shoulderpet

Free to a good home, Gear4Music 15w practice amp, Violin bass case, the case was used for a Vintage brand Violin bass, should fit other violin basses but I cannot guarantee it will, collection from Croydon

Edit: amp gone, case still available

Am selling my Harley Benton PB-50 single coil p bass -PRICE DROP TO £50 FOR QUICK SALE- or will trade for a Jazz bass of some description, collection from Croydon or if within London area can meet halfway, I have swapped the pots for 500k for a brighter tone, the wiring looks interesting but works absolutely fine and the bass has a nice tone, is plenty bright and aggressive with rounds and the tone on full but mellows nicely with the tone rolled off a little if you prefer a warmer tone and has a lot of attack to each note so would be an absolute thump monster with flats, I have taken off the white pickguard but will include it with the bass, the pickguard can be seen in the 2nd picture, is in decent condition but am really wanting a jazz bass 

12 minutes ago, NasalFloss said:

‘Fine tuning’ is a good way to put it. I wasn’t expecting anything radical. Tone needs/wants can often be achieved with knowing your instrument and hand placement.

 

I should have explained further and said that these ‘improvements’  most noticeable when played finger style from midway between the pickup and neck. I really wouldn’t know what they would do for you as a pick player or playing close to the bridge.

 

I think of a more ‘classic’ tone with these when I use them and they sounded that they fit in a bit better in general. They sounded great when I was playing along with some Madness and Jackson 5 anyway 🤣🤣🤣 (as you’ve guessed I’m a bass shed virtuoso and they have not been used in a band setting)

Yeah, the way I look at it is that I know what I want tonally and my go-to pickups provide that 'baked in' tone with a minimum of tweaking amp eq, in short I know that whether I play at a gig or an open mic/jam night/other my bass will for the most part sound pretty much the same

I like the natural finish of the body but I HATE satin finish maple necks especially when they are that awful pale shade like on this bass, just looks cheap to me and on a bass that costs over 2k that is the last thing I would want.

Oh and the volume knobs and the pickups are hideous

Also the 250k volume pots are a bit baffling to me, they claim "there are no tone controls to color the sound; therefore, the tone is manipulated solely by the user's technique and finesse" but then they colour the sound by using the lowest value volume pots, really if they wanted an uncoloured sound they should have gone with 2x 500k pots with a treble bleed circuit

15 minutes ago, NasalFloss said:

I installed them today and have to say that I’m impressed. Nice note clarity and depth, but I didn’t notice a massive difference between the stock Player P pickups, but this is probably down to the lacklustre equipment I’m using.

 

 

To be honest most p pickups I have tried have sounded very similar, some may have been a little brighter or darker or had more definition in the lows but the basic tone has been pretty much the same and for this reason I think of pickup swaps as fine tuning your tone rather than radically changing it, this is why pickup comparisons on YouTube are usually useless because the subtle differences between pickups are usually lost in the recording and then even more so once YouTube compresses the audio.

That being said I am not saying that pickup swaps are a waste of time, just that the differences are often subtle, in fact first mod I usually do with p basses is swap out the pickups for some Seymour Duncan SPB-2

Would you could do is raise the pole pieces, I would unscrew them completely and then put a couple of washers under them to raise them a little

On 20/04/2022 at 12:01, Leonard Smalls said:

You're playing the wrong kind of jazz then!

Play a cacophonous racket with no discernible beat and definitely no melody, and you may just about get some chin-stroking polo-necks in!

 

My god that sounds f@!king awful, what a racket

3 hours ago, stewblack said:

Quite agree. You buy something styled on the original but have every right to expect it to encompass practical, technical improvements.

Exactly, to expect people to remove the neck to adjust the truss rod on a bass that is produced nowadays is ridiculous 

11 hours ago, Woodinblack said:

 

I fail to get the idea that someone would buy something called a 50s precision bass and then complain that it had a feature that was present on a 50s precision bass. I know several people who would be absolutely mortified if fender made a model claiming to be based on another model and a screw was even a mm out of place.

I guess they are damned if they do and damned if they don't!

