Osiris

This just popped up on my phone, thought it might be of interest to some of you. https://www.gov.uk/government/news/guitar-maker-fined-4-5m-for-illegally-preventing-price-discounts

Just to confuse things I went the opposite direction to Lozz! I played regular scale basses for more than 30 years before moving over to short scales - including a Mustang. Being a bit of a short ar5e I find short scales basses so much more comfortable to the point that I now wonder how I managed to struggle with standard scale basses for so long, whenever I pick one up now after playing short scales exclusively for a couple of years, they just feel big and cumbersome. But there's no right or wrong answer, whatever works for you. A short scale is probably easier to learn on but you may find that by the time you're playing with others and gigging you may prefer a standard scale.

That's a real stunner, Frank.

Hope this helps.

Don't. Just don't ever mention the C word to @Al Krow. It always ends in tears. 😃

One of my favourite basses ever is my Ibanez Talman short scale, they're only £150 new, cheaper than a set of boutique pickups! Admittedly it's had some minor hardware upgrades - new pots, £10 eBay special high mass bridge, Wilkinson machine heads and I swapped out the pickups for a set from my old Peavey Zodiac. But the upgrades cost no more £50 in total. It's been shielded and I've rolled the fretboard edges. It's comfortable to play with its distinctly un-Ibanez chunky neck, but it sounds great, resonates as good as anything ten times the cost and it just looks cool, a bit like a Jaguar but with a daft shaped head stock. The only gripe is that it's a bit heavy but it's my go to bass. I prefer it over a number of basses that I've owned that cost many times as much but the Talman just feels right in my hands.

As @dave_bass5 says the TC Spark Booster (the big one, not the mini) probably isn't the best choice as a pre-amp, although it might well do what you want. But it does do a nice, smooth low gain drive though if that's your thing, especially with the mid boost on. Another contender in the same price range as the Ampeg and MXR is the Fender Downtown express. It's a pre-amp, drive, DI and usable compressor all in one box for well under £150. Having used the usual DarkGlass and Tech 21 suspects in the past I personally prefer the voicing of the Fender, it doesn't have that massively compressed sound of some of the Tech 21 stuff and it doesn't have the mid range canyon of some of the DG pedals. But it does have a very flexible 3 band EQ, unfortunately not semi parametric like the MXR, a drive section voiced to be more mid range focused so about as different to an Ampeg/BDDI or B3K as you're going to get (but that works perfectly for me) that does a decent low gain warmth through to balls out distortion. Then there's the (what sounds like an optical) compressor too, which smooths things out nicely. I like it a lot. Might be worth a look, perhaps?

Looks like there's 3 different variants of the Gnome including a (theoretically) giggable 300 watt version. Any ideas what the USB interface is for, plugging directly into a DAW for recording?

Bare with me while I toot another couple of lines of jama. Snifffffffffff Right then, where were we? As you've probably gathered compression is a widely misunderstood and divisive subject. Compression is best understood in the context of a band mix, if you're not currently playing with other musicians you'll get a similar experience playing along to some music. But before you start playing around with the various compression models on the B3 (which I think are a great place to start) I'd strongly recommend doing some homework on the subject, get an understanding of what the various controls do and how they affect your dynamics. I can't stress this enough, as I think ignorance is why so many people don't 'get' compression. That's not meant to be a condescending put down by the way, it's just I've seen many erroneous arguments against the subject that, to me, appear to be based on misunderstanding. Anyway, the various comp models on the B3; Each one has a few different parameters rather than the full compliment of controls you'll see on a studio unit. But this is a good thing when starting out as it keeps things simple. With the understanding you've picked up from your homework start having a play and try to get something that works for you. Each model offers a different type of compression, neither one is necessarily better than the other, they're just different. The OptComp models the squishy characteristics of an optical compressor. The DComp does the less than subtle DynaComp flattening of the signal. Far from subtle but useful as an obvious effect. The MComp is one of my favourites, fat and controlled. I like this a lot. Dual Comp is aimed at slappers. Your reputation precedes you. Separate control over high and low bands with an adjustable crossover. Too much of a void in the mids for my taste. 160 Comp does that big, fat dbx style compression. A little dark sounding perhaps but the weight it adds to the rest of the signal makes me do a little wee. My favourite model, I gigged with this for a couple of years on my MS-60B. Have a play and see what works for you.

Getting your B's and D's mixed up again?

@51m0n, @krispn, wind it in will you? This is Basschat. And we're talking about compression. Again. Your facts, supported claims and hard earned knowledge through years of experience are not welcome here. Take it elsewhere.

I've gigged with my Zoom MS-60B and IEM's before, I went straight into the desk with a regular mono 1/4" cable and it worked fine. The Zoom was set up with just an amp & cab model plus a compressor, no other bells or whistles. I can't see why the B1 four won't be the same. If you use some stereo effects and you want to put those through the front of house you'll need a stereo cable (or possibly 2 separate mono cables if the B1 four has dual outputs) but otherwise I don't see why it shouldn't work with just a mono cable as the MS-60B did for me.

I use these to get a deeper, more harmonically rich tone.

