steve-soar

[quote name='steve-soar' post='244967' date='Jul 22 2008, 12:19 AM']I'm going to see them tomorrow night, so I shall tell you what he is using. Versitron Series F.[/quote]Just come back from the Liverpool arena, Stranglers and Blondie. JJ was using his Shuker through a Mark King head into a Classic neo ABM 4X10 AND 1X15, he had two stacks but only one amp was switched on, his front of house sound was terrible. It was massively compressed and lacked any definition. I haven't seen them play since Hugh left as I thought they may have become a Stranglers tribute band, tonight my fears were comnfirmed. Blondie's bassist was using an SVT and 8x10 and he had a sweet sound but obviously a different approach and style. The last time I saw the M.I.B. JJ was using his Trace gear with his black Precision and that totally cut through, snarling, wicked sounding bass. Maybe the engineer tonight was an idiot, who knows. The L'pool arena is a sh*t hole, too many pissed idiots kicking off, nothing like any Stranglers gig I have been to before, where fans would be lively at the front but everyone else would be cool and having a good time. The meat head security were being very agressive and unecessarily violent. I suppose you can't go and see this kind of band and be forced to stay in your place but be allowed to drink enough beer to make people nasty. People were being total pigs and coming back from the bars with arms full of beer, then going back again. This country is in a bad way, very disturbing scenes my wife and I witnessed.

Hi Jesus have you got any allen keys to fit the grub screws in the saddles? Have you got a tuner? Have a fiddle around trying to to lower the action, as Ben says, it's best to start getting to know how your bass functions because you will probably save a fortune in the long run. If the neck is shaped like a bow, the truss rod could do with tightening. Put your finger on the first fret and one on the last fret and have a look at the gap between the strings and the fret half way between these two points, around the ninth fret, if it is more than a couple of mm's then it could survive tightening. Take the truss rod cover off and find the CORRECT size allen key, normally 4 mm but check first till you find the key that fits exactly, if you use one that is too small, it could shear the sides of the nut off and leave it useless. Give it a quater turn clockwise, this should feel quite stiff but don't worry, just be careful and don't turn it any more. Now check to see if there is any difference. It may take a minute to react. If there is no difference try another quater turn. What you are aiming for is to have a tiny bit of a backward bow on the E string side a pretty much straight on the G string side. The extra tension of the E string will make this happen naturally. If you have something that looks like I have described you can now look at adjusting the height of the saddles. You could spend hours doing this but it is all good, clean fun. Try to get each saddle to be straight, so that one side isn't higher than the other, that way you will have a better contact with the bridge plate, you don't won't wonkey saddles. Start by having each saddle too low and then adjust the height with equal quater turns on both grub screws of each saddle, this will keep the saddle stright, until you don't get fret buzz anymore. Some players have a really low action and play softly, if you gave there bass to someone who plays harder, it would buzz all over, so it's a compromise. Just be paitent and remember to do small adjustments Try to post a pic of the bass neck, side on, looking down the edge of the fretboard from the headstock down so we can see if the neck needs to be straightened using the truss rod. Do you have a friend who knows what they are doing when it comes to setting up a bass? If so get them to show you how it is done, if not, I'm sure we could help you be remote control (a bit like trying to land a plane when the pilot is out of action). Just remember to do small adjustments and retune each time you make them. We'll get you sorted. Keep us posted. P.S. intonnation is another matter.

Hi Jamie have you thought about putting an ACG pre into one of your basses, it would give you that filter based control that the Wal and Alembic basses have. The pre in my ACG gives me an astounding range of tones but it gets a very nasty, hard edged tone, with a hugh low mid foundation, then all I do is dail in some top end zing with the treble stack and listen to my speakers just starting to break sweat. With your set up, you could get a really dirty, funky tone with the Ampeg SVP being driven by an ACG pre and I do mean filthy.

[quote name='Deep Thought' post='244136' date='Jul 20 2008, 11:22 PM']I've not seen him use an 8X10. I know he uses 2 ABM 4X10's and two (?)1X18's. He certainly is on the 'Rattus at the Roundhouse' DVD, recorded in November 07. Woolly it is not.[/quote]I'm going to see them tomorrow night, so I shall tell you what he is using. Versitron Series F.

It would detract from the amazing finish.

Beautiful Kev, really beautiful. I so, so want an upright, but I'll have to do a lot of fiddling to convert it to lefty. I'm so jealous.

I bought a Bergantino IP310 cab from Terry. Great fella with an impecable taste in gear. He delivered it for me and before the money had cleared in the bank account! I would buy from Terry again because he really looks after his gear and sells for realistic prices.

There's an Ashdown ABM 500 amp and matching 8x10" cab on here for £700, big, bassy, bargain.

I've got a 1995 Squier Precision, I fitted a bone nut to it and gave the frets a bit of a dressing and it plays beautifully. Best £100 I have ever spent.

[quote name='benwhiteuk' post='241060' date='Jul 16 2008, 04:45 PM']erm…common misconception alert[/quote]Totally agree, if anything, another 4x10 would be best. My 3x10 is the lowest, baddest sounding cab I've heared. It kept up with a Marshall 100 watt combo yesterday..... until it was turned up to 6.

I love all of them, especially the trans-red Dean and the Artist.

Hi Alex the cheapest I can find them for is £70, so it spends its time in a Gigskinz bag. I played the Albion and the Zap Club, I loved the Zap, all the punters were nuts. Can you send me the details of where you got them from? Cheers Steve.

That's almost the same colour I sprayed a girlfriends bike many moons ago. What kind of body is it, as I have noticed the screw holes for the bridge, three at the back and two at the front. This will look great when it's all flattened off, good luck and don't rush anything.