BigRedX

Depends entirely on the genre of music you are playing, the arrangements of the songs and what the other instruments are how they have been EQ'd. There is no right or wrong answer. Having said that most of the music I listen to has the bass guitar prominent in the mix with plenty of mids.

The questions the OP needs to answer are: 1. What is value of the Volume Pot? 2. What is value of the Blend Pot? 3. Does the Blend Pot have a centre dent? 4. Will there be enough room in the control cavity for all the circuit boards if the Volume and Blend controls are separate to the boards they are currently fitted to while keeping everything suitably far enough apart so that there are no shorts where the 3 boards could inadvertently touch? 5. How are you going to support the Volume/Blend board if it is no longer being held in place by the controls?

IMO that's a bit of a cop-out. I don't drive either, but have never had any problem walking 2 miles into town (here in Nottingham) and going to one of the Bicycle shops and picking up a bike box, sometimes I'll even walk back carrying it rather than catching the bus. Bike boxes are much better than the typical guitar box for strength and rigidity and overall protection of the contents. They do need cutting down to size, but you can use the surplus material as additional packaging and bracing. For me getting a suitable box for sending the instrument is an essential part of the selling process.

One of the advantages of using the drum kit/drum machine plug-in that come with your DAW is that it integrates properly with the rest of the interface, and it updates automatically with the rest of your DAW.

Line6 have got around the supposed lack of processing power by producing new versions of many of the modules with a lower processor overhead. There was a major update last year where most of the amp and cab sims were replaced with more processor efficient versions. Personally I've not yet run into these kinds of problems on my Helix Floor (so you must be thinking of someone else), but then I don't have any need for the extremely processor hungry effects like the polyphonic pitchshifters. My needs are all capable of being address with firmware upgrades. What I would most like is VCF and VCA modules with full ADSR envelope control and ability for the envelopes to respond to external MIDI note on and off commands as an alternative to the audio input signal. Other than that some more flexibility with the footswitch assignments, and then I'd be happy. I'm sure that there would be some who need more processing power, but right now if that was me, I would simply daisy-chain a second Helix/HX unit using the digital audio and MIDI connections to give me the additional facilities I needed.

There's a thread about a similar looking model on TalkBass. Those filled holes in the headstock appear to be where the original A and D string machine heads went. Obviously they were too close to the others for the replacement tuners. Edit: according to the Vintage Framus website it's actually a Hollywood Bass

Any chance of posting some photos for those of us who don't do Facebook?

The thing with the Helix/HX range is that all the improvements are in the software which is where it really matters. There are generally 2-3 each year and they are all free. There's now a wide range of form factors and processing power throughout the range, so there is pretty much a model for everyone and if you need something "better" you simply move up to the next model in the range. I have the Helix Floor and the only improvements they could make for me would be the addition of a few specialised modules and additional scope for MIDI control all of which can be done without the need to release any new hardware.

My definition of lots of bass and/or lots of volume is obviously different yours. AFAIAC home practice means that the sound coming out of the speaker is just loud enough to mask the acoustic sound of the bass, nothing more. Also I don't want lots of bass because most of the time I want to be able to properly hear the pitch of the notes. You obviously have different goals when practicing at home.

It's a Yamaha, so as long as you can get on with the shape, you know it's going to be an excellent instrument. And as has been said, they are no longer in production so the second-hand market sets the prices people are prepared to pay.

Since the vast majority of songs I've played since I started my first band almost 50 years ago have been ones that I have written, or at least had a hand in writing, I have never had this problem.

Last three gigs of the In Isolation Mini Tour this week: Thursday 30th March, London, at The Fidler's Elbow With: X-Superstar, Gothzilla and Feather Trade Friday 31st March, York, at The Fulford Arms With Gothzilla and Eyrx London Saturday 1st April, Bracknell at The Acoustic Couch With Greymere and Gothzilla

Last three gigs this weekend: Thursday 30th March, London, at The Fidler's Elbow With: X-Superstar, Gothzilla and Feather Trade Friday 31st March, York, at The Fulford Arms With Gothzilla and Eyrx London Saturday 1st April, Bracknell, The Acoustic Couch With Greymere and Gothzilla

It'll be a simple pickup selector. The Gibson version with the choke has 4 positions. The "Mudbucker" is probably single coil as well.

Have a look at the 3rd photo which is a close-up of the headstock. That looks like a 4-string conversion to me which means tight string spacing at the nut and dodgy string runs behind it. J-Basses aren't really my thing but if they were, even thought it's only £99 I'd want to see some more and better photos, in particular, the neck pocket, the routing around the bridge pickup and a flat on shot which would show how well the outer strings line up with the end of the neck.

It's a Jazz copy. That's what it is.

The Gus design makes a lot more sense when you are wearing it on a strap: And BTW the black Gus bass that a couple of you have posted earlier in the thread is also one of mine!

What's wrong with chancers?

I have an Ibanez Firebird from 1974 that has a set neck. TBH even with the pin router technology of the time there is little difference in the amount of work required for a set neck or a bolt-on neck joint, and with the right glue, a set neck can be slightly less precise without anyone noticing.

Strange that the manufacturer goes to all the trouble of replicating the much less common slot-head design, but still uses a bolt-on neck.

No, in the case of the song in the OP each note has very short release and a noticeable gap between notes which gives the bass line its distinctive feel, so not only do you need to mute the other strings to avoid tracking issues but you also need to be able to stop each note that your are playing in the appropriate place without producing another thump that will re-trigger any effects you are using.

Open back is only risky for bass use if you want lots of bass and/or lots of volume. For the first two years of playing bass I used my Carlsbro Wasp 10W guitar amp which had a 10" speaker and an open back design. My band was mostly a recording project so we didn't need to play very loud (and most of the time I was channeling my inner Peter Hook), and if we did need to use it live, it was mic'd up through the PA. In the days when I ran a bi-amped rig the top end was supplied by a 2x8" cab which I had made myself based on the dimensions a guitar combo I used to own. And if it's not real, open back can sound great with bass guitar. At the moment my favourite amp/cab combination on the Helix is their emulation of the Roland Jazz Chorus Combo, something that you would never use for bass in real life, but which sounds surprisingly good for the type of music I play.

Any effect that uses pitch or envelope tracking will probably require you to modify your technique to some degree if you want to to get consistent and usable results out of it. The problem with the example in the OP is that the performance (before we even consider the sound) is very much derived from the fact that the original bass line would have been played using either a keyboard or a sequencer

TBH I was never that keen on the SH09/SH101. When I bought my Wasp synth, the SH09 was the only affordable alternative. I had to weigh up if I'd rather have a proper (if somewhat clacky keyboard) and a Filter capable of going into self oscillation against two Oscillators and two Envelope Generators. In the end the additional sonic capabilities of two Oscillators and Envelope Generators won out. I later picked up a second hand SH09 which was used mostly for background sequencer parts and for really fattening up the bass sounds we were getting from out Korg MS20. One of the other band members had an SH101 complete with modulation grip as a primitive keytar.

So many colleges and universities had EMS synthesisers somewhere in their music departments. Nottingham University had a Synthi AKS, and IIRC someone I knew from another local band got a job as an audio-visual technician at one of the 6th Form Colleges here and discovered lurking in the back of a storage room a fully functional VCS3 that had been put away for over a decade.