Doctor J

Good luck Linus, it'd be great if not everyone from BC was a failure

Take your time, go to shops and try loads of basses and try to find out what kind of bass you want first, because it sounds like you know you want a bass without knowing which bass. Time is on your side here and you have a healthy budget. Once you whittle it down to a model or two, then try playing loads of that type and find the bass you want. Personally, I don't think I could ever go back to one because I enjoy playing with the variety of different sounds, feels, etc and I don't see any virtue in purposely restricting my options to one in the same way I wouldn't want to eat my favourite food every day either. If you like a bass or two you already have, keep it I say. What have you got to lose by having more than one instrument?

I think Bart use blades in everything edit -> [quote]CNC machined blades on all of the 4 string bass pickups listed below allow them to cover string widths from 50mm to 59mm on medium curvature fingerboards with excellent string balance[/quote]

A lot of what you do with your tone in metal will depend on what the guitarists are doing as it is, unquestionably, a guitar driven style. With my last gig I was playing guitar so left the low end to the bass and had quite a mid focused guitar tone without too much gain on it and, surprisingly, frequently got compliments from other guitarists. We were tuned to B with some tunes in dropped A so keeping some sort of clarity was important to me. We had recorded quite a few tunes before getting a full time bassist so I played bass on several recordings too. I just went straight into a first series Ashdown ABM, on the solid state channel but with the dirt from the valve turned all the way up and bypassed the EQ, instead using a tiny bit of low and high end boost on the bass, a Bacchus 5 string Jazz, no effects or anything other than the dirt from the amp and hitting the strings rather hard. I kept the action low to get a bit of fret grind in there which I find helps the bass cut through. As I said, the guitar was, on its own, quite a weedy sound, but the bass and guitar tones were set up to work together and the overall effect had a nice punch to it. You really need buy-in from your guitarist to be able to do it that way though, the bedroom tone just doesn't work in a band context and they need to embrace this [url="http://www.justinmaloney.com/anbd.zip"]http://www.justinmaloney.com/anbd.zip[/url] [url="http://www.justinmaloney.com/anbwt.zip"]http://www.justinmaloney.com/anbwt.zip[/url] That chug tone you put up there sounds ace with the kit, I'd like to hear how it works with your guitarist and an acoustic kit.

I can't see it anywhere

[quote name='ikay' timestamp='1332690026' post='1591648'] This video gives a direct tonal comparison of similar bolt-on and neck-through basses and may be of interest: [url="http://www.theguitarcolumn.com/2010/03/bolt-on-vs-neck-thru-tone-difference.html"]http://www.theguitar...difference.html[/url] [/quote]Apart from the different body woods, neck woods and strings, of course

I think most people can't hear the difference using their ears alone. Neck through never did Stanley Clarke any harm.

Oooh a new colour. Great to see the torch of Leo's innovation and creativity being carried with pride by FMIC, on the anniversary of his death. That price is absurd. Still, if you need a brand name that badly, good luck to you.

I much prefer them to Schallers, have never had a problem with the screw coming out and have them on most of my basses for years. I have had that strap nut frequently loosen after time on Schallers, however.

I've got a couple of Streamers with MECs (one set active, one passive) and an Ibanez which I fitted with EMGs (reverse PJ config in all). To be honest, I haven't heard anything in either set of MECs to suggest they're inferior to the EMGs in any form at all. You tend to see quite a few people who swap them out so if you keep your eyes on the classifieds here you shouldn't have to wait long to pick up a set but, to my ears at least, they sound great, I'd definitely consider installing MECs if I was swapping out pickups in another bass - just wouldn't buy them new, they're perjaps priced just a smidge unrealistically

If it's not fun do them and yourself a favour and remove yourself from the situation.

After giving it a little more thought too, you've most likely got Gotoh hardware on there already so leave it alone

That's a keeper Linus has nailed it pretty much, they were made during those years and, in the absense of any records, there's no way of really telling which year exactly. The Tele headed Precision was a genuine model though, there was one on chrisguitars for a while which I had my eye on but stupidly never bought. I don't think anyone out there is really making copies of the 400. Given the prices they sell for it's not really worth the bother, though if you had the big F logo on the headstock I'd say you could triple the asking price and still sell with ease. Please don't change anything, that thing is gorgeous please My ESP is as stock as the day it left the factory and I'm a hoor for modding, but anything I change will not improve the bass, only take away. Give it a bit of time, get to know it, these basses are the real deal, you don't need to soup them up to get a great bass. Some day people will see past the headstock logo and cop on to the quality of these basses and you'll be the guy who gutted a pre-CBS in ESPworld

