Naetharu

I think it depends on your sound. If you're pressing your pre-amp to the point where it's giving you distortion then tubes do that rather nicely. But if you've got a clean sound going on then you're not going to notice much difference. One of the more noticeable things in tube-amps aside from the power-tube compression already mentioned is also the tube rectifiers. They're much less efficient than solid-state ones and so they power-starve the amp when there are quick changes in the dynamics, which gives a nice sound. I believe amp techs refer to this as 'sag'. If you've got an amp with a solid state rectifier, and a solid state power stage, I doubt you're going to get much from a pair of tubes in the pre-amp.

[quote name='mac1012' timestamp='1492502118' post='3280656'] Hi there I have introduced myself on the intro section. I am lookin for a beginner's bass and see that squire come highly recommended , I saw a used Yamaha RBX170 that I realise is discontinued and not knowing squat about bass as curious how this compared to a new squire beginner's mode , the yam was 120 with a guarantee but if the quality is not much different it would make sense to buy the squire Any info would be a great help thanks mark [/quote] Just throwing out another option, but consider the Harley Benton basses. They have a very good reputation around these parts. I purchased one of their Jazz basses last year and it's a really nice instrument. They even do them in full started bundles with a little amp and strap etc for a price that is less than a 2nd hand Squire. [url="https://www.thomann.de/gb/harley_benton_jb_75_na_bundle_3.htm?ref=search_rslt_Harley+Benton+Bass_288542_19"]https://www.thomann.de/gb/harley_benton_jb_75_na_bundle_3.htm?ref=search_rslt_Harley+Benton+Bass_288542_19[/url] I'm sure some other folks will chip on these, but I really think they are good instruments and I have gigged mine when I don't want to take my main bass. The neck is a very nice shape, somewhere between a Fender Jazz and P bass, made from good quarter-sawn maple. The pick-ups are quite mellow and vintage sounding (not a bad thing, but they're perhaps not the best if you want a growling metal sound) and the scratch plate is made from cheap plastic but that really is all I can fault them for.

[quote name='lojo' timestamp='1492017743' post='3277261'] Anyone ever had a stingray go silent at a gig ? 2 Eqs enough for me , can't see what else id need to do to the sound [/quote] You'll hear the battery going long before it goes silent so don't worry there. If the signal starts sounding off and you get artefacts in the sound (like there is a low gain fuzz pedal on) you're coming to the end of the batteries life. But as mentioned above these things last a long time. A good quality battery will give you hundreds of hours playing. As to the EQ, I think having a mid-range control is actually really handy as often that's the frequency that you're going to want to boost a bit to cut through to pull back on to avoid the harshness of your sound. However, I have heard that the 2-EQ and 3-EQ Stingray models sound different, and a lot of people seem to prefer the classic 2-EQ version.

Done that with my ibanez SR300 The only issue is that the scale is a bit short so not the tightest b. But totally functional.

I believe it is a G&L Fallout?

Hi Folks, Thought I would share my new purchase with you. It all started around a week ago when I picked up a new Schecter C1-Stealth. For those not familiar with Schecter gutiars, that's the entry model in their mid-range guitars; a simple looking super-strat with two humbuckers and a hard-tail bridge. It seems nice in the store, but when I got it home I found it had some really bad fret-buzz. After fiddling with it myself for a while I took it to a guitar tech. They had a quick look at told me that it had a twisted neck, and advised I return it right away. Well, a bit of an argument with the store followed, with them first trying to tell me that it is normal for a guitar to buzz like a bumble-bee above the 12th fret all the way up. Apparently in their oppinion this is the case even on very expensive custom instruments and I should just lump it. Well, needless to say I pressed on. I was then told that I could not have a new guitar or my money back since I had invalidated the warantee since the tech I took it to had raised some of the bridge saddles. At this point I just wanted rid of the thing; I was going to ask for a new one in exchange but I'll be darned if that store is ever getting my business again when that is the aftercare they offer. I got my cash back in the end, albeit while being insulted by the store manager through the whole process. Popped along to my local PMT afterward and found this beauty. She's a Charvel Pro-Mod San Dimas. To be honest I've never really thought about Charvel before - they're a brand I associated with poodle-perms and tiger-print leggings but it turns out they're now owned by Fender and are making some very nice instruments. This one is their entry level guitar (though it's very much a mid-range instrument, they don't really do 'entry level' as such) and it just blew me away as soon as I played it. It's bascially a supercharged strat. The body is the classic strat shape with the full carving you get on them. It has two Seymour Duncan pick-ups, a JB in the bridge and a 59 in the neck. They've also got a coil-split on them for some single-coil tones when needed. It has a zero-load tone pot, so the pot is taken out of the curcuit when fully open. Compound radius fretboard, rolled edges, locking tuners... Well, it's a bit of a beast anyhow. Now I just need to learn to play the darn thing!

