Cato

Probably not much help but I remember trying out a Trace Elliot combo with an aluminium necked split headstock Kramer during the early 90s. I couldn't tell you the actual model though. I remember I was impressed with the bass, it certainly wasn't uncomfortable to play in any way. I seem to recall that it was probably the heaviest bass I'd ever used up to that point and I was a bit surprised by the weight, but it wasn't back breaking, at least not to 18 year old me. I reckon I've played much heavier basses since.

I definitely prefer the aesthetics.of laurel to the Pau Ferro Fender initially used as their Rosewood replacement. Although I thought I read somewhere that the CITES rules might be about to get tweaked and that Rosewood might be making a comeback. Edit: Found this https://www.guitarplayer.com/gear/rosewood-may-return-to-low-cost-guitars-in-2019 If it happens maybe the last couple of years worth of Pau Ferro boarded instruments will become collectables...

I suppose it depends on how much you think wood affects tone once you're plugged in. Personally I think pickup placement and pickup type affect plugged in tone far more than what wood the instrument is made of or what shape the body is.

I use mine pretty much every day for both guitar and bass. I'm starting to get really into home recording and the Helix provides an almost infinitely bigger pallette of different sounds and tones than I could ever afford or even fit in the house if each part of the digital chain was using a separate pedal or amp/cab. For my purposes it's perfect.

If it's happening (and I'm not ruling it out) it's happening very slowly. Top tip, Jazz basses need to be propped up in a corner. If you just leave them against a wall they will fall over eventually, possibly many hours after you last touched them. Don't ask me how many times I heard the ominous thud from upstairs before I worked this out.

All 4 of mine are permanently propped against the wall in the music room (spare bedroom). It doesn't seem to hurt them.

It's not a bad way to spend a birthday. Have a good one.

Nice one. I've always fancied an ASAT or one of their Comanche guitars.

I don't think G&L import many US made instruments into the UK although Andertons seem to have had a fairly large delivery of US skinny stringers recently so maybe they'll get some of the basses in at some point.

For a classic 80s pop fretless tone I'd go for chorus with a bit of reverb. Finding specifically which chorus and which reverb you like best may take some time. That's one of the only problems with the Stomp, there are almost too many options. It's a very nice problem to have though.

Lets face it, none of them sounded bad. The stand outs for me were the Ken Smiths and the MTDs which is a bit surprising as I consider myself to be more of a Jazz/PJ type guy. I must be developing expensive tastes.

Make sure your'e sitting down when you read the reply....

The guy is clearly some kind of evil genius. I found this clip of another of his creations. It gets interesting at about 50 seconds in.

I'd be surprised if the Fender pickups weren't different sizes for the neck and bridge. It's standard on a Fender Jazz that the bridge pickup is slightly wider than the neck.

The Pure Blues guitar strings are made from pure nickel wraps whereas I'm 90% sure the bass versions are made from a nickel alloy, so they might not have the same 'high tension' feel as the skinny version. Only one way to find out...

I've never tried the Pure Blues on a bass, but I put a set of my usual 10s on a skinny stringer Tele and had to take them off after a couple of weeks. They sounded great, but the tension on them felt like the guitar was strung with strings a couple of gauges higher, to the point where I was struggling to complete string bends that I normally don't even think about.

What about Jackson 5 songs from when MJ was a kid himself and presumably hadn't started down his later path?

I think all the interesting Kramer bass stuff got killed off after the company went bankrupt and Gibson bought the brand some time in the 90s. I'm not sure if Gibson still own it, but these days the only new Kramer branded instruments I've seen seem to be entry level to mid range super strat type guitars.

A few years ago I decided to try a new brand of strings every month. Amongst others I went through GHS boomers, Fender nickels, Dunlop Superbrights (should be banned under trades descriptions - they're average bright at best) and various others, both nickel and steel. When I got to stainless steel DR Hi Beams the search was over. I just prefer the feel and zing of steel roundwounds.

That's disappointing. I'd expect a company as big and as iconic as Fender to do a lot better in terms of customer service.

I've been considering starting a thread on Brexit vs Rickenbackers vs Robotuners just to see if it can provoke a bit more activity, but I think the bottom line is that there's a kind of vicious circle going on where people don't hang around there much because it's so quiet.

Same here. The Stadium Arcadium album and the subsequent gig I went to at the Coventry Ricoh ended my love affair with the Chillies which began back with the Mother's Milk album. It was especially gutting because I'd seen them at the Slaine Castle gig a few years before and they were brilliant. At Coventry they were barely going through the motions. I heard later that John Frusciante was only still playing in the band at that point to fulfil contractual obligations.

I've got a first generation V7 fretless which on the whole I like a lot. My fretless intonation is so bad that I'm not really sure how well the tuners keep tune although they don't feel particularly smooth. I've never been keen on the bridge, there's nothing wrong with it as such, it just feels very flimsy compared to my other basses. I'd certainly expect a much higher standard of hardware on a 1k+ instrument

It's not unusual for bass players to go through multiple preamps in their signal chain. For example if I put my active Precision deluxe through a B1on or Stomp multi effects the signal is already running through two preamps before it gets to the amp which also has a preamp stage. There's also an argument that every effects pedal in the chain could technically be described as a preamp in it's own right in as far as it's changing the nature of the signal before it reaches the amplification stage, in which case some people are actually going through maybe 5 or more preamps. I think the general rule is that if the amp and cab don't sound like they're struggling with the input signal then it's probably fine.

I will give a 5 or 6 a proper try one day. I keep putting it off because I have a few bad habits which I know will cause me problems on a wider neck. Not only do I play with my thumb over the neck, that thumb is also an intrinsic part of my muting technique. Still I'll get round to it one day.