Bassman68

The best purchase this year for me has been my Shure GLXD6+ system to replace an ageing Sennheiser system that I’ve had since the 00’s.. The worst was probably some BlackSmith coated strings from Amazon, Someone had mentioned them on here so I thought I’d give them a go…Unfortunately they sounded dead, straight out of the packet. Great it you want that kind of sound, but I was expecting at least some ‘zing’? Notable mentions shouldn’t also go to the s/h pedals I bought to build up my ‘back-up’ pedalboard, purchased from here or e-bay… EBS Microbass2 EBS Multicomp TC Polytune2

They’re my gigging workhorse basses, Squier VM & CV Jazz & Precision’s… They get enough knocks etc. to not worry too much, They’re my trade tools that serve a purpose.

I’ve got the 3mm dots on 4 of my workhorse basses my initial experience was on a particularly ‘muggy’ evening at an outdoor theatre gig… by the end of the evening, most of the dots had come off of the Jazz bass I was playing. To get round any further disappointment, I’ve blobbed over each of the dots with a tiny amount of clear nail varnish, to hold them in place. That was a couple of years ago now and all the dots remain in place & do a sterling job on dark stage intro’s & stage blackouts. I find that bursts of stage lighting are enough to charge the dots for when the dark moments arise…. The irony for me is that I have two basses with fitted LED’s but they aren’t the right Image for my regular gig with my tribute band.

I got this Meijia Peli style camera case from E-bay a while back. It’s pick foam lined & fits my small pedalboard in, along with IEM’s & tablet bracket.. It’s all I need to take to small theatre gigs apart from my dual bass gigbag & stands.

Been a couple of times that Imodium has seen me through a gig? 😄 (Comfortably bunged!)

Can almost feel the neckdive just by looking at it?

If you are thinking of more ‘shuffle’ beats, A few of Billy Ocean’s songs have it? ’When the going gets tough’ ’Love really hurts’ They all have that shuffle on the Hi-hat…

Damn the Sandberg configurator.. Trying to talk myself out of pulling the trigger on one of these?

I dunno who sets these basses up, but studying the Nikki Sixx bass last night in Hard Rock café restaurant Tenerife, looks like the G is below the E string?

Looks more like a hoodie?

I always viewed fretwraps as a gimmick when i first started noticing them, an excuse for poor technique? Over the years though, I’ve come to find them useful, especially on multi-string basses, for keeping the ‘rumble’ from those low strings at bay… I now use them when I play my 5 string basses, especially my Stingray 5, to tame the B string from rattling when slapping. Here’s a pic of me at a recent festival in Germany, letting loose on “Too shy” by Kajagoogoo..

The Sub range are only a two band pre-amp, The ray 34 & 35 are three band. obvious question,but have you tried a fresh battery? As most active circuits tend to distort when the battery starts to die..

After managing to track down another EBS Microbass (albeit a 2j from Graham from this very parish, (Thanks once again mate) I’ve upgraded my travel/flyboard for when I’m not using a transmitter pack, or on small club stages. The main band I play with operate a silent stage with no backline, so a decent preamp is a must. I really like the EBS tone, so having one for each board is luxury… It’s nice having the option now, especially when trying to travel as light as possible…

You’ve obviously never tried an EBS Microbass 3 then?

Depends on the current draw but I can’t see it exceeding 500mA? you might be able to get away with a 3 way daisy chain connecting to a OneSpot or equivalent with a 1000mA or larger supply to power all 3 pedals?

It makes you wonder why manufacturers don’t angle the speaker baffle inside the cab itself? 🤔

I feel your pain.. I have a 93 Corvette Proline & a 95 Thumb NT, both 5 string The Corvette bridge will fit virtually any B string yet the Thumb needs a tapered B to fit comfortably? When I used to have a string endorsement with Bass centre Elites, I used to order separate tapered low B’s in a .130? so my suggestion would be to contact the Bass centre? I haven’t used Elites for a few years since I received some rusty/corroded sets, but I presume they’ve improved in time? When I restring the Thumb bass these days, I tend to use D’addario Pro-steels that have a tapered B..

Unfortunately most cases I see these days are of the textured variety, which make putting stickers on quite difficult? When I was still a newbie, no case was complete without a “Keep music live” MU sticker on it at the very least? I used to love going to the shows i.e British music fare etc. to stock up on stickers..

My band ELO Again are playing .. Edinburgh Usher hall on 15th Tivoli theatre Aberdeen 16th Elgin town hall Elgin 17th

A couple of mine ready to be loaded on the gear van to be driven up to Scotland for some dates next week.. Much prefer these cases with the ‘over rider’ bumpers to the plain ones, I lost a couple of feet & had a cracked case due to the crews handling, the last time we went north of the boarder.. I want an Enki case but have been over-ruled by Mrs Bassman 😄

Had a blue strip on my pedalboard for a while now…