Al Krow

TonePump: Bass EQ at 55 to 70 Hz. Treble at 5kHz to 6.5KHz. Those are two very sensible / useful EQ centre points. Compare that with: Glockenlang 3 band EQ which has centre points: bass 40Hz (a touch low, but ok), mids 550Hz (ok) and treble at 18 kHz - so above most peoples' hearing range! Why on earth bother?! That one's getting dropped from my list (not that I'm thinking of replacing my TonePump on my Spector anyway!) Aguilar OBP3: bass 40Hz, mids at 400Hz or 800Hz and treble 6.5 kHz - much more similar in approach to the TonePump The best in terms of on board EQ control, however, seems to be John East's kit.

And also because numerous detailed studies have shown that it has negligible impact on your signal chain, unless placed over your 1/4" jacks.

There have gotta be some perks of being a mod, even if it means you're not a rocker.

Loved the post modern jukebox censor's edit you've just put through to my post! 😂

Oh deary, dear Douglas have you just revealed to all how to make a Richard of (aka to get around) the profanity filter?! Well that's very rebellious of you. You're defo an honorary punk 😁

Nope this was fast rock n roll...😉 (hope you enjoyed the drumming Douglas)

I thought her point at [1.50] was interesting though. If I've understood correctly the volume knob is post TonePump and therefore if you're getting an overly hot signal with lost definition coming out of the TonePump, then by reducing the volume you're just scaling back the output but not restoring the definition. Lowering the pups as you suggest should work just fine, however, as this is a pre TonePump volume adjustment and akin to dialling back the TonePump. She also mentioned [0.23] that the pre 2008 TonePumps don't have a trim pot.

I would normally completely accept such a gracious apology, no questions asked. But seriously! Apologising on a punk thread. WTF? 😁

It's in our set - got requested for a wedding! But we're lucky to have a top notch drummer. (Not saying you aren't Douglas, or maybe I should as this is a punk thread...😁)

But that's the point isn't it? For me, punk = rebellion against the 15 min prog rock tracks that the 70's gen, at the time, felt was stifling music. It was raw, simple, energetic and powerful. And if the Ramones (quite rightly as the founders of punk) qualify, why not Boomtown Rats, Green Day etc? Ok some punk bands were musically more talented than others. But that's true of all rock. If this isn't a brilliant melodic punk riff and drum line, what the heck is it?!

You're one up on me with MXR M82s then. Tried to love it second time around and just couldn't. Too brittle / harsh. Guess I'm going to be stuck with my Proton Mk4 for a while...

And the Ramones? Do they pass or fail the "SteveXFR it's really punk" test? 😉

Any of you BC'ers got a Rebop? Comments I've seen seem to be that suffers from neck dive but tonally pretty good / comparable to the Euro. Fair summary?

Nice little summary [1.45] output curves showing how beneficial dialling back the Tone Pump can be.

Not sure that's right. Anything over here in the same creative league as Green Day? This thread has got me learning my first new punk bass line in a while today: Adolsecents No Friends - kinda appropriate title for lock-down! And picking up on the posts above, remove the bass line and you lose a lot.

What makes for a truly great bass? I'd say let Ned Steinberger anywhere near the design. And Ken Smith wasn't too shabby either!

Ok thanks - so getting back up to the cost of the HB with a set of tuners. I was very pleasantly surprised that a UK manufacturer could compete with HB's offshore production costs. I think, knowing me, getting the HB used and swapping out a preamp and a pup sounds like the least hassle route! It's currently in competition with a 5er version of @mcnach's Schecter Model T Session which would be £100 more than a souped up HB, but seems to be very "good to go" straight out of the box and stacks up well against his VM4 from what he's said. I appreciate it's a P/J rather than a reverse-P/MM, but will be in the same ball park. @krispn Sandberg was bought new, before I discovered the joys of buying used and just priced at the going rate when I sold it a couple of years back. But prices of both new and used have gone up since then on a lot of bass gear. But hey that was just my contribution to BD and no worse than my missus' collection of parking tickets over the years. I wonder how much the price movements upwards have just been a function of £ falling post 2016? £ is not too far off where it was a few years' back though now so we might see non-UK basses (which is most of them!) falling in price again, fingers crossed!

With the same quality of woods (Alder) neck (Maple) and fretboard as the HB? Tuners included? I'm thinking that the additional effort re finishing it off will be a fair bit of work, which I know you would love to do and are geared up, but I suspect me much less so!

Agreed with all that! And in terms of "pimping a bass" it's gotta be safer / make more sense to start with something budget, right? The only fly in the ointment is the weight of the HB model I'm after. Thomann were historically superb at returns - and that would be the one issue I would return it for, but I understand it's a bit of mare arranging that currently to / from the EU? And for some reason, stores are IME pretty poor at actually providing you with an accurate weight estimate for their basses (well certainly Andertons and PMT in my experience) - probably because the warehouse is in different location to the sales team. But I'll drop them a line and see if they can let me know what the models they have for shipping are weighing in at.

Thanks for that - so you had the same model but in the 4 string version. Do you recall how much it weighed and how well it balanced / much neck dive?

Cheers - that's really useful feedback. It's actually more a reverse-P plus (MM (or J) itch in a 5er for me. There aren't too many around in that config and the HB is offering one in a relatively budget package in the same body shape as the Berg VM5. My Sandberg itch actually got very well scratched a while back - I had one as my goto gigging for several years, so I'm familiar with their (very good) build qualities and also the aspects that don't quite float my boat. Which HB model did you have? They seem to go from really really budget, to just budget so I'm guessing there will be a range of quality and finish even in the HB range. Interestingly the HB MP5-EB's I understand are put together in Indonesia, which most folk would consider to be a more upmarket bass manufacturing location than their main manufacturing base in China

I think there's a broader message in your first point Mark which is modding (as opposed to refi'ing) a bass very rarely increases the value. Maybe some parallels with house refurb work in that a lick of paint is known to give you max bang for your buck in terms of value-add. Point here is if you start with a £300 HB chassis (delivered to your door) and need to spend £350 on electronics (Black labels plus Glock 3 band preamp) to get a P/MM that you really like - you've forked out £650 on a new bass. Used VM5 Bergs seem to be going for north of £1k these days (the ones in the FS are on at £1,200 after being reduced). If you want to swap out the pups e.g. to put some Black labels in to get a (used) bass, which hopefully you'd still really like, but now costing £1,200+ If you're just in it to make money then get yourself a Wal and put it away in a hard case in a humidity controlled room. (I personally wouldn't recommend Bitcoin 'coz (a) it's a Ponzi scheme and (b) I don't have a spare $1.5 billion knocking around that I wouldn't notice if it went missing...) If you want value for money on a bass you're going to play, then @TheLowDown has asked exactly the right question IMO. Interestingly, @Doddy in this case I wouldn't feel I would be settling for less, because I would have got the bass I was after for half the price; and we're into USA Fender vs MIM Fender and Yamaha BB2034/5 vs BB1024/5 discussion territory. What is going to be the deal breaker for me is if the HB is much above 10 lbs, which it could well be. A real shame.

Very nicely put.

Ah ok - that subtlety had completely eluded me, so I'm very glad you've pointed that out! So how does the Schecter Model T in that clip differ from yours which is the "Session" version? Google searches seem to all point to Schecter Model T Session if you put in Schecter Model T, which doesn't help clarify!

A little something for the weekend for our resident King's X & Tech 21 DP-3X fan, showing off your bass mcnach.