BigRedX

This one: This one: This one: And this one: All different, so which one I use will depend on what sort of music I am playing. The black Gus and the Sei were made especially for me. You can't beat a good custom bass.

[quote name='Leonard Smalls' timestamp='1481466282' post='3192454'] I feel that those who shout loudly about how crap vinyl has always sounded have only ever heard a 20s hand-cranked gramophone with hawthorn needle and large horn, or at best a Dansette! Once you've experienced a really good vinyl system you'll know what all the fuss is about... Now I'm off to oil my beard and sculpt my man-bun. [/quote] I have a reasonably good Pro-Ject turntable (it was in the middle of the range price-wise when I bought it about 15 years ago), but in back-to-back tests it can't even compete with a CD of the same album in the DVD drive of my Mac Pro (going via the built-in TOS-Link optical out to my HiFi) for sound quality. This is my biggest beef with vinyl. I'm sure if you spend £1000+ on your vinyl playback equipment, there will be an improvement, but IMO there is something very wrong when you need to spend that much money in order to get the best out of the delivery medium for the music. With a digital file it is simply down to how good your DAC is, and as I said in my first post in this thread the gap in quality between what is now consumer grade and professional equipment is pretty small and getting smaller all the time.

[quote name='ians' timestamp='1481379723' post='3191873'] Can't see the point at all as vinyl only sounds good if the recording process is 100% analogue. Simply pressing out vinyl thats had a digi signal thrown at it cant possibly sound authentic. [/quote] And these days making a record with a 100% analogue production path is near on impossible. When The Terrortones made our mini-album "The Monster Pussy Sessions" the original idea was to do something quick and dirty live in the studio and put it out on cassette. Once we started the process we decided to try and go analogue all the way. The band recorded live onto a Otari 24-track tape machine, and we limited overdubs to a few replacement vocals and theremin. This was then mixed down through an analogue desk with only analogue outboard processing on a Studer 1/4" 1/2-track tape machine. We also made a digital copy of the mix at the same time so we could take it home and listen to it straight away. It was just as well that we made this digital copy because when it came to getting the album mastered we could have supplied the analogue version, but the mastering would have been significantly more expensive to do completely in the analogue domain. And none of the cassette duplication companies we contacted would take anything other than digital files. It was much the same when it came to get our next album produced on vinyl - digital was the preferred medium for the production master. I'm sure that if we had the budget and time available it would still be possible to have a totally analogue signal path from the mics in the studio all the way to the vinyl cutting lathe, but it would involve a lot more expense and someone from the band or record label to be present at both the mastering and the cutting stages in order to approve the analogue version.

[quote name='Leonard Smalls' timestamp='1481373149' post='3191817'] CD easily outperfoms vinyl? Depends on what you're listening to them on! My Advantage cd player rarely sounds as good as my Clearaudio/SME/AudioNote/EAR vinyl set-up... [/quote] Have you done a back-to-back listen of the same album on CD and vinyl where you know that each version has been specially mastered to make the most of its respective delivery medium?

[quote name='Billy Apple' timestamp='1481282767' post='3191156'] It says Thunderbird II, but only has one pup. Was there a TBird I? [/quote] I think the Thunderbird numbers were picked to fit between the Firebird ones which were designated I, III, V and VII. Pity there was no 3 pick-up Thunderbird VI...

To the OP. What are you actually after? An increase in tension/stiffness or thickness of your strings?

Putting on a performance surely is the whole point of playing live. The audience needs to be entertained visually as well as aurally. If you can't do the visuals you might as well play a recording.

Peterson Stroborack

[quote name='bubinga5' timestamp='1481199680' post='3190416'] I find the outer nut that sits on the washer can come loose. Maybe I'm not tightening them enough. I also like the look of the Ernie Ball locks [/quote] Every single failure of Schaller strap locks I've seen (including mine) has been down to the fact that they haven't been fitted properly. IIRC EBS Freak posted a comprehensive guide on how to fit them so that they don't work loose. How do the EB version work? AFAICS they look very similar in method to the Dunlop/Warwick design. I've had the Warwick version of these fail mechanically in the locking mechanism with no warning at a gig. They were replaced the following week with a set of Schallers.