 

I get what you are saying but people dont always buy because because they want a carbon copy of something, people are often attracted to an instrument primarily by looks and then if they play it and they like the way it sounds and feels they might buy it, also on mine it does not say anywhere on the headstock that it is a 50s precision bass so if I had not looked up the serial number online afterwards I would not have even known, no labels in the shop declaring it as such either.

5 hours ago, Woodinblack said:

 

Probably the same person who thought you would never have to adjust a truss rod and it wasn't a user changeable item. And if it was based on the 50s design, the first telecasters (or broadcasters) didn't have truss rods at all, so they weren't a user item

 

Yeah it's just sad that Fender have gone so far in trying to stay faithful to there old designs that they have made it so that you have to remove the neck to adjust the truss rod, then if you find the first adjustment was too much or not enough once you have the strings back on you have to take the neck off again

15 hours ago, stewblack said:

I've been playing my 4 string passive JP all evening and it's just wonderful. Plays like I've had it for years.

One feature I love and wish I had on all my basses is this

I could do with that feature on my 50s p bass, I mean who thought it would be a good idea to have to remove the neck to adjust the truss rod

Not tried them but they sound interesting, I have always been intrigued by(but never pulled the trigger due to them being US based) the GFS hot precision pickup, is wound to 16k so should sound nice and beefy. https://www.guitarfetish.com/GFS-Pro-Series-HOT-P-Bass-Pickup-Pickup-OUR-BEST_p_10978.html

5 minutes ago, Roger2611 said:

Heathen, I hear you shout, the rattling of pitchforks begins!

 

I was lucky enough to have attended two gigs over the Easter weekend and both made me question our role within a band, Saturday evening saw me at The Alarm in Northampton, fantastic night, great band, great songs and no bass player! The band played to backing tracks which was basically the bass track and some percussion...I don't get it, The Alarm are a guitar based band, there was plenty of room on stage and the backing tracks were basically live recorded bass parts...nothing overly fancy but good solid audible bass parts......

 

Sunday night I was unfortunate enough to be at The Mission in Leeds, Craig Adams seemed to be enjoying playing a few bits further up the neck on his Rickenbacker...Craig, buddy, no point, we cannot hear a single note you are playing, the mix is the usual drum heavy bass mush laden sound that seems to be the go to sound for bass at larger venues....he would have been better using the Rick to swipe Mr Hussey around the head for being so drunk on stage that it was bordering a farce

 

So which is better, a bass track that sounds OK but no bassist or a live bassist who really needs play nothing but root notes because the mix is too poor to hear anything else!

 

Rant over 

Damn that's a shame, I love The Mission, such a shame to hear Wayne is still overdoing it on the booze.

I totally get what you are saying about large venues, for some reason the sound person always seems to think that bass should just be a subsonic mush that no one can actually hear properly, I think in the past few years I have been to about a dozen gigs, probably 2 of those gigs actually had a decent bass sound

4 hours ago, Woodinblack said:

 

So a jazz bass is a P bass, but a Fender Player plus precision bass isn't a precision bass?

If the pickups on the jazz are precision pickups then yes

P bass:

Bass with one pickup either split p pickup or single coil p pickup

Bass with 2 or more pickups that are split p or single coil p pickups

Not a p bass:

Any bass that does not have p pickup(s)

Pj basses

On 13/04/2022 at 18:46, OliverBlackman said:

This!!! Was about to suggest the same

16 hours ago, Paolo85 said:

 

Apologies for quoting a 2021 post, but may I ask you what sort of problem did rhe Jaguar CVs have? I'd really like one but I find this discouraging

Yes no problem,

The first one was aesthetic, the neck was a lovely amber tone until you went further up the neck where it was pillar box red were someone had gone mad applying the finish. Even my wife thought it looked dreadful.

The second one the frets were completely knackered, no amount of adjustment would get rid of the buzz and I think they realised this in the factory as the action was jacked up sky high

It was a shame the first one was so aesthetically jarring with its dayglo neck as it played well

On 03/04/2022 at 13:30, Marc S said:

I definitely didn't need another bass - let alone another P bass. But this came up for sale on here, and I decided to go for it.

 

These top-notch basses were made in Mexico, alongside the Roadworn series. I once owned a RW P-bass, and always wished it was this colour - fiesta red 😀 after owning a Squier CV in this colour, it became my favourite.