I find that some users have very individual and unique styles of writing, the words they use and the way they phrase things. Nothing wrong with this, of course, as we're all different people. But with a small number of users I can often tell who they are by reading one of their posts even if I've not checked who has actually posted it. There was one user who recently posted in a style that immediately reminded me of another regular poster to the site, so much so that it set the alarm bells ringing that it was the same user posting under a pseudonym. The same unique phrasing, the same topic that the regular user regularly comments on, it all felt immediately familiar. Without proof this is obviously nothing more than conjecture but it did seem very strange. Maybe the user in question has been secretly cloned?

Just received an immaculate condition compressor pedal from Tim for a great price. He's an easy guy to deal with and the pedal arrived in 2 days which is very good going just before Christmas!

Just received a set of machine heads Craig and everything went really well. He's a friendly guy to deal with and responds to messages very quickly. The machine heads were as described, arrived well packaged and quickly considering it's almost Christmas. Cheers Craig

Like the original poster, that will come down to your personal needs. I use an external foot switch with my Stomp, just a regular latching type, but even that could be binned if necessary (see my previous post). I don't use midi or any other pedals in the external loop, and I don't need to make any adjustments on the fly other than maybe a slight tweak of the global EQ for the room, but even this is quick and easy to do. Not having midi is not an issue for me. I find the Stomp simple and intuitive to edit, it requires maybe 10 minutes or so to learn how to use it. My patches have been set up and fine tuned over time so I don't make any further changes to them now they're giving me what I want. The limited controls have been implemented in a simple and logical way that make adjustments a doddle, IMO. But if you're thinking about midi it suggests that you probably have a more complicated set up that me so you might want to consider the other models in the range over the Stomp.

Another Stomp user here. As the lovely @krispn says, your needs will determine which version is the right one for you. The Stomp was the obvious choice for my needs as I gig with in ear monitors so the amp and cab modelling help to give me a more familiar bass sound, you can probably get something similar using one of the many EQ options but I like the different characteristics the different models offer. My core sound is made up of just 2 of the 6 blocks that the Stomp has, an amp and cab in one and a 3 band compressor in the other. Some guys on here use more complex signal paths for their sounds but I like to keep things simple, it makes problem solving easier if there's bad acoustics in the room. The only other part of my sound is a high pass filter but that's done via the global EQ so it doesn't impact on the block count. Both blocks of my core sound are always on so do not need to be assigned to the foot switches. The limited number of foot switches seems to be a common complaint against the Stomp, you have 3 on board and can add a further 2 via an external foot switch if you wish. On top of the core sound I have a drive and reverb together on foot switch 1, a chorus on switch 2 and pitch shifter for drop tuning on 3. The tuner is accessed via an external foot switch. That's more than enough for my needs, indeed I could lose the chorus without ever missing it, the drive isn't that essential and the drop tuning can be covered by using drop D tuning on the bass, but as the Stomp allows me to add these to my existing sound I'm happy to use them. If you're needs are fairly basic then the Stomp is an obvious choice. If you currently have a tectonic plate sized pedal board and want to recreate that then you'd be better of with one of the bigger options. There's no right or wrong answer, just whatever meets your needs.

A damaged nerve in my left wrist (plus the fact that I'm a bit of a short ar5e) forced me to move exclusively to short scales a couple of years ago. Two of my basses are 30" P/J's, a Mustang and a cheap and cheerful, but none the less superb Ibanez Talman. Tone wise I love that Precision punch so tend to favour using the P pickup without often dialling in any of the bridge. I'm sure that there's some science behind it but I can't remember what it is or where I read it, but short scale basses tend to have an inherently darker sound than longer scales. I've certainly found this to be the case in practice, but it's nothing that can't be resolved by changing your EQ settings. For example, when playing 34" basses I liked to keep the EQ relatively flat, not the most exciting sound on its own but one that works well in a band situation. To get a similar tone with my short scales I find that I need to back off the bass and low mids while boosting the treble and upper mids. You may struggle to get those glassy Marcus Miller highs with a short scale but if you're using a Precision that's probably not the sound you're looking for anyway. But that P magic is in the punchy low mids and with some experimentation with your EQ you can still get that sound. Some might argue that it's close but not quite there, whatever, it's certainly close enough family to my ears. There was a YouTube video doing the rounds a year or so ago comparing a number of different P basses and there was a surprising amount of variation between them; all recognizably Precisions but each with their own voice. If you were to append that video with a suitably EQ'd clip of a short scale P I suspect that few would be able to tell much difference in a blind test. Incidentally, I find short scales so much easier to play. Whenever I pick up a full sized bass now it just feels cumbersome and awkward . It makes me wonder how I persevered with them for so long!

I used to use a Zoom MS-60B (pretty much the same effects as he B3 but in a smaller format) as a tuner, high pass filter and compressor and never had any issues with it when regularly gigging with it over 2 or 3 years. I also have a B3 as part of my home practise set up, one output goes into my practice amp, the other into a little mixer so that I can play along to tracks or a drum machine and mix the bass in with them. The B3 is set up similar to the MS-60B but with an amp model to simulate a more backline sort of sound. Again, no complaints with the B3. Like you I'm not really an effects guy, I'm more interested in getting a usable sound and in my experience the Zooms deliver. Yes you can get 'better' quality modelling with more bells and whistles with something like the Helix Stomp but that obviously comes at a price, but the Zooms performs well considering their price.