Al Krow

Maybe, but the Courts have often taken a less benign (more realistic?) view! I guess most recently with Blurred Lines to the tune of $5.3M. Interestingly for me, as with the Bon Jovi / Stones, it was an iconic bass line that went to the heart of it. Bass-players - we matter!

Sounds like a faulty piece of kit? You should hopefully be able to get a replacement or full refund.

Been listening to the bass line on Sympathy for the Devil (Stones) and it completely reminded me of a track we used to play by Bon Jovi...well turns out that I was closer to the truth than I had realised! What else have you guys come across where 'new original' songs have paid tribute to, been based on or simply ripped off another? And which did you prefer?

If you know clearly your path to happiness and it is one that avoids cannons, then who am I to argue?

Hmmm, that's kinda like me agreeing not to buy any tape cassettes... 😄

Right 'nuff banter. Time to go gig. Enjoy your Saturday evening boys, whatever you're up to!

I'll pass your details on to him.

The quality of humour clearly is sometimes strained. Although, like mercy, it is also twice blest, particularly for those of us subject to it. Your avatar is now the bass you no longer miss? What gives?!

Lol - just been dealing with a completely arrogant / lying guitarist (on Gumtree) who wants to audition for a dep role with the function band I'm in. Has put me in a very sarky frame (hence my responses to krsipn!). "I have played in a functions band in the past yes. They didn't have a name but they were excellent and very professional." "Ron - thanks very much, but all the applicants we are going forward with have provided YouTube clips of function bands they have played with and all the function bands had names! Without such examples I'm afraid we can't consider your application further. Thank you very much for your application and I wish you all the best with your professional musical career. Al" "It's your decision but it's a bad decision. I know for a fact that I have the best guitar sound and skills for your band and just because I'm not showing you a video of a fuction band that I was in, you are penalizing me for this, which is very childish, unfair and arrogant as you clearly think your band is one of the best which it is not. You only have one gig per month lol I'm the best candidate and You want the best guitarist candidate right? Why would you let me, the best guitarist go just because of one video. That's honestly really pathetic. Just from the way you've handled this, I am now completely refusing my services to you." Ron - thank you, that was helpful and very insightful. My life has, indeed, been full of bad decisions and this decision to choose other guitarists to audition is clearly just another example of me messing up my life and that of my band-mates. I will one day learn. But maybe it will be too late by then for me to recover from the many mistakes I have made? Who knows? You do sound really amazing and you are right, you are most likely much too good for us as a band which only has one gig per month lol. I promise therefore not to waste the time of someone so talented as you going forward, and I am sure you will find a much better band than us very soon, given that you are the 'best guitarist' we could possibly have hoped for. You are completely correct to refuse your services to us.

Also be interesting to know... how many gave up pedal boards altogether because the tonal variety was way too exciting for them? or how many took up bass because 6 strings was just two too many? ...but then felt intense string loss and went back up to 5ers?

12 in the UK 87 in the US none in Thailand

@dave_bass5 You do realise the answer is a bigger board and then you could go from 'either or' to 'both and'!! But you'll probably just end up buying more pedals, so scrap that thought! .... 😂

Simple answer on frequency (and this obvs is just for me) - very rarely mid song. Between songs more often and remember with a function or even pub set you want to keep any "dead-air" time to a min, so having EQ on the bass is helpful. The other really useful time IMO is being able to adjust EQ away from the backline and when standing closer to the audience - very much easier to do that on the fly from the bass rather than having to walk back and forth to the amp.

Ah I thought I had explained (albeit briefly!)...let me restate with some examples: It's all about the mids (isn't it?) - so I will typically boost the mids to make sure I am 'punching through' the mix; but some songs need you to be 'sitting back' a bit more with less punchy mids; I will on occasion cut the bass to eliminate boominess, but it's sometimes good to also be able to boost it a touch particularly if I am using drive where the low end seems to be being lost; I will dial down the treble on occasion for a more vintage sound (and then dial back up when not required). But I typically play my basses actively rather than passively (which I believe is what you mostly do) so having a 3 band EQ is something I find useful. It's probably very fair to say you could do all the above on your amp if you have a decent EQ on that and in theory just have a volume knob on your bass... but being able to adjust on the fly on your bass is a lot 'handier' and more seamless in terms of not turning your back on the band and audience. And fortunately ALL my active basses offer 3 bands "as standard" (Ibanez, Yamaha, Schecter), so indeed I don't need to settle for less! Shiny knobs are always good, for sure, and there plenty I don't adjust once they have been set, but the ones on my bass pre-amp I do like the flexibility to be able to adjust on the fly.

It's all about the mids (and cutting the bass) and dialling down the treble if the song needs something more vintage. The mids is what is missing from most 2 band bass EQs. The point is if I want and can have a 3 band EQ on my bass and I find it useful, why should I even need to think about settling for less?

@LukeFRC thanks for sharing that, lots of wisdom there!' So what is the new bass you have that has 'blown away' your Warwick Thumb?

With EQ the ability to tweak on the fly is really nice to have and having dials, firstly on the bass itself, then an amp or a EQ pedal (in that order) would be my preference... I'm really only suggesting an EQ pedal as semi-parametric mids are not that common on 'standard' bass pre-amps and if they're a must have for the OP then a pedal could be used across his entire herd. The lack of easy tweaking of the Stomp 'on the fly' for EQ purposes is likely to mean it doesn't get used for EQ adjustment by me, but I'm sure plenty of other folk will.

How about this: or perhaps... Should do the same job as, or likely a lot better than, an onboard preamp in terms of delivering semi-para mids. A pedal will require less 'invasive' surgery to your bass for which you're likely to see no return on your coin if you move your Schecter on with an uprated EQ, whereas at least you'll be able to sell the pedal on for a fair price (and at little loss if you can secure one used) and, in the meantime you can also use with all your other basses current and future! Hmmm... thinking there's a lesson in that for me too! 😁

Exactly correct Cam. Combination of that plus finding the Delanos a little too civilised after I'd 'tasted' Nordstrand big singles and Warwick MECs. It was otherwise a really excellent bass.

PS to put some colour on my cheeky comment above, two things: a) the Zoom B3n is probably the best value multifx on the market today bar none. It's a brilliant piece of kit for the money. b) But I never really rated its octave capability and have used a dedicated octave pedal down and up (in my case the Valeton OC-10 and Digitech Mosaic respectively). Better, tighter tracking and less glitchy than the B3N.

Yup that is indeed a complete failure: You're still gonna need an octave pedal 😂

A bit like the ex you stopped seeing a while back 'cos you've got someone newer and 'shinier' in your life? 😄

Well it's kinda interesting - you know what they say: "no such thing as bad publicity". Never really thought about Shuker basses much before this thread and now they're definitely on my radar!

Good stuff! The power rating on the TF amps has always been a bit of a bug bear and a number of users (on Talkbass in particular) have felt it is underpowered. The 1K is rated at 1,000 peak and therefore probably around 500W to 600W RMS, and I presume the .5k at half that. If the smaller one suffices for you, there's one going in the FS which I think has already been mentioned.

@Finbar welcome back! Not sure why you get a volume jump on your DG M900 when engaging dirt? It's pretty easy to balance using the drive level in my experience.