I used to play the Balalaika. It's been a long long time since I last picked one up so I don't know how competent I am on it anymore. I even made a solid electric version when I was at school back in 1978, partly as a trial run for making my electric guitar the following year.

As someone whose band has been releasing vinyl there are pros and cons... Pros: It looks and feels great. An album on 12" vinyl is big serious statement of intent. Even a 7" single looks more impressive than a CD, and with my graphic designer's hat on, you really can't beat the enlarged canvas that vinyl packaging allows you. It's popular. I'll be the first to admit, that one of the main reasons we've been releasing our music on vinyl is because we sell more copies and make more profit per copy sold, than if it was released just on CD. Cons: It doesn't really sound very good. Admittedly the quality of vinyl these days is substantially better than it was back in the 70s and 80s when I was last buying it. I dug out some albums and 12" singles from the early 80s in order to play them the other day, and compared with even a modern "low quality" 120g pressing they felt flimsy and insubstantial. However a well produced and mastered 16Bit 441.1kHz digital file will always out-perform even the best vinyl from a sonic PoV. The CD version of the Terrortones album sounds better than the vinyl version when played back to back. Each version was specifically mastered for the intended delivery medium, but unfortunately vinyl simply can't compete sonically. There are all sorts of technical limitations to what can be reproduced on vinyl when it comes to bass, stereo imaging and phase effects. None of these affect digital files. You need decent (and expensive) playback equipment to get the best out of it. A digital file just needs a good quality DAC, and these days the gap in quality between consumer grade and professional DACs is not very big and it's getting smaller all the time. While it's perfectly possible to enjoy your vinyl on a junk-shop Dansette (although these are by no means cheap any more), to get the best out of it you need to invest in a good quality turntable, tone arm, cartridge etc. and get them set up properly and keep them maintained. Even then, every time you play your vinyl you are damaging it. A good deck and careful handling of the medium will minimise this, but ultimately every play wears the record slightly. A properly backed-up digital file will last forever and sound exactly the same as the day it was digitised. It is expensive to produce and therefore expensive for consumers to buy. 500 copies of the Terrortones album cost £4000 to make including the recording. We could have had 1000 CDs for around half of that. On top the increased production costs of the actual vinyl over CD, there was the increased printing and production costs for the larger 12" packaging, and finally there was the cost of the extra mastering optimised for vinyl cutting, as well as the standard digital master for downloads. It's heavy and bulky to store and easy to damage. Both for the producer and consumer. My large collection of CDs occupies the wall one side of the chimney breast in my lounge, and if I really wanted I could pack them all away in a handful of boxes, and just listen to the versions stored on my iTunes server. I dread to think how much space (and what sort of re-enforced shelving) I'd need if it was all on vinyl. The first Terrortones release - 500 CDs came in couple of easily lifted cardboard boxes. 500 copies of the album on vinyl was 6 very heavy boxes on a pallet! Also because of the size and weight of the vinyl, they had suffered damage in transit and I had to replace the paper sleeves of a whole box worth of records. Then when it comes to mailing them out, CDs can go in a small jiffy bag with a bit of extra bubble wrap. Total P&P cost for a UK address under £2.00. The vinyl needs a proper album mailer with a cardboard stiffener, and is a lot heavier with a total P&P cost of around £4.00. All of that has to passed on the the consumer. So, as an artefact vinyl is great. Even a 7" single is big and impressive, but as a delivery medium for music - which after all is what it is designed for - there's a lot of better ways to do it nowadays. BTW. For those who are analog purists, almost every record release made in the last 20 or so years will have gone through a digital stage somewhere between when the instruments were mic'd up and the vinyl being cut, so any perceived inadequacies of the digital process will have been added to those of the vinyl medium.

Hardly the future - Vocaloid has been around since the early 2000s. And the Anime "Macros Plus" predicted all of this back in 1994.

