bnt

Quick update: I've been trying a couple of unsuccessful tone control experiments, but nothing really necessary. I'm happy with the split processing tones I can get: I get the feeling that I need to hear how these tones sit in a mix with other instruments, but right now it's a solution in search of a problem. In the short term I'm going to leave it, in the long term, if I need to make it gig-worthy, I would consider replacing the lot with EMG electronics. I'm happy enough with the construction and flexibility of this bass that I'm trying heavier strings than I've ever used before: I found a D'Addario EXL160BT set locally. This is the balanced tension set, 50-120 (201.7 lbs) instead of the typical 50-105 (189 lbs) or EXL170 45-100 (165 lbs). I gave the truss rod about 1/3 of a turn before installation, and it's pretty close but will need a check later. The increased tension on the low strings means a stronger tone that handles drop tuning well. The other day I had it down to CGCF so I could tackle Anesthetise by Porcupine Tree, and they didn't go floppy on me. (A .120 string is a light low B string as it is.)

If you don't mind a Sandberg feel, Thomann has the Harley Benton Enhanced range which includes 5-strings in P and J styles. (The natural finish is on back order, but they have the blue in stock.)

I was surprised to find a D’Addario balanced tension set in a shop here today, so I snapped them up for my HB. The neck is fatter than my other bass and would seem to lend itself to drop tunings, so I have the EXL160BT set, gauges 50 - 67 - 90 - 120. Guitarists (ptui) would call this a light top / heavy bottom set, I suppose.

I've been trying to spec a custom set for either CGDA or GDAE (fifths), and found this string gauge calculator helpful. If I try to balance all strings for about 40lbs each, I get something like this: My "takeaway" from this is that the relationship is not linear: for a given tension, the gauge roughly halves for every octave up.

Well, that and his EBMM signature model, :

I bought one of these last year, not sure at the time exactly how I was going to use it. Since then I've hooked it up to an 2018 iPad (with the USB3 camera connection kit), and hung various thing off it, including a Mackie Performer audio interface, and old-ish synth (Novation Xio), a modern USB MIDI keyboard (Nektar Impact), my t.c. Spectradrive, even my wireless phone charging pad. It's been trouble-free, using Aum to route audio and MIDI in, out and around the iPad to soft synths. Push-button port switches are handy too.

Here’s a play along video with the EHB1506MS quite high in the mix:

40k, you say? It sold for $93,438.75 (includes buyer's premium). What's that in $ per cc of sweat? 🥴

When I was looking for a bass a couple of months ago, I considered various factors, and the main reason to go for a brand name would have been resale value. That would also have restricted my options when it came to modification, and I ended up deciding against it, going for a Harley Benton which had I no compunction about totally rewiring to suit myself. But there might still be a brand name bass in my future, with resale value in mind.

That looks like the one I was going to buy: there's a story behind the Purple, it's not a standard Fender colour. Anderton's got them made after customers showed interest, and have sold out two batches of these that I know of. If they ever appear again, I might get one, even though I know it's just a colour.

Around the beginning of the year I almost bought a Squier Bullet Tele, one of the FSR Purple models that Anderton’s got made exclusively. I couldn’t justify it at the time, though. I think I was influenced by Steven Wilson, who used one heavily on his last album, initially because it was the only guitar he had around while he was writing songs. It worked so well for him that he got a reliced Tele for live use. At one point in his concerts, he had just that and a little practice amp, but it sounded huge. Plus, never forget that Jimmy Page played the solo on Stairway To Heaven on a Tele. 😎

My experience with fretless came about almost by accident. I bought a Hohner B2A (Steinberger licensed copy) for cheap, from a lady whose son didn't get on with it. When I got it home and had a closer look, I could tell that it had a bad fret job, with some notes audibly out of tune, and then I noticed that the label said "Hohner B2Afl". It started life as a fretless, complete with phenolic fretboard, and some numpty had fretted it. Within a few months I had re-de-fretted it, filled the slots with epoxy, removed the black paint and gave it a beeswax finish, and added a cutaway for better upper fret access. I don't have it any more, though, and I miss fretless, to the point where I'm looking to defret an old bass and give it a super glue fretboard coating. I didn't find playing it difficult at all, but then I wasn't trying to be Jaco. My main fretless influence by far was Paul Webb of Talk Talk: I really liked how his playing didn't scream "look at me, I'm fretless!", but it was there if you listened closely to tracks like Tomorrow Started.

