Al Krow

Completely understandable! And hopefully Andertons will finally be stocking the SY-1s when you're done being a computer programmer and ready to sell your C4 (ask Kev...), although you never know, it might just be the explosive pedal you've always been after! 💣

How would getting a set of replacement knobs be considered for your 2020 abstinence thread? And what if they happened to be attached to a Helix Floor?

I somehow managed to avoid getting a rather luverly Shuker in the FS as a birthday treat and a couple of Boss pedals that I had my eye on have turned out to be either eye-wateringly expensive or a bit flawed in concept...so looks like my best of 2019 is going to remain in place and possibly continue well into 2020 too, if I make any progress with Mr Bfan's hairshirt thread with my fellow Bass (chip)Monks...

@Teebs - the Yammy does look good, but why did they go for a non matching black headstock on the "3" series?!! That seems to me to be the sort of superficial cosmetic point that the OP is keen to have pointed out, as tone is not important for him as long as it sounds like a bass.

I've gone Stomp --> HX Effects Previously a big fan of Zoom multifxs (had the MS-60B, B3N and currently still have the B1X-4). The processing power and resultant quality of effects on the Helix are a step up from the Zoom gear, but they are also a step up in price! I find the form factor with the additional footswitches and the ability to have a bank of patches on display simultaneously, a big plus on the HX Effects as I don't need to remember the precise order of a load of patches which I did on the Stomp - I find it hard enough to have 2 hours of set material in my head for a gig! 😁 I'm happy with my amp and cab so not particularly missing the amp & cab sims on the Stomp and I'm fortunate in that my amp also provides a choice of cab sims should I want to DI out, although frankly I'm not sure how much of difference cab sims will make in the mix through a PA with the rest of vocals and instrumentation running through. I'm mostly going to be using for EQ, hpf, drive, octave and delay / chorus.

The Yamaha BBs are very comfortable to 'wear' and play. Aesthetics are entirely a matter of personal taste. In terms of personal wow factor from my own basses: I love the Spector Euro LX neck through form; I regularly get unsolicited compliments about my Ibby SR. Others will gush over a Fender body shape or an Alembic etc. etc. You won't always be new.

...finally found a (pretty big!) use for the solo'd J pup Had a slightly weird week trying to work out why my BB 1025 wasn't cutting through at rehearsal on the low B string on the D and C notes on e.g. Uptown Funk, which we were doing for the first time yesterday. Ended up taking my Ibby to the gig last night and had comments from bandmates along the lines of the "your bass line sounded great on Uptown Funk" and "whatever pedal setting you were using to fill out the sound please continue". Obviously, not being bass players, they didn't notice what bass I had or even that there was no pedal board in sight! 😂 The only thing that had changed was the bass - I'd gone from PJ to a JJ (with different pups). Was wondering whether it was possibly down to old strings, but actually they don't sound 'dead' - just played in, or whether I'd got the amp on wrong active / passive switch setting, or was it simply down to the pup height at the low end. Investigated further today and checked out all the above. Turns out that the Yammy can sound just great on the low B notes and will cut through...using the solo'd bridge J pup. Never thought I'd find a situation where I was going to prefer the Yammy J over the P or PJ. Well I just have - it's now going to be my default on anything requiring a meaty full throat low B and E string, and I've gone from 😒 to 😊 in the course of the week. Kinda makes sense - the P is all about that 'P mid-bump' and P basses were all originally 4 string so perhaps inherently less focused on the low B string? The other key point for the J pup is if you ever need to thumb slap (e.g. on Uptown Funk!) you'll get speaker pop from the P or PJ, given that the thumb is coming down pretty close to the P pup, whereas I don't find that to be the case with the J. Two years in (okay I'm a slow learner) I'm still finding out great things about the versatility of this bass. Any of you guys also using the solo'd J in any of your numbers?

Thanks for that @AlphaK. Yup I'm sure @Jack's thoughts would be of interest to a bunch of us on this thread!