[quote name='dlloyd' timestamp='1490964291' post='3269437'] Don't waste your time experimenting too much... you can start off in almost the right place by just using logic. If you were to detune a seven string a whole step, you would have: A D G C F A D So all you're doing is eliminating the sixth string (D) I would buy a seven string set, heavy guage... 11, 15, 18, 28, 38, 48, 64 or something like that, throw away the 48 and string it up accordingly. You will probably have to file the nut for the 64, but I can guarantee you will have around about the same tension on the neck as you already do, so a quick trussrod tweak at the most. set intonation and you're pretty much on your way. [/quote] You sir are a star!

[quote name='BigRedX' timestamp='1490809137' post='3268267'] If that was me, I'd be looking at spending lots of time and money experimenting with string gauges (and tweaking the truss rod) to find out what suited my playing style and the guitar I was using. I'm sorry I can't offer any more advice than that as IME everyone is different when it comes to gauges and tensions. I like my strings fairly taught at the bottom end to the point where I have a dedicated guitar for drop D with a slightly heavier bottom string so that the "D" feels the same as the "E" on my guitars with standard tuning. [/quote] Aye, I think that is pretty much where I am going with this. After a bit of asking around and research I'm going to give a set of 10 - 54 hybrids a go and see how we get along. It pains me as the guitar in question is really well set up right now for E-standard and I know it'll be a while to get it back playing that good in the new tuning but needs must. When I get to strike that nice low C at the start of Oblivion all will be worth it. This is what you get for letting a bass player mess with guitars I guess

Aye it's not a tuning that'll work without a setup for it. The reason for it is both having the low note tone but also for being able to use the A as a pedal tone/ drone. If you check out the intro to Oblivion on Crack the Skye you can hear a great example of it ( also one of the best prof albums ever made )

[quote name='MoonBassAlpha' timestamp='1490704080' post='3267177'] Sounds like a baritone would do the job. Scale length shouldn't be a big deal if you're coming from bass. [/quote] I've certainly thought about that, but my concerns would be that it might make some of the lead parts rather tricky to play given the tension issues that those guitars tend to have with their high strings. A lot of the Mastodon stuff is very classic rock style / classic prog and so being able to deal with the higher notes and bend strings etc is paramount. From what I can gather the band themselves just use normal guitars down-tuned, but I assume they set them up in a special way to account for this.

Hi folks, So i've started playing a bit of guitar in addition to bass of late. And being a rather big Mastodon fan I fancy trying my hand a few of their songs. This means getting my guitar into a very low tuning however. The tuning I am looking for is AGCFAD - which means the low string is going to be seven semi-tones down from a standard E - eep! Clearly I am going to have to set the guitar up to handle this as trying to do it now will just result in my strings falling off. So I was wondering if anyone here might have some experience doing this and offer me any tips/tricks to get the guitar set up in this way. I did think about picking up a seven-string, but Mastodon themselves use down-tuned 6-strings (just a classic Gibson V in Brent's case) and I am concerned that a seven string with a long scale length is going to make a lot of the music harder to play. It's very classic rock/prog rock sounding rather than the thunderous riffage of bands like Periphery.

Pretty much any modelling amp I've come across would win out here. I think the Blackstar ID range are perhaps the worst I have heard in recent times. Tried a few of them the other month and they sound dark and muddy with fizzy gain. Horrible sound that would be useless for pretty much any application. And Line-6 stuff - the Spider I've had a few unfortunate encounters with and it is an utter horror show. I cannot imagine how anyone could love that thing. Saying that I feel pretty much the same about the POD-HD too. Expensive rubbish that sounds nothing like the supposed amps it's moddeling, lacks almost all of the dynamic reponse you get via a real amp, and sounds fizzy and brittle once you get it louder than bedroom levels.

Woundeful looking instrument! I used to have a JP Jazz but alas it had to go to fund my bass. Still miss that thing. Let us know how you get along with this one

Hi folks, Over the past six months I've taken up playing guitar as well as bass. I'm having a really good time with it and fancy treating myself to a good quality instrument. Given how happy I have been with my Maruszczyk bass I'm thinking about going with a Mensinger guitar (made by the same folks in Poland). I was just curious if anyone here has one and what you thought of it. I've had a look at their website and there are some really nice pieces on there. I'm very tempted with a Joker, which is their PRS style model. Any feedback on what these guitars are like would be really appreciated.

