NancyJohnson

No idea whether anyone else does this (with their partners).

Wife will fire up Gumtree or Marketplace, she'll do a search for bass guitars and will scroll; she'll show me a photo of an advert and ask what the bass is and how much it's on sale for.  In most cases I'm correct with the bass, points deducted for a question ('Which country is it made?  USA? Mexico? etc.).

Typical exchange:
'Fender Jazz Bass Special,' I'll go.  '£950.00.'

'£900.00,' she'll answer. '£50.00 out.  How do you know all this?  You really need to stop spending so much time on Basschat.'

Lots of fun.

I'm in a Chibson group on Facebook, it's interesting how a lot of the people buying knock-off Les Paul models tend to be unhappy with them use the husk as a means to customise; not uncommon for all the hardware to be stripped and replaced with 'better'.

Would I order one?  Hmm.  I'd like a Rick Derringeresque Explorer with a split headstock; I'm sure someone (in China) would build one for me quite cheaply.  Gibson logo on the headstock?  Sure, why not?  If it makes you feel better, then fine.

Now don't start getting on your high horse here about fake logos/decals.  There's a load of basses here with Squire decals replaced with Fender ones.  Frankenstein models with Mighty Mite necks, Gibson truss rod covers on Epiphones.

Perhaps the whole Chibson issue should just make Gibson think about how much they're selling guitars for, but it won't.

Obviously some bias from current ownership and past glories.

Hamer

Mike Lull

Gibson Thunderbird

Spector (I still maintain you could put an NS headstock on any bass and it would look better)

Travis Bean 

I really feel the headstock of Anderton's East Coast basses looks decent.

33 minutes ago, Linus27 said:

What's the best way to dirty up the back of a neck to make it look more used, any tips?

If it's varnished, rub it back a bit with some fine grit sandpaper/wet and dry.  To emulate a bit of extended use, I'd say you need to get some colour into the wood; get some brown liquid shoe polish (the sort with the sponge applicator) and apply sparingly in the busy areas, maybe up to the 7th fret.

Smoke and mirrors.

It's very obvious the power here is fairly transparent; there seems little or no colouration, which is what I've been after for a long, long time.

I know as bassplayers we tweak things constantly in search for a perfect tone (cue angels singing), but realistically we need to realise that 99% of the listening audience care not about how we sound and anything we route our outboard gear through will change things, but this is near as dammit as close to stomp>desk>headphones.

The amp's response to changes in bass/treble/mids don't result in these huge swings/spikes where everything starts shaking; it's just huge, delicious amplification of my choice of pre-stages.

Honestly, I don't know how they've achieved this, but I'm genuinely stunned.

22 hours ago, ebenezer said:

Do I just leave as is, and just keep the original pots?

This in a nutshell.  

I know there's people that want things 100% original, but it's pots and cap(s).  As soon as you take them apart and repair/upgrade/change the innards you're losing originality.

Pots are one small facet in the signal chain; apart from the immense sense of wellbeing you'll get, nobody else will care in the slightest.  Trust me.

I suspect I'll pick up a Sansamp XB Driver at some point, although for the life of me I don't know why.  Brother-in-law does frequent business trips to the US, so I'll get one shipped to a colleague of his in Houston and he'll bring it back.  About half UK retail in America.

I've downsized considerably over the last few years.

Cab-wise just running a pair of Darkglass 1x12s and I have a Barefaced Big One (a 15/6) which doesn't weigh much at all.  I can run a single 1x12 or double it up.  After 35+ years in this game, you realise with every passing year that it's absolutely unnecessary to have these huge cabinets any more.

Also on the whole downsizing thing, wife got me a GSS Baby Sumo for my birthday,(today) which decreases the whole weight thing even more.

Wife got me a GSS Baby Sumo for my birthday.  It's tiny!  It's loud!  Comes in a lovely little metal flight case.  It's barely the size of two paperback books.

Just gave it a brief test with my Hamer Cruisebass into a GED2112-DI.  (We live in a detached house, neighbours away.  Chortle!)  Man alive, the clarity is incredible. 

I've jacked the Ged into a variety of amps and effects returns thereof over the years and it's never sounded like this... it's almost been a disappointment at times.  It sounds like when I've just gone straight into a mixing desk.

Lovely!

34 minutes ago, j-d said:

Nice one guys! I think probably a mini amp will be the best idea then. I never really played through an amp at home before, it was just too loud, I mess around with ambient loops, reverb/delay some distortion too. Would an 8 inch speaker be ok u think? I'd prob be using headphones most of the time but the option to use the amps speaker would be nice

 

I had an ampeg combo years ago think it was a 12 or 15 inch speaker but it was an amp that notoriously had issues on forums and I returned it as it developed the same problems

 

 

See the little amp below?  Knob on the right labelled 'MASTER'? You can rotate that and the amp will go loud or quiet.  Amazing bit of tech right there.

Interface to PC/Mac to headphones/active monitors is one way to go, yes.

End of the day, while tech has evolved in the last decade, truth is it's probably not what most of us do.  I'd wager most of us here have an amplifier of some sort set up 24/7 so they can noodle on that.

Back in the day, we were never about covers, but when we did throw in the odd one while jamming I recall Rush/Bastille Day, Police/Message In A Bottle and an instrumental I thought was based around Frank Zappa's Apostrophe' (never having listened to the original until a few minutes ago, it bears little resemblance to that, so god knows what it was).

