itu

4 hours ago, Lfalex v1.1 said:

I take your point. 

It might be nice if manufacturers measured/ declared such specifications?

But they do! When you order bigger amounts of magnets, you specify material, shape, size, and strength. Any pickup manufacturer could include details of magnets, coils etc. Why not? Should we ask them?

https://www.daddario.com/globalassets/pdfs/accessories/tension_chart_13934.pdf

2 hours ago, Lfalex v1.1 said:

Magnet material also seems to play a part,  if only because of the way the sound is presented tonally.

I suppose magnet size/strength will govern the field through which the string passes, also affecting output. 

 

AlNiCo magnets are the softest,  warmest sounding.

 

Ceramics are harsher and seem "louder/hotter"

 

And as for Neodymium...

The field/strength is the word here. An AlNiCo may be weaker than an Nd. The material specifications are dependent on the production process. Therefore the strength cannot be read from the type. Otherwise it would be like the car manufacturer "Ford" equals fast and tractor brand "Lamborghini" equals slow.

Measuring requires expensive equipment. As long as people are not able to measure components, these text based descriptions live.

Things have changed considerably. Instruments are no more treated the hard way. Only if the instrument was very old and would contain those very rare species that a Hofner does not contain.

I am making an educated guess: these will be highly sought after when some star "finds" one. Quality, sound, what else you need?

(Oh yes, that star.)

The next one to fill the collection is a half fretted one: MC-924H AJ10 (Alphonso Johnson, 1981).

Alembic brown bass.

White Moon.

Fretless StingRay.

3 string fretless StingRay.

2 string fretless played with a slide.

The first 5 string Modulus.

5 string Parker Fly.

Koa Pensa-Suhr.

Carved Rickenbacker.

Double neck Rickenbacker.

Pink JayDee.

Fretless Klein bass.

Six string Ken Smith -> six string Yahaya.

Peavey TL.

Peavey Rudy Sarzo.

Jack Daniels.

Star bass.

Höfner.

Manson.

Kubicki Ex-Factor.

Zon Hyperbass.

Hagström The Swede.

Overwater C bass.

Yahaya Attitude.

Whichever of these would certainly sound different in my hands, but never mind. These have been the basses and players in my youth, and still are. Of course there are others.

(I'd like to find someone to Mosrite, Atlansia, Ibanez [well, Gerald Veasley is already there], Burns, Danelectro... and if someone does not know the players of the basses mentioned, I think I can add them later on.)

On 08/03/2024 at 11:19, Rodders said:

I've always found the B string to be quieter than all the other strings on the bass (only ever owned 34" scale), is there an accepted way to fix that? 

Some things may (or not) help:

- string choice (do several trials*)

- pickup height adjustments

- bridge adjustments (in connection with the previous point)

* Try very different gauges. Thin is not always worse!

On 06/03/2024 at 23:46, bassman1982 said:

4. Blend is a linear positive line from 0 to 100%.

 

6. If I modify the knob mapping for all the Toneprints I'm going to use, and make the knob mapping identical for each Toneprint, will that affect the sound of the Toneprint? 

4) Do you really need the blend when you are already in deep with all parametres? I don't see any benefit with dry signal, when the levels, and processing can be tweaked with such finesse. For me ON is 100 % ON, and therefore I have used the blend knob for other parametres. After all, by compressions nature, signal level has usually areas, where compression is not present at all.

6) I have not seen this happening. Sounds strange if everything is set only to different places. Have you really checked every function and value there is?

7 hours ago, LiturghianPope said:

...whether passive pickups would allow greater flexibility and the ability to try various different external preamps and hearing major differences, as opposed to active pickups which already use a preamp which has a certain profile.

Again, @Boodang wrote some very good notes.

I want to add that as long as you use any passive, hi-Z components in between the pickups and the preamp, the response is sacrificed. Any pot, be it blend, vol, or tone, will degrade the original sound.

You want pure sound from the pickup, connect it directly to the preamp. You have two pickups, you should use some non-loading circuitry (Noll Mixpot or similar) between the two, or use two preamps, one for each pickup.

Low drain is the right choice. Your bass should consume something like 1 mA. Not like torches (tens or hundreds of mAs) or similar.

First could be C#/A (could be c#m/A, too) or Amaj7.

The second one is a major third doubled.

The third one is C#add9 or c#madd9.

