adamg67

Hmm, that's not the same thing at all. I'm saying the OP can get an objectively the same quality guitar for half the money, not that he should spend less and get somethign worse. I'm saying have steak, but pay half the price for the same thing by getting it from your local butcher.

It is sounding like you are too far gone for us to help! One last go: http://www.ibanez.com/products/u_hb_detail18.php?year=2018&cat_id=7&series_id=112&data_id=13&color=CL01 https://www.gak.co.uk/en/ibanez-artstar-prestige-am-200-black/908678

Based on the Gibsons I’ve played vs cheaper but still quality guitars, there will be something else out there for a quarter of the money that will be as good or better. For half that price there is a semi out there that you will fall in love with. Google “Gibson es335 alternatives”, find something amazing and go on a nice holiday with the change.

Because both the Surshingar and MonoNeon are in embedded players and are on the same page, you can (in Chrome at least) play both at once. Sort of like the BC equivalent of objets trouvés? I suggest only one MonoNeon at a time with the Surshigar, but what do I know?

Got to be an SX, surely, with the headstock shape? There's one on ebay with the same logo: https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/SX-Electric-Guitar-LP-Black-B-Stock-RRP-260/122963915814?epid=1554765022&hash=item1ca1387426:g:HGkAAOSwXf1agXc4 Looks the same but in black.

I think @EBS_freak has a valid enough take on this that it deserves respect, as valid as saying that pretty much any noise is music - if it was, we wouldn't need the word "music", would we? The whole debate is interesting, but also difficult because nothing is defined solidly enough and almost everything is subjective. Are there things that are audio art but are not music? Are there things which people mean to be music, but the consensus would be that it isn't? It's worth asking, and lots of answers are valid. Some of it sounds quite unpleasant to a lot of people, and at the same time other people think it has value as art or music and even seem to think it sounds good - you can't tell them they're wrong. I'm giving away my own biases now, I think. The original YT video does make me wonder if they really mean it to be enjoyed by the listener or if there's an element of different and interesting being assumed to be good on some intellectual level regardless of whether people enjoy listening to it. My personal take on it... well, there's a lot of music and art that I love, but there's a line that gets crossed where I think, you're just going through a process that you think should produce art and then calling whatever comes out the end art anyway, even if it looks or sounds "bad" (or random, which is maybe worse) or doesn't actually get across what you were trying to express to other people. I suppose I think art is about communication, and things like conceptual art break that for me - you shouldn't have to explain what is being expressed. Just because an artist produces something, and puts some expression in it, that doesn't make it art (again, my personal take on it) and just because musicians express something and it sounds interesting doesn't mean it's music. Otherwise, like I said, we can just ditch the word music and use "sound" instead. And, also, possibly more controversially, I do think people can appear to be claiming some kind of artisitic superiority by liking things that are "more artistic". It ends up looking a lot like the emporer's new clothes. Right, I'm off to see if my shed will float...

Meant to post the link with that: http://www.labella.com/products/767-6f-bass-vi-stainless-flats-26-95/

LaBella also do flats for bass VI, which are even more money but sound pretty amazing if you like that sort of thing (I do!).

No fingernails involved for me, I keep them short and try not to dig in even when I'm playing something rocky... but I also play with a pick, so if I want a bit more attack I'll do that instead.

I've just switched to D'Addario NYXL for my "rock" bass and I really like them so far, much better for me than whatever the Maruszczyk stock ones were, even when they were new. I've started recording new strings so I can compare like for like instead of comparing new to old, so I'm happy that they give me what I want.

My tastes for listening lean heavily towards rock, but I do a bit of Le Freak pretty much every time I pick up the bass at the moment. Love that bass line.

For some reason my faulty brain showed me the title of this topic as: "If you can't, slap mine and look cool". It does things like that.

So the pre on my BTB is 3 band with a stacked mid control with the lower half changing the frequency. I might have a look at the PCB, but from the BTB456 specs it's a "Vari-mid IIIB", I'll see what I can find out about it.

Do you mean on the BTB? Or just generally?

Thinking about it (I do this occasionally, though it doesn't always help) the Multiamp is pretty long in the tooth now, so I shouldn't be surprised that other things are overtaking it. I've already decided that when it can't keep up quality wise, I'll switch to the ipad for everything, including live. Amplitube max just blows me away, you can make choices based on what you think the amps will sound like and you get the sound you want - ANY sound you want pretty much - really quickly. In fact, by the time I get bored with the multiamp it'll probably all run on my phone, or we won't have phones any more. I think the software and the hardware are converging more as well, so you can have a dedicated unit with pedals etc and a bit of resilience to have on stage, but work on presets and setup on a tablet or PC and then just load them up. I'm guessing some stuff already does this pretty well, but in future it will be the gear that has a good software interface as well as good sounds that wins.

I nearly bought a Crown amp just for the big number, luckily the multiamp saved me.

I think it was the effects in the Multiamp that did it for me, espcially drive, pitch and filter.

Ah, now, I should have said that I was looking at this stuff about 3 years ago, and looking at the gear that people had and that was in the rehearsal rooms. I'm sure the quality of the best of the mid range stuff will have gone up. The point I was originally trying to make was that the decent modelling gear I know about can easily hold it's own against analogue. As everything gets better that will be true of more and more digital gear.

For bass, I went through a stack of a analogue pedals (and amps, and a Sansamp RBI) before I got my fully digital / modelling MarkBass Multiamp. I sold all the pedals after that, it has better overdrive and filter as well as loads I never use, and the ability to get everything set up on presets. For guitar, I've just got an iPad + iRig + Amplitube now. Both rigs sound better than any combination of analogue gear I've ever had. I think both are better than the Line 6 stuff which I don't think has ever been better than average for modelling. I had a Vox modelling thing for a bit that I think was still better than the Line 6 gear, but not up to scratch with what I have now. The Multiamp was just the best buy ever, £600 ish second hand and that's a power amp, mulitple amp models and all the effects I'll ever need, and all as good as the analogue versions. I use it as a power amp for the iRig as well as for a bass amp. Everything is on presets, and with an SD card so I could set up another multiamp the same way in seconds. The iPad + iRig + Amplitube set up was a bit more money but only because I went for a new iPad pro. Still cheap compared to a lot of gear. I can't see any argument for using analogue gear now unless it's much cheaper than a digital rig, which it never ends up being. But that's up against decent modelling gear, NOT Helix / Line 6 which never has been the best.

So it was easy enough to reduce the choice by looking at the ones that actually fit. I'm considering a pair of these: xxP46C-B Anyone used them? Since the bass itself isn't worth much I'm happy to add a couple of switches to get the most flexibility out of the pickups, which is why I'm looking at the quad coils. I would do probably series / parallel / single - I've done that on guitars before and it looks like you get the same effect on bass pickups. I had another look at the current pickups and they aren't even labelled as Bartolinis, they're just Ibanez soapbars.

This. SBL is well worth it if you've got the time to make the most of it.

In the interest of keeping things in one place: I've got a feedback thread here: which is now the "one true feedback for adamg67" topic.

In the interest of keeping things in one place: I've got a feedback thread here: which is now the "one true feedback for adamg67" topic.

I bought a Maruszczyk Elwood 5a from Dan and everything went super smooth, good comms and a nice cup of coffee (and a tea for the mrs) while I was trying the bass. Perfect, deal with confidence, thanks Dan!

The next question would be which real Bartolinis? They have a big range just of 6 string soapbars. Time for some reading and watching YouTube vids.