BigRedX

IME scale length does make a different on a 36" Overwater Original or the 37" low-B on a Dingwall, but 35" on a budget bass not so much. If a manufacturer can make a 35" scale bass with a decent sounding and feeling low-B they can probably make a 34" scale one too. Neck construction, stiffness and the rigidity of the neck joint (if it's not a through-neck bass) are the most important factors.

MIDI over USB is not the same as traditional MIDI using DIN cables which is a peer-to-peer connection. USB over MIDI requires one of the devices to be the "host" This usually means a computer or a dedicated USB Host device. Unless either the Zoom or the MIDI foot controller are capable as acting as a host device you will need something between them to do the job. As usual Zoom don't tell you much about the USB MIDI capabilities of the MS60b+. Some of the Disaster Area pedals might work but the couple I had a look at don't appear to be host devices.

Is that your actual bass in the photo? If so it looks as though you have already tried a taper wound B-string. If not try one. IME The extra inch of a 35" scale bass makes little difference to the clarity of low B. What I have found that works are all the following: 1. A heavier string. 130 is the MINIMUM I would consider for a low B. If you look at string tension figures for those manufacturers that publish them, the standard 125 low B has a much lower tension than the other strings. 130-135 is a good compromise between getting a more balanced tension and for the string to not be too thick to make playing uncomfortable. 2. Taper-wound string. 3. Moving the pickups away from the lower strings. I'd drop it a couple of mm more from the low B compared with the height away from the G string 4. If the bass has a bolt-on neck making sure it is as tight in the neck pocket as possible. With the bass about a tone way from standard pitch slacken off the neck bolts about a turn. Then bring the strings up to pitch and once this is stable tighten up the neck bolts. This method uses the string tension the pull the neck as tightly as possible into the pocket. IME getting the best sound and feel out of the low B is all about neck stiffness and neck joint construction. You can't do much about the neck stiffness but you can make sure any bolt-on joint between neck and body is as tight as it can go.

IME if you were paying fees just to list an item you were either a business seller or you were doing something wrong. As @neepheid has said eBay used to dish out free listing offers all the time. IIRC, I would get 100 of these every month. I think I had one month when I had a lot of things that I was interested in selling and I had to hold back a couple of items until the following month. If that is a different experience to others on here I don't know why. As for complaining about stuff being too expensive second-hand, it's pointless. There are lots of things that I would like to own new and second hand that are selling for more than I am prepared to pay. I just shrug and move on. If it's something I really want I'm prepared to wait until one comes up at a price that I am prepared to pay. I'm currently in the market for a second Eastwood Hooky 6-string bass. When they do come up on eBay and other sites they are only slightly less expensive than a new one, so I'll pass until I can either afford a new one or one comes up at a price that makes buying used worthwhile for me.

This is pretty much me too. I walk every day, although not as much as I used to when I didn't work from home. The band has ditched all our backline but we still have a couple of weighty items notably the flightcase that holds the gear which replaces having a drummer, and the synth player's 2-tier stand. Our rehearsal space is a fair walk from where it is possible to park the car for unloading and involves a flight of stairs if the lift isn't working, so carrying the gear for that and for gigs tends to be a decent work-out. I used to be a member of a gym but once the novelty wore off I found it pretty boring and after Covid I didn't bother re-joining. Despite being the oldest in the band by about 15 years I'm probably the fittest and most healthy. Musically I play 3 times a week once for writing, once for a rehearsal with my band and once for a gig. If I have a week when we're not rehearsing and/or gigging I'll get extra writing or recording sessions in. I've never practiced for the sake of it, it's always been because I have something specific that I need to play and my fingers aren't up to speed.

It's a typical 60s, non-Fender type spacing. I had a Burns Sonic with the same "wide" spacing although both pickups were identical and the best sound was with them wired in series.

I've been using eBay to buy and sell for over 20 years now and I have never paid anything to list an item for sale.

IME, while it is a great idea to have all the options available, in reality you'll pick one that works for your sound and then never change it. If I was doing this, I'd make a temporary control plate that will allow all the various options, and then when you have settled on the one(s) you like make a new one that just allows that/those.

On a combo like this the tone stack is mostly compensating for the speaker/cab so any setting that doesn't take this in account is not particularly useful. The OP would probably be better off getting rid of this combo and buying that has been properly designed.

Completely crap design. DI output should not be affected by the master volume control. Whoever decided that this was acceptable shouldn't be allowed to design any more musical equipment because they are clearly not competent. Like the others I'd suggest a separate DI box with a loop through that you put between the effects send and return, However IME any amp that has the DI out after the master volume control may also have the effects loop in the same (wrong) place. If you can check to see if the effects send is affected by the master volume before shelling out on a DI box that would be sensible.

