itu

One thing that has been steady with the band I am playing with is the day and time: Thursday @ 19oo. There's no messing with hundreds of messages/calls/mails. I just have to be there in time. Simple and easy.

Have you ever been thinking about the word retro? How many people want something that was fab in their youth? And is it wrong? Now there may be the possibility, and one little company gets steady income. Nothing wrong with it, or what should we think about their situation, both buyers and the company?

...buffers fitted into the same casing. I know, just a detail, but I think it's more common to use that word instead of the preamp, which may modify the f response or output level. Was it Seymour Duncan that had J pickups with three tiny white switches?

There's even one with delta metal fretboard... shouldn't have looked... But compared to the availability and prices of Wal basses, there are still few Vigiers, they are lighter in weight and prices are nearly reasonable.

You want to understand the circuitry, it is easiest to start from the signal chain: pickup(s) - blend (or vol) - vol - tone - output Any part before the output can be battery powered (low impedance, lo-Z, active) or not (high impedance, hi-Z, passive). If any of the parts is battery powered, the output will be lo-Z. Low impedance output is interfering less with the following cable from the instrument to the amp input. If you buy an instrument with battery (or in some rare cases, PSU) powered electronics, the output is different from the no battery alternative. Likewise, if you can bypass battery powered parts, the output becomes high impedance. It is important to understand, that most pickups are hi-Z. There are exceptions, but practically any pickup can drive electronics, which include blend, volume, or tone circuitry. It is very common, that the only lo-Z part is the tone tweaking circuitry. This equals, that vol and blend affect pickups, because they load the pickup outputs. There are few companies producing fully active signal chain from the pickups (John East, Audere...) and at least one that produces the buffered pickups, too (EMG). There are obviously others, but these I know for sure. If your system is hi-Z, you only need some pots and a capacitor for volume and tone tweaking, but all of these parts affect the pickup response. This has not been a big issue, since similar basses have been produced since 1951, but if you want to try, lo-Z electronics have been available at least since 1963 by Burns. Some other early trials: 1964 Bob Murrell and Guitorgan, with split fret -neck 1966 Vox V251 (Guitar Organ) at the end of 1960's Ovation develops a piezomic 1969 Ron Hoag @ NAMM - optical infrared microphone

But nothing like: "We will be producing a new affordable series in *#¤(/&= so anyone can get one!" I like their approach. Quality matters.

Do you have any slow licks available, please? I am a true bassist... ...will get my coat...

Stevie Winwood - Back in the high life Anything from Robert Palmer Oleta Adams - Circle of one I admit that I still like FGTH, Cyndi Lauper, Durans... That TTDA is one good bet!

I only have two Passion II basses, and their preamps are capable of anything I need to play. So my understanding of the Excess is therefore limited, but I do not have any reason to believe they wouldn't be very good in any genre. String choice affects the outcome quite a lot, so for twang I would choose Vigier's basic strings, 40-95 SS RW. For more middle nickel strings work better, and naturally you can go down to flats if needed. I think string choice is crucial to the basic sound of any instrument. As the necks do not have truss rods, you can only adjust the bridge. If you are after a very low action, my instruments have been steady since 1980's and I am confident that Excess is no exception.

If the instrument brand dictates your playing style... no, I won't continue. Make a test ride and choose the one that fits like a glove and sounds incredible.

Does anyone have similar service for strings? And I mean not only for G-strings, but 5-packs, too...

Just go ahead. And you can put thread inserts to the neck. Put two more in the middle and you have 8...

I am repeating myself :II Try an OD/dist/fuzz with lo- and hi-Z (act/pass) basses to find the right sound. I tried many, many units and one pedal building friend of mine hinted that the output of the bass affects the sound very much. True. Now I have a fuzz for my lo-Z (active) as well as high impedance basses. It is the same with compressors, too. Another useful tool for the tight lows and nice buzz can be achieved with a X-over.

Use a long delay line and you can start from PM and go beyond chorus and flanger to modulated delay. Please inform us about your project's progress. Sounds very interesting.

I think there was hidden meaning in the thread. OP has bought a fretless and wants to get some acceptance to the processing of "slightly inaccurate" playing...

I do agree, and sure many are playable instruments. Professional setup costs quite some relative to the price of these basses. And most would really benefit from the setup - and this is the point where most of the potential buyers spare. Strings may be the next issue, but there was one decent article in the same company website. These shapes and units are not for me. That much I have learned since, oh dear, long ago.

Compared to the "first bass" article elsewhere this was far better. The basics are there and could help the one who tries to find a suitable set.

Oh dear, it's so nice I am not in that stage anymore. Instrument wise, I mean...

I love notation.

Then you need to check Line6 who had a pedal platform with programmable unit. They only sold it in the States. No success. Yes, I sourced the stereo unit. The group of programmers was small enough not to be interesting enough, so no commercial success. Price was reasonable and there was a forum where people changed ideas and code. Fail. No commercial success. Tell you a story of custom slalom skis: A European ski company started a custom program, where you could get any graphics to your skis you want. Delivery time: 2 weeks only, minimal xtra cost (like £20 or similar). "Do you want these?" "Yes, please!" "When shall you buy them?" "Well... I have been saving for the ultimate holiday in Alps for three years. I have good boots, I shall consider the investment near the holiday." What happens then? The customer goes to the shop one week before the "ultimate holiday" and buys the set looks and feels good at the shop. The company representative said to me that they have tried this service twice with exactly similar results. When you have a product or a service, it has to meet customer needs and habits. Otherwise it will just fail. My idea of an ultimate idea may be good for me (I think?) but if I am the only customer, no go. Risk to put £100k to a complete waste drives the top management decisions. Been there, seen too much.

Again, I partly agree. If there's a project of 18 months, you may get the money to it. If there is something substantially bigger, 3 years is really, really long development time for any project. I did never get any money to a longer project while working in an internationally known electronics company. Neither did my colleagues. Usually the schedule was shorter, like 10 - 15 months. Research needs those resources which produce serious daily income. Guess who wins? Longer term development is like taking small steps at a time. If the product would be a world class invention, that everybody would buy, sure that would receive lots of money. But how would you be able to say, that this is it? From the famous crystal ball? Source Audio made the best possible volume pedal so far, the Reflex ( https://www.sourceaudio.net/reflex-expression-controller.html ). The production was short lived. Practically impossible to find one. How about their ring that can control pedal parametrics ( https://www.sourceaudio.net/hot-hand.html )? Is everybody using it? I do not know how poor income these units produced, but I think that these were really good inventions. The main question behind all development work is how to predict the future? If you know what will interest people, you can get the top management and marketing behind you. But Goddess Fortuna is hard on us mortals.

I partly agree. Development costs and testing, too. Most of the effects we use nowadays are from the 1970's or '80's, as we can see from this thread. A serious processor and a case and some hardware around the box. Yes, why not. But again this gets back to development and testing. It is far more easy to test just few effects and check their reliability, than some PlethoraX5 type of thing. The price tag tells it, too. An ultra capable unit would still lack adjustments, or would be big, or the usability could be really complex (although it is true most of us do some adjustments very seldom). I could see a monitor connector (or at least a USB) in an FX unit, just like there is one in a modern digital mixer. That way the adjustments would be reasonably easy, and those few pots could be addressed to the parameters needed. Serious set up takes time and the computer/tablet/phone UI is usually better than a pedal. After all basic adjustments the big screen is needed rarely. I think this path is seen with modern units, like tce and its Toneprint, Eventide, Source Audio, and alike.

That 120B looks neat! What is that Xvive chip there? Are all others opamps?