 

Anyhow, just playing it now - it's super build quality and feels and sounds lovely. The neck is a tad wider than I'm used to, but fairly shallow front-to-back and I'm finding it pretty comfy to play. 

 

I may swap the pickguard for a red-tort one - as that would be my fave colour combo.

I have one of these in honey blonde and with a slightly different neck(mine is a vintage tint yellow-ish kind of tint and yours looks more like a roasted maple) and they are great basses. 

I actually nearly took it back, I brought it used from a local shop and didn't spot in the shop that there was a crack in the finish running along the bass side horn.

Anyway I went to the shop to take it back and change it for something else and after playing a bunch of other Mim p basses and jazz basses I realised that this bass was in a completely different league to them,I returned home with the bass I had intended to return

Btw those anodised pickguards look great but they are lethal, I took the pickguard off mine to change the pickup and sliced my thumb open...ouch!

Anyone have any experience of this pedal? For just under £25.00 it has to be worth a try

SubZero Swollen Thumb Bass Compressor Pedal

On 18/03/2022 at 21:02, LITTLEWING said:

I’m not being funny by any means, but why do people automatically swap to more expensive tuners?

if they’re cheap and nasty or if one has broken, fair enough, but in forty years of owning and playing a fair few basses I have never felt the need to change them. They’ve always held their tune and only need a tiny tweak when the strings obviously stretch after two hours of vigorous gigging or the neck has gone out a little either way in the heat or cold. I can also see the possibility of a lighter set to alleviate head dive.

Serious questions - does a more expensive set add more tone etc. to a bass like a decent bridge does?

Are they actually easier to turn than a set on a sub £500 bass?

Does a decent set help to eliminate ‘dead’ spot notes?

 

Honestly curious, not taking the mick anywhere at all, just wondering what the benefits could possibly be.

 

Honestly I think a tuner upgrade is one of the most worthwhile upgrades, if you play entry level Fender or Squier basses the tuners on those basses will do the job but that is the best I can say for them.

Having used those type of cheaper tuners they go out of tune more easily, I would find when tuning I needed to approach the note very slowly otherwise it would be very easy to overshoot and tune the note sharp or flat. 

Using higher quality, higher ratio 27:1 tuners they are much more precise, no more overshooting and tuning sharp and they stay in tune for longer, I can pick up a bass I haven't played in days and it will still be in tune

I haven't owned a compressor in eons but the place my band rehearses in has an Ashdown rm-500-evo ii and whilst the general tone of that amp is a little wooly for my tastes the compressor on that amp is a game changer for me, last rehearsal I had the compressor maxed and whilst it might have sounded a bit squashed on its own as soon as the rest of the band started playing my bass tone was really punchy and the more staccato bass parts sounded fantastic, there is literally only the one knob for the compression but whatever preset settings they used sound great

Probably worth noting though is that I didnt have the input section of the amp turned up that high and it was not going into the red but still high enough that the compressor was triggered with whatever I played

I know a lot of people say that you should not be able to hear compression, is there anyone else here who finds they like a lot of compression?

18 minutes ago, itu said:

Red one to signal, black to ground. Remove the tone pot. 

 

The basic idea is that different resistors and capacitors direct certain part of the signal away from the output. As there are only two places possible (out and gnd) the highs go to gnd. The amount is dependent on the values of the components.

Thanks, so if I was to use the below diagram as a reference I am guessing the red wire takes the place of the short wire linking the volume pot to the tone (except in this case this would be linking the volume pot to the varitone) and then the black goes to the ground on the output jack?

Am interested in one of these but my electronics and soldering skills are limited, I am a bit of a wiring simpleton and I can't see how this would connect in a normal two control p bass, obviously this would replace the tone pot, has anyone fitted a varitone that can advise me as to how these are wired, thanks

Ohhh 48:1 ratio on the E string!!! The tuners that came on my P bass are 28:1 and honestly going from 20:1 to 28:1 was a revelation, no more overshooting when tuning and accidentally tuning a quarter step sharp

On 18/03/2022 at 08:08, Paulhauser said:

If I were you I'd first put on a new set of strings to see (hear) if there is anything to fix. 

 

This!!! I have filed nut slots wider before and more often than not when I have gone back to lighter strings they have been fine