willgatesbass

Thanks everyone - I’ll be playing with an acoustic guitar, a snare drum or cajon and three singers. Sounds like an acoustic bass won’t cut it. I have a U-bass. Maybe I should look in to portable battery-powered amps?

Hi all - I need to buy an acoustic fretted bass (not an upright). It’s for a strolling band and won’t be plugged in so it has to be acoustically loud. A nice comfy design and easy player would be a bonus too. This is just for a trial gig so the budget is low. £300 max but even less would be better. If you have any experience on the subject or a suitable bass for sale, please let me know. Thanks

I imagine the input level is more of a gain thing, like the front end of an amp. It allows you to get the input level right depending on what bass you’re using. The output level would be how much volume you send to the amp and/or desk.

Really? Wow. You would have thought the two pedals had similar guts. Great news about the colour switch on channel 2 though 🙂

And that's exactly what I've done! 🙂 I found the M80 version on eBay (used in mint condition) for fifty quid! Like you say, my default sound can be the bass as it is (bypass the pedal). Then I can engage the pedal with slap tone dialled in when I need. I would have preferred the smaller version like you said but for £50 I couldn't say no to the DI +. Presumably it has the same preamp with eq centred to the same frequencies. The only difference I can see is the colour switch and the distortion, neither of which I'll use any time soon but maybe one day. Wowsers - I was ready to chuck £400 at this to find a solution. What shall I do with this leftover cash? BC marketplace here I come. Thanks you all for your lovely advice. I'll let you know how I get on with it!

Looks like a great bit of kit mate. Thanks. Such a shame that it has no direct out and won't run on 9v. I was messaged earlier and offered a Basswitch IQ which might be a good option too.

Hi all - I'm looking for some advice or even stories of how people have handled this gear-based situation. My main gig is on ears. I'm currently deciding whether to buy a good quality passive DI (radial or similar) and upgrade the preamp in my main gigging bass (Yamaha TRBX 505). I love the bass but the preamp is definitely a weak area. The alternative would be to buy a nice preamp pedal which would double as a DI. This would save me a trip to the luthier and would leave the bass unadulterated. However, the thought of replacing the onboard preamp is appealing as I could make adjustments on the fly such as dialling in a slap tone for certain songs. If I went for the alternative and bought a preamp pedal, it would need to have at least two sounds that I could toggle between by hitting a button with my foot. I have owned and used a Sansamp programmable bass driver and I didn't particularly like the way it sounded. There was no mid control on the particular model I had, which didn't help matters. I'm a relatively new bass player and I don't like the idea of mixing preamps in my signal chain (onboard into preamp pedal into amp head etc etc). I'm still learning about tone and how the signal chain works. Having one preamp/eq section in the chain helps me to understand what's going on more easily. My question is, what would you guys choose from the following? - Upgrade the preamp in the bass to Aguilar OBP3, Glockenklang or similar and run it through a decent passive DI OR leave the bass alone and buy a preamp pedal with a direct out. If you favour the latter, which preamp pedals do you prefer and which offer two or more channels you can toggle between for regular and slap tones? I have done a little research and all I seem to find are preamp pedals with A and B channels (the B channel is usually an overdrive/distortion) or pedals with two channels that allow you to use two different basses on a gig. I just want to use one bass but be able to switch between two EQ settings at the push of a stomp box button. Either that or an onboard pre so I can dial up extra bass and treble when it's time to slap and vice-versa. I'm pretty sure I've posted similar threads in the past but this is definitely a new problem and a new angle. Would love to hear your thoughts.

Thanks for your input, everyone. The package made it to Glasgow safely. The only problem was they delivered it several doors down to a complete stranger and didn’t leave my buyer a card to say that they had done so! After chasing TNT I got a name and house number and he got his new bass. Phew!

As I write this I am awaiting a TNT man to come and collect a VERY well packed Sandberg VM5 from my place in Gloucester so it can be delivered to a buyer in Glasgow. It's always nerve-wracking sending a bass. The bass is worth around the thousand pound mark and as usual the Parcel2Go website asked me if I wanted to insure the bass for the full amount. This would have resulted in a pretty expensive £85 bill for next day delivery but with the peace of mind that we were covered if anything should happen. Happily, my buyer was willing to pay this. Unfortunately, on reading the term and conditions I noticed that all guitars must be sent in a hard case in order for the insurance to be valid. The bass comes in the standard issue Sandberg gig bag which I placed in a proper cardboard bass box (the one my new Yamaha came in) and then into a larger, even sturdier box with plenty of bubble wrap between each layer. I am confident that the bass is about as safe and well-prepared as it could be for such a journey. It seems a shame that no courier will allow you to cover a bass without a hard case. As we all know, not many basses come with so much asa gig bag from new, let alone a hard case. Even my brand new Yamaha bass just arrived from a music store in much the same way as I'm about to send this one. What are your experiences (positive and negative) with sending basses by courier?