+1 for slap being fine on the SR300. I actually purchased one for that very reason (since I have nylon strings on my main bass - that you cannot slap properly). If you want really convincing evidence then check out Mark from Talking Bass who often uses an SR and plays some very impressive slap lines indeed. By all means go for the Yammaha as I'm sure it would be a great bass, but don't fall into the trap of thinking that a new purchase will do in place of learning to play properly. Done that myself and I assure you it does not work

[quote name='SpondonBassed' timestamp='1489493611' post='3257356'] Right. I'm nipping out to the patents office to patent my own body shape. [/quote] Ahh alas this is a Trademark issue and not a patent one so no pennies for you. As to the degree to which this will come into effect here, it's pretty likely to stick. It'll not stop Chinese companies from making these Gibson replicas etc, but if in effect it will be against the law to sell such guitars within the UK and to import them for sale. The idea of Trademark law is to allow a company to control its brand and stop other companies from getting rich of confusing the consumer. The nub of this case seems to be that the court agreed that these particular body-shapes are iconic to Gibson and form an integral part of their brand. Therefore they've prohibited others from making guitars to be sold that are the same shape(s). The principle is the same as if you were to start a cola company. You can do that sure, but if you popped it into a coke shaped bottle, decorated the bottle to look like coke and only distinguished yourself by a tiny mark then you'd not be long for legal trouble. It's an odd quirk of guitars that so many companies have for so long copied iconic brands. Strats and Les Pauls seem to be the most common culprits. By contrast, other brands (Rickenbacker in particular) are far more ferocious about people copping their brand. I guess this could mean that we see the Gibson copies going the same way as the Rick ones; you can still get them but you don't tend to find a bunch kicking around your local store.

I have two different HB bases. The Jazz bass with the Wilkinson bridge is fine. I'm not a massive fan of the pick-ups but let's put that down to taste rather than a real problem of any kind. The 'Progressive' bass however is a bit more problematic. Some very rough edges, electronics that are a bit nasal sounding and the bridge is poorly made so that the saddles don't fit in the slots properly, making them very very difficult to intonate properly. I guess the lesson here is go with the slightly more expensive version with the Wilkinson hardware rather than HB's own stuff.

[quote name='xgsjx' timestamp='1489412953' post='3256672'] If you're using rack fx, then use the loop. If you're using pedals, then don't use the loop. Some pedals are fine in the loop, but usually dirt & modulation don't work so well on the loop [/quote] I don't think that is quite right. The effects loop is just a way of putting pedals between the pre-amp and the power-amp stage. It's most important when you're getting some clipping/distortion from the pre-amp. The best way to think about it is to imagine your amp is actually two units. The pre-amp is just like having a Sans Amp or other DI pre-amp pedal. And then you have the power amp section that gives you the grunt you need to push the speakers. By having an effects loop you separate these two parts and thereby allow yourself to place effects where you choose in the signal chain. If you place modulation effects (chorus/phaser etc.) before the pre-amp you'll generally get a more radical effect, especially in cases where you have a distorted tone. This is the same as if you were going into a clean amp, and you used a modulation pedal before an overdrive pedal. The OD pedal exaggerates your modulation effects and gives you a very distinct and vibrant effect. If you place the modulation effects in the effects loop section of the amp, you'll be running any gain sections first and then modulating which gives a subtler effect overall. Which is right really just comes down to the sound you are looking for. The effects loop is just a means of allowing you to wire your signal chain as you choose, just as if you had purchased a separate pre-amp pedal and a power-amp unit. It's a good idea to try out different ways of doing it and see what gives you the sound you are after.

It strikes me that Streaming has been wonderful for music fans but rather disastrous for the music industry. I love streaming as it gives me a means of finding new bands that I would likely never have otherwise come across. Just this month I've been listening to St Paul and the Broken Bones (wonderful modern soul band), Moon Hooch (dance music played with live saxophones) and Cloud Cult (Indie-rock with top-notch song-writing) all of whom I have no doubt I would have completely missed were it not for streaming. It's not like they would have found air time on the radio. Streaming is an amazing way of getting below the fashionable and obvious acts that the record companies push and finding some really amazing music. On the other hand, it makes things much more messy and it pretty much ruins the traditional industry. The dark side of that is that it does not pay fairly to the artists involved. In the case of Spottily, the money goes out to the most listen to tracks and not on a listen-per-listen basis. That means small bands get screwed. The up side is that it becomes ever more difficult for the music industry to dominate as it used to do, with simple and affordable avenues open to small bands that were never there before.

To be honest I find this kind of reasonable. If I were Gibson I' probably be pretty annoyed if another company make look-a-likes and cut into my market share.

[quote name='Tee' timestamp='1489063344' post='3254051'] Yes, that's the one. I know they were discontinued a few years ago. Just wondering why there aren't many used ones about. [/quote] I guess either: (1) they're great and most people who have them are holding onto them or (2) they're really not very good and very few sold. I suspect it's more (1). Even as great basses they'll have sold quite small numbers next to standard P/Jazz models. If they're nice to play and not easily replaced then you've got a situation like that with the old Japanese stuff. Hard to justify moving it on when you're going to have a very difficult time ever getting one back.

If you can find the kit to do it I'd go for a sand-blasted finish on that. Would look lovely with the grain and the marked surface will work fine with it.

Much easier to go with locks I would think. You can get top quality ones for well under £20.00 and they'll keep you safe and happy for a long time.

+1 to seeing if you can get a Fender/similar neck for it. If you're willing to go from Europe then I think Thomman do some very decent and affordable necks from their Harley Benton range. They offer top-notch customer service too so I'm sure they would be willing to check the dimensions etc. for you if you were to give them a call/email.