BillyBass

Hi @Low Places, welcome to the forum

I don't think I've ever met someone from Kentucky but I have eaten a lot of your chickens.

We have just added this to our set.  I used the Big Bully Bass covers video on youTube to get the basic cover down.  It's a pretty good approximation of the real thing, minus a few chromatic notes and detail.  I made a few alterations to how I play it.

I haven't played it live yet, though it's in our set for a gig we have this Friday.  I don't think it really matters now close to the original the bass line is if it is being played in a pub on a weekend.  So far no one has pointed out to me my bass lines aren't exactly the same as the original in any of the songs in our set, if they did I would advise them to drink more.

4 hours ago, PaulThePlug said:

Fender rather than Squier?

I'd start by saying thats a £100 ding and see what the response is...

No, that's more than a £100 ding.   B stock stuff, if the dings are more than superficial, can be 20% off full price. 

2 hours ago, SumOne said:

Bass Simplifier is about MXR size, lots of features squeezed in. 

Yes it is, good shout.  Unfortunately it isn't a pedal, at least it isn't a stomp box.

I've found a temporary solution that doesn't involve buying something.  I've swapped my normal sized Polytune for my Polytune Mini and this has given me a bit more space.

1 hour ago, SuperSeagull said:

I’ve just ordered one. Grant messaged me to say he is quite busy with orders at the moment and I suggested it might be as a result of discussion here! Even so he reckons with me by Weds so no real delay. Will compare and contrast with my Rafferty which works brilliantly but I do need a small footprint pedal plus less bothered about the pre amp and phase switch.

I got the Rafferty before I came across the Sine Effects HPF.  I prefer the Sine Effects HPF because it is pedal board friendly and it has a 24db cut.

That must be really disappointing, but I suppose if they refund you the difference vs its B stock price, that could be a good buy.

17 hours ago, TheLowDown said:

I don't think I've ever truly regretted buying any gear because there is always something to learn, even if the lesson learnt is that it wasn't right for me. I wouldn't have known otherwise so it's never a waste.

That is a good way of looking at it.  

Like many here I have bought things following praise from others or a review and ultimately realised it wasn't for me.  I once bought a 2nd hand woolly mammoth clone on here for £35 or £40, the seller said it was in great condition.  It wasn't, but mostly, I realised that fuzz on bass wasn't what I was looking for. So was this a waste of £40 or a cheap lesson?  A bit of both probably.

I thing it's quite difficult to claim something is overrated without being subjective.  If you paid £3k for something similar to a £1k model but you love it and play it all the time then that would be good value.

Nevertheless, I don't understand the worship of the Boss OC2, and I really don't get the prices these change hands for.  MXR borrowed one from Janek Gwizdala and cloned it; you can buy it from countless outlets for about £150-170, and it has an extra feature, the 'mids' button.  But what do I know, I've never had an OC2 and I don't have an Octaver on my pedalboard.

Just sold a Genzler head to John.  Very straightforward transaction, he paid straightaway and let me know it had arrived.  I would not hesitate to do business with John again.

I live at the northern tip of London, my band mates live in Hemel, Watford and Chesham, two towns just north of London in Hertfordshire and one a bit further out in Buckinghamshire.  Our gigs have all been in Herts-Bucks though we have just got our foot in the door of a pub in Tottenham.

Our singer asked us how far we would be willing to travel to gig, after he got an offer for a gig about 2 hours drive for all of us.  No one was keen on driving that far, we are just a pub covers band after all, but I imagine 1hr to 1hr 15 minutes would be acceptable to all of us.

@Thump If you are interested in the Reverends, call Merchant City Music and let them know.  

I called them up about the Venetian Pearl Decision P that they always seemed to have on order but not in the shop.  They told me that sometimes people register an interest for a certain model and they get first dibs when it comes in.  I did this with the Venetian Pearl Decision P, and when they got one in, they called me.  Conveniently, this happened a week before a planned trip up to Scotland, so I put a deposit down and went up a week later.  They said that if I hadn't liked it they would have refunded my deposit.  I loved it though and I'm very happy with my purchase.

Difficult question.  

Any object is worth as much as others are willing to pay for it.  A Mexican made Fender P or J is easy to price as you see what others are attempting to sell them for, and there would be plenty of interest if the bass was in good condition and your price was reasonable.

When I sell stuff I usually look at prices others are charging for them and offer a similar, or slightly lower price.  I normally sell stuff for between 65-70% of the new price.

With something more obscure, you might have to drop your asking price to attract offers and you might end up waiting a while before anyone shows interest.  A shop can overcharge and people might think the object has a higher value, but that doesn't work when the object is sold second hand by a private seller.

6 hours ago, Bassassin said:

Right dull, drab lot I've got.

 

 

Think there needs to be a green San Dimas P/J in my future.

Oh wow!  Fantastic photos too!  

I think my green San Dimas P/J is probably my favourite bass, though the Reverend and Spector are up there too. 

7 hours ago, neepheid said:

 

G&L did a purple wunkay, sorry, the current colour choices are natural, baccy burst, blueburst, matcha green.

 

 

 

* Who, me? 😈

I thought it was you but I wasn't 100% sure!  G&L! Why? and Reverend too, why stop producing purple Triads?  

