NancyJohnson

I like looking at photos of basses as much as the next person; I did a quick count a few days ago and the ratio of basses was something like 7:1 in favour of Fender shapes. You're a Precision-lad; you can get a fix of all those one trick ponies in their own area! 😘

Given the amount of Precisions, Jazzes and Fenderesque basses in the sale area, is it time to consider splitting the bass area into two areas; all 'Fender style' and everything else? Likewise amplifiers. Split into heads, enclosures, everything else (combos, rigs).

Phoenix. French indie.

Please quantify 'vintage 60s/70s sound'. What tone are you actually chasing? Ponk? Clank? Mwaaaaah? You have to realise that Fender were never so hot or consistent with how they wound pickups and remember this is a company that signed off on putting Stratocaster pickups in Musicmaster/Mustang basses as they had a huge surplus of them. As I've posted elsewhere, it's really not worth 'upgrading' unless the pickups are dead or have failed. It's just one facet in the signal chain. Save your money.

The answer is always black, irrespective of the question.

When I was in New Yawk a few years ago (2015), I saw Corey Glover and dUg Pinnick at The Cutting Room. Odd one, we bought VIP seating online from here and only had email confirmations of the booking. Late afternoon, we were making our way back to the hotel and called at the venue to get our tickets, spoke to the guy who owned the place, had a beer with him; he was knocked out that we had come from the UK. Anyhow, cutting to the chase, we were there for the load-in and we got invited into the venue itself (lovely). Saw dUg's rig (the head, cabinets), there was a guy from Tech21 there and we had a chat. It was surprising that at the time they had no real distribution here; he was saying they generally supplied the heavy stuff (read that as the DP head, Landmark gear etc.) on an ad-hoc basis and they usually tried to combine shipping to Europe within pallets of bicycles and spare parts thereof , in an effort to keep costs down.

I'm finally clear of all band stuff/recording commitments, so looking for something new at some point. Original material only, quirky/alternative/punky. See video below. PM if interested.

Detune. Snip snip snip snip. Unravel. =Sum(Rip+Measure+Snip+Install)*4 (or 5) Tune. Play. Recycle. Repeat.

My brother in law has just taken up a position that takes him to Houston once a month. I may take him up on the offer of, 'If you need anything, let me know...'

I've got John's circuits in three or four of my basses...the three knob Uni-pre. They're decent units. It can be a bit of a squeeze to get everything in, plus a battery, and in smaller cavities it's not pretty, but it's worth the effort.

Blimey. I'd forgotten about that!

Good choice. There's a Dynamic Library plug-in that is really useful - it might only be compatible with the heritage versions.

Band On The Run (Underdubbed) dropped today. Listening in bed.

My first bass was one of these beauties, an Arbiter shortscale SG/EB3 style thing in creme. 40+ years ago. I have no pictorial evidence, I'm afraid, and I have no memory of where it came from. Distinct memory of it having shiny flatwound strings until the G-string went and I bought a roundwound for it - I didn't know better. That string was so zingy I played it exclusively for a while. [It] got sold to a hippie guy I was at school with; I remember he came to our house with an older brother, who noodled on it while sitting on the stairs without plugging it into anything. £35.00 changed hands and off it went. I did see it occasionally after this. Beyond that, I have no idea where it went. Interestingly, I remember picks being in short supply and the guy who bought it used to use a green figure of 8 toy-soldier base as a plectrum. Odd what you remember.

Last year, we had a brief rehearsal and video shoot in The Engine Rooms in Bow. In the main room (where we did the shoot), they'd just piled in backline to make us look big rawk and there was an SWR Workingman's 8004 going into an 8x10 (the photo below is off their website, ignore the thing sitting on top of the 8004). I just plugged in without any talent boosters and had a noodle. Quite stunned at how good it sounded, little bit of grunt/dirt, scooped mids. Quite lovely really.

We used Teddy Bears Picnic.

I watched the Anderton video where they were on the Sire stand and to be honest the only thing I got a bit moist over was the matte black Larry Carlton L3, I've already enquired whether (if I bought one) they could get me a tortoiseshell scratchplate (which Sire do on the goldtop version. £349.00. It's perfect.

