Osiris

Look away (Big Country)

That's a cracking review @Bassdude BE 👍

I've just received a power supply from Gareth and everything was great, the unit was as described and was posted off quickly, he also kept me informed along the way. You can't really ask for more than tat as a buyer. Cheers, Gareth

Interesting. I have the Magellan 800 and have gigged it many times and never found it lacked anything. Most of my gigs are pub & club type so they're loud but not deafening. I only played one gig where I really had to push it, a large hall for a wedding in a room that just seemed to absorb the bass frequencies, but the louder the Magellan went the bigger and fatter it sounded. I favour a flat-ish bass sound with no major cuts or boosts across the frequency range. The lows are big and deep without being subby or booming, the mids thick and the highs defined without getting brittle. My cab is a Tecamp M212, a 600 watt neo 2x12 cab which will throw out what you put into it. I don't use any effects either, other than some multi-band compression. They're just a great match and I can't see any reason to change this rig. But obviously what works for me doesn't work for everyone. For balance, by far the biggest turd of an amp I have ever used was the Trace Elliot SMX. I think they're class A/B or whatever, I don't know nor do I particularly care other than to avoid another one like it at all costs. To say it was gutless would be a compliment. It was a one trick pony, but that pony had been sent to the knackers yard decades before. I bought one new in the early 90's a 1x15 combo with the matching 1x15 cab. At the time I was still relatively new to bass and the Trace was the rig to be seem with. As I matured and began to understand what I wanted from an amp I came to realise that the Trace could not deliver it. It was all highs and nothing else. With a 12 band EQ, a valve pre, and a million other bells and whistles you'd have thought you would have just about every sound you ever wanted, but no, it just wanted to make me sound like Mark King using some 15 year old kids mobile as backline. It was just a thin clank. No depth, no mids, just a a ton of treble. A breath takingly awful amp. They seemed to be the holy grail of bass amps for a lot of folks. Ah well, each to their own. Just a thought @alexa3020 how do you have your current amp EQ'd? Are you scooping all the mids out? If you are, I suspect this may be part of your problem. I see and hear a lot of guys scooping the mids out, and yes, it does sound good. But quite often, depending on what other instruments you are playing with, the frequencies you are cutting are the ones that you need for the bass to fit into the mix. Yes, the bass sound isn't as sexy as with a big scoop, but the bass works better in the mix with those mids present.

Just had an easy transaction with the lovely @Raymondo who bought a bass from me. He turned up when he said he would and paid promptly in cash. We then retired to the pub and spent a few hours chewing the fat and being daft. Ray is another Basschat legend and I can't recommend him highly enough.

Cheers @Raymondo it was a pleasure!

Yes, the shorty is the TMB30, everything else is a 34" scale, as far as I know. I love mine, it's one of my favourite basses ever even though it looks like a melted Mr Men character.

John recently bought a case from me and it was a doddle from start to finish, he paid instantly and was friendly in his comms. There's not more you can ask for as a seller!

Yes, unfortunately they're not as light as feather as the Mikro is, as you say they are much more chunky. The neck too is very un-Ibanez like with a more Precision-esque profile. So there's a lot more wood overall which, obviously, adds to the weight. But I don't think of mine as being excessively or unplayably (is that a word?) heavy. See if you can get your hand on one, pick it up and try it on a strap to see if you think you could live with it.

I don't know the exact weight of my Talman but it's not light. I also have a Mikro, the 4 string version (Shameless sales plug - it's currently up for sale in the classifieds!) and the Talman is noticeably weightier, but the body is surprisingly thick so there's a lot of timber in it. But it's not prohibitively heavy, IMO. On my wide strap, approx. 10cm wide, it's comfortable enough on a 2 hour gig. At a guess it's around the 4Kg mark. Ish.

Richings Park and ride?

Had my second meet up and car park dodgy deal with Frank this afternoon and it was as painless and easy as the first. This time I took a case off Frank's hands, we'd been chatting privately and I'd mentioned I was on the lookout for a semi rigid case, to which he said he'd got one he was looking to move on which he very kindly gave me. Not only that, he steadfastly refused any payment whatsoever and wouldn't even let me cover his petrol for the 3 hour round trip. What can you say to that? Frank is a man of his word and a Basschat legend to whom I now owe not only a coffee but a cheese sandwich too. I look forward to honouring my side of the bargain as well as announcing the birth of our first child.

If it's a Chorus effect type sound it could be due to the pickups being too close to the strings. Try lowering the pickups to see if that helps, you just need to give each screw half a turn or so, maybe a little more.

In the pink Range Rover.

