BigRedX

When mixing I only ever want to hear instruments solo'd when I can hear something wrong and want to know exactly what it is, so we can work out how to make it not sound wrong.

I had all the hardware on my black Gus G3 anodised. Original it was going to be black chrome after seeing what had been done on one of the sample basses, but by the time mine came to be built the company used had gone out of business and Simon Farmer couldn't find another who were prepared to take on the small volumes needed for a few guitars and basses at a price that made economical sense, hence the alternative was anodising. I've owned and played this bass from new for 18 years now, and apart from a couple of places on pickup covers the anodising has shown no wear at all.

AFAICS if you want active you are limited to offerings from either MEC or EMG. However unlike guitar pickups where "soapbox" has a definite meaning - fat wound single coil in the style of the Gibson P90, when it comes to bass soapbar pickups it's simply a description of the form factor and there could be absolutely anything (that will fit) lurking under the covers. BTW what makes a pickup aggressive? High output? Upper mids EQ hump? Both of which IME can be achieved at the amp irrespective of the pickup.

If it sounds right in the context of the overall song mix and production then it is fine. Personally I thought the isolated bass track just sounded like a random selection of notes, the sort of thing that you play when you are trying out a bass and not playing anything fixed, just noodling to see how it feels.

Unfortunately not. This track was recorded and the album released before I joined the band. if you want to hear the Gus have a listen to The Terrortones recordings. Most of those are either the Black or Red Gus

And here’s a brand new video for one of the tracks off the last album “A Certain Fractal Light”.

It's just a pity he makes every single one sound terrible. Just looked up the price of the 5-string fretted model... $8995! I think I'll stick with my Gus basses.

In Isolation's brand new album "Shards" is out now for streaming on digital download And here's the video for one of the tracks:

Deemed to be an important enough design for an example to be in MOMA New York.

So roadworn there's no wood left! Actually it's the rather wonderful Gittler.

Out of interest how thick is the fingerboard?

Other than it’s a P bass, what’s the problem?

Skinny Puppy would probably do a better job. Not so easy listening elevator music.

I'm not denying that you will always be using suitable jack connectors and cables for speaker leads. I was replying to Matt P's post: And the reason is: for every clued-up bass player on Basschat who knows the right leads to use to connect their amp to their cabs, there be at least one numpty who will think nothing of using any spare instrument lead they have lying about. I would have thought that most amp and speaker manufacturers would be doing their best to reduce user error when connecting amps to cabs, and the best way to do this is to only use Speakon sockets on their gear.

Any Japanese Pico-Pop

I would want to know how much wood there is between the bottom of the truss rod channel and the back of the neck before even contemplating this. And find out from those who build guitars what the minimum thickness they would be happy with is. @Andyjr1515

I think Gus have the greatest proportion of their instruments produced in-house. On my black 5-string bass only the pickups (made specifically for Gus by Aaron Armstrong IIRC), the machine heads (Hipshot), the Schaller Straplocks and the electronic components are bought in ready made.

If I was an amp manufacturer for anything over 100W output I wouldn't want end users using Jack cables. It's all very well saying that heavy duty, high current jack plugs are available that will accommodate suitable heavy weight speaker cable, but you just know at some point a cheap and nasty jack to jack instrument cable is going get used because nothing else is available. At least with Speakon connectors the only leads available are going to of a suitable rating unless you deliberately make one up with crap cable.

For me the trick to make relic'ing look convincing is for it to match the wear patterns caused by the person playing the instrument. For instance in the photo of the pink bass posted earlier on in this thread I'm struggling to see how the finish has come to be worn off the inside curves of the cutaways, yet the maple fingerboard looks pristine. On the two basses which show worn fingerboards - the Crinson and the Sting replica, I hope the wear patterns match the notes the owners of those two basses use most commonly (they certainly don't match mine), but notice how the wear conveniently avoids the fingerboard dots. IME real life wear doesn't magically prevent the instrument being playable. In fact quite the opposite. The only bit of serious playing wear I have managed to inflict on any of my instruments wore away the fret on one of my guitars at one note only (E on the G-string). This was done because we had a song which during the middle 8 I hammered on the note with my right hand and then used my finger to bow the string against the fret for about 8 bars in duration. The result of playing and/or practicing this song nearly every day for 4 years resulted in my wearing the fret for this one note so much that the string no longer fretted properly at this position for normal chords or single note playing.

I've actually seen Rory Gallagher's strat "in the flesh" - well it was behind glass in a sealed cabinet, probably for health and safety reasons. It's minging! The bridge in particular is 50% rust 50% dead skin and other human detritus...

I've got the Helix floor, and it has what looks like a locking RJ45 socket labelled "Variax".

Is it? So what's the Variax socket on there for?

If I was using a Variax, I'd be running it into one of Line6's multi-effects units that sports a Variax input so I could synchronise my Variax sounds with the appropriate EQ and effects.

That looks good. However I never use any of the controls on my guitars or basses once I have found a setting that gives me a sound I like. Everything else is done via programmable effects controlled from a footswitch or automated from the backing track.

Would those who know like to comment, bu to me that neck construction seems quite unusual with the wood fillet between the truss-rod and fingerboard. Given how thick the fingerboard was, how much wood is there between the bottom of the truss-rod channel and the back of the neck? The channel is obviously much deeper than the diameter of the truss rod so it will need filling once the new rod is in place.