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Great vid. The tone reminds me of a Jess Schmidt, which is understandable given Jeff was playing a piccolo bass.

I played this in a shop, and liked it through certain amps, but others it really brought out the string detail that I don't like, so i'd really recommend trying it before taking the plunge: it's not a silver bullet. I don't know if you've seen it, but there's a different Ibanez with a piezo, but with some traditional Barts in addition so you can have a blend of sounds. It's the SRF700. Haven't played it so cannot compare to the SRH but I would imagine it's a more versatile beast (with a price jump to match). Not hollow body but I'm sceptical if that does anything substantial other than look good, which granted it does!

I own a Bassmax and have ported it across from one bass to another. Based on my experience it really needs to fit well to get a good sound. I've always chosen the G side of the bridge and there the sound has been even across the entire range of the bass. I've had adjustable bridges and I don't think that affected the sound at all, and I agree with @DanOwens in that a double pickup would probably not help, although as a counter-argument I've used the BP-100 which has two piezo elements and didn't notice anything, so it can be done.

I've been trawling through the interwebs for hive mind opinion on this and surprisingly have come back with very little information. I've just swapped strings on my bass. By and large I'm a happy customer, but one thing is really off-putting and I'm not sure if it's my imagination or not. When for example I bow a G on the D string, the G vibrates in sympathy. Now I know this happens on all strings but on these it's really, really sensitive and is very loud, and happens even when I'm playing the G in passing. I've seen posts say this is just a property of the bass, but none saying it's a property of the string. Is it so? It happens on all resonances and harmonics, with the fundamental being really rather obnoxious. It happens when plucking, but with various subconcious muting techniques I can keep it under control. Am I imagining it, or could it be just buyer's remorse? Changing back is a possibility but rather a bigger deal than an electric so I thought I'd ask here for advice. Could a type of strings make it a problem? Can I fix it because other than this I'm happy with the sound? Now you may ask what strings I have on the bass. This is a point of contention as I'm not sure the strings I bought are the ones I received. However I believe the seller sold them in good faith and it's not like I particularly wanted the ones I bought: I'm just messing around trying to find the sound I want. I *think* they are Helicore Hybrids.

Jumping in to say I've just replaced my strings with D'Addario Chromes, basically because of this thread. I'm definitely a fan. When it comes to replace them in 50 years' time I'll definitely buy the same again. Best start saving now. Sheesh they were expensive.

Being the generous soul that I am, I'm willing to take it off your hands if you pay for my petrol or postage fees

I once got a bad back....... from carrying the rest of the band. Aandathankyou I'm here all week.

What are you thinking of doing with a DAW? Recording? If it's multiple instruments or a mic you'll need something like an audio interface, which these days connects to the computer via USB. Choosing one is a whole can of worms but if you're just starting out, take heart that you can get good ones for not much money. Certainly it's a fraction of what you're spending on your new computer above. Reaper is very efficient. I have a computer of similar vintage to your dying one and am able to run Reaper just fine on it. As others have noted, requirements go through the roof if you have virtual instruments or plugin effects HTH

Very good, and very versatile. I own a Sandberg custom so very similar to the supreme range pictured above, except I cannot coil split, yet. Currently musing over adding the requisite switches for that in the new year, but even if I don't I'm happy with the sounds I currently have. I've just looked at the price at Bass Direct and eeek! I bought mine new a few months ago for less than half that. I could do some samples, but there's already a video with these pickups, played by someone who can play better than me. The single coils to my ear get very close to the jazz/p sound

This is an interesting topic as it completely goes against everything I knew about amp/cabinet matching until today. To quote the manual I always thought that this is caused by the impedence being too low rather than the power rating of the cabinet. Also, if you have to back off the volume level, what would have happened if you'd used a cabinet rated at a lower power rating? Confused.

This is an interesting one. The SSL 2+ has a big red button to turn on 4000 series console emulation, but it's just that: one button. There's no granularity and certainly no eq or blending of tones. At $39 I'd be prepared to give the demo a go with a view to purchasing. Thanks for the pointer!

My signal path is about as clean as can be. A cable between bass and either an Acoustic Image Coda or a GSS 06B400MKD. If I'm twiddling with EQ it's because I cannot hear myself rather than I don't like my sound, so I guess it's the room environment that I miss with an audio interface.

I like a clean bass sound as much as anyone, but even I have to say that a cable straight into an audio interface and listening with headphones is just a little too dry for me. The main reason I like doing this is that I can record myself and listen back critically, and I can play along to all manner of things on teh internutz. So just out of curiosity, does anyone else practise through an audio interface? Do you do it dry, or do you spice up your tone with an IR or some EQ? I own Reaper and any workflows involving its included plugins I'd be very interested in hearing. If you wonder what tones I'm interested in, the answer is that I'm not sure. I'm usually very laid back about it, so long as it's not audibly distorted. In other words, this is a very open ended question so I can try others' tips and tricks and maybe steal some ideas 🙂 . Even the dry-as-a-cracker tone I get from the interface is fine, but uninspiring, hence the question. If it helps, the interface is an SSL 2 PS: Spending money is fine for me, so long as it's not too much. Chip in with your experiences anyway even if you have splurged on the Helix Native though!

