shoulderpet

Its an ok song but I have to admit that I am a little dissapointed by Duff's tone in this song, for me its not Guns n Roses without the signature heavily chorused, trebly bass tone and this sounds a lot more conventional

8-10 week wait but this one is gorgeous https://www.thomann.de/gb/gretsch_ltd_elmtc_g2229b_junior_jet_ot.htm

On 15/08/2023 at 12:27, asingardenof said:

I quite like the driving bassline in this, and the song is OK I guess (not sure I'd go as saying it's poopeh given the rest of his catalogue of work - this is definitely amongst the better end of the spectrum).

 

Honestly i like a fair few of his songs

Hmmm a bass Thomann are currently selling for £119 for the bargain price of only £200 plus £28.95 shipping

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/266366929411?mkcid=16&mkevt=1&mkrid=711-127632-2357-0&ssspo=n-y-mlNuRNW&sssrc=4429486&ssuid=C9ThoQU7Suu&var=&widget_ver=artemis&media=COPY

14 hours ago, Paolo85 said:

Hi all,

 

So, what are the differences between these LaBella black tapes 50-105 and the D'Addario tapes of the same gauge?

 

https://www.thomann.de/gb/la_bella_750n_black_nylon_l.htm

 

I have tried the D'Addario a few times. I like them but the G is maybe a bit tinny.

As for LaBellas, I have tried the 60-115 and I like the sound really a lot, but while they are not high tension, they are a bit too stiff for me.

 

P.S. as we are talking about the LaBellas, do you know why very very few sellers sell this gauge?

 

Thanks

 

Never got on with the Labellas, shame as the 105-45 set is very,very low tension but I just found that as soon as I played them in a band mix my bass just vanished in the mix, Daddario tapes seem a little better in that regard, in terms of tension the Labellas 105-45 will be noticeably looser feeling than the Daddarios

On 07/08/2023 at 10:29, bouvier said:

Both made by J Douglas Guitars in Leeds.   First was the multi coloured, so pleased with that I asked John to make another, this being active.

 

 

 

Looks like a 1970's sofa, I love it!!!

4 hours ago, jay bass said:

Looks Great love the red with Tort Scratchplate

how much does the bass weigh.

The weight  seems to be the only negative to Harley Benton basses.on reviews ive looked at.

regards

Jay

I dont have a set of scales to weight it on but it is much, much lighter than the previous HB Jazz I had that had an ash body, that thing was more like a weapon than a bass

On 02/04/2023 at 11:36, dmz said:

I’ve noted a few discussions lately on the Squier Classic Vibe 50’s P-bass, so I thought I’d post my mods to one that I did a while back - at least a couple of years ago.

 

I’ve always had a fascination about Chris Squire’s modded Telecaster bass - since seeing that picture on the little booklet that came with the Fragile album.

 

When the Squier CV’s first came out I thought to myself - hmmm, you could do a nice “Squire” modded version to one of those. So, the first thing I was going to do was to add another pickup at the bridge position - then things went a little bit crazy. Seeing as it is an “inspired by” rather than a clone I thought - what about a humbucker in the neck position ? A mudbucker would take up too much space, what about something alternative - how about a Ricky, given the Squire connection. After a bit of rummaging around the internet I came across Creamery pickups in Manchester.  As it turned out, as well as a toaster, I ended getting a set of 52-Pbass pickups too - Alnico 2 for the middle and an alnico 5 for the bridge. A three hole telecaster control plate was bought which needed a little bit more routing of the existing cavity so that the concentric pots fitted. A Jazz Bass pickup cover was used to cover the bridge pickup. In a final bout of madness I got the luthier who did the work to add the “Squire” decal.

 

How does it sound ? Well, the middle pickup has a lot of that early 50’s sound - great attack and definition. Maybe not as much weight as a 57-Pbass but has some nicely judged mids. The bridge, having alnico 5’s is quite aggressive but not thin and nasty. I think if you like Jean Jacques Burnel’s sound you’d like this bass. The toaster has less mids than the P-bass pickups but has a bigger bottom.  With all three turned on it sounds almost active ! So, all in all very pleased with the way it turned out. Going forward I might be tempted to sand down the back of the neck for a more satin feel and get a bone nut installed. I really do like the smaller body shape on these basses - very comfortable. Sorry for my ramblings - hope you enjoy !

