AdrianP

Just a quick technical question about pickup height, if I may. I've been happy with my BB1024 for a while but have recently experimented with the height of the 'P' pickup. Before, it was very much angled with the split pickup much closer to the A and D strings than the E and G. I tried flattening and raising it a little so that the height is much more uniform. The tone is a little more even now but I think it's lost a little of the bite and aggression. Does the BB hive mind have a shared opinion of how high/low/angled the P pickup should be set on a 1024? (Presumably also applies to 414, 424 and 2024?) Thanks

No one posted any Ivor Biggun titles yet? Maybe too too much on the nose!

With my musical taste being primarily Peking Opera, Mongolian throat singing and My Bloody Valentine, I don't tend to be able to get many people to go to gigs with me.

It’s a shame to hear this but I never got the impression they did a lot of business in there. I’ve bought consumables, strings and things, there a few times when I’ve been in Southend and a nice Hercules twin stand earlier in the year. But I’ve never once seen another customer in there on any of my visits. Still sorry to hear it though.

I see that there hasn't been a lot of activity on this thread lately so I thought I'd post a NBD here. I opened up another thread a few weeks ago about trying a Precision as I thought my BB424 could have been a little smoother, particularly when using the neck pickup. Then, at a rehearsal on Monday night, I was getting some really odd booming sounds when using the E string which I need to investigate further. So, as the Bass Gallery isn't too far from where I work, I dropped in to have a look at a BB1024 that they had advertised. Long story short, I came home with it. I already have a BB1025x but find that a little heavy for long rehearsal. So I had an idea of what this might sound like but I was really impressed nonetheless. The sound from this thing has weight and authority but also effortless smoothness. I do like my 424, honestly, but even after a half hour noodle at home, I'm already in love with the 1024. It just plays and sounds on another level. I did try the 2024 they had in, which was lovely, but the 1024 seems like the sweet spot for me. The shop set it up for me with Thomastik flats, and an incredibly low string height, but it still plays and sounds beautifully. Anyway, here's a quick picture.

That was a lot of fun. Thanks for posting.

Not so much misheard lyrics as misdirected ones but I always thought that Kings of Leon were singing "Molly Sugden's gonna change your mind".

Thanks again all. I think I'm just going to have to try a few Precisions but with my wits very much about me and my wallet safely at home. As I said above, I do have flats on the Yamaha at the moment; Fender 9050L's. I could maybe try a different type and see if that makes any difference. But that's probably another thread.

I like the cut of your jib 😃

Thanks for the responses. @chris_b A good idea. The Yamaha is already wearing flats, and I do run it through a Sansamp but that seems to make it sound more aggressive still which is what I’m looking to tame. @Burns-bass Those are really good challenges. I guess I can afford it and would use it. Between the two bands, I rehearse twice a month or so and gig a few times a year so would get some use out of it. I’m not particularly a gear snob but do believe in buy cheap, buy twice. I could easily see myself getting a Squier though, and a used one at that. I’ll probably do what @Ralf1esuggests and try a few out. Can’t hurt.

I feel a bit of a fraud coming onto a bass guitar forum and asking folks to persuade me not to spend money but here goes. I’m thinking about getting a Precision, or some other sort of P bass. I play in a rock covers band and tend to use my American standard Jazz for the rockier numbers and a Yamaha BB424 on the bluesier ones. Seems to work out ok down at the Dog and Duck. I’ve now begun playing with a new band, as a side project, and we’ve been doing a lot more blues than I’m really used to playing. The Yamaha sounds ok using the P pickup, or at least I’ve had no complaints especially for a £300 bass, but it can sound a little indistinct and uncivilised at the same time. So I wonder whether I could get a better, bluesier, sound if I got a full fat Precision. I also wonder whether the aesthetics may be more appropriate when or if we get out and play, which we’re hoping to later in the year. That sounds superficial, I know, but I am starting to think ahead about our look and our stage act, and not just the sound. Never having even picked up a Precision, I’m in a quandary. One part of me thinks the Yamaha is fine and I should learn to get the best from it. Something else makes me think that this is the ideal time to see what a Precision has to offer. what does the Basschat hive mind think?

