BigRedX

This was experience with the Warwick StarBass I owned, hence the reason why I asked what you wanted the bass for. Th increase in volume when played unplugged was minimal compared to my solid basses, and TBH without amplification I preferred the unplugged quiet sound of my Gus basses - the Warwick sounded quite "thin" by comparison. Plugged in of course it was great.

The closest I have on-line would be the latest single "Stars" by my band Hurtsfall. This is a Burns Barracuda Bass VI strung with Newtone Axion round-wound strings into a Roland JC120 combo sim on a Line 6 Helix. There are additional effects, mostly chorus and auto-filter on the sound, and I used the middle pickup rather than the bridge and a nylon rather than hard plastic pick, but you should be able to hear that it's starting to get into the ballpark for the sound that you are after.

I've never had a problem getting a twangy sound out my short-scale basses with standard gauge strings (100-40) when playing through a guitar amp/combo. You do need a bass with the bridge pickup close to the bridge as in the video.

Assuming that audio on the video is produce with the instruments being used, I would suspect the following: 1. Short-scale (30") bass stung with round wounds. 2. Single coil pickups with emphasis on the bridge pickup. 3. Into a guitar amp with plenty of bass cut and upper-mid boost. 4. Hard plastic pick.

What do you want to use it for?

I take it you need to be able specify specific MIDI channels for the MODX. Do you need to set keyboard splits too? There used a plethora of stand-alone devices for manipulating MIDI data, but since most people have a computer to Tablet somewhere in their set up the need has all but disappeared. With this in mind have a look at second-hand devices from either Philip Rees and Kenton to see if there is something they made in the past that will do what you want.

If you have a look at this page for the EB3 and this page for the EB0 you will see that the design of both changes other the years, and while knowing which year your basses you are considering were built helps, you really need to play the actual ones (or ones with exactly the same spec) in order to know which one is going to suit you. In theory the EB3-L should be more versatile, but in practice the EB0 might turn out to be exactly what you are looking for.

As other have said no one NEEDS anything. There are plenty of instruments available as alternatives to the 4-string bass guitar and all of them are valid instruments for playing bass part. Most of what I (and probably what a large majority of bassists on here) play could be done on a couple of 2-string basses, but no-one is suggesting that we should all ditch the redundant 2 strings on our 4-sting basses. As an owner of an Atlansia Solitaire Bass, I once took it to a rehearsal for my Dad Rock covers band. I was able to preform an acceptable bass line on it for almost all the songs we did, and in many cases actually replicate the recorded bass line perfectly. It wasn't as easy as using a bass with more strings, but that's not the point. It could be done. So you don't actually NEED a 4-string bass. If you are a good enough player 1 string is sufficient. Alternatively you could get a keyboard, or a tuba, or just sing...

Most Gibson EB3s and EB0s are short scale. There are long scale versions which are fairly rare and therefore might be worth more if you decide to move it on. The Epiphone EB3 is long scale.

Take the carving away and it's just a standard bitsa P-bass. And why are these carved instruments always finished with a gloopy application of reddish varnish?

And even if it does stick to the more common time signatures, rock music will often stretch them to breaking point in the name of "feel". Used to have terrible arguments with one drummer I was in a band with about the length of a pause in a particular song, where I (the composer) wanted to stretch it out for a bit of tension, and they insisted on counting as a standard 4/4 bar. This was also the drummer who was very disparaging about musicians who play by "feel", so I was extremely tempted to work at exactly how long the pause should be and then present it as a bar of 17/16 or 33/32.

For western melody-driven music if the odd time signature is supported by a good tune it often isn't obvious that it's not in 4/4 until you try to play it. For instance "Take 5", the "Mission Impossible" theme, or the intro section to "Tubular Bells"where the riff/melody is so strong that it covers up the fact that there are extra or missing beats. Also what is obvious to one musician, especially if they wrote the music, can sometimes be impenetrable to others. I once wrote a middle section to what was otherwise a fairly ordinary pop/rock song that, when I actually worked it out, comprised alternating bars of 9/8 and 4/8. I would count it as quavers 123,123,123,12,12 with each chord change being on the "1". I thought it was obvious especially as the chord changes drove it along, but obviously I was wrong, as the rest of the band never got it and eventually we gave up, and moved onto something else.