4 minutes ago, rwillett said:

Mmm.... Thats an expensive way to collect basses.... Mind you doing a 'simple' rainbow isn't cheap

 

For people who aren't in the colour business, Pantone is a standardised way of 'doing' colour. So you don't say it's 'orange', or even use a hex colour, but Pantone 6017 C which looks like a carrot colour. The advantage of this is that brands state their colours in the brand catalogue as Pantone 'X' and Pantone 'Y' and so ensure that the right colour is actually used and printed all the way through. There are thousands of Pantone colours.

 

There was a bit of a mess when Pantone recently (which is a commercial company) started asking $15/month to use Pantone colours in Photoshop. Until that point it had been free. Suddenly you had an extra $180/year fees to do what you did for nothing in PhotoShop the previous day.

 

Pantone also does a colour of the year, which this year is Viva Magenta 18-1750, which I quite like.

 

I'm a lot more IT than design, I know my way around PS and Illustrator, but worked in national newspapers for a long time which is why this sort of stuff is interesting to me (and probably only me).

 

Thanks for reading, off to get my anorak, I'll close the door on my way out.

 

Rob

You learn something new every day!

Or you could come to the South East Bass Bash, which I plan to attend, along with my Reverend.  I suppose if you live south of the river, it might be easier for you to attend this rather than come up to Barnet.  If you live in north London though, pop over here.

Hi @DDR, I live in London, just, and I own a Reverend Decision P so send me a PM and we'll sort something out.

I live at the top of the Northern Line.

8 hours ago, admiralchew said:

Haha, fair point. I just really like basses and pedals, both for what they do and aesthetically. They can be things of real beauty. That’s one of the reasons I really like @BillyBass’s rainbow collection.

 

With apologies for derailing the thread, on the pedal front, I’m hoping to put together several boards and will put them on Basschat when they’re done. I’ve been periodically adding to this too to keep a record of some fantastic pedals:  https://www.instagram.com/admiralchew/

 

Sadly, basses and pedals don’t make up for my lack of musical talent.

I've just been looking at your pedals on instagram; that is quite a collection, or perhaps was.  I see you have been flogging a few to fund an upcoming wedding.

I've been a bit of a Jam pedals fanboy in the past, mainly because of their appearance, I will admit.  Hand painted pedals!  With some of yours though, I couldn't bear to put velcro on the bottom of them.

I'm not as long into the bass journey as many of you here, however, I have tried quite a few different strings.  I seem to be settling on D'Addario NYXLs, which sound good as soon as they are on and last quite a while.  

I have just put a set of Rotosound Nexus black coated strings on a P bass and they sound really nice, however, after playing about four or five songs with a pick I checked to see if any of the coating had come off and, unfortunately, a tiny bit had come off.  I'm guessing that after several weeks of serious use the coating where I pick would be a bit worse for wear.  I'm not sure if that would make a big difference to the sound.

I've got the Jam pedals Ripply Fall Bass, which is a Chorus/vibrato/phaser in one.  They also do the same without the phaser, called the 'waterfall Bass'.  Both are currently available at thomann.

https://www.thomann.de/gb/jam_pedals_effects_for_bass.html

The Ripply Fall is the only Bass chorus pedal I've ever owned so I'm not sure how it shapes up against others.  I mainly use the chorus to thicken up my tone, when needed.

7 hours ago, Baloney Balderdash said:

Have you tried the dirt cheap but genuinely great Joyo British Sound, which is a clone of the Tech 21 British, and which was as a preamp/drive designed specifically to mimic a wide variety of classic Marshall amp tones?

 

Worth a shot I'd say, at least.

Possibly but this is a guitar pedal, not necessarily tuned for bass and even though its cheap, I don't want to throw a small amount of money away on something that might not be any better than what I already have.

As well as the sound, the other thing that impresses about the Motorbass video reviews is the fact that the volume isn't affected by the drive knob.

We cover Ace of Spades and we have been struggling to really get the Motorhead sound across; we haven't got a wall of Marshalls after all.  I have been using distortion and a bit of chorus and the sound is good, though not quite 'Motorhead'.  I would like to buy one of these but it might have to wait until Christmas, we have a bit of new mortgage pain coming.

As @admiralchew mentioned above, Jam pedals has three drive pedals, which have two gain level foot switches.  The Lucy Dreamer (a tube screamer).  The Rattler (a Rat) and the Red Muck (Muff).  You don't get two flavours as such, just more gain with the second switch engaged.

I've not tried them but Genzler sell a couple of pedals with several different flavours of either overdrive or distortion, depending on which pedal you buy.  One was on sale here but just went.  Bassdirect have new ones.

You won't find more versatile pre amps than the John East stuff.  Adjustable mids, bright switch, passive override, with a tone control; I've not seen better.  The downside is that they are quite gainy and even with the internal trim dial wound fully anti clockwise the gain is very high.  I often have to switch my Charvels to passive when gigging, particularly when using pedals.

1 hour ago, gilbass said:

Hi there

just wondering if this is still for sale? Vey interested. Is the amp all ok? No issues or problems?

 

thanks Gil

The amp is all OK with no issues or problems but, unfortunately for you, I got there first.