itu

Well written, this was the only thing I had to point out (and I do drift slightly away from the original topic). There are similarly many hues of green and red (yes, I have done some professional photography). We can usually compare two, because our relative senses can figure even tiny differences very accurately. But absolute measures are not so easy, because that is how our senses have evolved. Think about taste, angles... Absolute perfect pitch is not so common, but players usually have an absolute relative pitch. That is what I think is more important to have, because we usually play with others and we need to play together.

We learn the scales and the frequencies. A has been 415 Hz during Baroque, and now we are heading past the 440 Hz: many symphony bands are using up to 445 Hz as an A. There is no celestial mathematics behind Western music, just agreements. There are cultures that divide the octave to 24 or 32 notes. We use approximately equally tempered scale, while there are many others that sound better with certain instruments. If there was only one scale and tempering and A, perfect pitch could be something special, now we have people that have learned one specific system. Come on, Wolfgang had perfect pitch, although his A was around 415, not 440 Hz. The frequencies have been chosen, because our ears can hear certain frequencies better than others, namely 1 - 5 kHz. If the center frequency would be 3.36 Hz or 100 kHz, our ears would have been very different. Even basic quantities are chosen because they represent us. This kind of an article is quite some fun.

EMG BTS/BTC, bartolini, Aguilar, Delano, Seymour Duncan... What are you after? If you need a full mixer, consider EMG, Audere, and John East. Only EMG offers pickups, too. John East has passive circuitry in his system. If the blend and volume pots can affect the response of the pickups, any other system is just fine.

Have you been thinking that the electronics can be bypassed? Pretty easily, even without extra holes, just replace one pot with a DPDT switch. Then you can have both in one bass.

I do not find spending lots of money, two bags have been slightly used. Because of the quality, I would say they were practically new. The quality equals long term use, which means pretty small long term costs.

I use mono one and two bass versions. Good carrying straps, good pockets for tablet, spare strings, tools, cables etc. Newer versions have rings for mono fx case, the Tick 2.0. Useful detail, if a smaller pedalboard is enough.

After I found functional compressors (for the basses and me, that is), and learned to use them, I have used them when needed. That is quite often depending on the sound I am after.

I have one bass without vol or tone. Simply a pickup and an output jack. My amp has a switchable eq that is most of the time off. So when the bass is connected to the amp without one of the three fx boards I have, my sound should be very spartan. All setups have their place and they all work well. Does your bass or amp have any tone tweaking circuitry? If yes, then I find that not pure. Even the volume pot in the bass modifies the pickup response. How pure is your signal chain, @dave74200? This discussion reminds me of photography. Every photo is tweaked somehow, no matter what equipment you use. It is not possible to do nothing to the picture if you want to take one. You only change the basic stuff like aperture, time, or the sensitivity (and the choice) of the film/sensor and you are already tweaking something. Lenses, oh dear! I could go into details, but please not here.

I saw something very similar just the other day: https://www.rautiaguitars.net/

I tune my basses with an external Ibanez (MU-40, with a metronome; one in each mono case), Korg (MT-1200), or Peterson (V-SAM) tuner. But only tune, then I connect the bass to a board, or to the amp. I want my basses to be stable - love the graphite - and I do check the tuning of the bass before the gig or rehearsal. No need for a pedal tuner.

(Now he is playing the next 200 hours in a row, so we need to wait for his response a bit...)

Michael Tobias designed asymmetrical necks to his instruments around 40 years ago.

Holy Paderewski, a new split-fret from Steve Chick! Straight from maestro himself, or does he have a distributor at this end of the world? How much was it? A lot, presumably.

I am too far away, but bartolini has reasonable and legible pages. Their electronics are not so complicated. Blend, vol, active tone capsule, output.

As Rics are discussed here in general, was it so that the 4-string models are 4000 (single pickup), 4001 (double pickup), 4002 (rare special model?), 4003 (a renamed 4001), 4004 (Cheyenne or so), and the semiacoustic 4005? Rose-Morris had few special model names of these. Oh dear and of course... answers to my questions can be found from: http://www.rickbeat.com/

If you even think about preamp (John East...), you can tweak the basic sound quite some. On the other hand, if the pickups do not produce something, the preamp cannot create that either. I see a preamp as an enhancer. bartolini, Delano, Lollar, EMG, q-tuner, SD, DiMarzio, there are so many possibilities... if you even consider individual makers, the possibilities become endless. Body, a chambered one, if the weight is an important issue. Screw inserts, top loaded bridge helps while restringing, and lightweight tuners... remember to grease the truss rod before installation. Helps a lot in the future.

Very good points! Hi- (passive) and lo-Z (active) basses drive certain pedals very differently. My experience has been that compressors and OD/fuzz/dist are the ones that need test driving. I discussed about this with one pedal maker, who was saying the same: different signals, different results. Try before you buy. Many pedals have circuitry that change the signal level or impedance, and these fx combinations may become very different when working together.

Yes, I know, Guild Ashbory fits the bill only partially, but I would add it to the list. Fun to play, complicated body shape.

Half fretted necks, there were quite a few makers back then. Ibanez Ashula (2 models) was mentioned, too.

IE Divaricator can mix nearly any effect on top of the bass frequencies. I use 400 Hz as the x-over f. It does not work for envelope filters and few others, but most of the basic effects work just fine.

A bit like Musima, but the Phillips screws are too modern.

If the basic specs were clear (scale length, amount of strings, pickups...), the question about a special model is mostly about design. If our basses were like Diddley's square instruments, a J shaped body would be radical. To get a dozen of players behind a J design might be hard. Take some time to sketch the unit and listen to the comments. Only if they are reasonable, make changes. A basschat.co.uk instrument could be rad or radical, but definitely different. As said before, no need to copy existing shapes.

I will paste this text here, too: I thought that this (no logo thing) has to be confirmed, so I wrote to bartolini. Yes, they said, they do have produced few pickups without logos. No brands, projects, or artists were mentioned. It is possible, now we all know it.

Where could I possibly buy one...?