Where? AFAIK all the Tokai catalogues published are in the link I posted above. I can't see any Rickenbacker bass copies in any of them. There are two Rickenbacker guitar copies in the 2000 catalogue and that is it. If there were Tokai-branded copies of the Rickenbacker basses in existence, there would be photographs of them somewhere on the internet. One would have turned up at some point on the Digimart website, there's 55 pages of Tokai branded guitars and basses, new and second hand, (pretty much every Tokai currently for sale in Japan) there right now including a couple of 60s Hummingbirds, but not one Rickenbacker bass copy. That's because they do not exist.

All the Tokai catalogues are in the link in my last post. If there are any Tokai-branded copies of Rickenbacker basses they will be in there somewhere. I can't find any. Can you? Rockinbetter basses have nothing to do with Tokai. That was already established earlier in the thread.

Sorry, but I am certain that you are mistaken. As I said earlier in this thread, I have a printed copy of the 2000 Tokai catalogue and while it has photos of Tokai-branded copies of Rickenbacker guitars, none of Rickenbacker basses copies. You can find scans of the Tokai brochures here. I haven't found photographs of Rickenbacker bass copies in any of them. In fact, the guitars only appear in the 2000 edition. Have a look for yourself. In 20+ years of looking on the internet I have never come across a single photograph of Rickenbacker bass copy with Tokai branding on it, nor have I found any scans of Tokai catalogues that show the basses. AFAIAC, this is because these mythical instruments do not exist. I will be happy to be proved wrong, but I will require decent photographic evidence for it, and not someone's half forgotten memories from 20 years ago.

Always consider a mic positioned over the player's shoulder pointing down; as this will come reasonably close to capturing the sound that the player hears which may well be the sound that they want.

Also, it will have been better made than a Precision of the same vintage.

Maybe Nottingham is an anomaly, but in the 40+ years I have been playing and going to gigs in the city venues come and go but overall the numbers appear to stay the same. As I said in my first post in this thread very few of the places I played at, or went to see other bands at, still exist as music venues, but at the beginning of 2020 there were just as many opportunities as there were when I first moved here and most of them are superior to the gigs I was getting in the early 80s. Certainly there are far more opportunities for weekend gigs for originals bands. When I first started gigging here, weekends were strictly discos and residencies for a few rock covers bands. The best you could get playing originals was a Friday night gig at The Hearty Goodfellow sporting Pinski Zoo who had a residency there. Everything else was mid-week only. I'm also unsure of the "iconic" status of TNT. I wasn't even aware of it as a live music venue until I did my first gig there about 7 years ago. In my mind it's certainly not up there with The Boat Club, The Garage/Ad-Lib, or The Hearty Goodfellow, to name but three.

I've not played the place since it became Alberts, but in the days when it was a Firkin pub you used to be able load in from the car park on Talbot Street up the big, wide fire escape which was nice and easy. The worst venue for stairs in Nottingham was a nightclub on Greyhound street where the gig room was 3 or 4 flights up from street level and no lift. Played there a couple of times in the late 90s.

While it is always sad when a venue closes, we shouldn't be so focused on just keeping everything as frozen in time. If there is a need for another music venue like TNT then one will appear. I've been gigging in Nottingham for 40 years now. With the exception of Rock City (and a couple of places that will allow you to hire them for private events) none of the venues I played at before 2005 still exist. However there's still plenty of places to play, if your band is sufficiently entertaining (pre-COVID at least). BTW I've played with several bands at TNT and was never that impressed. Load in/out was always a pain (only the Chameleon is worse IMO).

In the days when I was still using a dedicated bass or guitar amp I had whatever multi-effects unit(s) I was using at the time connected via the FX loop (in serial mode). I haven't used "pedal" effects since the early 90s. I did use a Roland GP8 in my guitar gig in "4 cable mode" where the guitar goes to the input of the GP8. It then passes through the various Filter, Compression and Distortion effects before being sent via the GP8 effects send to the input of my amp. The FX send of the amp is then connected to the return of the GP8 where it goes through any modulation and delay effects, the main output of the GP8 is then connected to the FX return of the amp. Sounds complicated but works perfectly.

Every photo shows the blue as a different colour. The more turquoise-y ones look nice but the others are quite nasty IMO. I would be very disappointed if I bought one and it turned out more grey than turquoise.

Recorded live on 7th December 2019 in Leeds. This was the encore of our set, and consequently the last thing we have preformed in front of an audience:

Lots of photos of him not playing that bass.

Brilliant. How have I missed this - is that the singer from Jetsonics?