shoulderpet

Hi Just got a Sire Marcus Miller short scale bass, lovely bass, was hoping someone can help me ID what strings the bass comes with, they look at least a gauge heavier than the 95-40 sets I use on my other basses but they feel nice and flexible, not stiff at all, they seem to be nickel as they dont have that dull grey colour to them that most stainless strings have and they have brass colour ball ends no silk and they are just about long enough on the winding length to string through body, I know some of their basses come with Daddario but I dont think these are as the ball ends are not colour coded. Pictures below , thanks

I think it has to do with the changing perception of short scale basses. To elaborate further, if you look back to the 70s a lot of budget basses were short scale, there was Kay, Jedson, Columbus and a couple of others, pretty much all of the output from Kay, Jedson and Columbus was poorly made junk, microphonic pickups, cheaper than cheap machine heads, dreadful bridges, terrible electrics. Even Fender during that period in time seemed to treat the short scale with a degree of contempt with the (IMO) dreadful Musicmaster bass that was usually put together from the leftover parts from other models like for example the strat pickup that was under the black pickup cover. Then there was the false perception that short scale automatically meant mud, this was largely a result of the kind of basses that were short scale that were available , the above mentioned basses were tonally limited due to their cheap electronics combined with the flatwound strings and the poor amplification of the time, this perception was not helped by the Gibson EB0 and EB3 that had massively overwound pickups and the trend of those times for short scale basses to be hollow or semi hollow. Fast forward to nowadays and the sands of time have helped for those perceptions to be largely forgotten, a lot of the people now playing bass don't have memories of learning on those dreadful cheap basses of the 70's and the short scale basses that are around nowadays are far superior because to put it simply people expect better nowadays and it is now possible to make better instruments nowadays and so people are trying these basses and finding that they are actually more comfortable to play than long scale basses (for most people ymmv etc) and actually sound pretty damn good which of course drives demand for more short scale basses. Controversial perhaps but I would be willing to bet that the Squier Jaguar ss bass has played a large part in the resurgance of the short scale

Have got GAS for a Squier Mustang bass and current covid situation means spending time in a music shop trying out basses (if you are even allowed to at the moment) is probably not the best idea so I will be buying online. Which retailers have good customer service in terms of accepting basses back if there are any issues with the least amount of fuss? Thanks

Yes I agree with this although in this instance it was a large bulky item and being a non driver it was the logistics of getting the item to the nearest courier/royal mail drop off point

Just wanted to post here about my frustration about the lack of any clear answers on this. Sold an item on Ebay about a week ago, the buyer messages me to ask if Paypal and collection is ok, I message back saying that is fine, the buyer pays for the item and I then realise of my 2 Ebay accounts I have used the one that I haven't actually sold from before so my money is held by Ebay with a date of sometime in November for me to receive my money, thats like 3 weeks later. A week later the buyer collects from me, googling that it seems that they usually realise the funds once feedback is received or after 3 weeks if not received, fortunately on the same day that the buyer collects he leaves positive feedback, great I think , after a week of held funds I can receive the money and a few hours later I get an email saying the Ebay funds are available, fantastic! Would be great to have the extra money at the weekend. I login to Paypal and transfer the balance to my bank account using what is described as an "Instant transfer" hahah Instant you are having a laugh ,my Paypal account now says "Pending" next to the transfer, clicking on the activity it says to expect the money by the next day so the next day I check and it still says "Pending" so I google this and my googling leads me to page on the Paypal website that gives a timeframe of 72hrs, and another page from Paypal that tells me that "If you fulfill the order, but don’t provide any shipping information, your payment should be available after 21 days, as long as your buyer doesn’t report any issues with the transaction." I decide that I should call them to try and speed things along so I call there number which takes me to an automated service that tells me that I can expect to receive the money 3 to 5 working days after they have checked the payment. Honestly I understand buyers wanting to use Paypal as you are pretty much guaranteed your money back if something goes wrong but to be given so much conflicting information and then try to call them only to get through to an automated service makes them a real pain to deal with as a seller, anyhow rant over

Why tilted that way? I could understand if they tilted them upwards to balance out the tone of the DG coil being closer to the bridge but this makes no sense, still a nice looking bass though

Hahaha , a bargain at £998 https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/1964-GIBSON-EB-0-BASS-made-in-USA/174489470196?hash=item28a06204f4:g:DUgAAOSw9wxbd0lm#viTabs_0

Damn, in my local cash converters all we get is bottom of the barrel entry level stuff for £85, the better basses in there are barely any cheaper than buying new

They do 115 singles but obviously you will have to buy a set of strings and purchase the 115 separately

Thanks for the replies, one I am giving serious consideration is an Ampeg practice amp, I think it is called a 10 8, looks good, quite small, normal size headphone jack, line in .

Hi Am looking at downsizing and at some point in the near future will have to look into practice amps and after suggestion. The thing is that whilst there are decent practice amps out there they are generally a little too big for my tiny studio flat so what I am after (if it exists) is a very small practice amp with decent-ish sound, I have seen a couple with 6.5" speaker but no idea if they are any good, although it will be for practice I still want a useable sound so that I enjoy practicing and so bass response is important, doesn't have to be low end dub monster but I would like as much bass response as I get from an Amplug , tried the Vox Pathfinder and the bass was non existent on that practice amp Thanks

They are great, great strings, im not usually a fan of Daddario strings but the Nyxl's are really good and they are very aggressive sounding for nickels, definitely as stated above a bit of a stainless steel vibe to them, sadly I stopped using them as they don't do them in short scale and although I am not totally against long scale strings cut down to size I do like to use a dedicated short scale set if possible.

His band is actually really good, not to everyone's taste but if you are after something a bit lofi, melancholy and strange then it certainly fits the bill

Chromes have barely any mids

I always thought that Nickels were meant to be more mid focused but I could be wrong, Rotosound are very good strings in terms of strong mids, both the ss and the nickels but the nickels are much less bright than the ss, GHS Boomers are said to have strong low mids though I have never used them myself so I cannot say from 1st hand experience, they are also said to be pretty dark sounding for rounds

Yes, I think you are onto something there, his bass playing is very low in the mix on their albums and as you say there is little in the way of exposed bass parts, for all the bass you can hear on their recent stuff he could be playing a bass uke

Having seen the Roswell pickups webpage they have some really interesting P and J pickups including Sandberg/Delano style with huge pole pieces (see below link), however a search on google on where to buy them pretty much comes up blank other than dv247 who seem to have loads of there guitar pickups but barely any of there bass pickups, anyone know where else supplies them? Roswell p pickups Roswell J pickups

With the current covid situation I am half considering selling my combo, was tricky enough getting gigs in my area before the covid situation if you didn't play dad rock or cheese so I think it will be a long time before people start booking gigs around here.

Yeah, hows that for gratitude for writing one of the best songs on the album

Honestly I think Metallica should leave the mixing engineering etc to someone else instead of getting so involved, there involvement in the process gave us the bassless AJFA, the horrible drum sound on AJFA, the dreadfull boomy guitar tone on AJFA, the way too loud (and horrible sounding) drums on AJFA and that awful snare sound on St Anger, honestly they may be able to play but Metallica have not got a clue about what actually sounds good

True, I suspect his willingness to not rock the boat was as important to them as his abilities

Theres a few remixes on Youtube, this is one of my favourite ones, this guy does good remixes [Youtube]