Today I re-wired the bass as planned: passive with stereo out. It's close to a Rickenbacker wiring, VT & VT, except that the pots are 500k, not 330k, and there is a single TRS jack and no pickup selector switch. The P-pickup is wired to the tip and the MM-pickup to the ring of the TRS jack. I may install a switch some day, but until then if I use a mono guitar cable, I only get the P-pickup i.e. it turns in to a P-bass. I did some measurements, which confirmed that the two pickups are not well matched as supplied. Some typical pickup DC resistance values are listed on the Seymour Duncan website here, where higher resistance generally means more windings and therefore more powerful output. (I know it's not exactly that simple, with varying impedance by frequency, but it's something.) Fender Jazz: 8.7 kΩ P-Bass: 10.8 kΩ SD Quarter Pounder: 11.5 kΩ Roswell MFR4-N/B (this bass): 4.8 kΩ Roswell PM-4 (this bass): 15.2 kΩ That is just nuts, and it's no wonder it caused clipping in the onboard preamp running on a 9V battery. I have the preamp out, and it's all connectors and SMD components, nothing adjustable. The pickups were wired to the balance pot, before going in to the preamp, and that 250k pot is one of those where both pickups are on full in the centre position, and when you deviate from centre, one side stays on full resistance while the other side is shunted to earth. I don't like it - the response was too coarse, as I described above. The 2V / 2T setup gives me much better control over each pickup's volume now. For a recording test I run a stereo / 2 x mono cable in to the two channels of a Mackie Onyx Producer 2•2 preamp, setting pickup gain separately, in to an Apple iPad 2018,through a powered USB hub and the Apple CCK. In Aum I could set up a mixer channel for each pickup and treat each separately. (The first thing I discovered was that the pickups were out of phase, which was simple to fix, thankfully). This is the first time I've been able to do separate pickup processing, so I'm just starting to learn how to make it work. I'll probably do a separate post on this later. For example, I tried a compressor plugin on the P and an amp sim plugin on the MM, which sounded OK, but may benefit from some EQ tweaks. With the P signal relatively plain and e.g. a phaser on the MM, the MM volume control on the bass effectively becomes an effect intensity control, so I can fine-tune the effect on the fly. If I use this kind of setup live, monitoring is going to be crucial. It doesn't have to be an iPad, of course: you could run two channels of pedal effects, just beware of potential phase problems. The Line 6 Helix range also supports dual inputs e.g. that's what this guy is doing in his quest for Chris Squire tones.

I didn't say that - same model, yes, but I don't think it's the same instrument. He said nothing about any significant damage.

It looks like a B-stock return of the model @Machines got, maybe damaged in shipping? Bargain!

The Boss SY-1000 is the latest iteration of the VG/VB concept, with guitar and bass support in one box now. I would go for that rather than dig up a VB-99, if it was up to me. I’m considering one in conjunction with a 6-string bass, but not this year at least. It’s a synthesiser too:

There is OMD's Andy McCluskey, who plays RH on a RH bass, but with the strings inverted:

Lee was also out with Yes ARW (Anderson / Rabin / Wakeman) a couple of years ago, tackling some Chris Squire basslines. It's not a trivial job keeping us CS fans happy, but I heard only good things and wish I'd gotten to see them live. Maybe I will - It Can Happen ...

No trim pot on the side that's accessible without removing the whole preamp, at least ... I have some parts on the way for mine, it's getting rewired something like a Rickenbacker, passive with stereo outs. I might even add the "vintage cap" to the bridge pickup to hear the effect.

it's been brought to my attention by PM that these basses may be shipping with pickups different to those advertised, and that appears to be the case here with the Split-P at least: advertised: Roswell PM-4A AlNiCo-5 split-P, which is not on the Roswell website. installed: Roswell PM-4 ceramic. advertised: Roswell MA-4 AlNiCo-5 MM HB at the bridge installed: Roswell MFR4-N/B, also ceramic magnets. This is a more powerful pickup than the MA-4, which may explain why it didn't seem as weak to me as other reviews have said. I'm told that Thomann will swap the pickups out on request if it's a problem. I'm not a pickup connoisseur, and given the budget nature of the bass, I'm not immediately bothered by this. I already remarked that the passive P-tone is powerful, and I like it so far. I'm definitely looking for a fat, powerful tone, given that one of my favourite bass tones came from John Wetton's P-bass during his 1970s King Crimson "Bass Beast of Terror" phase. But it's definitely something to keep in mind if your tone requirements are more specific than mine.

I mean ... it said blue, and it's blue ... maybe it'll pop under stage lights, but in today's grey daylight, it's just ... blue.