It is, of course, all personal taste but I find all of those things I listed earlier utterly minging 😉 Oh, and I forgot to mention gold finishes too, anyone playing one clearly drives a pink Range Rover and is married to a football player.

Sunburst (pronounced Turdburst) of any description. Tort scratch plates of any description. Gold hardware. All hideous in their own way and become exponentially more vile when combined. F holes. Why?

I briefly had the Battalion but soon moved it on. The clean channel with its 4 band EQ is great, more versatile than the Fender in that regard, but to be honest that was the only thing I liked about it. The drive section was fizzy and no matter what I did with it it never sounded like anything other than a cheap and nasty distortion pedal. There's some great sounding demos of the drive online but I couldn't get it to sound anything like those, it just sounded cheap, for want of a better description. The compressor was very dark and took away a lot of high end, so it worked best with the drive section, but it was too dark to be of use with the clean channel. Obviously it's down to personal taste but I much prefer the Fender, IMO it sounds much more grown up.

I'll have some too, please.

Honestly guys you can't go wrong with it, it's simple to use and sounds great. And on a gig I'd happily use the compressor too, it does the job, it's really not bad a compressor and if it means not having to mess around with another pedal then so much the better.

Another satisfied customer

Michael bought a gig bag from me, prompt payment and no hassle.

I've got one and like it a lot. I've not yet gigged it as I use a Stomp with either in ears or backline but I'd have no problem using on a gig and I can't see how it wouldn't cut it live. I don't do any home recording so I can't help you out there either! But having used it a lot at home I'm happy to share my thoughts on it. For the money you get a lot of useful and usable features especially when compared to some other bass pre-amp pedals. The EQ is simple but very effective and will dial in petty much any sound you're likely to need. The centre frequencies don't seem to be stated anywhere but they feel like they're in about the right place, the bass EQ control is a little low for my tastes but I play short scales exclusively these days so the inherent short scale tubbiness could be part of the issue here, although I only use it for cutting rather than boosting as that helps to add clarity with a shorty. The mid control has a wide sweep and goes from scooped slappiness to a nasal grunt. The treble control is pretty much where I want it for adding clarity without getting brittle and even rolled right back it still leaves the tone with a usable amount of definition. The compressor feels like it's an optical design although this isn't explicitly stated anywhere. I'm not really a fan of optical compressors but it works well although it's not always quick enough (there's no Attack control) to catch big spikes, this could be an issue if you slap but it works well enough with finger and plectrum styles. It also has a clean blend for dialling in some parallel compression. The threshold control seems to have a limited usable range, essentially only really usable below around 9 o'clock with passive basses, I suspect a hot bass could be problematic. There's a single LED meter but you can feel the compression kicking in before the LED lights up so it's kind of redundant. It's not my favourite compressor but it does the job. The drive section is very good, IMO. It's more of a warm and rounded drive so if you're looking for a Tech 21/DarkGlass scooped clank look elsewhere. It seems to have an inherent mid boost (think Tube Screamer style drive) and a fixed clean blend, both of which work really well when playing along to backing tracks. At low gain it does a good 'hint of breaking up' sound and when pushed it gives a pleasing smooth distortion, neither fizzy or bloated. There's a toggle switch to change the position of the drive and compressor, I personally like to use to comp before the drive so that it can be kicked in for a gain boost. But using comp after drive gives a more controlled tone. The pedal itself is reassuringly heavy and feels well made and pretty much bomb proof with solid feeling footswitches. I'm not overly enamoured with the anaemic pi55y yellow finish, the white lettering will make it a nightmare to read on a dark stage but the blue LED's in each control will help you see where things are set in the dark, but due the pedals colour scheme you'll need to memorise which control does what if you want to change things on the fly on a gig. In summary, I think the colour scheme is a questionable design choice, black lettering would have made more sense than white, IMO. But blue LED's are cool, they just are. The compressor is good but not great and the pedal itself feels solid and has excellent EQ and drive sections.

I've been playing bass since the mid 80's and have had many books over the years but the one that I highly recommend for a beginner as well as more experienced players is 'Bass guitar for Dummies'. Someone bought me a copy years ago as a novelty Christmas present but it's still a book that I occasionally refer to. It's written in a simple, straight forward way and explains things clearly without blinding you with science. My version also came with a CD but I guess the latest version will have online audio. If you can ignore the Americanisms and bland humour it's a great tuition book that starts with the basics and goes through to more advanced concepts. https://www.amazon.co.uk/Bass-Guitar-Dummies-Patrick-Pfeiffer-ebook/dp/B00H7JE36O/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=bass+guitar+for+dummies&qid=1594537893&s=books&sr=1-1