shoulderpet

3 hours ago, Alec said:

Heavy - that is all...

I remember trying out amps at the Bass centre way back and I was looking around 100w ish and I remember loving the tone of the Trace Elliot Commando amp but compared to the other amps of the same kind of power it was like lifting a suitcase full of lead

On 15/07/2020 at 17:11, stewblack said:

Hey - I sound awesome with the mid scoop button in.

As i am getting older I could do with a button that scoops the mids...............around my gut area

On 12/07/2020 at 18:47, Maude said:

The Ignition series is fully hollow and reasonably audible unplugged. I play along with music quietly with my Club. One of the main reasons I bought the Ignition over the Contempary,  pleasantly it was half the price too. 

I'm sure I read that the Ignition pickups were more traditionally voiced where as the Contempary were more, well contempary, but I could be wrong. 

 

The Contemporary actually uses the same pickups as the more expensive German made Hofners however the control panel is slightly different and manafactured more cheaply than the control panel on the German Hofners, the tonal difference between the Contemporary and the German made is likely down to this as well as the German made being fully hollow, I had the opportunity to play one of the German Hofners and compared to my Contemporary it definitely had a darker, woodier tone.

Also worth noting is that the hollow body Hofners are usually around 5ibs weight so super lightweight which some people love and some people not so much

7 hours ago, Big Rich said:

@shoulderpet I contacted JHS and never got a reply.  Customer service it would seem is a thing of the past.

That sucks, sorry to hear that, all of the wilkinson pickups i have tried have been really good so it is a shame that they would not take the time to try and sort this

Ok so having sourced a  Duncan Quarter pounder after fitting it I have gone to adjust the pickup height and the solder joint joining the 2 halves together has snapped  Honestly Seymour Duncan get your act together, this happened with my Spb1 as well, if Roswell and Wilkinson can do decent solder joints on a pickup a third of the price why cant Seymour Duncan?

If anyone wants a Quarter pounder P pickup drop me a message and I will do you a good price for this pickup 

On 06/07/2020 at 09:25, Big Rich said:

** UPDATE **

I got an answer back from the seller, it transpires that Wilkinson's new Vari-Guass system boosts the E and A strings only, admittedly they sound fantastic but now the D and G strings sound pathetic.  I was told that they had had only good reviews but in my opinion, it renders the bass unplayable....why would you want a bass with 2 strings louder than the other 2 strings?  IT MAKES NO SENSE !!!

I can't return them as they have been soldered in, if anybody wants to buy them, I'll take £20 and that includes next day delivery to anywhere.

 

Hi

I know ive already said it but I really do think you should contact Wilkinson as this cannot be right, those pickups have got to be faulty ,   https://www.jhs.co.uk/contact-us

On 06/07/2020 at 09:25, Big Rich said:

** UPDATE **

I got an answer back from the seller, it transpires that Wilkinson's new Vari-Guass system boosts the E and A strings only, admittedly they sound fantastic but now the D and G strings sound pathetic.  I was told that they had had only good reviews but in my opinion, it renders the bass unplayable....why would you want a bass with 2 strings louder than the other 2 strings?  IT MAKES NO SENSE !!!

I can't return them as they have been soldered in, if anybody wants to buy them, I'll take £20 and that includes next day delivery to anywhere.

 

This is a real shame as all the Wilkinson pickups I've had have been excellent products, I really think you should try and contact Wilkinson about this

30 minutes ago, acidbass said:

Yeah it's the crash on the 4 before the drums come that make it sound even weirder, but it's simply 4/4 with the beat inverted. The tempo is a different matter, it's a bit loose, certainly no click track on that session.

Yeah I think it is the combination of that and the (I assume) slightly sloppy feel to the drumming, would be interesting to hear the song with a straight 4/4 beat with the snare on the 2 and 4

Have always liked this song but the drumming on this has always bugged me, I know it is in time but for some reason it has always sounded a bit off starting from when the drumming starts and getting worse during the verses, what is going on here? Thanks

[YouTube]

[/YouTube]

https://youtu.be/yCd1vXsvkV4

On 25/10/2018 at 11:15, Newfoundfreedom said:

My Sub Zero (Gear4Music own brand) semi. I picked it up as B stock from gear4music's eBay page for an absolute steal at £100. When it turned up it was brand new, still in the packaging, and I can't for the life of me figure out why they sold it as B stock, but who am I to complain. 

It's an absolute dream to play and, to me at least, looks and sounds amazing considering the price point (around £200). If anything happened to it I'd happily pay the full price for another. 

Nice lookign bass , are those mudbuckers? (high output, lots of bass etc) , btw thats one mad mid scoop you have on the amp

3 hours ago, Dan Dare said:

I've really tried to like Rotosounds. I'd love to support a home grown manufacturer (they started out about a mile from where I grew up in North Kent/South East London), but I don't like the tension or the way they feel under the fingers. A shame.

Yeah they are quirky strings for sure, in the 95-35 gauge the tension is fine but I would never use 105-45 with Rotosound, they would make good money if they brought out a flexible roundcore version of their strings .  I am less impressed with their short scale strings which are awful, you'd think since they have been makign them since the 60s they would know that the short scale strings are dreadful

2 hours ago, jezzaboy said:

This bass is definitely a keeper!