That is one of the most awesome basses I have seen, always wanted a bass with 2 single coil p pickups, I bet that sounds amazing with all 3 on

And I went with the Harley Benton jb-62 jazz bass, rather lucky for me I ordered it for the bargain price of £105 new and the week after the price went up to £138.

Anyway aside from some fret buzz from some uneven frets it is actually very nice, there neck feels nice and the caramelised maple neck looks miles better than the horrible stark white maple necks that are on a lot of basses, the nut seems well cut, tuners are surprisingly pretty good, not gotoh or hipshot by any means but better than what is fitted on most of the Mim Fenders I have played. 

pickups sound good, nice and bright, punchy, does that cool scoopy jazz tone with both on full and as good as any stock jazz bass pickups I have heard, even the stock tort pickguard is pretty well done

Now I just have to find the funds to get the frets sorted and I will have a cracking bass 

1 hour ago, BigRedX said:

 

IME Rotosound are completely and utterly incapable of making consistently decent strings other than 34" standard gauge 4-string sets. I went through four 36" scale low B strings before I got one that wasn't dead on fitting, and for years I thought there was something wrong with my 30" scale Burns Sonic as I couldn't get a proper note out of the E string. As soon as I switched to Newtone strings, the E string was fine.

Yep, there short scale E string is dreadful, shame as the other 3 are ok, I got a set and noticed the terrible E string and wondered if it would settle down but it never did

10 minutes ago, Dazed said:

It seems that part of the issue is a preferred long scale string isn’t often available as a short scale. 

Yep, this hits the nail on the head, a lot of string manufacturers make only one gauge of short scale strings and often the gauges are not exactly ideal, look at Rotosound swing bass for example, there short scale set is gauged 90-75-50-40!!!! 

Who thought those gauges would be a good idea?

5 hours ago, Dazed said:

What’s the general consensus on using long scale strings trimmed down? 
Just came across this on FB seems like a good idea if not the prettiest. 
 

Since the selection of short scale bass strings is limited and often hard to find, I have come up with an easy way to use any length string on your bass. 
I went to my nearest home improvement store and bought a couple of electrical copper lugs for 14 ga wire (about $1.50 each). I put them in a vise and ground off the flat lug part so that it was just the cylinder. I put my long scale string on the bass so the silk is in the correct position on the headstock above the nut. The ball end is now sticking out from the back of the bridge since the string is too long. I cut the ball end off the string and slide the copper lug on the cut end of the string up to where it meets the bridge and tighten it down holding onto the lug with some large pliers and using a flat screwdriver to tighten the screw. I snip off the excess string from the back and I’m done. The lugs are reusable when you change strings and I have never had one slip off. It’s fast and easy and has allowed me to use Cobalt Flats on my Hofner Ignition Club Bass and they have made it into a beast. Before I came up with this workaround, I broke an E string and an A string trying to get them to work on this bass since the unwound portion of many strings will not bend sharply enough around these tiny tuners without breaking. I suppose you could also add some super glue to the new “ball end” for added security but I’ve used this method for three years without a failure.

 

 

Longscale roundwounds will generally be absolutely fine, used longscale rounds on short scale basses with no issues, it's usually only things like flats and tapes that are problematic and even some of those will be ok but it's much more of a risk 

3 hours ago, shoulderpet said:

Thanks for the replies, I think I am going to go with a Harley Benton

Now the question, I want a bass with 2 jazz pickups , do I go with

 

Harley Benton JJ-45OP https://www.thomann.de/gb/harley_benton_jj_45op_white.htm

or

Harley Benton JB-62 https://www.thomann.de/gb/harley_benton_jb_62cc_dr.htm

 

?  They both look great

 

And JB-62 ordered in the Dakota red colour, whilst the JJ-450P looked tempting there is some degree of familiar comfort with the JB-62 being a simple passive jazz bass, my luck with ordering online hasn't always been great so fingers crossed

33 minutes ago, hooky_lowdown said:

This.

 

You want a bright sound: maple board, Ash body, active j pups with treble boost, slap  on some light SS strings, and play with a lightish pick near the bridge and you won't get a brighter tone!

That sounds good to me, on the description on the webpage it says "twin tone pot" is this bass and treble?

