adamg67

It's fine for everyone else to think my posts are pointless, but I have to at least mostly believe I'm saying something meaningful... I can usually maintain the delusion but today it deserted me. It'll be back soon

I wrote a pointless post that said nothing, so I've deleted it all.

Not for a couple of years. I'll be getting going with something again this year probably, that's one reason I'm tweaking things and making sure the sound I've got does what I want.

I’ve had a Maruszczyk Jake for a while, and recently switched to flats which I really like. I specced it with Delano pickups, a P plus a humbucker at the bridge, and hadn’t really expected them to sound so similar. They’re not identical, but the humbucker is in series so quite fat, and the P is nearer the neck so quite fat. I’d already decided to fit a series / single / parallel switch, but thinking about it thought why not put a more classically P pickup in instead of the Delano, since I’d still basiclly have something close to the original sound with the remaining pickup. So now I have a Nordstrand NP5 in the P position, and the Delano MC 5 FE at the bridge with parallel / series / single. The NP5 is really good, and mixing it with the Delano in parallel or single coil (always pretty similar) works really well, much much more range than I used to have. Looking at it now, I think I’ve just gone a long way round to getting a PJ sound? Split coil + single coil with blend seems like a really good setup to have, and I’ve never had a PJ but I guess that’s what it is? Or even without blend, you still get the nice middle position with them mixed. Very nice, yes I know technically the extra pickup pulls on the strings but I think I’d go the for the extra pickup any time now.

Bought a Stingray from Jon, good deal on a good bass and Jon was really friendly and helpful. Exactly what a BC deal should be like, cheers Jon.

[ removed by edit once I worked out what was going on properly ]

I've got a few "rigs" on the go at the moment and the one to beat is my bass through a Radial JDI passive DI box into anything that will reproduce that sound loud and clear.

Progress. Thanks to this page on the Nordstrand site: https://nordstrandaudio.com/blogs/news/phase-let-s-work-together with a handy tip for checking polarity, it was easy to confirm that the Delano pup has different phase for each half of the split, which is not what I would expect (but Im' no expert). The Nordstrand has the same phase for each half (it presumably has each half magnetised a different way, and the coils in opposite directions). Neither pickup can be modified to fix this without losing hum cancelling.

But, just realised, if I do that I will lose the hum cancelling?

I just want to check that I’m looking at this right... I’ve just dropped a Nordstrand NP5 split coil P pup into my Maruszczyk Jake, replacing a Delano PMVC 5 FE/M2. There’s a Delano MC 5 FE/M2 at the bridge, which is a quad coil. With the NP5 fitted, I was getting low output from the middle position on the blend, so with both pups in parallel. No problem, just out of phase... except when I tested it properly, I get low output from the top half wired one way, and low output from the bottom half the other way round. The NP5 has the two halves wired together already, so there’s nothing else to change. So... knowing that the other pup is a quad coil, it looks like that is wired differently to the NP5 as far as the phases of the two halves in relation to each other. If I want to keep those two pups I’ll need to reverse the polarity of one half of the NP5 in relation to the other, so basically just swap the wires to one of the halves. Does that sound right? Thought it was worth checking before I start snipping wires.

There are definitely apps, that's what the iPad + iRig + Amplitube solution mentioned above a few times uses to do the actual modelling. Could be other tablet / other interface / other app, I'm sure there are many now. Works a treat.

Ibanez SRC6 is pretty hard to beat, and IMO with the right strings can handle bass parts no problem, and sound like a guitar on the higher end as well.

Someone's already mentioned iPad + iRig, if I'm away from home I usually take the ipad anyway, so all I need to take is the iRig, some ear bud phones and a short lead. No mains required either so long as the iPad is charged up, although I've got the extra charger thingy for the iRig. You do need something like Amplitube though to get amps & stomps, I splashed and got the full thing as I was playing g**tar quite a bit at the time so I'm not sure how cheaply it can be done. Works for me, never noticed any latency at all (iPad pro).

Straps aren't too hard to find, but most have those alloy clips. I just replace them with karabiners or maillons (but then I have a stash from when I used to climb)

I use Schaller ones and like them, mine have two nuts holding the strap half on, which seems to lock them on really well, and getting the body end nice and secure is just the same as with any screw, mine came with two sizes and I just take care to get the right size or fill and drill if they're not good. All my basses and guitars have them now. I had some cheaper ones before that, can't even remember the brand but they were bulky and harder to use. They win over the washer / rubber ring things because they make swapping instruments live so easy, just unhook the lower strap button and you're off, no need to throw it over your head, then flip the strap from the new over your shoulder and clip it in. Handy even at home and rehearsals, the light fittings are a lot safer now.

I just put part 2 of the plan into action and went from flats to rounds on the Elwood (active Jazz with Haussel J pickups), and that now sounds bloody brilliant as well. If only I'd listened to what people said on BC in the first place. What did they say, you ask? I've no idea, I didn't listen.

I've sold various things in various places. eBay has been what you would expect, mainly fine with the occasional idiot, but I've never sold anything of great value on there. Facebook I'm not so keen on unless I'm delivering, and even then you can end up in dodgy places, but then I've mainly sold bigger things like furniture and it wouldn't matter if I was posting stuff. On the buying side of FB I once picked some alloy wheels up from Grimethorpe and was weighing up my chances of getting out of there with wallet and car. BC has been universally kind to me, like this: I've had decent deals buying and good experiences selling, but none of it was high end stuff, more in the up to £300 area. I'll usually try BC first for selling anything musical. The Items Wanted page is great, the MB cab wasn't the first time I found someone looking for something I was selling.

This one really does my head in. My Markbass Multiamp (pre 2015, don't know if they fixed it with the later one) does this, why would it ever be useful?

Yeah, it's worth remembering that they do things that aren't on the configurator. Mine was configurated as a start and then had a couple of extra things to make it perfect.

I would only worry about shielding with single coil pickups anyway, and even then I thought it was more of a guitar thing, because of the high gain which will amplify any hum. I did it on a Telecaster, but I've never worried about it on a bass.