Hahaha , this comment is priceless

The high standard of the videos in this thread, both the quality of the playing and the video quality is enough for know im not sharing any of the footage of me  lol

So this is 2 basses in one?  If that is the case I can only imagine how cumbersome that would be to play. 

Anyhow I pretty much never play 2 basses at a gig, at a gig im very much a one bass for everything kind of player, I cant be arsed with faffing around swapping basses, making sure the volumes of each bass is matched so im not too loud/quiet etc

Im sure we have all heard our share of bass myths from the slightly dubious to the outright ridiculous , thought it would be an interesting idea to share them in a thread , for the sake of keeping things nice lets avoid discussion of tonewoods, I will start with some of the myths I have heard

• You should never remove all of your bass strings, you will warp the neck of your bass and it will be unplayable -  scary thing about this one is I was told this by my then bass teacher who was also a session musician, I have since then removed all of the bass strings from basses  many times when I clean them or if I fit new pickups
• The orange drop capacitor myth - For some reason there is always someone somewhere that thinks that the orange drop capacitor is some kind of magic bullet for tone, its not
• Cleaning your frets will improve your tone - Im not going to say which company made this claim but it was a company that (of course) makes fret cleaning products
• String through body increases string tension - heard this one so many times , not true 

Ok we have a setback, i removed the bolts on the neck, there must have been a patch of varnish that I missed that had not dried sufficiently, I thought I had given it more than enough time to dry properly, the neck is glued solid into place!!!

Im going to stick a set of the highest tension set of spare strings I have and hope the tension breaks the seal, if that doesnt work I think I might have to admit defeat and stick with the satin finish, its a decent finish anyway I just thought the Danish oil would be better

Edit: tried that didnt work, try applying force by hand, still no joy,  Satin finish it is, its certainly durable I will give them that

7 minutes ago, ezbass said:

Use a lint free cloth and wash it out in soapy water afterwards (possibly leave it outside to dry). I did 3 coats when I did my necks, rubbing back a little with extra fine, wire wool between coats. I'd leave the final coat at least 24 hours before giving it a light, final rub down.

Ok thanks

Have decided to strip the finish and go with Danish oil, the satin finish is ok but I think the feel could be a little better.

Any tips for applying the oil?  Also maybe a silly question but I know there is a fire risk using it on rags, what about using brushes?

One final question ,after the final coat how long should I leave it before I play my bass? Instructions on Danish oil say to leave 4 to 8 hours between coats but I'm guessing this doesn't necessarily mean I can play my bass 8 hours after the final coat

Thanks

The Kent Armstrong Hot Ceramic P pickup (make sure its the ceramic one and not the vintage voiced one) is nice and bright and growly too, they call it Hot but whilst the output is good it is not wound superhot (11k resistance) and Ceramic keeps it nice and bright, I dont know what flats you are using but have heard that Quarter pounders sound great with TI's

I was feeling like my P bass was missing something tonally then after playing my Hofner straight afterwards I was surprised to find that the 3 week old Rotosound Rotobass strings on my P bass were only very marginally brighter sounding than the TI Jazz flats on my Hofner, granted the difference became more pronounced when slapping but the Rotosound Rotobass strings are probably the darkest sounding nickel plated rounds ive used so for anyone who likes broken in sounding rounds these will probably be just the ticket, they dont start out particularly bright and break in quickly

On 18/04/2020 at 19:13, Jus Lukin said:

I picked this up a little while ago for £80.

I'm playing Gibson style basses a lot more lately and wanted one I didn't mind dragging out to smaller/boozier gigs.

I've just done one of my trademark almost good enough setups, with a layered cardboard shim (@KiOgon has already laughed at one when he saw it!) and the right gauge of strings, albeit roundwounds. It plays fine, but is a bit fretbuzzy. Par for the course- I'll take it to John when i get the chance! Really likeable little bass, even now, though.

I had one of those a while back, they are a tonne of fun to play, I wasn't crazy about the stock pickup but its simple enough to replace and the good thing is that if you are so inclined all of the parts are easily upgradable

8 hours ago, Fil1ip said:

One has just sold on auction site at £546? I have seen them at £1300 asking price from a shop

That is a more reasonable price than the £700-800 ive seen them average, still not sure I would pay that nowadays when you can get an mim mustang p/j for around the same price ,

50 minutes ago, geoham said:

I think I read somewhere it was Guy Pratt who played on it, though it was just a comment on YouTube or something. Does anyone know who played on it?

George

On the original studio version it is actually a midi track but on this version in the video and in live versions it is a player called Matthew Caroll

2 hours ago, mybass said:

I’m not so sure a ‘varnish’ as used for furniture was the right choice. The Danish oil I mentioned previously would have been easier. Hope you can sort it.

Have managed to sort the issue, I did some googling and the 2 main causes of a sticky finish seem to be a) humidity too high when applying   b) too much varnish applied  so I sanded off the finish and started again and this time I did the application(s) outside for lower humidity and applied the varnish much more sparingly 

27 minutes ago, OliverBlackman said:

It's a good groove but it's built just using octaves and chromatic runs. Guy Pratt uses similar stuff in this song: 

 

Guy Pratt is awesome, I love his bassline on Like a Prayer  , less enamoured with the actual song but the bassline itself is awesome