My first proper band were just original punky material; it was all very XTC, song titles included 'Woggle Your Bunkum', 'Let's Go Disco', 'Applecham' and 'Rosie'.  Some 40+ years on, I could still play them note for note.

XTC - English Settlement 

and

XTC - Nonsuch

16 hours ago, tauzero said:

When I was looking for an extremely tall stand for a Warwick Buzzard, that was the tallest I could find (and the grabby bit disintegrated after a little while so I don't think much of them).

 

Could you fashion something that the strap would hang on with a cradle of some sort to stop the neck pivoting round the securing screw?

 

Or maybe you could just swap the EUB for an Omnibass.

I've been giving some thought about making something. I'm not doing anything today...reckon there has to be some kind of (robust) tripod stand - maybe a PA speaker stand - that'll be tall enough.

Just bought a frame strap system for my NS EUB, so I need a tall stand if some kind as my existing ones (Ultimate GS100) aren't high enough.

Realistically I need  a drop of more than 48" from the neck/headstock joint/volute.

Any ideas?

10 minutes ago, Lozz196 said:

I could probably tell my Precisions & Jazzes apart if recorded by me, then played back. Any others I don’t think I’d stand a chance. I found this out when hearing a mate play with the best ever Precision sound, was literally awesome classic punky P-bass at its best, only to find out it was a 70s maple necked Jazz. 

Go and watch the video from the Bash.  We had 15-20 basses that we put through my old rig, playing the same piece on each.  Active, passive, flats, rounds, various makes.

It was quite sobering given the - and I want to say nonsense, here (oops, I just did) - rhetoric that circulates here about tone, pickup selection, grunt, grind, ponk etc.  I'm fairly certain that many Basschat members thought identifying basses would be as easy as shooting fish in a barrel.  

If nothing, this exercise really shaped my opinion on all this nonsense (damn!) about the perception of how certain basses are supposed to sound and what they actually sounded like.  All this idiocy that just because a £120 bass looks like a Stingray, that it sounds like a Stingray.

If we get a Bash in next year, I'd love to repeat this.

With my EUB, I bought some sheets of luminous stars.  Amazon.  They work fine.

@Shockwave 

Personally, I'd source a super cheap audio interface (ie a used Focusrite Scarlet 2i2 or anything that's listed on the for sale ads here), then jack that into your laptop by USB.  It's the easiest way (and you'll be able to use it for recording/tracking in future, should the need arise); headphones into the interface or laptop.  Sorted!

While all these matchbox sized things will probably work, they'll struggle and frankly it's wasted £££.

13 hours ago, dudewheresmybass said:

Passive

Quite simply - I've never played an active bass I really really loved the tone of. Every single one has sounded artificial in some way.

Above this, I don't like J pickups. P pups where poss. lol

Could you identify a J from a P in a blind test?  Seriously, now.

I hate to keep dredging up the shootout I conducted with @cetera at one of the SE Bass bashes four or five years back.  Look on You Tube, video exists.  It was quite apparent that attendees couldn't tell a Jazz from a Precision from a Rickenbacker (and anything else for that matter).

What kit do you have available?  Head?  Laptop/PC?  Interface?

There's a few ways to facilitate what you want to achieve, but it would be useful to know what you have.

1 minute ago, lynxus69 said:

Ok, you’re right.

I’ve edited it again and hopefully now it’s all clear.

Once again sorry for any confusion 🙏🏻

Tiptop!

Picked up a frame strap system for my NS NXT5 last week.  Bass Centre is about ten minutes from me, so a walk up and catch up with Barry.

As posted previously, I really didn't like the tripod stand one but and had been looking for an alternative solution; this works very well.  Essentially two pieces of hardwood and a strap (see below); it just connects to the same hole as the tripod connector.

It takes a little fettling, but works really well.  There's three holes for a mechanical connection to the EUB (allowing for a bit of up/down adjustment) and the fixing between the two pieces allows for a fair amount of rotation to get the instrument in the optimum position and the strap can be shortened/lengthened.  It's well made, robust.

Visibility while playing is generally good, I think the only issue so far is the transition from tripod to strap and accuracy of fingering as the angles are all a bit different now.  (Maybe if I'd had the strap three years ago it would have been better.)

All in all, very pleased.  I just need to find a taller than normal stand for it to go on.  

Honestly, it might be a good idea to rework the original narrative/subject of your advert from scratch.  For the casual viewer (me and probably loads more), it doesn't really make clear reading and just gets more knotted on each read through.

Ultimately it doesn't matter whether it's alluding to be #31 in a limited run of 30 or built to the same specs as...

3 hours ago, tauzero said:

They'd have to be germanium diodes, and you'd need pretty hot pickups as they'd need to output more than 200mV which is where Ge diodes start conducting. I have in the past built an active version of this in a guitar with a transistor amplifying the signal so it was pushed to > 200mV, and then took it out again because it sounded shit.

I saw this whole concept come through on Facebook earlier today and watched a short video from a European guy who'd done the wiring to an Epiphone SG and showed the process on a Strat of some kind.  The SG (w/humbuckers) did sound quite mushy, but the Strat just sounded like it was being played hard through a clean amp (giving some clipping, which the user was able to control but rolling the pot on and off).

Naturally I wondered whether the wiring/process would convert to a bass.