MichaelDean

Another vote for TC products. 

I had a TU2, that for years did the job until it died on me. Replaced it with a TC Polytune mini and it's got a much brighter display and seems to be more accurate. 

On the back of that I also got a Unitune Clip, which has been great and so much better than the Snark it replaced. 

1 hour ago, horrorshowbass said:

anyone swapped a stinger preamp in their Sub Ray4? Thinking of getting one

I had one in my Sub Ray 5. It was a lot better to my ears than the original. Just a lot more definition. 

2 hours ago, tayste_2000 said:

Does it have any bass amp? Or just effects?

It does have bass amps and cabs. The effects are all guitar based, but it does a clean signal blend over most of it. On the app, you have to load the firmware you want and it'll bring up all of your saved rigs. 

This video has a good rundown. 

https://youtu.be/-XOA1jgnRa0

On 07/09/2022 at 19:07, stewblack said:

Anyone else bought one of these?

If so have you managed to update the firmware? I'm struggling with mine and the customer service is so slooow to respond.

Mine is on 1.3.1. It took what felt like ages to update, but did work eventually. 

I remember their ads in the back of Guitarist magazine! I ordered a Trace Elliot Commando 12 and an Epiphone EB3 from them when I was 14/15. Excellent service. 

As long as VAT is being collected in advance, there shouldn't be any additional charges as you're below the £135 limit.

Source: https://www.gov.uk/goods-sent-from-abroad/tax-and-duty

I've also had very good service from Lynx. I'd highly recommend them.

The Revelation range is great. I've got an RPJ77 that I picked up for £60 and it's great stock. I've changed the bridge for a Fender highmass one and put a black pickguard on it to make it "mine" though. 

I've had a few issues with them. Mainly with stock levels on their website. It's 2022 - it shouldn't be this hard finding out if something is in stock before ordering. I don't mind waiting for some things, but it would be nice to know in advance. I've also had the wrong item sent out to me before. 

Plus, trying to get updates on when your item might come in is also tricky. I get that they don't know all of the time, but even a dispatch email would be useful. Just so you know it's on its way to you. 

Most recently, I ordered a new nut for my Dingwall. I ordered on 30th of June and it arrived today. Other than an initial email (that was in my spam folder) telling me it wasn't in stock and offering a refund or to wait, any update on when it might arrive was all on me. It isn't their fault if a shipment takes longer, but c'mon. A little goes a long way with customer service and reputation. 

I could probably work it out again if I had a written note to start from, but it must be 15 years since I last tried! 

Nah, it's got to be the Deaths Head Hawkmoth! 💀

Don't mean to be insulting - geniune question. Why not put a buffered pedal at the beginning of the chain and then have a single buffer pedal at the end? Something like the TC Elec Polytune at the front, combined with their Boneafide Buffer at the other end. Both have the buffer spec you're looking for with a reasonably small footprint even if it is two extra things instead of just the one. Is there something in particular you're trying to acheive?

Just realised that you're talking patchbay and I'm not in the efffects forum! That'll be why!

I feel like studying music theory accompanied with some keyboard/piano skills was really invaluable for me. I managed to scrape by and get my Grade 5 theory with literally the pass mark. I never really got my head around my hands doing different things for different notes on keys though. At least with bass, your hands are working together. But just being able to pick out intervals through ear training is really useful for playing with other people or working stuff out on your own.

I've used Hawker Repairs Guitar Workshop to refret my Mustang and I was very pleased with the work done. 

Steve is based in Bristol, just off Kings Square, near Stokes Croft. Really nice guy and knows his stuff. 

https://www.facebook.com/hawkerrepairs/

I can't help with the flats, but yes, you do want medium scale strings. I've got D'addario medium scale rounds (EXL160M) on mine and the tapers are juuuuust right. 

In an old band the guitarist had a Focusrite audio interface and then had an older version of this linked via ADAT. Seemed to work really well and I certainly couldn't tell the difference between the mic preamps.

10 hours ago, Phil Starr said:

the downside is that it is much more expensive than most plies, An 8'x4' sheet of 12mm board is around £200, enough for two decent sized cabs.