While not exactly VST, Celestion are offering discounts on some of their IRs. 45% off bass speakers for example https://www.celestionplus.com/products/bass-responses-by-speaker

Not cheap, but there's the GSS bulletpack head which can take an external laptop battery, which they also sell. Head and battery are on their website. You can then pick your cabinet, or cabinets, and get 200W output, for 12 hours if their website is to be believed. The head I've linked to is said to require an external preamp. GSS do make heads with instrument inputs, but their website (or English section thereof) seems to have circular links and I can no longer find it.

How does activation work on the Waves stuff? I'm allergic to iLok.

If you want to convince others that rejoining the EU is a good thing, complaining that your musical instruments and accessories now take longer and are harder to return is perhaps not a compelling place to start. As you say, you don't know what people voted for. I won't comment any furthur on this thread: no good will come of it.

I'm totally with you on the Fishman pickups, I just don't like the sound, even in the hands of people who can definitely play. Barts are much nicer IMHO. Bass looks really nice. Congrats.

One thing that I try to do for practice is play along to a drone. There are some drones available online on websites, and I'm sure there are apps for most phones. With the drone in the background I try to noodle, in tune, with my eyes shut. Nothing against looking at the inlays, and I will do that from time to time, but when you're reading music you necessarily have to look away from the fingerboard. It'll also help you relax when you need to look away to take cues from other members of a band. Secondly, and more importantly, it helps you develop your ear to notice when you're out of tune. In a fast run the odd out of tune note is undetectable, but for those long mwahhhs if you can get yourself back in tune quickly then even if you're out by a lot then people will just put that down as a style rather than a dud note. Now staying in tune, eyes shut, with no reference like a drone to help: that's where I completely fall apart. Whoever can do that is a wizard. In terms of muscle memory, I'm sure there is an aspect of that, but go on YouTube and look at the famous bassists playing fretless. Most of the time they're looking down at their "fretting" hand while playing/soloing. Even the greats do that.

I think I have an analogy that's just about right enough to help understand impedance. Imagine you tie one end of a skipping rope to a ring drilled into a wall, and wiggle the other end of the rope. You want to see what frequencies you're pumping out with your arm, and you do so by measuring and plotting the up and down movement of this ring over time. Now, imagine that wall is made of jelly, that ring is going to be wibble wobbling up and down like mad when you're really yanking that skipping rope. That wall has a nice low input impedance, and it's really easy to measure what the ring is doing, which is great. However, what happens when you make the signal small? Your small movements are going to be lost in all the noise of external factors, and in particular your high frequencies are just not being seen in the movement of the ring. Also another problem with the jelly is that there will be some reflections as the ring starts to move the skipping rope, creating an echo (not really a problem in musical instruments, but thought I'd mention it). Next up is the brick wall. The ring is barely moving now, but when it does it's a much more accurate representation of your output frequencies of your arm. This is the high input impedance scenario and the movement of the ring captures all your nuanced wiggles on the skipping rope in exquisite detail. What's the catch? Well if you know that your signal is nice and strong then a brick wall is a waste as the small movements aren't as easy to measure. Here's where we have to really stretch the analogy: you and your arm are the instrument, the skipping rope is the signal going down the cable if not the actual cable, the ring and wall are your preamp, which in this case is included inside your amp. Your nice strong signal would be when you're using a magnetic pickup, and the small weak signal is the piezo pickup. I should also add that this analogy totally breaks down when you consider microphones, with their very small signals yet small impedances, but oh well. Coming back to your amp, the obvious question in your situation is "why would an amp have both? Wouldn't the high impedance work in both piezo and magnetic pickups?" As Bill says, there's definitely a case where you can have your input impedance too low for the instrument, but the case against making it too high is not so obvious. Many preamps just offer the one input impedance for all situations ~5MΩ (e.g. the Fishman Pro EQ is 10MΩ). I suppose if you're not careful you could cause clipping with an instrument that is too hot, but in all my years using an ultra high impedance input for both unbuffered piezo and magnetic I've never had a problem. I just have a lower gain for the magnetic pickups. There's an SoS article about impedance which is excellent. It talks about the history of the values chosen, as well as a little bit of the maths involved. Hopefully my analogy above can be understood by someone with no mathematical background and is correct enough to not upset anyone who does actually fully understand the science behind it.

Doesn't need to be built in the UK, just repaired

I thought of appending this as a question on the Markbass combo amp repair thread, but didn't want to derail it: what amp companies are good at customer care post warranty? For my part I've owned Acoustic Image who have been excellent, but getting the amp across the pond and back can be expensive, which is why I'm selfishly tacking on "UK edition" to this thread. The driver for this is that I may be looking for a more bass guitar centric amp, and repairability is one criterion that very much interests me, yet I don't know much about it. Even if the manufacturer is on the other side of the world, are they fixable in independent repair shops at a reasonable cost? From the aforementioned thread I take it Markbass are not great, but what about other manufacturers? Ashdown, Orange, TE, Phil Jones et al? Sure this is inviting unscrutinized anecdotes, but I trust you all!