Osiris

I don't mind white pearl so much, it's the red and brown tort monstrosities that make my eyes bleed 🤣 but each to their own. Same here, not fussed about the fake road worn look of the JMJ but it's the neck and the pickup that make the bass something special, IMO. Mine is the black version and I've kept the white plate on it as my other main gigging bass is all black with a black plate too, as is one of my other basses, so I've kept the white pearloid plate on the JMJ for a bit of variety. But I can see that Matrix cascading numbers image looking perfect on it. Need to ponder... 🤔

Bugger you, Tim, I'm hankering for a new scratch plate for my JMJ too now 🤣🤣🤣

Mine has seen a couple of rehearsals too and it will be making its gigging debut tomorrow night. I bought it as a stunt bass for the more rowdy venues and it's always a lively gig where we're playing! Likewise, I've adjusted the pickups in mine to roughly 60:40 neck:bridge to give a good balance of low end and clarity. It has performed excellently and sounded great at rehearsals using backline at sensible volume, our drummer isn't a really heavy hitter, but the gig will be on IEM's although I'm not expecting any nasty surprises in terms of how the bass will sound or perform on the night. It's a late finish too so I'll report back somewhat bleary eyed at some point on Sunday.

Yes, optical comps are inherently slower than something like a FET based design which is my preference when it comes to compressors. And the way you describe it catching the boom part of the notes requires a slower attack as it's that part of the note than blooms - and can sometimes boom - after the initial transient spike, and it's these spikes that I like to control. Having been all around the houses with compressors (multi-band, clean blends, analogue, digital, racks, pedals etc) I'm back with the humble Boss LMB-3 Limiter, it just works for what I want. It's a simple design without a lot of control but it just does what I want it to do and it adds a real punch to the sound too!

I'm intrigued by your comment about this working more like a limiter, how quick is it at catching initial transients on staccato notes? I've never really got on with optical compressors because the attack times are usually too slow for my tastes, and being quite an aggressive player at times I find that they often let through a lot of spikes especially on shorter notes or the opening note of a phrase. Is that the case with the Ampeg? This particular pedal sounds great, IMO, in the demos I've heard online so I'd like to try one out at some point, but I'm kind of expecting to have that typical slower attack that you get from optical comps which doesn't work for me. Does the release control feel like it's also controlling the attack times too? I'm interested on your thoughts especially if you're using it more like a limiter.

If not, drop them a line, Tim will get you sorted out in no time 👍

I don't know if it's identical to the Fender scratch plate, I did have a PJ Mustang for a few years but sold it last year so don't have it to hand for a direct comparison. But Scratch-It suggest that you send in your original plate so they can scan it to produce an identical copy of the shape, which is what I did and the fit was perfect.

Oh yeah, 🤣

Go on, show us a picture 😃 Up until last year I had an Olympic white 2017 Fender PJ Mustang, it was a great bass and only moved on when I bought a JMJ Mustang. Honestly, the HB is every bit as good as the Mexican PJ, more so in fact considering the price hikes over the past few years. The Fender was well under £400 new in 2017, they're now in the region of £650-700 and you're getting something every bit as good quality wise for £500 or so cheaper in the HB. God bless child labour.

As I understand it, it's a separate image that is bonded to the rear of a sheet of 2mm thick transparent, shatterproof acrylic. It certainly looks and feels as sturdy as any other scratch plate I've come across in the past 40 odd years!

I'm sure I've seen threads about Scratch-It on Basschat before but a search doesn't pull back the results I was looking for, so here's a new thread! This afternoon I received a new, personalised scratch plate from Scratch-It! https://www.originalscratchplates.com/ It was designed for, and is now fitted it to, my cheap and now cheerful Harley Benton Mustang bass. The new plate looks absolute class, IMO, and is a perfect fit. Not being a fan of tort scratch plates, the stock tort plate didn't do it for me and it especially clashed against the lush sea foam green of the Homer Benton ©️. I knew when buying the bass that the first upgrade was always going to be the scratch plate so had budgeted accordingly. My original intention was a plain 3 ply B/W/B plate but the quotes I got from the well known suppliers were a lot more than I was expecting. A couple of mates had had work done by Tim at Scratch-It in the past so he came highly recommended, so I took a look at the website.The website didn't have a template for the HB Mustang (Harley Benton MV-4MSB Gotoh) which isn't really a surprise as it's only been on the market for a couple of months so I dropped Tim a line to discuss what I was looking for. At all times from initial contact to delivery communication was quick, friendly, and helpful. I'd knocked up a crude mock-up of what I was looking for in PowerPoint - yeah, I know, but I don't have any dedicated graphic design software and wouldn't know what to do with it even if I had - and emailed it through with an explanation of what I was trying to create. Tim immediately understood what I was aiming for and a couple of hours later had emailed back a mock up of my design which nailed the image I had in mind and also sorted out a couple of imperfections in my original kack-handed design. And the finished product was through my door in under 2 weeks, not bad. Not bad at all. Especially considering it's a totally original design and was under £40 including delivery - and that included the mock ups, fine tuning my original idea, laser cutting the new plate from my original to ensure an exact replica and a perfect fit (none of your hand cut imperfect tat here thank you very much) as well as postage costs. Basschat is a great community when it comes to recognising exceptional customer service and Tim and Scratch-It are up there with the A-listers. Here's one we prepared earlier.

I've posted on the Harley Benton Mustang thread a picture of my new custom scratch plate from Scratch-It! fitted to my HB.

I've had my HB Mustang for around a month now and around an hour ago my new bespoke scratch plate arrived from Scratch-It! I cannot recommend Tim and Scratch-It enough - first class service, excellent communication, most importantly a good sense of humour, plus prices that are a good chunk cheaper than the couple of places that quoted me for a bog standard plain black plate. My original plan was to get a plain 3 ply black/white/black plate for it as I don't like tort, and the stock plate looked particularly hideous against the sea foam green finish, IMO. But for £40 delivered I have something totally unique and looks fantastic too!

