HowieBass

Had just a single bass for about 25 years, then got back into playing, joined Basschat and it's now 5 basses and counting; I don't really need a Stingray but...

[quote name='DavidMcKay' timestamp='1416012430' post='2606240'] [b] [url="http://basschat.co.uk/user/2189-yorks5stringer/"]yorks5stringer[/url][/b] Damn you Sir! Now that I have changed the title the whole bloody conversation doesn't fit. And when will I get my Cort B4FL?!?!?!?!?!?!? I have £250 waiting and some virgin fingers waiting to get chapped! David [/quote] There's one going for £285 delivered in the For Sale forum if you can go a bit over your limit... http://basschat.co.uk/topic/247990-fs-cort-b4fl-fretless/ suggest you PM the BCer to show your interest...

I'm sure a Moderator will be along soon to confirm the details behind this but I think you can post as many adverts as you like for 12 months for the once-off fee and you pay no commission on successful sales, unlike eBay.

He had a Ric as well

Also available from Farnell http://uk.farnell.com/omron-electronic-components/g5v-2-12dc/relay-pcb-dpdt-12vdc-2a/dp/9949496

[quote name='chriswareham' timestamp='1415484745' post='2600891'] Lovely string synth - a rebadged Siel that sounds similar to the wondrous Crumar Performer. I'd strongly recommend getting a proper keyboard amp, since bass amps tend to colour the sound, and an SVT CL does that more than most bass amps. The colouration may benefit a synth bass, although I'd suspect it would sound a bit woolly, but your going to lose a lot of the "sizzle" of a string synth. [/quote] The OP has said that'll probably be going through the band's PA (currently only handling vocals).

That doesn't sound right to me; the basses of mine with passive tone pots seem to act evenly right through the range. BTW you talk about 'tone pots' but surely the bass is wired as VVT (meaning a single tone pot). Tone pots can suffer with age if they're in need of a squirt with switch cleaner but this clearly shouldn't be so with a new instrument; maybe the tone pot is faulty? One other thing to check is make sure you have a decent cable just in case you're using one that's poor (poor quality cables are very noticeable with passive EQ basses and often seem fine with active basses). HTH

You could just back off the tone control to roll off treble if the new strings sound too 'brittle' for you while you decide if you can get along with new roundwounds (compared to totally dead rounds) and I presume you now turn off the amp bright switch. Nickel rounds are usually warmer sounding than steel rounds and usually feel smoother to the touch for fingerstyle playing plus they don't change so much in tone as they age (since they're less bright to begin with).

I think keyboard synths are one of the hardest instruments to amplify due to the frequency range they can occupy, from fat low bass to piercing highs. Having said that when I was in a band many years ago with one of my oldest friends he just used to run his keyboards through a WEM Dominator 25 (a valve combo) for home practice and we never had any issues (though it wasn't being thrashed in any case). The Boss LS-2 sounds like a good idea where you can at least try to balance the volumes between the synth and P bass but where you might run into trouble is trying to dial in EQ on the SVT for both instruments as the needs of a keyboard synth could be quite different to a bass guitar. I'd just try the synth through the bass rig at low volume with your usual tone settings (for bass) and see how it's sounding.

Are they both sucking some bottom end from your tone? (Sounds nasty )

Does the brown hair have to be on your head? It's getting a bit thin there but well, there are other parts...

Yeah it's physical vapour deposition; very old technology. Used to coat something instead of dipping it in an electrolytic bath. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physical_vapor_deposition

Could be tricky setting the input gain too.

If you drive just remember that counter clockwise on a steering wheel turns a car to the left, clockwise steers a car to the right.

Not sure why you're asking if you've already spotted similar instruments that have sold successfully elsewhere? The usual answer to this is it's worth whatever anyone is prepared to pay for it. You can hold out for whatever price you care to invent for an instrument and it'll be worth that when someobody actually pays what you're asking; however you might have a long wait. You could use those prices you've found for insurance purposes though.

Comfortable bass strap so you get used to playing with the bass whilst standing, if you're hoping to join a band...

I think the fact that many luthiers/guitar techs use the reminder "lefty loosey, righty tighty", whilst perhaps not as exact a description as "counter clockwise loosens, clockwise tightens" is still worth knowing IMHO.

Smoothing capacitors are often mulitple units housed inside a big round metal can so you can't tell just by looking at the innards but I'm no amp tech so it's just a 'maybe' at the moment.

That sounds like an amplified mains hum to me - there's supposed to be some way of working out where the issue is based on the frequency of the hum, at least with valve amps (something about whether it's 50Hz or 100Hz - I think the 100Hz hum is the rectified power after it's been converted from AC to DC). Might be the smoothing capacitor has failed?

Big fan of Squiers here, hard for me to compare with Fenders as I've never owned one but I feel I hardly need to based on the quality of the Deluxe Active Jazz and Vintage Modified Precision that I own (plus it seems plenty of other bass players are finding current era Squiers just as capable as Fenders when demoed side by side). If I had to guess, listening to the fretting more than anything (quality of the neck?) I'd guess 1 = Affinity, 2 = Vintage Modified, 3 = Alleva Coppolo though again, in the hands of a good player they all sound pretty damn good and definitely all usable.

Yeah I've had a small parcel from Amazon delivered to me on a Saturday evening at about 6:05 pm (their email said I could expect it any time up to 9pm that day) so Saturday delivery does work (and I'd not paid any extra for a weekend delivery).

That Affinity on eBay has quite a bit of surface damage on (I presume) the back of the body; the finish and durability doesn't look brilliant IMHO. If it were me I'd hang on and find a secondhand VM or CV which will have better quality construction and materials and better pickups.

Did you measure where the holes are for the bridge mounting screws and ground wire so you can easily locate them again? Assume you can feel the veneer dip over the pickup cavity. Really interesting figuring going on there!

Soundwise they're so close I couldn't really choose one over the other; maybe a slight preference for bass number 1. Indicates that when it comes to flatwounds on a P bass that maybe most if not all the tone comes from the pickups and the player. As regards fit, finish and durability I'd expect the Fender to score (you'd certainly hope so based on the price) over the Squier. How do they compare for playability and the neck? Nice chops by the way

i'm pretty certain I've had texts updating me about DPD deliveries including the name of the driver and the time slot (1 hour wide) for when they were going to deliver and they've always managed it on time (usually at the start of the time window). Hope you manage to get it sorted ASAP.