I don't know if I'm going to write a proper review as such. I haven't owned a lot of different basses in my life, and so I don't have a good sense of what's out there for comparison. This is the first bass I've bought in over ten years, and for most of that time I only had one: the Tune TWB43 I describe here. Any references to "the other bass" will be to that. This HB is at least a kilogram heavier than the other bass, though only slightly larger, which is mostly down to the wood, I think. It looked bigger in the hands of other players, especially Julia from Thomann, who says this is lighter than the MJ-4 J-style version. I'm 6 foot in socks with muscles, so I'm OK. Both are basically Sandberg-inspired, mine being a clone of the Californa VM4. I didn't really want the blue, and it looks like I'm not alone there, since the other two colours (cream and natural) are sold out for the next six weeks at least. But I can live with it and may consider refinishing it some day. One disappointment: the pictures seem to indicate that the body is sloped to accommodate the picking arm more ergonomically: it is, it's barely cut down at all, so it's more of a slab. So I'm not totally happy when playing seated, but less bothered when standing. On a strap, there's a little neck dive: nothing that a decent strap can't handle. The bridge is solid and looks more complicated than it is: each bridgepiece has an optional locking screw to hold it down once you're done with adjustments. These arrived loose, presumably in case the player tries to raise the action and can't. Through-body stringing is standard but optional, and I believe the supplied strings are the specified D'Addarios. I mentioned the neck already: modern C shape, satin finish on the back, and I don't think I'll need to touch the truss rod in the foreseeable future. If I did, it's an easily-accessible wheel method. I've been learning more about setup, starting with Fender's advice here, and the feeler gauges told me the relief was just under 0.35mm, which was spot on. However, the action at the bridge was way too high, about 4mm (double the recommended 2mm), and I struggled with that a bit. Today I lowered it to about 2mm, and am much happier. The bridgepieces are low but didn't bottom out - a problem I've had before. (On the other bass, I ended up sinking the whole bridge in to the body to get the range of adjustment I needed, as a project, rather than use shims. I have a little buzz low down that tells me the neck may be a little too straight now, but nothing requiring action yet.) So I like the construction so far, I think I have a solid base for modding. Which is good, because they have skimped on the electronics. First of all, the pickups are decent, I think. The split-P is definitely powerful. The MM HB not so much, but it sounds good, if a bit anonymous. After adjusting that up and the P down, the balance is better. The P is now nearly 3mm below the strings, and I am not short of signal. I might replace the HB with one of these, but it doesn't seem urgent at this time, since it's adequate and the P is the priority. The other bass is active, but with everything pegged it's still not as loud as this P pickup in passive mode. Which is where it will spend most of its time, since the electronics let it down badly. I thought the electronics in the other bass were average, which makes this new bass' below-average. The pickup balance pot only seems to "blend" around the centre: more than a few degrees either side and it might as well be a switch. The low EQ seems to add boom, the high EQ seems to add string noise, and both seem to be off-centre: not flat when centred. The 9V circuit seems to lack headroom, since there is audible distortion from the P when it's up full. (I thought it was 18V for some reason, but that was probably my mistake.) . I don't have an amp - too antisocial - so I'm testing using two different headphone setups: a cheap-and-nasty Amplug clone - great for practising while walking around - and a tc electronic SpectraDrive, which has two TonePrint sections. On the SpectraComp side I like the Captain East preset so far - a great all-round compressor. On the TubeDrive side, when I use it, I try a few different TonePrints: Dark Horse for distortion, Natural Drive sometimes, most of the time that section is off. As other reviews have noted, the P-signal takes distortion well. The best tones I get so far are from the P in passive modem, which was my top priority, since my other bass is more Jazz-like if I want that. I am already planning a total rewire to passive mode, 2V2T controls, maybe a HB coil split switch, and stereo out (Rick-O-Sound style, switchable). I would rather have no circuit than bad circuit, and the SpectraDrive has a 4-band EQ already. Pro: solid construction, good bridge, string-through, zero fret. Good setup range. Very good passive P tone, not affected by lower action. Con: the colour, electronics, the weight if you're weedy. I'll add more updates / impressions over time.

Full details here, including better pictures than I can take at the moment. It only arrived 1/2h ago, but first impressions are positive. Feels very solid and fairly heavy: maybe 4kg, though I don't have an accurate scale. Thomann said the whole box was 3kg, including one of their premier gig bags: I don't think so! I might want to lower the action at the bridge, but neck relief at the 8th fret is about 0.35mm, maybe a bit less, which is pretty good. So I don't think I'll need to touch the truss rod any time soon. I haven't done any detailed listening tests yet - it's the middle of day and I'm supposed to be working - but I can tell the P pickup is powerful compared to the MM HB at the bridge. Adjusting pickup heights may help there, the MM has got room to come up a bit. No comment on the active EQ yet, don't know if I want to keep it or go passive.