Al Krow

Get IBTL 😁

A nicely balancing positive post! If you get chance to do a little recording using your expression pedal, be great to hear.

Yeah making me realise I sold my mint BB 425 for far too little! But at least it went to a mate, who continues to put it to very good use judging from his recent recordings!

Are you finding it's making a big difference? I've certainly felt that to be the case with his Slap bass course I'm working through - which my bandmates are likely to rue 😁

I've not paid for any of Scott's courses as I've found a tutor I really gel with in the shape of Mark from Talking Bass, but more than happy to keep an open mind and return to SBL when I've worked through the courses I've paid for from Mark.These are: Slap bass (3/4 through the 53 lessons) plus Walking bass and Chords both of which I stumped up for during one of Mark's periodic sales, but am yet to start on. So probably about 2025 at current rates of progress and assuming, of course that I don't end up with RSI from the Slap bass course - lol! But whether you're a fan of SBL or not, you've gotta admire the guy for not letting issues with his gloved hand get in the way of his passion for bass, and the fact he has subsequently built a £2M P/A turnover business from scratch. The fact that most of his course content is not his tells me that he is providing a lot of income and employment to other musicians and technicians. And he is making bass accessible, interesting and fresh for so many aspiring bass players. Must admit I'm more than a little envious of the online resources that are available today. I still remember the painstaking lengths to get songs transcribed using a cassette player as a youth!

Nice post, thanks, and be good to hear how you get on. The SBL courses have their admirers and detractors aplenty, but the ArtistWorks are less well known, so it will be particularly useful to get your thoughts on that one. How much did the NE course set you back price-wise?

@LukeFRC...now what T shirt suggestions do you have for this good gentleman? 😁 PS great post earlier!

Close but no cigar - it needs to be a "Humbucker" t-shirt featuring a P pup, not called a "P-style pup" t-shirt, that's far too common usage by everyone on the planet.

The key is to remember that the extra string is primarily there as a thumb rest to avoid that ugly thumb wear you often see next to pups on basses. Surely it depends on what the question was? For example, if the question was: "what sort of bass did Al Krow buy after his previous 5 string?" that would be a perfectly good answer.

Yeah I definitely should have got myself one of those, although I might likely have made a spector of myself. I got one of these instead: Now I've gotta find myself a Humbucker t-shirt with just a P pup on it...proving surprisingly elusive for some reason.

Sadly my experience too - that YT clip paints a very rosy picture of the SYB-5 which I found to be quite glitchy. I guess having been out since 2004 it was always going to struggle when going head to head with the superb tracking of its successor the Boss SY-1.

Thanks, but been there, done that and got the t-shirt 😉 However, one for you?

Not disputing that P pups are often hum cancelling and, indeed, some J pups are too. But "Humbuckers" in common parlance IMO are usually thought of as describing the soap bar variety shown below. And a P pup is generally referred to as a P pup (or reverse-P as appropriate) to denote its configuration and not as a "Humbucker". That's all 😉

Had a quick and really helpful response from Barnes & Mullins on the Euro Classic: "The Suggested Retail Price on the Spector Euro Classic 5 is £2459.00 and the delivery time at present is likely to be between 60 – 90 days. There does appear to be a typo on the Spector Website as it is only available in the J / J configuration." They also mentioned that they are a wholesale distributor so would not be able to supply us directly and to go via stores such as https://www.bassdirect.co.uk/bass_guitar_specialists/Home.html or https://www.andertons.co.uk/ Well that's definitely put the P/J typo to bed! PS Mark at BD has also now kindly replied and mentioned that they are offering 10% off RRP.

PPS Gav - have you previously owned a Spector? If not, I can certainly recommend worth checking one out!

PS @krispn a P pup can be a hum-cancelling in how it's coiled, agreed. But I've only known one person to refer to a P pup as a "humbucker", whereas the rest of us know and understand what we mean when we are referring to a classic dual coil humbucker vs a P or reverse P, in commonly understood bass parlance! 😁

Yup understood - I had the Yammy set on solo P (as I mentioned in my post above) and agreed that P+J definitely has a different tonal flavour.

I've actually only got one bass with a PJ config which is my Yamaha BB1025 and it's purely passive. Just been A/Bing them: I can get decently close to the "sweetness" of the solo P on the Yammy, with the Spector set with solo neck J on max with a bit of bridge J blended in (it's actually at 8/10 setting on the bridge, but that's because the blend only really kicks in at 7/10 to impact the tone of the other pup). So, yes, it's decently close and probably not worth getting another bass on that basis - but I'd very be interested in getting @Paulhauser and @cetera's take on this too.

Cheers for that. I'm going to pass on the Classic if it's JJ as I'm finding that the single / double coil + blend on my twin humbucker Euro 5LX is providing me with a superb range of usable tones, as well as just being a beautifully thought through design. I get a JJ option in that already when setting both pups to single coil (and they are very crisp and precise in that mode). I think my better route is get a vgc used Euro 5LX and swap out the neck pup for a P if needed. Wanted ad is already up! 😊

Haha, I think you mean it's very very full, in fact as full as full can be, but you're not selling! 😎

Phew, it's missing a thumb-rest string 😁

Aha! Or you could just get an HX Effects...😁 But more seriously: if cost is a factor, then the other thing to weigh in the mix is the QC will be developing its software portfolio of patches and ironing out wrinkles over the next 12 to 18 months and prices are unlikely to increase following release. Helix was launched on 11 June 2015 - nearly 6 years back, so the product is now becoming very well refined, even if the hardware is starting to show its age in terms of the DSP being made available by the competition e.g. the Hotone at the Stomp price point and the QC well above it. But an itch is an itch!

Did you ever consider getting the HX Effects, Jim?

Woody - there are plenty of UK manufacturers who provide great after sales service e.g. Chris at Smoothhound. Thomann are excellent no question, but I've not had any issues with any of the UK online sellers I've used over the years (Andertons, GuitarGuitar, PMT, G4M etc). In fact, the only one I know where we have both had a poor experience was Bax. Long gone are the days when if you bought a British Leyland or a Jag you would be expecting the wheels to be coming off.

Jim - the Hotone is not going to be in the same league as the Quad Cortex, but it is going to be much friendlier on the wallet! I'm keeping my eye on developments on their new offering, which might be of interest to you also given our shared admiration for Zoom multifxs.