I had the same issue on mine, only a couple of frets mind, and only very minor rough edges, certainly nothing significant. I used some fine grain sand paper and a sanding block, applied it to the neck at a 45 degree angle applying no real pressure, more just making contact with the neck and a couple of passes back and forth, check the rough edges and then a couple more passes. 2 minutes later it was all sorted, no specialist tools required and the neck binding (which I thought might get chewed up by the sand paper) felt silky smooth.

It's up on the Thomann website for order at a reasonable £241 although the date suggests that it won't be in stock for 3 or 4 months yet - https://www.thomann.de/gb/zoom_b2_four.htm As has already been speculated, it looks like a slimmed down version of the B6, which from what I've read, people are saying is a step up in terms of sound quality over the cheap and cheerful B1 Four, no doubt down to it having the latest chipset. But with an XLR output and 6 DI models, and if I understand the display correctly, you can choose up to 6 fx blocks which is more than enough for my needs and probably the majority of us too for usable bass sounds and the off effect or two.

Tort in general makes my eyes bleed upsets my delicate sensibilities but I appreciate a lot of people like it. And yes, it looked particularly nasty of the SFG so I'm waiting for a (mostly) black custom design from Scratch-It, who so far have been nothing but fantastic in terms of customer service as well as significantly cheaper than the quotes I was getting for a bog standard 3 ply black from other companies. I ended up using some fine grade sand paper and a sanding block. Took it slow and easy and after a couple of minutes the rough fret ends - of which there were only a couple and they were only very mildly rough, certainly not to the point that it was worth the faff of sending the bass back - were sorted to my satisfaction. No issues to the neck binding afterwards either. I obviously can't speak for all of the Harley Benton Mustang-a-likes but mine isn't overly heavy, it's noticeably heavier than my Sandberg but not as weighty as my Mustang. Never weighed it so can't give you a figure but mine at least is about what I'd expect in terms of weight, and HB are notorious for some churning out a few heavy instruments, so I was pleasantly surprised.

I picked up a sea foam green one at the start of the year and am really pleased with it. There was a couple of minor issues with mine, it was a bit noisy and there were a couple of rough fret edges, but an hour so's work and it's spot on now - and I tend to be a bit kack-handed when it comes to doing jobs like that but it's perfect for my needs now. I'm just waiting for a custom made scratch plate to arrive before gigging it as I think tort looks hideous, but each to their own. It'll be gigging alongside a pair of other basses that each cost 7 or 8 times as much but in terms of feel I think it holds its own, and I won't be so precious about it on the more lively gigs either! Several people have bemoaned the lack of pickup blend but I really like the sound of it, I dropped the bridge pickup a bit so the tone is more 60:40 neck:bridge and really like the sound, it's very clean and clear and has its own voice. I did intend to add a blend pot to mine too and although I might do just that at some point I don't feel any pressing need to do it ASAP.

I've had several Sandbergs over the years and all have been consistently excellent in terms of construction, feel and tone. A few years ago a knackered nerve in my wrist forced me into playing short scales exclusively of which I now own 4. The Sandberg Lionel short scale is lightest of the bunch by a noticeable margin, it has a ash body which I'd guess is what keeps the weight down. No idea what it actually weighs but I'd guess it's not much more than 3Kg. This isn't a super light model either! Build quality and playability are all top notch. While it has a traditional split coil P pickup it sits 10-15mm closer to the bridge than on my Mustang, as such if you want that classic Precision sound you need to play over or to the neck side of the pickup. Playing in the traditional just behind the pickup gives a more modern tone, still with a P-esque vibe but very much it's own voice, it has more clarity and definition but without sounding sterile like some modern basses do, IMO. At the risk of making the lovely @Adeecry, it has a hint of the clarity you get from a Stingray but without the overbearing nasal mids you get from a ray. @Lozz196if you're ever in the Wellingborough area you're welcome to drop in to take it for a test drive 👍

Just received a mixer bag from Simon that he was graciously giving away. Can't fault him or the transaction 👍

You really need to understand compression to apply it and use it correctly. That is the important thing to remember with compression. You need to really understand it, the interaction of the different controls and what they are doing. My suspicion is that people buy a compressor pedal and assume it will be as obvious as a drive or delay, and when they don't get night and day results they dismiss them. But it's not an effect as such, more of a way of controlling your signal, so it's better to think of it more like a tool like you would EQ and high pass filtering. So can I respectfully ask you go and do your homework and then try again. You'll be amazed what compression can do for your tone, dynamics and feel once it is properly applied.

PM'd.

The Boss CS3 Compression Sustainer is misleadingly named, it's not a compressor as such, it's a sustainer. A sustainer is a compressor with a really low threshold which means that even at minimum settings it flattens your entire signal - and you only add more squash by cranking it up. It's designed to add extra sustain to your playing, so ideally suited to guitar solos but not a lot else, unless you like that super flat feel as an effect. A compressor with an adjustable threshold that goes high enough to only control the peaks is a very different beast altogether and way more useful on bass.

Unfortunately that's an urban myth that refuses to die. See this very insightful article by a chap who knows way more about compression than many of will ever know - Killed my tone (ovnilab.com) Just to be clear, I'm not trying to be antagonistic or out to upset you, it's just a common misunderstanding that keeps rearing its ugly head Compression has been covered to death on Basschat and is a very divisive subject but let's not open that can of worms again.

Just received a foot switch from Christian in a quick and easy deal. The foot switch itself was immaculate and a bargain price, he was prompt and friendly on comms and it was on my doorstep in no time!