Doctor J

[quote name='Jerry_B' timestamp='1326279983' post='1494764'] At the end of the day I still think that pickups are the key (and then the amp and cab), and everything else is down to look and feel. [/quote] This is it. If you imagine three basses - ash bodies, maple necks, rosewood fretboards. One is a Precision, one is a Jazz and one is a Stingray. Chances are you can imagine what each sounds like, how different each one sounds. The only real difference is the electronics yet each sounds entirely different, despite being largely the same. Of course, people will tell you that every piece of wood is different and that one piece of ash might not sound like another piece of ash, so there you go

[quote name='bpbpbp' timestamp='1326274584' post='1494658'] Thanks for all the replies folks. The previous owner was Richard Jones from the Stereophonics, around the time of Cigarettes & Alcohol. I have had it valued at £750 which seems about right to me and in keeping with comments here. Time to put her on Ebay! [/quote] Do you mean Performance And Cocktails?

[quote name='TRBboy' timestamp='1326153580' post='1493202'] I wouldn't have thought it would be too difficult to return it to standard. You'd just need to get an MM 'bucker and a standard pickguard, both of which you might be able to find s/h I guess. I would've thought it would be worth more like that but who knows? [/quote]You'd need a MM preamp aswell, given that it's likely a VVT, or some pickup selection installed.

Maple darken the sound? How dare you not hear with your eyes!!! Witch!!!

Funnily enough, it turns out this tune dates from 1977 when it was called Down In Flames.

I have a a couple of 5s but I find myself happier on 4s. If I was playing in a Metal band and needed a low B I'd be looking at how much I needed the G string. A lot of Metal bands I've seen, where the bassist has a 5 string, I'd say 5% or less actually need the G string. Get a 4 and tune it down if you can.

I've got a set of webstrings on a J bass and they're horrible. They were dull coming out of the packet and I cannot wait to put a set of Elixirs on in their place. I get at least a year out of a set of Elixirs and I like bright strings so I don't see them as that expensive in the long run.

I thought this was going to be another jazz/soul thread but then that would probably be DeFunk'd. Nice Tobias, why'd you delete the info after getting an answer?

I did a lot of work on a SB-80 a few years back which is similar enough to what you have. That you're experiencing trouble with the electrics is a worry. In my experience the pickups sound great but fail easily. They're humbuckers, the coil runs the full length of the pickups but there are pole pieces only under the E and A strings on one coil, the other coil only has poles for the D and G strings. The two switches run each pickups as serial and parallel. If you're finding that you're losing sound by switching to serial, a dead coil is most likely your problem. If you tap on the pickup covers with a screwdriver in parallel mode you should be able to find out if one side of the pickup is dead pretty easily. Aaron Armstrong (son of Kent) makes replacement pickups (working originals are nearly impossible to find second hand) but, in my experience, they sound nothing like the original Aria pickups. The Aria pickup is bright and punchy, the Armstrong pickup much darker sounding. I ended up trading a working Aria pickup for another Armstrong pickup just to have a pair which sounded alike and would work with each other. The other guy also had a failed Aria pickup and had bought an Armstrong replacement.

[quote name='Prime_BASS' timestamp='1326107470' post='1492263'] By that estimation, I can freely begin a song by clapping aginst the strings, not playing any notes because it builds tension. Even as a bassist I find majority of solo acts incredibly dull and boring. It's all meaningless dribble to me, especially if the piece is over 2:30 and has more muted percusive "technique" than notes which only serves as sub-defuge, to distract us from the fact its devoid of feeling because it's all just for money. Don't get me wrong, I'm not blind to the fact that he or others arn't good. It just astounds me that people find that kind of dribble "amazing". I must be one of few people who find it boring, pointless and condescending of those who can't perform that fast, or like clicking their own strings for groove and feeling but because they don't have a back catalogue of achievements are frowned upon. This is of course my own opinion, I was just interested in why people like that clicking nonesense. [/quote]As Michael Jackson said, you are not alone. It's hard to defend that kind of solo w***ery because once you stop listening with your eyes and hear them as compositions, as pieces of music, they're usually pretty vapid and highlight the unsuitabilty of the instrument to the task. The clacking of string off fret isn't one which really tugs at my emotional side and it baffles me why people invest their time in trying to write something sensitive and with feeling and then decide that the best medium to convey this is metal bouncing off metal. It's a demonstration of co-ordination, nothing more. I see them as something like an annoying child singing I'm A Little Teapot, looking for your gushing approval when you're thinking that they should learn something useful instead like using the potty. I've a lot of time for Wooten, I've an album he plays on with Greg Howe and Dennis Chambers and it's great stuff, great playing, but this solo clacka clacka thing does my head in too.