I wonder if there's a complementary thread going on over at OrchestraChat where the double bass player threatens to walk out if the conductor puts any more Mahler on the set list? "Ok, you can have your blooming Shostakovich if you want but I'm walking if I don't get my Bruckner's 9th in Dm".

I had an, admittedly, tongue in cheek row with the guitarist in my band about this. He flat out accused me of not liking most of the songs we play in our covers band. I told him he was wrong; I don't like ANY of the songs we play. I was only half joking as we seem to play a lot more mid tempo soft rock than we ever did and I'd prefer something a bit more hard edged. But the audience seems to like it so who am I to object? And I like the band and showing off on stage so it's not a bad life really. But if anyone knows of a shoegaze/ My Bloody Valentine covers band needing a bassist, I'll drop this lot like a shot.

Actually, we've rehearsed this a couple of times in my covers band. The rest of them were mad keen to do it but, typical of me, I confused it with Doctor Doctor by UFO; a song I'd much rather have played. Fun and hilarity ensued when I was playing a totally different song to everyone else the first time we tried it.

My experience echoes that of jimmy23cricket almost exactly. I run two cabs with a Peavey Tour 700 head and have never run out of headroom. I also find the impedance switching useful as I can take one cab out with a small digital amp and do a rehearsal or small gig with practically a single handed carry. Plus I got my two cabs for just over £200 the pair, one with a cover. So, for me, they cover a lot of bases for not a lot of money.

Plus Dubstar surely?

Absolutely. imagine hearing a song who's theme was "governments, of all complexions, have a difficult job but generally try to balance competing priorities as best they can". Can't really imagine pogoing around to that one.

I saw them once only, at the Walthamstow Assembly Halls almost 20 years ago. My abiding memory, if you can call it that, is feeling stoned through secondary smoke inhalation given the amount of gear being consumed by everyone else. Just googling the concert, I wonder if it might have been where Spaced out in London was recorded. They were probably describing me.

Very brave of you to put your head above the parapet! And good on you. I do have a question (me sir!) And would love to know your thoughts. I went through three years of music lessons at secondary school in the late 1970's and never picked up an instrument once. The school did have instruments, and an orchestra, but they were all reserved for the kids in the top streams. The riff raff in the lower groups got some perfunctory lessons on theory and that was it. I would love to have played, and was decent at the recorder in primary school, but all that stopped in secondary school. please tell me things have moved on since then!

Only ever seems to be Andre flippin' Rieu on whenever I tune in.

It always amuses me how musicians seem to be held to higher standards that other folks. So Eric Clapton hasn't produced anything decent in the last 30 years. So he's a mediocre musician is he? Let's apply the same rationale to some others. What about Steve Cram? As far as I can see, he hasn't produced any decent athletic performances since the 1980's. I saw him jogging round the park the other day. Looked a bit slow, if truth be told. Nothing inspirational in that. And what about Bill Gates? Hasn't produced a decent operating system since DOS 6.22. Windows 3.11, at a push. Totally mediocre if you ask me. Seriously, do we understand what mediocre really means? I'm right slap bang in the middle of being a mediocre Musician so I should know what I'm talking about. And Eric Clapton has nothing on me!

A list that would be incomplete without Shirley Collins. Who, incidentally, released a new album yesterday at the age of 85.

On the subject of poor grammar in songwriting, shouldn't 'Hello, is it me you're looking for?' be 'Hello, is it me for whom you're looking?'

I suppose the recorder does have a bum rep from many of us remembering playing it at school. I really cannot listen to a descant recorder without having flashbacks to 30 kids playing London Bridge is Falling Down as if trying to reproduce the sound of hades itself. But the tenor recorder has a beautiful, mellow sound, that is quite soothing (except when I play it, of course). It also has holes that give a stretch not unlike the lower frets on a full size bass so I originally started on it as a way of keeping my fingers moving when travelling away for work.

Anyone else been watching the BBC Young Musician finals on BBC4? I tuned in to watch the highlights of the woodwind finals. Really superb musicianship on display from everyone, as you would expect, but the winner communicated the piece in a way that left me absolutely entranced. I will confess to having a soft spot for woodwind as a family of instruments. I'm learning the tennor recorder but am finding it quite tough. Still, I'm persevering. But I just wanted to say home much I enjoyed this programme. Anyone else watched it?