shoulderpet

Thanks for the replies Thanks, am after exaggerated bass as my Amplug broke recently and I replaced it with the Bass Blackstar Amplug and the bass seems a bit shy compared to what I was using previously, I am using I will look into Beats

Hi all Am currently without an amp due to many factors and currently finding that the headphones I am using (Sony ZX310 for anyone interested) are good for a cheap pair of headphones but I am finding myself wanting more bass than the headphones provide, what is a good set of headphones that provides good, deep and generous amounts of bass? Would like to keep the cost sub £100, does such a set even exist in that price bracket? thanks

That is a fantastic bargain, I know others would probably not do this but at that price I would get a Hipshot Supertone Gibson bridge and an Artec Mudbucker (they usually pop on Ebay all the time) which will be closer to the original Gibson Mudbuckers than the Epiphone pickup, even with those mods you would still have spend less than the cost of what the Epiphone goes for new

Yep I concur

Ahh ok, I was afraid you were going to say that, was thinking of swapping out the bridge pickup for a Duncan SJB-2 Anyhow swapped out my pickguard, crappy mobile phone pic doesnt do it justice but it looks awesome

Just wondering regarding the J pickup , did you order a bridge or a neck as I have read that the bridge pickups on the Mezzo basses are a different size to standard bridge J pickups , also did you have to do any routing/modding to get it to fit?

Quite possibly, I know there are people who think the earth will explode if you use long scale strings on a short scale but in decades of playing bass I have always used long scale strings on short scales with no issues

The EHX looks good but no line in on it

Anyone used this? https://www.joyoaudio.co.uk/i-plug

Yeah, same here, I was initially worried that I was stuck with a lousy sounding bass as the stock electronics sounded like crap and even with the treble completely rolled off they were too bright and when I had a passive/active switch it still had an excessive upper mid and treble to it that seemingly could not be dialed out but I have gone full passive with a switch that switches the P pickup between series and parallel and it sounds great , the extra resistance from having the tone pot in the circuit has got rid of that upper mid and treble gank

Thanks, can it be used without a Mac or PC?

So I have destroyed yet another Amplug, I was practicing and stood up and the Amplug brushed against something (can't even remember what now) and the plastic surrounding the jack ripped clean off, tried to super glue it back together but it wasn't happening. So with that in mind I am after a replacement , I want to stick with a headphone amp, I know there are multi FX that you can use for this purpose but for reasons of portability and cost I want to stick with a headphone amp, is there anything similar to Amplug that is not liable to fall apart if you look at it the wrong way ? Thanks

What gets me is when you get a bass like this with a QC checklist tag and its all checked as passed. Ok it is a much less expensive bass than the OP's but I remember trying to order a Squier CV Jag that didn't have issues and in the end I gave up,1st one had a bright red neck where someone had gone nuts with the spray tint and one of them had terrible fretwork which made it unplayable and the people in the factory obviously knew this as they had jacked the action sky high to hide the fret buzz and both had QC inspection tags and had passed QC, I was less than pleased at that price point and if I was paying US Fender money like the OP I would expect nothing less than perfection as there is really no excuse at that price point

Looks great, the stock electrics on the Mezzo are definitely it's weak point, the stock preamp on the Mezzo is atrocious

The nickels are not bad strings just very warm sounding for rounds, they sound after a week's break in like most strings sound after a couple months break in time, some people dig that broken in tone

I have used both the Steel Rotos and the nickel plated Rotos and the Nickels are much darker sounding and are rather than most other nickel strings the Nickel version starts off really bright but loses the brightness very quickly. With regards to the stainless steel Rotos they are not unusually bright for stainless strings but that upper mid grind they give is divine, used lots of other brands bit always come back to Rotosound

Not the best picture and the bass has since been modded but a fun bass to play, my Ibanez Mezzo. The stock preamp was way too heavy handed, the bass and treble were heavily boosted even in the centre detent position and the treble control could shatter glass. I swapped the pickups for Duncan SPB-2 to darken up the tone a bit and had an active/passive switch fitted and it was an improvement but I still felt like there was some ugly treble frequencies that I could not dial out so I decided to go full passive v/v/t and a series/parallel switch that switches the P pickup between series and parallel and as soon as I got the bass back from the tech and plugged it in I felt the bass was in its happy place tonally, those ugly treble frequencies were gone and it sounded much rounder and fatter. The Duncan has a nice dark growl to it, with darker sounding strings like flats or pure nickel strings you can get a good vintage tone and with stainless rounds it has a killer rock tone and really barks when you dig in, due to the heavy overwind the P pickup even sounds good in parallel mode and when in parallel and combined with the J pickup gets very Jazz bass-esq

One of those massive bridges that are used on the old Mustang basses might work as those bridges are huge and there alway seems to be a lot of room to move the saddles forward

Ok so after having a number of issues with the Artec preamp and there being a brightness to the stock preamp that I have been unable to dial out I have decidstock.i have decided to go completely passive. I now have the Duncan SPB-2 p pickup with the stock j pickup 2 volumes,1 tone and a switch that switches the p pickup from series to parallel, I didn't go with both pickups in series as the SPB-2 is a very hot pickup so both in series would likely be very muddy sounding. I have to say after disliking the stock preamp this is a 100% improvement, the excessive brightness is gone, the pickups sound full and balanced, the p pickup on its own sounds super fat and due to the heavy wind of the p pickup it doesn't sound thin in parallel mode like most p pickups anh both pickups in parallel mode and both on it sounds quite jazz bass-esq

What you could do if you like the strings otherwise is get a set of the 110-50 Roto flats and a single Rotosound 0.35 flat, discard the 110 and string the bass 95-35

Ok so got it back and it seems the person I spoke to was not the person that worked on it and the mid frequency sweep is not working, the mid boost/cut also seems woefully underpowered, they have had a look and they reckon the preamp is faulty. I have decided that after not liking the stock preamp and having issues with the Artec that I will go passive for now with vol, vol, tone, series/parallel , the P pickup I have in there at the moment is very heavily overwound (22k) so I am going to go for a series/parallel that converts the P pickup to parallel mode as I think putting a super hot pickup is series with the J pickup is just going to end up with unusable mud

Some Sure basses have 20mm spacing, I know the short scale Marcus Miller bass has, might be worth seeing what they use and seeing if you can score one , maybe used

And after speaking to the supplier of the preamp and sending them a photo of the wiring they think that the tech has wired it up wrong, I have forwarded a diagram to the tech, tech has had a look at it and has said that this is fixed now so fingers crossed

Ok so I have got the bass back from the tech and the Artec preamp is faulty bass and treble function as you would expect, the mid pot has no sweep at all and full on sounds very bright, rolled back at all is like a dub bass tone, like a really extreme treble cut, very dissapointed to be out not only the cost of the preamp but also the cost of the labour in fitting what is a faulty preamp Seriously considering going passive with volume,blend, tone, tone setup