Doctor J

Have played 5s and 6s but prefer the feel of 4 in my hands. I've a 4 with appropriate strings tuned down to B standard when I need the low stuff and the rest in E. No manifesto or drama, just went with what I preferred the feel of.

Before you buy anything Fender Japan, always check the u-box, Ishibashi's used section. Even with shipping and taxes they usually work out substantially cheaper than buy new here. https://www.ishibashi.co.jp/ec/search/?SWD=Fender japan

Corinthians scored loads more than Romans in the first half, but it got close at full time.

Think of them as two mono signals, the mic interface as L and the instrument interface as R. You'll record them as two separate mono tracks at the same time and pan them hard left and hard right in your DAW for playback. You'll need to convert your L phono output to an XLR input and your R phono output to a 1/4" input.

Plus you now have name for your next band - Mysterious Chip

The Bongo is 4-band EQ, I thought? Edit -> Indeed it is. Full specs and plenty of sound samples here https://www.music-man.com/instruments/basses/bongo-4

Consider that you could have paid extra for someone to do it on purpose and call it a "light relic", but you got it for free! Winning! Meanwhile, life goes on.

The stock pickups were AFRs. It also came with a 3-band EQ - Vol, Blend, stacked bass and treble and the stacked vari-mid.

Is it Withnail? I've never seen it so I just picked a root vegetable and went for it. The technical stuff: Yamaha drums through t-bone mics into a Behringer preamp, ESP 400 Series Jazz bass DI'd and an Ibanez RG tuned down to Ab or B, I think. I've no idea why I did this, into a Fryette amp which went into a Palmer speaker emulator. Smooshed together crudely and at speed in Protools

It's the accucast bridge, 100% stock.

Yeah, had one of them too, very nice basses of the usual Fujigen standard and scrub up well with a bit of TLC. They're active EMG pickups, so there is no bypass. They're not the stock pickups either. I did that same mod, swapping out the Ibanez pickups for EMG. @Grooverjr Depending on what they've installed, you've got the following controls 1 - Master volume, pickup blend, bass and treble cut and boost 2 - P Volume, J Volume, bass and treble cut and boost 3 - P Volume, J Volume, P tone, J tone With that in mind, play around and you should be able to figure it out. Yeahm h

Can you post pictures of it? It could be possible to identify the model which would make it much easier to answer your question.

The nut has no influence on the sound of a fretted note, it's all between the bridge and the finger which pushes down on the string. Is it a dead spot you're talking about (usually around the B to D range, frets 4 to 7) or is it every note along the length of the G string? Have you checked the neck relief and string height, that the string isn't choking when you fret it?

And here's All Night Long, the difficult second album. Next stop, Fethard Ballroom!

The one thing this thread has made clear is that it's not a matter of would you... the pros have worked like foooook and been prepared to make huge sacrifices (sometimes economic, sometimes artistic) to be pro. Those who were destined to be pro are pro, the rest of us are not, no matter how much we may like to think that we prefer not to be 🙂

There are very few, if any, dud Stingrays so you can buy any year with confidence you're going to get a good bass. I've had three, an early 90's two-band, a later 90's two-band and a three-band from the early 00's. The shape of the necks and weight were similar on all. The two-bands were both ash bodied though I think the three-band was poplar. I'd say the biggest choice is in EQ and the thing to bear in mind, if choosing the more traditional two-band EQ model, is that the bass control is boost only, whereas the treble cuts and boosts. There is no bass boost taking place only when the bass control is fully wound down. A lot of people think setting it midway is a neutral setting and it is anything but. On the three-band, everything can be cut or boosted. Given the difference, try to play a few and decide which EQ model suits you best, rather than taking a guess based on what different people with different ears say to you on the internet.

Where you goin', city boy?

I hear that bandied around a lot but it's just a lazy excuse, in my opinion. What innovation? Most of Fender's output for the last 40+ years has been jumbling up existing parts and slapping a name on it. The only one which springs to mind and was remotely different (for them) was the Dimension. In a world where the L2000 and Stingray had created and filled that market 40 years ago, where was the space that the Dimension fit into in order to be successful? If their competitors are really 40 years ahead, perhaps it the other brands who actually innovate which keep Fender and their continuous regurgitation cornered in the past?

.

There were never as many lawsuits as people think. For most of what people call "lawsuit" instruments, there was no lawsuit. It's another misued and abused term like "vintage" to try to make FS ads seem more intriguing and appealing 😉 It's more a Japanese cultural thing - Kaizen, continuous improvement. You'll notice most Japanese brands, not just Ibanez, make a particular model for a year or two, then release a new model and make that instead of the previous model. On it goes. They continually try to refine their instruments to incorporate manufacturing, electronic and ergonomic progression. Churning out the same thing for 70 years, with the occasional rebranding exercise and perhaps slight paint shade change, is sadly a business model our American friends embrace once the innovators sell out to bean counters and shouldn't be accepted as the norm.

I also have a lot of love for All Moving Parts (Stand Still). Funky Geezer.

I studied sound engineering, worked in a studio for a while, produced a few bands and thought it would be a nice way to earn a living. However, I realised that having to work on music I simply didn't like removed all the joy from it. Having bands in who I couldn't click with turned the thing I truly love into an excruciating chore, so I choose to do music for love and a "regular" job for money. My taste in music has always been a little too niche to make a living out of playing and fame is something I would run away from with surprising speed. Covers, weddings or sessions playing music I don't like are of no interest at all. Being an anonymous schleb who plays what he wants when he wants, and enjoys every second of it, sits just fine on my shoulders.

Ozzy? Bassline written by Mike Inez and played on the album by Bob Daisley.

It's Spiral Architect, but thanks for asking.

This is a bad thing, a very bad thing, actually. Saying a string is coated is, in truth, fairly meaningless. It's like the ads for things which are "plant-based" under the guise of being healthier, but are still highly processed blobs of sugar, salt and fat. How the string is coated is the important part. As mentioned before, the design and intent of the Elixir, coating the outside surface of the wound string as a whole, is to prevent biocrud getting into the windings because that is what makes your strings sound dull and lifeless. Putting a coating on and then wrapping does absolutely nothing to prevent biocrud seepage. In fact, all you're doing is adding a greater percentage of plastic into the string as the outer wind is coated even on the side which is touching the string core and never comes in contact with the player. It's a marketing exercise only and makes a string worse, not better. This was a lesson learned the hard way, having tried Warwick and then D'Addario's "coated" strings and putting them in the bin not too long after installing them. Elixirs are worth the money because of how they are wound, which I think they still own the patent to. I should never have strayed as it was just an exercise in pi$$ing money away.