Not at all! Can't meaningfully report on performance yet...story so far is that I managed to get 10% off on an eBay promotion but when the cab arrived there was a slight scuff to one of the corners and no damage to the packaging, so clearly happened in store. The store managed to mislay my email to them reporting this to them and only responded (genuinely apologetically by phone) when I had escalated this with eBay which brought this to their attention. They then more than made good by offering me £50 worth of kit from the store by way of compensation and I've treated the band to a connecting pole between the sub and top as part of this. That's taken a few weeks to sort and the sub was left in the box in case it needed to be returned. So I've ended up with, in effect, a B stock RCF sub for £575, so I really can't complain. And at 39 lbs the weight is just about comfortable, so I'm not sure I would have managed the Alto. I'm only going to be bothering with the full set up with sub at function gigs where there is no in house PA i.e. not for pub gigs. Our first such outing is going to be NYE and a 21st birthday party later that week, so I can let you know we get on, with pleasure, following that.

Damn! I wasn't even aware that Chowny were making a gorgeous neck-through 5 string, until your post. I thought this thread was about avoiding 2020 purchases? But I can't now un-know that fact and they look awesome! 3 band EQ, active / passive options, Aguilar humbuckers. @Chownybass if you ever decide to make a 'deluxe' model in a more traditional 34" or 35" scale version with the ability to switch the humbuckers into single coil mode, for delivery of a more aggressive J bass tone when desired, please keep that a secret (certainly from the participants of this thread) until 2021...

Really delighted for you, buddy! Looking forward to your monthly columns with interest.

Oh my a programmable SY-1, with a superb feature set!! And from the reviews I've seen, this is very much aimed at both guitar and bass markets. @Woodinblack - you are costing me an absolute fortune this year! On the plus side you've just sorted my Xmas pressie out! (And my third attempt at Panda FI ownership may well now be short lived...) Edit: I may have spoken too soon, apparently you need special connectivity to get the most of this, rather than normal pickups, and a budget of more than £800 for one of these. Looks like my FI is going to survive to another day!

At least with your new effects box of tricks you won't be stomping around 😉

Ah good to know! If you have some spare cash burning a hole in your pocket, then I'd be delighted to introduce you to a pedal or two also currently feeling a bit spare on my board. (Obviously please check any purchases with your accountant, first - I just hope he knows his Paradriver from his back seat driver).

When I'm capable of laying down a Jamiroquai bass line fluently, I'll get back to you on this...probably about the same time as you get your Boss SY-1 pedal in 2021 and we can compare notes. 😁

Do I need effects? Nope, absolutely not. Bass --> amp & cab works absolutely fine. You really don't need anything in between (other than a tuner). Pedals don't make you a better bass player, but they can add delicious colour and variety to our sound and provide a heap of creative sonic fun.

Defn - from the krap-Krow book of bass, and trying to keep it relevant: A quality bass rig = one that a competent BCer on the Clapham pub circuit would consider to be something that he or she would be happy to use in a band mix for gigging. In my case (not making any particular assertions on my level of competency!) I could easily put together such a rig for a fraction of £6,000. I suspect most of us could.

Wasn't quite expecting this from Eric Burdon, it's quite a departure from the 1964 original version, but I think it's great and defo deserves an honorary mention on this thread!

Mistress? Lucky you! They are a very expensive hobby though (YMMV). I guess I'm starting to better understand the cost saving motivation for this thread! Anyway back to kettle leads for me...

Should that be a 'Master & Mistress List' to be compatible with Equal Opportunities?

+1 for HPF to improve speaker efficiency by eliminating the low end sonic crud. @mcnach - now that you are making use of an HPF (on your Mesa D800+ ?) are you finding one BB2 mostly does the job or are you still doubling up with a second BB2 for the majority of your gigs? The other point about the LM2/3's to be aware of is the less than ideal EQ centre points e.g. bass EQ centred at 40Hz, rather than a generally more preferred 65Hz to 80Hz and a huge gap between the high mids and treble centre points - something which has been fully addressed on the newer MB models.

Actually really liked that! More than a passing John Lennon resemblance with the shades. I once sported a similarly slender waist line, but there has since been the odd few million calories consumed and not quite so many of them burned off in my case... Yes please do!

Oooh I really like the look of that kettle lead that comes with the free Mesa WD-800...

Soz buddy. Per Article 5B of the Book of Sibob, bass cases don't seem to qualify as not 'new gear'. Be a shame to get disqualified on a technicality, right?