figure that as the fretless neck I would buy would be unlined, the change in physical length between the 'frets' wouldn't matter, I would just get used to playing on a 33"ish neck and adjust intonation by sound alone. Would this be right or am looking at this in a far too simplistic manner? Thanks in advance Simon

Awesome, might try that! Take my DB to my rock band rehearsal and crank the overdrive.... Cool.

That Aria Cardinal is pretty good price. The 2 pickup Deluxe seems to go for between 150-200, but from what the photo shows it looks in good condition. I like the Cardinal basses and currently have 2, they are medium scale 32" and very easy to play. A bit more aggressive and growly than a pBass. Great for rock and blues...

I own both. I started on EUB and now have a DB. As everyone else has said, if your gut says DB then do that, the EUB is not the same instrument. However, I learned to play on EUB and I feel it was a great thing to do, enough of a DB feel, easy to play, no feedback and able to plug in headphones for late night playing when the kids are asleep and had the benefit of being able to (in my case) of folding it up and putting into a gig bag for storage. I now have a DB too so he EB doesn't get played as much,and I do prefer it, but it is a pain to take to rehearsals, a pain with feedback (so I have now gone with magnetic pickups which kind of defeats the object) and a pain to store in my office. But it looks ace compared to a fibreglass plank with strings... If I had my time again,I would get the DB first and for gigs, then still get the EUB for everyday convenience.

I love medium scale basses, a great balance between woody tone and long scale. Several of the Aria Pro from the 80's are medium scale, notably the CSB and TSB ranges, I have 2 CSB an one TSB. Excellent basses and crop up on ebay quite often (quite often from me as I have periodic purges to make space...!) and can be usually had for around 200-250. Also good investment, if you don't like it, you can sell it for around the same unlike than a new Squier. I built my own pbass using the Squier tele bass neck. Really good quality neck and lovely feel. I needed to route out an extra inch or so in the neck pocket and pickguard to get the neck plate screw holes to be approximately right then moved the bridge back about 5mm to intonate properly. Works a treat although I cut a small chunk off the top horn to get strap to balance better - an aftermarket natural body so was no problem. Because the pickup is now effectively an inch closer to the neck the tone has changed, slightly richer and deeper and has attracted good comments from band. Prefer the Arias to play though as string spacing closer at bridge than pbass

I have sold loads of musical gear on eBay and always start at 99p. Sometimes you win and sometimes you lose but overall I seem to win. I have sold several amp for much more than I paid, but ended up selling some guitars/ basses for a loss. Just depends on the day. I once bought a Matsumoku Aria guitar for a pittance(£60 odd),cleaned it and put it back on an got £250, then the guy added a new hardcase and sold it a couple of weeks later for £370. I did feel a bit sorry for the original seller...

Dang! I missed it in the end! We were out with friends and I chose to keep my phone on silent and missed out on 99p bid. Blast, it looked to be worth at least £1.20... Never mind... Basses like this come up all the time so I will have to wait for the next one.. Maybe I can just build my own.

Maybe I am just passively absorbing effects of the huge quantities of Peppa Pig in our household. The way young daughters are able to cloud all sensible judgement in preference of "pink", "sparkly" and "unicorns"...

Why do I find this strangely intriguing? I am not far from Sandhurst. I wouldn't mind it just as an ornament in the corner of my music room. I am sure my 5 year old daughter would think it amazing!

From my limited experience, mainly in building my own guitars from various parts, I can't tell the difference in body wood. In fact, my main bass at the moment is a home build pbass. I originally had a walnut body (which weighed a ton) which got damaged so I used the opportunity to swap it out for a lightweight Paulownia body - really cheap wood that they use in the DIY Build A Guitar kits. Not only could I not tell the difference between the tone of my bass and the USA Pbass I had at the time, but I also couldn't tell the difference on between the walnut and paulownia even though guitar nearly half the weight. When I swapped out the Fender pickup to try a Wilkinson Alnico one I was blown away by the difference.

I probably would have let him use mine too. I would take a backup anyway to a gig so offer that one, or offer my main bass and I would play the backup if all else failed. As people have said: if he was an arrogant prat I may have said no but otherwise would have said ok. I am fond of saying to my children: Treat others as you would like to be treated yourself... If I was in a bind, through my stupidity or not, I would hope that someone would be generous. Plus,I wouldn't fancy playing to a pub full of disenchanted punters because the previous band only did a half set..

StingrayPete1977 Do you run the mag pickup into a Fishman pre amp first before your amp then? Does that make difference? I am very impressed with my Kent pickup and am veering towards the easy setup and removing the piezos too. In my music room I do prefer the mix of the two but think I will ditch the piezo for rehearsing but perhaps output the piezo into PA for gigging.

I had a similar problem with of all things a Fender SuperChamp XD. 15w tube based modelling amp. I was playing in both a rock and roll (50s style) and also doing some blues jams. The thing sounded much better wound up to around 1 o'clock on the volume but I just couldn't get it there, jut too loud. It sounded ok at lower levels but just not great. In the end I sold it and bought the head version and used 2 cabs with different speakers (which happened to be the Eminence Copperhead and Legend 1028) which helped, but finally sold that and went back to solid state fender and a Boss Fender Bassman pedal which I find much more suitable...