[quote name='skidder652003' timestamp='1481099163' post='3189614'] cos you look a tool throwing shapes on a bass... [/quote] You might look like a tool throwing shapes while playing the bass, but I look f***ing awesome! ;-)

[quote name='scalpy' timestamp='1481096118' post='3189600'] Got the annual Panto run this week. (oh yes I have) 80% of it is on bass, 19% is trying to get the audience participation going and there is one 8 bar guitar solo in a ballad. All I hear is guitar solo this guitar solo that. It was the same when I was playing in an originals band trying to avoid getting a proper job. I could probably count the number of new people who talked to me after a gig on one hand. I did two gigs on guitar and met my wife! Why are people so massively biased towards guitar? It can't be just the frequency range they occupy surely? [/quote] The way I see it, is you have two choices: 1. Switch to guitar 2. Stick with it safe in the knowledge that playing music as a band is more than the sum of its parts and it's the ensemble that is important, not any one individual musician. Besides: 1. IMO the real heroes of any piece of music are those who wrote it in the first place 2. It's panto, not high art. Take your money and quit whining.

Thanks! Just had a look at the TI web site and the strings I used were [url=http://www.thomastik-infeld.com/sites/default/files/catalogue/ti_e_guitar_folder_06_13sc.pdf]Infeld Superalloys set IN111[/url] from which I used the 20, 30, 42 52 strings - all wound.

Actually in some countries "H" is used instead of "B" and "B" means "Bb"

I've played basses with all sorts of scale lengths from 26" to 36", and TBH it takes very little to swap between them, but maybe that's because I play a variety of other stringed instruments, so I'm used to all sorts of scale lengths. My first bass was a Burns short scale, and I never used the E string on it, because it sounded rubbish when compared to the others. This turned out to be down to Rotosound failing to be able to make decent short scale round wound strings in the 80s rather than any actual short-comings of the bass, as it was fine once I discovered Newtone strings.

I used to own the Manne Mandobass which is a piccolo bass with a 26" scale. [IMG]http://i114.photobucket.com/albums/n249/BigRedX/Bass/ManneMandobass.jpg[/IMG] I strung mine with a bottom 4 strings from a set of TI heavy (with a wound G) guitar strings.

If you want to thicken up the sound and accentuate some of the fretless nuances, try a good compressor - that's one with at least Threshold, Attack, Release and Gain controls, and instead of chorus which can make the sound too swirly and indistinct, try a pitch shifter set to unison with a very slight detune of a few cents. IMO older models work better since they have a noticeable processing lag which adds enormously to the sound. For that you can't beat the original rack mount MXR Pitch Transposer. IIRC much of Mick Karn's studio sound was created by selectively double tracking his bass lines.

IMO the classic solid state guitar amp is the Roland Jazz Chorus, so how about their [url=https://www.roland.com/uk/products/jc-22/]30W JC22[/url]?

DT100s are tracking headphones. They are designed to give you a useable working sound with the minimum of spill, so that you can record your part(s) while hearing everything clearly but not necessarily accurately. I wouldn't even begin to think about using them for mixing on.

[quote name='KevB' timestamp='1480677039' post='3186280'] Easier to change a bolt on [/quote] Why would you want to?

[quote name='Pinball' timestamp='1480665811' post='3186167'] Hi, I used to think that neck-through was something to aspire too until I got a used Ibanez 3005 wich was a stunning bolt on model that changed my mind. I have since worked my way though many basses sice to get to my current favourites (Stingray's and G&L) and it I dawns on me that they are all blot on models. I have had both types at the same time and couldn't hear any difference. I have noticed that the bolt-on's seem to generally lighter in weight but that is about it really. Waddyathink? [/quote] IME every single bass sounds different, but nearly all of then sound like basses when you get them in the band mix. It's impossible to quantify exactly what difference having a bolt-on neck makes since nearly every aspect of construction between a neck through bass and one with a bolt-on neck is different, so how can you tell exactly what effect the fact that the neck is bolt-on is making? My personal preference is for neck through or set neck since there is less neck joint to get in the way when playing higher up the neck.

When I started playing in the 70s a lot of the musicians I was interested in had huge collections of instruments, so naturally I aspired to the same. Back then if I could have afforded a second guitar, I would have owned one. When I started gigging regularly on bass in the early 80s I bought a spare pretty much immediately.

[quote name='bubinga5' timestamp='1480511026' post='3184951'] Well my budget is around £150 and looking for second hand. Don't know anything about the quality of the squires apart from a standard tele that a friend has and it's really nice sounding and playing. [/quote] For that kind of money I'd also be looking at the Yamaha Pacifica range.