Kiwi

I don't gig with them but have a Trace Hexavalve and a couple of 130w Burman Pro4000HD heads. I did a gig once with one of the Burmans and I didn't need to put the car heater on during the drive home. That sucker was still glowing. Haven't gigged with the hexavalve yet but it's probably going to replace my Shuttles once I get the last piece of the signal chain in place.

Position is part of the recipe but not all of it, pickup design can play a big part as well. I went through a stage where I was A/B testing all sorts of basses from Alembic to Warwick with single pickups in the stingray position. Very few were convincing because they didn't have a parallel wired humbucker for those fat lows and coarse highs and the baxendall eq helps dial in the right amount of oomph when the bass is boosted. It all works together.

According to Rob G, it's a through neck Series 1. I have one identical but in FPPR.

I want one of these sooooo badly. They sound gorgeous and I'm a big Gunnarsson fan.

The alternative brand they run, Mensinger offers set and through neck. The Pike Monolith for example https://www.mensingerguitars.com/en/mensinger/basses/pike-monolith

Marusczyk do custom work for very reasonable outlay. Their frog model could probably be done in a single pickup configuration - even headless if you wanted. https://www.public-peace.de/maruszczyk-instruments/mi-bass/frog

Am waiting for a copy of a well known Yamaha 5 string bass to be delivered in the next week or so. Was about 300 quid. Also have purchased a Line 6 M5 pedal instead of an Eventide H9 and saved quite a bit of dosh. Wanting to splash out on another Joyo JF14 American Sound or a California Sound perhaps for less than twenty quid. I'll get a Morningstar MC6 at some point and then that'll be it for the forseeable unless I luck into enough dosh that I can splurge on a PRS. But my guitar playing sucks so much that I'm struggling to justify it beyond the Yammie MSG I already have (which is a fine guitar BTW). I have a few pedals to sell BTW but getting shot of them in China is a PITA due to the language barrier and that everything is so regulated in regards to signing up - almost like a bank account application even for minor things.

Just a quick update: The repaired Freeze pedal from Mimmotronics finally arrived. It works as it should - so I can recommend Mimmo as reputable and trust worthy. Next thing, when I can find the time, is to get back to exploring and developing some Freemason type arp patches on the C4. And trying (again) to sort out the mess of patch cables...it seems that no matter how methodical and careful I am with soldering and getting the right lengths of cable, there is ALWAYS one cable that misbehaves...and the more I shift the other pedals around, because I can't find a replacement of the right length, the more tangled they become. And now I've run out of L shaped 1/4" jacks as well. And I've found a cheaper alternative to the Eventide H9 harmoniser, the Line 6 ME5, both have multi effects options and MIDI capability. Lots of compact format ME pedals lack the MIDI connection for some reason. The Line 6 only does 1 effect at a time though but it's OK there are effects options within the C4 as well so I can use the ME5 for tempo locked delays and maybe chorus while the C4 does phasing and pitch shift.

Aaron Armstrong could probably help with a replacement set of pickups not too far away from the Smith spec.

I read the title and hate you already. Just joking. Welcome. It's been near non stop monsooning where I am, complete with thunderstorms and the mosquitoes have been extremely aggressive. Normally we'd be hitting 38 degrees C by now and melting.

There is also the small matter of the pickup pole pieces and the sensing field - particularly for the bridge pickup.

Nice, am looking forward to finally playing through mine...one day.

Yeah I got my Pentabuzz back in 2005 from vmaxblues and it's been with me ever since. Sounds lush on stage, especially if you can turn the amps up enough to get a little feedback happening on the strings. Then it swells forever, like the middle of the Bering Strait in winter.

Have just taken possession of a jazz archtop made by a nameless manufacturer here in China and it sounds warmer and sweeter through my bass amp than through the 5E3 combos I normally use.

The EBS Session 60 combo I used to have was great - amazing low end for such a small size.

Alan Parson's Project live in Colombia, wardrobe clearly borrowed from an ageing, 1990's Italian beauty pageant host.

Dreams are free...lol

Good score! I'm really gassing for a classic Custom 22 in amber violin stain, just like in the ads in mid 80's guitar player magazine. And a 509 in an outrageous hue for coil tapping fun. And a 305 for strat tastic sounds. Sigh.

You may wish to try posting here: www.guitarchat.co.uk

The classic Spector flavour is heavily influenced by their use of EMG pickups. It gives them a sterility that I'm not fond of (although I like EMG's in guitars so am not being a brand snob by any means). Take the EMG's out of a Spector and replace with a set of pickups that have coil splits and it massively increases the versatility of the bass. I have a set of custom Wizards in at the moment which are very flat (almost like Alembic/Jaydee pickups) apart from a slight peak at around 35Hz. Spectors tend to be made from softer maple. In that sense they keep to Ken's approach of softer woods to preserve that purr/growl. Spectors/Smiths compare favourably to one another in terms of warmth and snap. The Smiths tend to be a little mid scooped sounding, I ran mine with very aggressive GK RB700 combos when I was gigging as they helped preserve the midrange. If I played one of the Smiths through an SWR SM400 or Eden WT800 or a Warwick head, (which sound GREAT with bright basses like a Status or Modulus) the mid scooped colouring of the amp made it near impossible to hear the Smith in the on stage mix. It was like mid scooped bass + mid scooped amp = no mids = am I playing the right note? The Spector kind of works through that one by being mids prominent, so I can use it with a variety of amps regardless of how coloured they are in the mids. Would love to have a bass with a mostly wenge neck with a couple of flamed maple laminates but wenge is becoming increasingly hard to source due to shortages.

I sold all three back in 2008/9. I remember the fretless was purchased by Randy Hope Taylor who promptly asked Martin Petersen to install frets on it! Fretless Smiths are not that common, let alone unlined ones so that's one potentially lost to posterity. I can't remember where the others went, I think the 6 was sold to someone on here perhaps. My Spector NS5CR does the same job ever so slightly better but it's been with Jon Shuker since 2016 waiting to get the neck straightened out a bit more.

Smith pickups are located pretty much in Jazz Bass pick up positions, same as Spector, Steinberger, Fodera etc. My Spector gets pretty close to a Smith because there is so much soft maple used in it, but it has more midrange timbre. I actually dropped Aaron Armstrong an email this week to see if he could make a pair of BT flavoured, coil split soapbars to replace the Wizards. Haven't heard back from him yet but here's hoping.