I and III do not reveal their major or minor character, therefore C# or c#.

Now, quickly, someone is needed here to adjust us to the right track!

16 hours ago, Boodang said:

...it’s alnico2 magnets on the bridge for more mids, and alnico5 on the neck for more bass...

Magnet type does not dictate the response of a pickup. The type may tell you the highest possible field it can produce around it, but that depends on the production process. Therefore a neodymium can be weaker than a ferrite.

10 hours ago, Boodang said:

...active pups have an op amp so they are buffered. This means that you could blend two active pups in parallel but you can't put them in series. So you can't install a series/parallel switch on a bass with active pups.

There are pickups like EMG TW and TWX:

https://www.emgpickups.com/bass.html

pickup - vol - tone stack - output

pickups - blend (or vol) - vol - tone stack - output

Practically any component can be battery powered (low impedance, "active"). Some system are even PSU operated (like Alembic Series II).

Coil-magnet pickups are "passive" (high impedance, hi-Z) components. As @Boodang so well put earlier, the basic idea to modify a "passive" pickup to an "active" one, is to add a buffer to it (EMG and few others). Then the lower output can also be compensated with that buffer. Yes, there are active units like infra red sensors, but they are rare. I have used an acceleration sensor: response starts from DC... amplifier cries... the system has now some HP filtering.

NOTE: The output of a pickup can be adjusted by the amount of windings, or the buffer settings. Hi-Z pickup output may be far more powerful than its lo-Z sibling's.

The most common way to mix two pickups is to use two vol pots. Pots are of mediocre quality, but very cheap - and therefore so common. The complicated thing is that this way of mixing loads pickups: the sound is affected. Vol pots are tone pots, too.

Some preamps are mixers (John East, Noll Mixpot). They can adjust the levels of the pickups without loading the pickups. This way the blend adjustment is independent from each pickup, which certainly is not the case with a simple potentiometer based system.

Tone stack may be just a cap and a pot. Cheapo, but functional. If you see an ad of an "active bass", usually only the tone stack is battery powered. Did you notice that a £300 Sadowsky preamp has simple vol and blend pots in front of B&T?

A battery powered tone stack may be a tone, a filter (LPF), a two or a three band eq, a tilt eq, a semi-parametric... or nearly anything. There has been lots of solutions, although B&T is probably the most common at the moment. It is cheap, modern opamps have ultra low power consumption, and many of us like its simplicity.

One thing that you should find out yourself is the output impedance. It affects (this is something I have found out by testing lots of stuff, and interviewing people) the input of OD/dist/fuzz and some compressor pedals (I have different pedal boards for hi-Z and lo-Z basses). Maybe your pedals are less critical, some of mine aren't.

I do not see any reason you couldn't use an external preamp with any bass you have. You can use any effect pedal, and you can use any preamp you want. Trust your ears. Do not rely on opinions, only your ears. Like OC-2 was made for g-word players. Then Pino found it.

But... where are the pictures?

(Coat, coat, where's my coat? It is by the door!

Merrily merrily merrily: your wives are like a dream.)

True: usually around 4-5" is enough for my basses. If you need to cut to the thick part, you should stop the unwinding by tinning, or gluing the end.

By the way, although I love necks with no front dots, you could ask for something special. Just few ideas:

http://www.whocollection.com/john's_basses.htm

I do not have short scale basses, but what is this question of cutting strings? I cut strings every time I attach them to any of my basses (33.8" - 36"). I only use D'Addario or GHS SSRW.

The first one was in line with the graphics.

- nothing (this is one very delicate solution)

- double sided tape

- velcro / 3M Dual Lock

- cable ties

- bike chain links (attached to the fx case)

- fx case screws through the board from behind

Very reasonable. Be involved in the process, and get the profile of your dreams.

One certain off white Moon bass has a built-in stand for mic.

I think you need an Ashula. The older, the white one, or the new one. That will fulfill all your needs.

Strings, that's up to you. Learn this table, and your instrument can have practically any tuning you want. Do not forget piccolo strings.

https://www.daddario.com/globalassets/pdfs/accessories/tension_chart_13934.pdf

4 hours ago, Rich said:

...in my bass-drobe...

Love the word... will steal it!

GHS had good Long scale plus sets, although they were pretty hard to find. One shop said I need to buy a box (10 sets) at a time. I do admit they offered the boxes at a really attractive price!