Thanks for the replies, I think I am going to go with a Harley Benton

Now the question, I want a bass with 2 jazz pickups , do I go with

Harley Benton JJ-45OP https://www.thomann.de/gb/harley_benton_jj_45op_white.htm

or

Harley Benton JB-62 https://www.thomann.de/gb/harley_benton_jb_62cc_dr.htm

?  They both look great

Thanks for the replies, I have put my Hofner (plus case )up for sale in the for sale section of this fine forum so if anyone feels like snagging a bargain due to the issues that I have mentioned have a look

Hofner club bass and case for sale, the CT series which is usually about £700 new so even with the below mentioned issues this is a very good price

Nice sounding bass, very deep and thumpy, the reason for the low price is that although the setup is fine and the action is decent the truss rod is at its tightest so it is fine with the strings that are on it but if you wanted to use higher tension strings you might struggle.

The bass is currently strung with Labella low tension flexible flatwounds which are low tension but feel a little tighter than there tension would suggest, I had TI's on before these and they felt looser, the action is decent, not super low but noticeably lower than Hofner factory spec, the short scale and slim neck makes it a breeze to play.

Condition wise it is on reasonable condition, its not a case queen and has been used for a number of gigs, as a result there are some scratches and wear on the bass but nothing bad.

Collection from Croydon or can meet up if in the London area

Hi all

I am currently down to just one bass and whilst I love the playability of my Hofner Club bass tonally it is no longer a good fit for the kind of stuff I am playing, I am reluctant to move it on as although the truss rod is working I don't think it has all that much (if any) adjustment left on it.

Now understandably I am really wanting a new bass, something I can get a brighter more aggressive tone from but me and my wife are planning to move very soon so money is super tight, this means I will need to buy something very inexpensive for now, I quite like the look of the Squier affinity jazz bass but at 240.00 I feel Squier is kind of getting demolished by other brands in terms of price to quality.

Which of the uber cheap brands are worth buying?  I see there is Fazley which offers a jazz bass with a roasted maple neck for under 150.00 quid, Gear4music offer the LA Series basses which are another contender, any others I should look out for?  Thanks

I'm going to add my slightly contrary input on this, I played my friends Epiphone Thunderbird for a gig, it was the cheapest version, was pretty comfortable to play, on the large side but comfy to play, sounded amazing, it had this lovely dark growl to it.

Anyway I brought a Vintage pro from either Andertons or Gear4music(can't remember which) and it looked lovely but after a couple days once the new bass glow had worn off I wasn't really wowed by it, the tone was brighter than the cheaper Epiphone, was lacking that dark low mid growl that the cheaper Epiphone had, ended up returning it.

19 minutes ago, Sparky Mark said:

 

I bought both versions of the Ignition to help narrow down which pickup configuration I might prefer if I ever go for a German model. I much preferred the 61 both ergonomically and tonally. Both pups are usable on their own and together whilst the 62 bridge pup lacks too much bottom end for me.

I do wish my Hofner had the bridge pickup in the middle position, the bridge pickup is useable and useful but a middle position pickup would be good as it is as you say useable on its own

4 hours ago, MacDaddy said:

 

Or for the full McCartney experience, you should first hanker after a Gibson EB-1 , then buy a cheaper copy by Hofner from a shop that will allow you to pay on hp...

The shape is similar but that's it, the Gibson is solid body whereas the Hofner is hollow in an attempt to get closer to the tone of a double bass, the pickups are very different also and the Hofner has a wooden bridge also to try and get closer to an upright tone, the EB1 on the other hand sounds nothing like en upright so I think inspired by is possibly more true than copied

No, not saying I would never spend more than that but I would be acknowledging mentally that I was being ripped off.

The prices are getting crazy now, I mean look at the Fender gold foil jazz bass, 1300.00 for an MIM bass with horrendous quality control problems that offers pretty much nothing that justifies the price, bbot bridge, passive electronics, one pickup, big plastic pickguard.

Also I noticed that people are generally using flatwounds with there Hofners, I have used flats many times in the past but I am currently using rounds and they sound pretty good on the Hofner, nice gnarly,meaty tone to it.

The Killers bass player uses a Hofner with rounds on the song Joy ride

https://youtu.be/v3s8Aympo-4

I just use the Daddario clip lock straps, work just as well as strap locks imo without having to make any modifications

I found this video which may be of interest, this guy replaced the Chinese control panel in his contemporary Hofner for a German Hofner control panel, even on a YouTube video you can hear that the German panel sounds better

https://youtu.be/93s9ogv_m1U