Next gig for Hurtsfall is on Saturday 21st June at The Grove at the Sneinton Market Avenues as part of the Nottingham Craft Beer Festival. We'll be closing the event on on stage at 21.30

The vibrato mechanism on the Barracuda essentially became a fixed bridge once I fitted Newtone Axion Bass VI strings.

If I had a Fender obsession I'd want to buy from a store that had at least 10 examples of the supposedly identical bass (or guitar) I was interested in so I could try them all and select the one that suited me the best.

Up until earlier this week we had a massive PMT store here in Nottingham. Lots of guitars and not nearly so many basses but all very mainstream and nothing quirky second-hand. It's been over 30 years since I was last interested in a mainstream guitars or basses. I'll stick with well-known manufacturers for high-tech products mostly because I want decent support should anything go wrong. I bought my Helix from PMT (pre-COVID) mostly because they were one of the few resellers that had one in stock when I wanted to buy it. However when I was looking for a MIDI controller keyboard a couple of years ago they were exceedingly unhelpful (as mentioned earlier in this thread).

I'm not keen on built-in XLR outputs unless they are guaranteed to be protected from phantom power voltages. I always use my own passive EMO DI box with my Helix for connecting it to the PA.

If you look at the second photo you can see that the octave strings are above for E, A and D and below for G, B and E. Interesting idea. Something I might look at if I ever manage to find one of these.

These just appeared on one of the Burns Guitars Facebook pages along with the following explanation: Octave down 12 string which Hank saw when visiting the Burns factory. He took it with him and still has it. I believe it was converted to standard 12 string tuning. So this would have been Hanks first Burns.

The problem, as I'm sure I have said before, is that the frequent posters here on Basschat are not really the sorts of people who are interested what the typical bricks and mortar music shops have to offer. I for one don't except any of them to stock what I need any more even when it comes to picks and strings. Also I don't believe that you can make a properly informed decision about an instrument or amp from trying it in a shop. The last time I did that I ended up selling the bass less than 6 months later because it just didn't work in the band setting it had been bought for.

I've got the NUX 5G for exactly this reason works brilliantly for me and is far more reliable than the Sony 2.4G it replaced. I've played some fairly big stages using it without any problems. If I wanted something better I'd be looking at a seriously pro system.

TBH the situation regarding when stuff actually gets dispatched to the UK hasn't changed since the B-word.

Unless the bass is fretless you shouldn't be pressing down on the strings so hard that you come into contact with the fingerboard. For me fretted bass fingerboards are chosen for looks and nothing else.

I think the idea is that they replace your board completely, which is why the larger HX/Helix devices all have built-in PSUs. I simply take my Helix out of its bag and place it on the stage. Plug in the Main cable, MIDI, wireless receiver and output to the PA and I'm ready to go.

I've been looking at what little information is available about the more esoteric features of the Stadium and it looks as though if you want enough outputs to do packing playback seriously you will probably need the expansion box. The following will be important for me: 1. The ability the playback 4 channels of synchronised audio and send them to separate outputs. 2. The ability to synchronise Preset, Snapshot and parameter changes to the audio playback. 3. The ability to send MIDI program change, CC messages, and MTC/MIDI clock to external devices synchronised with the audio. 4. How quickly it loads a new "song" - ideally less than 5 seconds and is linked to Preset selection and Setlist order. So selecting a Preset also loads the corresponding audio and MIDI for playback, and the set order can be quickly changed using the Setlist function. 5. That it has sufficient memory to hold 4 channels of 24 bit audio for at least 1 hour of playback. 6. How easy it is to load all this information into the device from whatever DAW it has been created on. In the past I had a system that used standard MIDI files to control racks of synths and samplers as well as the guitar bass and vocal effects processors in order for my band to play live. While the playback worked really well, getting the information from the DAW into a format that the MIDI file player could use was massively convoluted, and once it had been done required me to run the "live" system to check that everything had transferred as I had intended. Also it then limited us to 16 channels of MIDI control rather than the potential 128 channels that a DAW plus MIDI interface could support. Ease of transfer (or not) could be the deal-breaker.

IME it doesn't matter when in the week you order something from Thomann, if it's destined for the UK it gets dispatched late on Friday afternoon.

But the old devices don't stop working. I was using a Bass Pod XT until I bought my Helix, which was bought on the strength of the features it had at the time of purchase. The firmware upgrades since then have just been a pleasant bonus. Unless/until the new Stadium version offers new features that I find indispensable, I'll be sticking with my Helix Floor