Compared to about £115 for poplar ply in the same thickness (admiteddly from the first website I found), I don't think that is too bad for a more renewable material that is also FSC certified (at least from here it is). Yes, it's a 74% increase in the material cost, but that works out to be about £45 extra for a "decent" sized cab (I'm guessing two 12" cabs from a sheet that size?). It is also arguably a more attractive ply with a stain/oil finish and more hardwearing. Plus, if you can get away with it being thinner, and then making the cab lighter, that feels like a win all round to me for a small premium given the expected lifespan of a cab.

I'm not that far away, I'm almost tempted to say if you buy a sheet, I'll take the other half. Not sure how that would go down with my wife though! Still haven't made the cover for our consumer unit despite having all of the materials here... 😅

Some people really don't like any noise/music at all. Back when I was a teenager, living in rural sleepy Wiltshire and in my first band, we practiced in our garage, mid week, during working hours in the summer holidays. Thought that was fairly considerate. We got complaints from one of our neighbours in the close who were retired stating that they couldn't even hear the news on the TV. We weren't that loud that you wouldn't be able to hear a TV turned up a bit. No-one else minded so we ignored them. The band then ended when my brother went off to uni and the drummer joined the RAF at the end of that summer.

On 29/07/2022 at 12:57, Pete Bish said:

Little update: turns out the original tuners on 77-81 Musicmaster are quite specific. Open-geared, but slightly stubbier than a typical Jazz or Precision. The plate has its own dimensions, too. 

 

Found someone selling 3 out of 4 on eBay for not silly money. Weighing up whether I should go for it and keep searching for that last one (hmmmm). 

 

Or, just get some vintage-style Fenders and accept it won't be completely right. I'm not sure how much bearing original tuning machines have on value. Perhaps you guys know better. 

 

I've got a player grade 76 Mustang. The tuners on that are also specific to the bass and no-one does an aftermarket replacement. They were pretty worn on mine, they didn't turn smoothly and really didn't hold tune well. I replaced them with Hipshot Ultralights. Best mod I've done to the thing and it took me 11 years of owning it to finally do it. If a bass has had a hard life, then sometimes stuff can go wrong when it's that old.

The reason I didn't go for a Fender style alternative is because any other tuner would have involved drilling new holes anyway. One small hole per tuner is probably better than 4. Plus I still have the originals in the (incredibly unlikely) event that I sold it.

I normally just do it acoustically. I don't want to annoy the neighbours or wake up our baby with turning my amp on. I have just ordered a Mooer Prime P1 as a little treat for getting a promotion at work. I'm hoping that I use it for practice more.

I was wondering if anyone has used/is using a Headrush effects pedal? I did have a search and couldn't find anything. I read the thread on TalkBass too, but it's not nearly as involved as the Helix one.

After watching some YouTube comparisons, there does seem to be a bit of a difference sound wise between these and Helix devices, with the Headrush stuff doing distortion a bit better to my ears, which is where a lot of my interest lies. It was nearly all guitar stuff though, very limited demos for bass.

I think I'm mainly interested in the MX5 due to the built in expression pedal and I like the look of the touchscreen for editing the patches as a theme across their products.

Pros:

• It has parallell processing
• It's useful having the expression pedal built in, I really like having a volume pedal on my current board
• Could potentially do away with the need for other pedals/a pedal board or I could get away with a much smaller and lighter pedalboard

Cons:

• Potentially the touchscreen, but a screen protector wouldn't be too expensive
• No synth sounds, but I don't use them much anyway, could do without them
• Not many bass specific effects, but I hear more are coming in future updates

Anyone have any opinions?

Just came accross this from when I toured Japan in 2010 and I still had some hair 😅

That looks great and I'm very jealous of your friend! I'd love an EB3 like that. I had an Epiphone one for years, but the long scale just made it not quite right (for me). I feel like short scale and the mudbucker is a much better combination.

I do like Babicz bridges too. I've got a 5 string one I bought on here just waiting for me to start a Musicman/Thunderbird build I've had planned for far too long.

2 hours ago, toneknob said:

Michael League appears to have left his usual bass at home and had to use whatever the venue had lying around. Any ideas? (I fully expect to be told it's some mega-$$$ boutique bass now)

 

This appears to be a Bacci Amrita, and yes, doesn't look like they're cheap!

https://www.instagram.com/p/Bz3toPNCM6C/?hl=en

Just found this listing on Reverb for one of their baritone guitars,  £3800...

https://reverb.com/uk/item/46167002-bruno-bacci-baritone-leonardo-funk-machine-mark-lettieri-baritona-cod-777

I found the bassist on Instagram. I've pm'd him...