I had a 200 mile round trip for rehearsals with my last band, which I did without complaint for four years. Things weren't going well though, poor communication and a bit of tension as a result, so we had a meeting after rehearsals one day, got a few things off our chest (surreal comments aired like "I don't really like local Metal bands, I wouldn't go and see any of these bands if I wasn't in this band" - [i]what are you doing in a local Metal band then?[/i]) but I drove away thinking maybe we had a future after all and was looking forward to our gig the next day, which was a festival in Limerick - a 90 minute drive for me and a two hour drive for the rest of the lads. By the time I got home, two hours later, I had received a text message: "I don't fancy doing this gig tomorrow. Too much pain for too little gain" That was the moment I decided to quit.

They should be throwing a few free sessions your way as an apology.

I like everything about that except the price.

I'm very particular about how I setup my basses and, as a result, very rarely go to shop to try them out because I'm more likely to be put off. Like neepheid, selection is thin where I live so I've bought a lot of basses from abroad without having ever played them. I'm generally comfortable with any 34" scale bass provided there's a forearm contour, so I don't worry about not getting on. The first thing I do is strip them down, clean and oil as appropriate, string them with my preferred brand and gauge of string and set them up the way I like. Once that's done, spend some time getting to know it, see what it can do and, after a few months, I know if it's a keeper or not. Within the same style of bass you do find some are better (to me) than others. I've had a few other Jazz basses pass through, like Sadowsky and Fender, but nothing has felt or sounded better than my ESP. When I got my Godlyke it became clear that my Stingray wasn't going to see a lot of playing time any more so I moved it on, despite liking it a lot. Even within bass types you like, there are individual ones which stand out and they're the ones you keep,

Never had a problem with that before. A D'Addario B I once had did the same thing and it was fine, strung up the same way I do for every other string.

Tell them their guitars look to small, like toy guitars and that, as men, they should play bigger, manly guitars - like you.

Go to lots of gigs as an audience member for a while, focus on bands who are playing the style of music you'd like to play and get to know the people involved. Musicians tend to know other musicians. Bands of a particular style tend to be in frequent contact with other bands of similar style. Opportunity will present itself soon enough. I don't think the "I'll play anything" approach is a long lasting key to success. Bands have ups and downs, musically and personally, if you have a passion for the tunes you'll find it easier to stick through the rough times. If you're not arsed about the tunes and the drummer is being a pillock you'll find it easier to find yourself right back where you are now. You're also less of a benefit to any prospective band if you're just there for the sake of being there, rather than being there because you fully believe in the music. Drop the deadline idea too, don't volunteer yourself into a stupid situation just because of where the Earth is around the Sun. Decide what you really want to do and take time in making sure you do what you really want to do, rather than just diving in for the sake of being in any band. Personally, I've never been happier since leaving my last band, just spending time writing and recording music myself. The idea of joining another band seems like a surreal proposition now where once it was everything which drove me forward.

More ABM love here, I've had my ABM300 for almost ten years now, never had a sniff of trouble either live or recording. Never found it lacking in the volume department either.

Beautiful! Any chance you could save that audio as mp3, my computer doesn't know what an ipb file is and I'd love to hear what that thing sounds like.

[quote name='Stockholm Syndrome' timestamp='1330257108' post='1554619'] So yesterday [/quote] Yes? Go on...

Yeah, you've got a lot of low end added there, while the frequencies you'll actually hear in a band setting, your mids and highs, are turned down. Set everything flat, next time you're playing with the band, and tweak as you go on. Don't judge your tone by how it sounds when you play solo, because it's not an accurate reflection of your tone once the bass drum, snare, guitars and vocals start taking frequency space away from you. Your biggest boost, 30hz, is pretty much inaudible in a band context but you're devoting so much energy to it. Can your cab even do 30hz? Get that right out of there, see what a difference it makes. In fact, I'd say reverse every slider on the eq, see how you cut through then.

How much is people's perception of a genuine, live, energetic rock performance coloured by years of media saturation of miming to pre-recorded, studio quality tracks? I don't have too much of a problem with Blur's performance there. They were a great band in their day and I enjoyed every Blur gig I ever went to. They're giving it a bit of energy there, they're putting on a show, it's a bit much to be expecting a studio quality performance, especially vocally when your lungs have to push the words out as well as throw shapes. Perhaps they were overdoing it a little considering they were trying to energise an audience of biz types sitting at their dinner tables? Put that performance into a sweaty club filled to the brim with people who aren't scared to crumple their tuxedos and it might make a little more sense.