Having made a typo recently while visiting the site I can confirm asschat is also available if that interests ye?

Just sounds like the P pickup with the action low enough so it starts to choke when he really digs in.

[quote name='pete.young' timestamp='1326022832' post='1491060'] My Fylde electric. Not many of these about: Roger Bucknell reckons fewer than 30 were made. This one has very early EMG pickups (before they were officially called EMG), the bridge one has two sets of coils, one humbucking and one single coil set. [/quote]Wow! Has anyone ever played it? It looks untouched. Very nice!

Is it a black art? Not really, it just involves a bit of effort so most people just ignore it. If you have a Warwick, it's not a black art at all. If you have something which insists on archaic design, then it involves a bit of sanding/filing which most people just don't want to do. Personally, I like my nut action to be low like a zero fret, that's what I aim for.

Couldn't you just go to every guitar shop within a 100 mile radius over the next month and try out each of their bass stock?

I'd say you should expect the difference. Your bridge pickup is closer to the bridge with 70's spacing, meaning a less bassy tone, that's the whole point of using that spacing. I don't think you've measured the resistance of the pickups properly, because your average J pickup is about 7k. Check your soldering, because on my J with 70's spacing I have the bridge pickup 3mm from the bottom of the string and the neck 5mm to get a balanced output. You're never going to get the same bassy response from a bridge and neck pickup, but in terms of actual percieved volume, it sounds like there's something wrong if you have the neck pickup screwed right into the body.

That's what the "tug-bar" is for on early Fenders, Leo thought that's how the electric bass guitar would be played, the player would rest his fingers on the bar and play using the thumb to pick the strings.

I love this kind of thing. Someone created a thread a while back which compared an all-original pre-CBS Fender P to a recent SX and the snobbier types cried foul, that it wasn't a fair comparison because he had installed a Lollar pickup into the SX, entirely missing the point

That was horrible. Take some of the notes but none of the balls of the original, put it in cardigan and play it in a lift in a nursing home and that's what you get.

That is a really nice setup

Probably not, without knowing what you paid for it. This is the last one that sold here and he used some very advanced sales techniques http://basschat.co.uk/topic/112363-sold-esp-400-jazz-in-candy-apple-red-sold/page__hl__esp%20jazz

I think I read the synth was set at 44.1kHz instead of 48kHz or vise-versa or something along those lines, twas a technical f*** up rather than the chaps being able to play the right notes on the guitar.

What a horrible tease! Unwrap, man, unwrap!

I spent ages looking for the right head and finally setted on this Fryette Deliverance 60. It's a single channel amp, no unnecessary nonsense or ultra confusing options for a gobsh*te like me. It'll do sparkling clean to really crushing distortion and all loveliness inbetween. I looked at Mesas, Marshalls and everything else, this one just spoke to me and it's an amazing piece of kit. The cab is a Peavey Valveking 4x12, I was running out of money and needed a cab to gig so this was pretty cheap and did the job decently. I'd like to get the Fryette 2x12 in the future but the bank practically insist I pay the mortgage first. I've a delightful Ampeg 2x12" combo I'll add if I can find a pic. I did gig with it a couple of times but it was just way too heavy which is why I needed to source the head instead.

I like!