MartinB

2 hours ago, HeadlessBassist said:

the Ultra II now has the cheaper 'Skunk Stripe' neck construction with the truss rod hole above the nut, the same as every other Squier/Fender bass.

It can't be that much cheaper - I've got three Chinese Squiers and none of them has a skunk stripe

Check how much space you've got - if it's tight, you might want to hold on for the more compact version 4 to be available in the UK:

Essentially just an EQ curve that matches the sound of putting a specific microphone in a specific position in front of a specific speaker cabinet.

The green wiggly line is a Helix Cab > Single block for an Ampeg 4x10 cabinet, which uses a built-in IR.

The blue smooth line is a Helix EQ > Parametric block with an approximation of the same overall frequency response.

They should sound broadly similar - they're just different tools for the same job. IRs can be a bit more characterful because they've got all those little peaks and notches at different frequencies. An EQ-based "cabinet" can give you a bit more fine control. Settings for both blocks are below if you want to try them out:

If you approach it the other way around, flat EQ on the MojoMojo at 25-50% Drive is roughly equivalent to Bass 11:00, Treble 8:30 on the Spark at 100% Gain. It's not quite as close this way - the MojoMojo has a little more going on between 500Hz-3kHz, and a little less > 3kHz.

The Spark at 100% Gain and the MojoMojo at 25-30% Drive sound pretty close, if you tweak the EQ on the MojoMojo a bit. The Spark is slightly less compressed.

Spark / Mode "Clean" / Gain 5:00 (max) / Bass & Treble 12:00 (flat)

MojoMojo / Voice "Up" / Drive 10:30 / Bass 1:00 / Treble 4:15

Spark (settings as above)

MojoMojo (settings as above)

Some folks have convinced themselves that a signature instrument is equivalent to a lifetime achievement award, and therefore only their favourites from decades past "deserve" to have one.

Whereas I'm sure the only qualification that Fender considers is, quite reasonably, "Can we make a load of money by selling these?"

Dry recording (no pedal):

Spark / Mode "Clean" / Gain 100%:

MojoMojo / Drive 0%:

MojoMojo / Drive 50%:

MojoMojo / Drive 100%:

3 minutes ago, Jack said:

what does the voice switch do?

Very little 🤣

I have an old image from when I looked into this a while back. Dark green is voice switch "up", light green is "down":

So something like a 1.5dB boost centred around 80-100Hz. You can barely hear the difference.

Different modes on the Spark @ Gain 50% / Bass & Treble 50%

Blue: Fat

Purple: Clean

Yellow: Mid

Did somebody say "graphs"? No? Well you're getting them anyway, because I happen to have both pedals to hand.

Green: Spark / Mode "Clean" / Gain 0% / Bass & Treble 50%
Red: MojoMojo / Voice "Up" / Drive 0% / Bass & Treble 50%

Green: Spark / Mode "Clean" / Gain 100% / Bass & Treble 50%
Red: MojoMojo / Voice "Up" / Drive 100% / Bass & Treble 50%

Green: Spark / Mode "Clean" / Gain 0% / Bass & Treble 100%
Red: MojoMojo / Voice "Up" / Drive 0% / Bass & Treble 100%

Green: Spark / Mode "Clean" / Gain 100% / Bass & Treble 100%
Red: MojoMojo / Voice "Up" / Drive 100% / Bass & Treble 100%

The MojoMojo is inherently dark-sounding, and cranking the highs is only going to get you close to flat at best. It gets a bit more mid-focused than the Spark as you increase the gain. I'll see if I can get some sound samples later.

Edit: Apologies to anyone with colourblindess - I should have picked something other than red/green. Basically, whichever line has less treble is always the MojoMojo

If there are separate magnets for the A/E and D/G sides of the pickup, the D/G one could have been de-magnetised. I had a new bass arrive with a G string that was a quarter of the volume of the others. It wasn't the strings - if I turned the pickup 180 degrees, the E string became the weak one. In theory a pickup can be re-magnetised, but in my case the manufacturer just replaced it since it was new.

Black's the best of the those options, but would look better with black pickup covers. A plain white that matched the covers would also work. There's too much going on with the control plate to have a pattern on the scratchplate as well, IMO.