I did some messing around yesterday blending the pickups. I now have the Kent Armstrong magnetic pickup, a Fishman BP100 and the Schatten RB1a. I left all EQ flat and ran everything through my Mackie mixer which has an instrument pre amp switch rather than use either the K+K or Fishman Plat Pro, and into my GK MB200 into 2x12 ashdown cab. I recorded it on my Zoom H2 so I could listen back on it so if anyone knows how to upload audio I can post it for wider listening (or I can email it if you PM me). My conclusions were: Mag pickup alone - loud and proud but very bass guitar like but with enough DB flavour to make it different, probably more about playing technique. No finger noise. Schatten alone - Quite a good acoustic sound but very mid orientated to my ears. Lots of finger noise Fishman BP100 alone - Again, a better acoustic sound but not very many mids, a bit boomy on bass and then some sharp trebles. Mixing mag pickup with either piezo 50/50, piezo still takes over with lots of finger noise. Mixing mag pickup with piezo 70/30 gives rich and smooth bass from mag with a smaller amount of finger noise and treble which sounds perfect to me. However, I asked my son and his friend which they preferred and they both chose the mag only and said all the others were really scratchy, so maybe the listening public don't care about the subtleties!

I did some messing around yesterday blending the pickups. I have a Kent Armstrong magnetic pickup, a Fishman BP100 and the Schatten RB1a. I left all EQ flat and ran everything through my Mackie mixer which has an instrument pre amp switch rather than use either the K+K or Fishman Plat Pro, and into my GK MB200 into 2x12 ashdown cab. I recorded it on my Zoom H2 so I could listen back on it so if anyone knows how to upload audio I can post it for wider listening. My conclusions were: Mag pickup alone - loud and proud but very bass guitar like but with enough DB flavour to make it different, probably more about playing technique. No finger noise. Schatten alone - Quite a good acoustic sound but very mid orientated to my ears. Lots of finger noise Fishman BP100 alone - Again, a better acoustic sound but not very many mids, a bit boomy on bass and then some sharp trebles. Mixing mag pickup with either piezo 50/50, piezo still takes over with lots of finger noise. Mixing mag pickup with piezo 70/30 gives rich and smooth bass from mag with a smaller amount of finger noise and treble which sounds perfect to me. However, I asked my son and his friend which they preferred and they both chose the mag only and said all the others were really scratchy, so maybe the listening public don't care about the subtleties!

I love a bargain me! Good score I had one of these in black when I first started playing. Good little guitars. Why don't you just use a dremel or router and widen the neck pocket to fit Squier neck? if you want to re-install the original neck in the future you can just use a small balsa wood shim on each side.

Down to 5 from 9. Aria Pro TSB 350, two Aria Pro CSB 380s, Aria violin bass, and bitsa medium scale Pbass (plus two uprights as well). Had far more than I can actually remember to be honest, same with guitars. I only really use the TSB and violin bass so have been on a selling spree this year and managed to sell some.

As far as I know, all the Aria STG series are Chinese build, and are good quality beginner guitars. I have seen some maple board versions floating around although the bulk seem to be rosewood. They still make higher quality versions in Japan but these are badged Aria Pro II. I like the Aria range. My own 'strat' is a maple board 1979 Aria Pro ii and is much better than any of the USA Fenders I have had (several of them) and I have 4 Aria basses too. I like the budget ranges as well but would probably change the electrics to something a bit more robust, but I quite like the pickups.

I have ordered directly from Kent Armstrong pickups UK ([url="http://www.armstrongpickups.co.uk/"]http://www.armstrongpickups.co.uk/[/url]), Aaron from them was very helpful. £100 all in, and pickup should be here next week so I will post my experiences of it. They came recommended by another BC'er friend (Bobvbass), and his tone always been really nice so I thought I would copy! Schaller seem to be well thought of too. I went for magnetic as feedback a problem in the small rehearsal room and I am happy to sound closer to a pbass if I have to if it saves the aggravation. I tried the Fishman Plat Pro with phase cancel etc, tried a feedback buster but just got fed up in the end. Even bought a slimline bass to reduce the size of acoustic chamber.

Hi Marc, Partly, is the short answer. It doesn't have the depth that a microphone offers. It is good at conveying the general feel of the bass but lacks the warmth I would say. It does imply the overall hollowness of the bass but not the rich bottom end. If you boost the bottom end on the eq much then it is easy to get too boomy and you lose some of the clarity on the top. As said in previous post, I blend mine with the Fishman BP100 piezo pickup. I use about 50/50 with the fishman, the Schatten providing a slightly boosted bottom end and the fishman the top end clarity. I can get a more rounded sound in that way. If I had to choose just one to use it would be the Schatten straight into PA though as it sounds better on it's own in the mix than the fishman (into Plat pro). I am experimenting with blending a mag pickup with schatten but not rehearsed with this yet so not sure how it fits in the mix.

I have this pickup and it is ok. Not great though. Quite aggressive lower mids which I like in rockabilly but a bit hollow in the upper mids. I mix mine 50/50 with the Fishman BP100 as I prefer the higher registers from the Fishman. Also seems better to me if put into the bass wing slot from fingerboard side rather than from below. Feeds back quite a lot still and is prone to knocking out of position in case, so I am going magnetic pickup route and then blend in a quarter of the Schatten to keep a bit of the finger noise etc.

I have a similar problem in the practice room. I go straight into PA from a small monitor / mixer but still get a quite a lot of feedback so I am going down the magnetic pickup route (I have seen a couple of DB players using mags and it sounds ok to me). Still keeping the piezo's though and might try a mix of the two for gigging when the PA in front of me. Again, I agree with fatback, for me, the visual aspect is more important then the subtlety of sound. We have loud guitar and a very loud drummer so I can't win! Maybe keeping the 15's connected just to EB and running DB into PA might help.