It's odd how moist people get over some new finishes. Where's the innovation? Where's the new designs? Much as I detest Fender, at least they gave it a go with munters like the Dimension or the Meteora.

People! (Deep breath) We really need to move away from the thought that just because something looks similar to something else that it's going to deliver something similar to what it pertains to be. [Sorry deep EDIT here: I've seen too many posts here and elsewhere where someone buys a Harley Benton Stingray clone or a Chickenbacker and goes, 'Yeah it really growls like a Stingray' or 'It clanks just like the real thing.' These remarks just seem to be some kind of affirmation by the buyer of a bass costing 10% that of the original that it apes, is somehow vindicated. I will continue to cite the blind test at one of the SE Bass Bashes, which kind of proved that a) people don't know what basses sound like at all and b) people couldn't identify their own bass from anyone elses.] Voice of reason here. Again. I'd argue 'til the cows come home that tone is subjective ('all basses sound more or less the same and nobody aside from you gives a rats as to what you sound like'), more to the point tone is about synergy; the interaction of all the component parts, from your fingers/pick, the strings, pickups, wiring loom and cap, lead, stomps, pre-amps, power amps, speakers and your ears. Apart from saying the stock pickup leaves you a bit flat, you're not really saying why. What do you want a replacement to do for you that the original doesn't? I'm genuinely interested (see elsewhere), having swapped out a fair few pickups in my time and finding that a non-badged pickup from an old Strat' copy sounds virtually the same as the Mike Lull hand-wounds on a £5K bass. I'm very much of the view that it's not worth changing anything on a whim; you'll have a perceived opinion of how much better the pickup sounds (which will be a direct correlation to how much you paid).

I've investigated smaller stuff previously, so am familiar with (for instance) GSS and Demeter kit; I'm currently running a Darkglass A/O 900, all in all small and compact-ish. With such a plethora of stomps out there, my main point is/was that you let your XB Driver shape everything and just let a poweramp drive the output from that. I'm not particularly fussed about arguments pertaining to amps colouring the stomp tone; I would always defer to plugging into the effects return on an amp to bypass any pre-stage shaping and tone. It would be dreamy to just have a simple signal path; XB Driver > similar sized class D poweramp.

Curiosity piqued by the new Sansamp XB Driver pedal, while I'm not on the market for new kit in my head I'm silently thinking how I could integrate this into a usable setup. Last year the guitarist in the band I was playing in had one set up where everything was on a largeish Pedaltrain board; ampwise he was running one of the Victory V4 things and I was kind of intrigued at how portable it all was. This got me wondering about how dreamy it would be to run <insert stomp here> into a no frills class-D amp with just a big ol' volume control on the top of it. Checked several sites, there really doesn't seem to be anything aside from the Seymour Duncan Powerstage. Are manufacturers missing something here?

I just watched this presentation through some decent speakers. The 'effing brutal' setting is about what the Darkglass A/O spiel might describe as 'picking daisies with your loved one, tra-la-la'. Not really that brutal at all, it's more like the entry point for them.

I have little GAS desire or a need for more basses, but there's always going to be the odd thing that is so out of reach they're rarely going to come up for sale. The good thing is that I actually have funds to pretty much scratch any potential itch. Anyhow, these: #1 Mike Lull NR Thunderbird (JAX edition, oversized/chambered body). This is still out there somewhere. I know it sold for about $2K in 2018. It was commissioned by Branden Campbell of Neon Trees. #2 Hamer B12A, commonly described as the Jeff Ament specification: #3 Kubicki Ex-Factor. One of the early ones, not the Fender models. I was offered one of the last handful that Phil made and turned it down. It was ridiculously cheap EDIT#1 (possibly the first of a few) #4 Now while I wouldn't necessarily pull the trigger on another Rickenbacker, I would consider a Rickenbacker Blackstar. 200 globally. Another one that got away. Had the opportunity to pick one up for £900.00 a few years back, now maybe five times that if you could find one. EDIT#2 #5 MusicMan Bongo Stealth 5HH. I had a 5HH in Desert Gold a few years back. God it was lovely, but I never really tamed the thing; pre-amp was waaaay too hot, you'd start a session and it would sound great, but then you'd keep notching it up and up, three hours later it would sound like mush. Fantastic design and playability.