Doctor J

Fantastic work and a great thread to follow.

Yeah, left their gig in the Ambassador in Dublin a few years ago. I had a two hour drive home and was in danger of falling asleep in the venue, never mind the car. First gig I ever left was Opeth touring Watershed, I think. They made the mistake of having Cynic support and, to be honest, there was no following them. I like Opeth but they were boring as fooook live. At Bloodstock 2016 I left Slayer after about 5 songs. They were simply terrible. I first saw them back in 88 touring SOH and a few times since and they got progressively more boring each time. There was just nothing left of them which was of any interest to me. I wished they'd be good but, no... just no.

Our music from the 90's/00's? Bleedin' kids!

Very nice, congratulations. Great to see a bass doing its own thing, design-wise. What are the controls? And any chance of a pic including the headstock?

The original is excellent, of course, but faster it is not

I always check out the supports and have gone specifically for the support a number of times. The one that immediately comes to mind is Cynic supporting Opeth. At the time, Cynic was a bucket list band and, even though I like Opeth, I couldn't even keep interested to the end of their set and left early. Cynic was just too good an experience. I went to see Sepultura support In Flames, never liked In Flames. I travelled to the Bloodstock festival years ago just to see Atheist, who were playing early enough in the day. Only Metal Church, of the other bands on the bill, were of any interest at all.

Ok, then. Let's say that, unless the pickup has been specifically designed otherwise, running two coils in series generally emphasises the low mids and this is the recognisable trait of the average P bass 😉

I remember seeing a white, late 50's P for sale, years ago. The finish was missing from much of the back of the body and you could see there were not just horizontal joins, but a diagonal one too. The body was assembled from random offcuts, by the looks of it. They still sold it for almost 10 grand, IIRC. I wish I had saved a picture of it.

Yeah, he didn't have to pay Gibson for borrowing their patented humbucker design 😉

What's worth considering also is, if you play by anchoring your thumb on the pickup, like I do, where you strike the string can also change quite dramatically as a result of where the pickup is which will also affect the sound of what comes out of the speaker.

As a young Metaller I spent a lot of time getting three plucking fingers going as standard for the high tempos the music I loved required. Something like this is reasonably comfortable for me with three and I reckon it'd be a shortcut to RSI if you played this kind of speed consistently with two fingers.

This really, badly, desperately needs an ebony fretboard 😂

It's actually the other way around. The two coils are wired in series, which gives the P its mid-honkiness. Series wiring emphasises the low mids. The reason P basses work so well is that they're not overly low-end heavy. They tend to cut through because the emphasis isn't on low end or high.

It's not standardised but it is possible to give an idea of what's going on which covers a substantial part of what different manufacturers are doing and remove much of the speculation. Personally, I find the reverse P more comfortable to play, for a start. There's also something very pleasing about that mixed PJ sound which isn't quite there with a traditionally positioned split P and J. But first, let's do some measuring. I don't have a Fender P, the closest I have is an old Japanese Yamaha BB1100S. Other traditional P types are a Bass Collection SB311 and an Ibanez SB900. Measuring the distance from the 19th fret to the leading edge of the pickup, we find: From what I could find digging around, it looks like the Fender P has the leading edge of the E-A coil positioned round 12.5cm from the 19th fret, which would put the D-G coil at around 15.5cm back. Someone be a dear and measure, if you have one. It would be interesting to see if Fender themselves are consistent across USA, Japanese and Mexican models. Anyway, looking at the reverse P types to hand we see this: The Charvel appears to be closest to the traditional Fender position but with the coils swapped around. The famous Warwick growl is coming from the pickups being much closer to the bridge than "standard" and the Warwick E string is read almost 5cm closer to the bridge than the Yamaha. It's a much greater difference than, for example, the 60's and 70's Jazz bridge pickup positions. If you think that makes a difference then surely there's more than snake oil? As for disco and funk, you can do a comparison by listening to the first Chic album, recorded on a P, and the subsequent albums recorded on a Stringray. The leading edge of the Stringray pickup is, what, a little over 17cm from the 19th fret, so the E and A string is being read from even closer to the bridge than a Warwick SS1. Which tone stands out more?

Ah here, expect a call from the Gardaí, you robbed him 😂

If you managed to get yer man down from 350 she should be buying you dinner tonight 😂

Complete bargain. They're massively undervalued for how good a bass they are. You got a lot for the money, for sure.

Ahh, I had my eye on that one for a long time, happy to see it's not on Adverts anymore 😂 The SR800 is a classic design, to me. They're superbly comfortable, sonically versatile and, usually, very light. Give it time and get to know it.

That's ridiculous!

B&Q style ply

My first bass had a plywood body and it sounded great. Also, all those 60's and 70's basses where the black part of the sunburst covers every contoured surface, they're plywood too and the price of those is continually creeping up. Age defeats wood snobbery 🙂

What's wrong with being sexy?

Yes, it was a joke 😉

No need to excuse oneself these days, anything goes 😁

Very true. When I split with the missus a few years ago and needed to raise cash for the legal bill, I worked out the order in which I'd sell them via a complex mental formula of emotional vs actual worth vs playability vs versatility. The ESP would have been last to go but, yes, everything would have gone if required. Thankfully, it didn't come to that. Starting from scratch would have been very interesting 😁