Ooooh... sparkly! 🤩

https://www.thomann.co.uk/tech_21_progr_sansamp_bass_driver_di.htm
 

3 settings, 3 buttons. You're paying a fair bit for simplicitly, mind. It'd be a lot cheaper to buy three of these and tape them together:

Edit:
 

Quote

Id like a pedal that would allow me to run a SVT cl sound and add fuzz, distortion or boost etc

I'm asssuming that "etc" means varying levels of drive, and not other stuff like phaser / delay / bitcrusher - in which case you would need a multieffects pedal

On 24/01/2025 at 08:12, SumOne said:

But I suppose it is like 'what is the best food/bike/car etc' in that there isn't a definitive answer, depends on specific tastes and needs.

Exactly! If you tell us about some songs where you've heard the sort of tone that you're after, it'll help you get more focused replies

The distance between the nut and the saddle hasn't changed, the unit weight of the string hasn't changed, and the tuning hasn't changed, so the tension must be the same. The string length behind the nut or saddle acts like a spring - when you push on the main part of the string, it may stretch a little and allow a bit more "give". So in theory, your strings should feel more loose/bendy/compliant because you've added length behind the saddle. But since we're talking ~1cm of difference, it's probably not even noticeable.

Genz Benz Shuttle 9.2
Keeley Bassist

I absolutely love Rocksmith 2014/Remastered. Hundreds of hours on bass and guitar, and I've never even touched CDLC yet. I imagine that being able to read sheet music at a high level gives you a similar sort of experience, in that you're able to skip the "learn the song" part and jump straight to "play the song". Without Rocksmith, I'm not sure I would ever have knuckled down and practiced consistently enough to be confident in auditioning for bands.

What they've done with Rocksmith+ is a tragedy.

8 hours ago, dave_bass5 said:

I wonder if the Aliexpress version is like the Gear4music version. I spent ages trying to  get the stereo in on XLR working, brought new cables, even sent the first one back and got a replacement (actual they said to keep the first one as it wasn't worth the cost of sending it back). Neither seems to be wired, or at least working, for stereo XLR. The middle 1/4 works fine in both modes. SameXLR cables on the P2 work as expected.

Here's what I found:

Source		Connector	Mode	Output
======		=========	====	======

Stereo		XLR		Mono	Mono
Stereo		XLR		Stereo	Stereo
Stereo		TRS		Mono	Mono
Steroo		TRS		Stereo	Stereo

Balanced mono	XLR		Mono	Mono
Balanced mono	XLR		Stereo	???
Balanced mono	TRS		Mono	Mono
Balanced mono	TRS		Stereo	???

Not sure what's going on with a balanced mono source on the Stereo setting. It's doesn't sound the same as Mono - it's quieter but "wider". Possibly it's panning one signal to each side, which then results in weirdness because each ear is out of phase with the other?

Or ESP

I've got both the Behringer P2 and the Aliexpress version now. The Behringer claims

Quote

Integrated current limit protects your ears and headphone

but both units will turn up to unholy volumes with no suggestion of any kind of limiting. I saw a post elsewhere suggesting that this is really more about protecting the amplifier from being damaged by short circuited headphones than protecting the user's hearing.

So a no-score draw there. The battery access, belt clip and mono-stereo are definitely better on the Aliexpress job, though to be fair Behringer "inherited" their design from Fischer so it's not strictly their fault 😆. Weights are very similar. Behringer is slightly smaller in cross-section. The locking input on both applies only to XLR cables - a TRS will pull right out of there.

Don't get me wrong - I like a nice tort. That one just isn't a nice tort 😆. It's dull, and too red to go with the blue paint. I'd want a much darker brown with more pattern  - but an off-white pickguard would be better still.

2 hours ago, MichaelDean said:

This one is bad. Hutchins Beachcomber. Nothing flows and the whole thing looks a bit lumpy. 

 

Aside from the ugly tort, I think this one's pretty decent. It follows the outline of the body properly, unlike a lot of the disasters in this thread. Just needs a little tweak in the area next to the neck:

It looks way more interesting this way than it would if the screw holes had been filled & painted and it was just a flat mass of colour