Lfalex v1.1

Given your caveats about routing and battery compartments, might a good off-board pre-amp (in pedal format) be an idea? I've found that the A channel on my Two Notes Le Bass can nicely tailor a passive bass' tone without any distortion if I keep the gain to sensible levels. There's plenty of choice, The vintage Markbass pre and the Genzler Re-EQ both caught my eye. Perhaps the Two Notes Revolt. At least if it's external, you can try some out together and see what you like.

* Other quality bass cabinet manufacturers are available.

Called Strings Direct. Meh. Either go back to the shop (70 mile round-trip. I was passing that way the first time) Or "We'll Email you a Freepost label, send the Strings back with your receipt and we'll refund you" Uh... I don't own a printer. I'd have to go and buy a Jiffy bag and then wait for a refund which may or may not materialise. What a drag. I don't recall any of this being my fault 😡

Yep. I've got a Two Notes Le Bass in front of my ( otherwise very clean) Markbass CS450 and Schroeder 21012L, and channel B does a fair job of reproducing what my Ampeg SVP-PRO sounds like, but it's got the bypass, modern drive (A) , series and parallel sounds available as well. I'm sure the Aggy, Ampeg, Darkglass etc. Units are all good in their own way.

Used is the way to go. The only proviso being; can you source a second matching cab? I ducked this issue by buying a single 4 Ohm cab (second hand, naturally!)with a more than adequate power handling (1kw) No, it doesn't have the height advantage of 2x2x10 in a vertical array, but it's more than enough. Have a look through the classifieds on here, there's always plenty of choice, and if you're feeling strong, the old-school cabinets can be had at silly prices.

Stink

I owned a 10th Anniversary BS signature Attitude. Whilst never a student of the design's evolution, I can contribute these thoughts. Right- Neck attachment Headstock shape Basic body shape The bridge matches the one mine had It appears to be passive... but EMG are renowned for their active pickups. Missing or different- Controls. these seem to be regular VVT. Many Attitudes have VVT, but with pop-up pots to facilitate twinning the pickup outputs and a mid-cut on the neck pickup. Pickups. Usually DiMarzio Willpower, comprising a huge humbucker right up against the base of the neck, plus a P in the usual position. Not the EMG P/J set seen here. Tuners. Mine had Gotohs on it and a pukka US Hipshot De-tuner on the E. A great many Attitudes had a De-tuner as standard. Nothing wrong with these Schallers, though. Jack socket. I'd be expecting two, one for each pickup. Unless this has been wired as a TRS to allow the separate pickup routing. No scalloped frets. The upper registers on the D and G strings had scalloped frets on many Attitudes. Where's the Yamaha logo on the headstock? In summary, it all looks well made, and from decent bits of timber, but there are just too many discrepancies for me to believe it's a proper Attitude. It may well be a fine bass. If you can try it out, it may prove to be worth the €600 the vendor is asking for. Otherwise, I'd give it a miss, since it really doesn't seem to be what it says it is.

If the budget allows; Bongo 4HH Epic things.

It's just not that black and white. There are good mass-produced basses and poor hand- made basses. And a whole gamut in between. In any case, with reference to the OP; If it plays well and sounds good, all is likely to be well. Furthermore, it means there's a long way to go before the truss- rod is "maxed-out". If the neck stays put through variations in temperature/ humidity, then you're onto a winner. Nothing wrong with a rigid, strong, stable neck. As long as there's enough relief in it.

I've still a few on the hit- list!

You'll rival my Ibanez collection! 🙃

What'd you buy now?

The Bass Centre were very apologetic, and said they'd refund Strings Direct who could refund me... Ideally, I'd take the Hohner with me, and swap a good .065 and .085 out of another set, which Bass Centre could refund Strings Direct for. I've currently got the new B,E & G on it, with the old A &D to stop the neck wandering.

They're probably only ~3mm too long. But it's enough. I almost need a hard metal curved "seat" with a slot on it to insert into the head-piece to take up the slack. And yes. It's the other critical dimension besides gauge, and it IS a PITA.

A quick call to The Bass Centre has revealed that they suffered QC issues (string length being too long, unsurprisingly) with the DBE sets 😡 Whilst they've purged the rogue sets from their own inventory, there are still some out there in retail. I only popped into Strings Direct as I was in the vicinity. It's a 70 mile round-trip otherwise.

Hi Paul. Just measured them up. Exactly the same length as the originals, ball-end to ball-end. Gauges are heavier on the new set (don't start me on restricted choice of gauges/sets) If you made me guess, I'd say the originals were 40,60,80,100,125. The new strings are 45,65,85,100,130. The issue is that the A string won't come up above F#... 3 semitones short. The D string is far worse. It makes F, 9 semitones short. Does a notional .005" increase in gauge really cause that much difference?

Just tried to restring my Hohner B2a V. B, E and G have made it to pitch. A string won't make it beyond F# D string is worse. Reason? No more rearward travel in the tuners. Anyone else encountered this? I have no idea what the strings are that I removed. New ones are Elites 45-130. Any fixes out there or have I just wasted £37? NB- this bass has no clamping provision at the headstock. It's DBE or nothing.

To clarify; A,D,G,C. Right? I had a Stingray 5 fretless (why, oh why did I sell it?) tuned E-C. That was great. Never had tried stringing a bass as a piccolo, though. Does one simply use strings of approximately ½ the gauge you'd usually use- something like 50,40,30,20 ?

I wish! All I can see in the marketplace ina pedal format is Broughton's offering, and that's mighty expensive.

I was questioning what the idea was in having such a low roll-off point (25Hz), unless it were in a studio application, to clean up the entire low end below the point of the A0 fundamental. And here (I think) is the point. For all that amps may be bandwidth limited by design, and cabinets by design and physics, bass guitars aren't bandwidth limited, and can certainly generate a signal of as low a frequency as you'd care to detune to. So it feels like the Thumpinator almost ought to go at the beginning of the signal chain; to clean up all the infrasonic gubbins before it reaches your FX and amp.

Had a look at images of them... That's a lot of pickups! Interesting. Probably the only bass I might ever want a pickup selector switch added to! Even then, I'm not sure what combinations of pickups I'd wire it to select! P & H J & H J,P & H And in the frst two positions use the volume control to kill whatever pickup I didn't want ( giving J,P & H separately) Not sure that J solo'ed would be a thing, nor J & P, but without trying it, I couldn't say for sure.

That's more like it at that sort of price.

Nice idea and execution. I like the idea of concealed controls, but they don't make for easy on-the-fly adjustments. Whilst searching for the price, I happened on the options, which were not as plentiful as you'd like for what is ostensibly a custom at such a high price. I'd be wanting an Ebony board, and 4 or 6 string options. Didn't see a fretless option, either.

Mustang Sadly

That Metallica classic. Master of Muppets