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Thanks both of you. I've tried all pemutations I can think of from your suggestion, putting it in another room, another power supply etc. It still persists, *except* on one amp. When I run through an Acoustic Image Coda R there's no buzz! I cannot explain that unless there's some amazing wizardry inside the Acoustic Image that doesn't feature in other amps. I've opened the bass up to look for loose cables. It looks very clean and nothing jumped out as being wrong. While she was open I tried some contact cleaner on the volume pot. Did nothing. As you suspect touching the strings does make it better, even if not completely getting rid of the problem. While open I plugged the bass in to play. I wasn't able to make the buzz go away by wiggling any cable. However, I was able to make it much worse by just touching the white cable leading from the volume pot direct to the jack socket. This was touching the outer sleeve rather than the copper, which surprised me a lot. I should have said in my first report that the bass is dead silent at both 100% volume and 0% volume. It's around 50% that it's at its worst. I don't have a multimeter to hand so I think it may be starting to get to the point I need to bring it into someone who would make it better by inspecting it rather than me who's making it worse. I tried to take pictures but nothing came through with any clarity that I think anyone would find useful. Thanks for your suggestions so far. Very helpful.

Thanks. This only happens on the one bass and I'd be surprised if it were outside the bass if turning volume to 11 makes it disappear but anything under that makes it buzz. It's an active bass but has a passive bypass. Both buzz at lower volumes. I've had buzzing issues before but nothing like these symptoms.

Hi everyone, As I progress and learn the nuances of playing bass guitar, after 20 or so years' playing I have come across this knob I believe people call "volume". Now my bass may have had this from day dot, and I'll never know as I've only ever started fiddling with this control, but when I dip the volume down I get an annoying an audible hum. Full volume and zero volume are dead silent. At this point I would usually take the bass to someone more qualified, but I'm kind of stuck at home with nothing better to do, so I'm asking for help here. Is this a common occurence and is it an easy self fix? I see general hum issues, but not related to when the volume is only partly engaged. The offending bass is a Sandberg California which I've owned from new around 10 years with no mods. Any help gratefully appreciated.

If FRFR is your bag, then ask him what he thinks about the Double Six and how it compares to his Single12 for your needs. He can fit the Double Six with the coax 6.5 driver, which is amazing (speaking as someone who owns and has gigged with it) but you may not even need the coax. As @Hellzero says, there are good videos of the cabinets online. Most useful to you probably is the one which compares the single12 to his Four6.

I don't see anyone arguing here, even on rereading. Apologies on my part if I wrote something that came across as that and I'm too tone-deaf to notice. An argument was not my intention.

You'll have to fill me in. I don't understand.

I don't feel there's any dishonesty on Celestion's part. They publish the spec of their drivers after all (typos and all!) Are there other drivers that absolutely demolish the BN12-300S in terms of low frequency output purely by virtue of their lower Fs, ignoring the xmax? I think there's no doubt there. Can you put a HPF on these others drivers and get a cabinet that can do what the BN12-300S does, and more? Again yup. I agree with everything you say, but the reason I'm still tempted by the GSS Single12 is that I wouldn't call myself an electric bassist. Given I HPF around (I don't know the exact frequency; I twiddle a knob until it sounds good) 80Hz, I'm grateful that there's a cabinet that does something different by being smaller and lighter than the competition, at the expense of things I don't care about. I used to walk two miles twice a week with a double bass and combo, and still walk to rehearsals and gigs, so those things matter to me. Pretty niche and mad granted, but just to say there are mad people out there.

There's a typo somewhere however you slice it, be it in the wattage or the weight. With the FTX1225 listed as 14lb the full cabinet weight should be ~10lb heavier than the BN12-300S loaded cabinet. The coax loaded cabinet is in fact listed as 7lb heavier, which is pretty much how much heavier the TF1225CX is to the BN12-300S. The 63.5Hz, whether you think it's too high for electic bass or not, is very similar to the BN12-300S's 62.1Hz so the cabinet sizes should be similar if designed properly, or at least more comparable.

Hmm, after a bit of digging I'm not sure it is the FTX1225. The TF1225CX would make more sense if, as the images seem to imply, the two drivers are put into the same cabinet. The weight differential then lines up as well.

Nothing wrong with it if you prefer it, but I'm not one of them. It annoys me when volume controls make no difference to my ears past the halfway mark. This is more pronounced on my TV and Hifi than anything else. No log taper pots in those, just cynical marketing (IMHO).

Absolutely true. GSS (and Celestion) seem to be chasing different goals, and I'm glad they are.

I should have carried on with the email Didier sent me: Best of both worlds, albeit worlds involving a thinner wallet . You'll have to contact GSS how much that will cost, or even if he's still offering it. I own the 06B400MKD, and it's amazing. I was going to add the Single12 underneath it, but those 6.5" drivers sounded so good I started looking at the 2x6.5". Unfortunately the GBP then proceeded to tank against the Euro and I've been waiting for it to recover ever since .

Incredible, two Yodas talking to each other! I own a GSS cabinet, albeit not the 12" one. As Bill says there's a compromise here. I get the feeling that GSS cater more for the lighter genres of music, such as jazz, samba etc. That suits me perfectly, as does the cabinet I have from them. I'll let you decide if that's your situation too. One bit of info I can relay is that the two 12" cabinets GSS offer are not equivalent in terms of tone. The one without a tweeter has a BN12-300S, the Coax one is (I think) an FTX1225. This is what Didier@GSS had to say on the difference when I asked: I was a little curious about putting the BN12-300S in a box for bass as it seems more used in guitar cabs. I emailed Celestion about it. This was their response: So in short, yes it's a compromise and the lowest frequencies will not be as forthcoming as other cabinets, but I'm personally really glad such cabinets and drivers exist because not everyone has the same requirements. I'm predominantly an upright bassist and having windows rattle during sets is not important to me, unlike fitting my gear into the car.

That's a great video. I've never heard an NS sound as close to a real upright as that. Thanks for sharing.

To my untrained eye it looks like, to all practical purposes, the standard cub with a speaker out. I'm going to reserve judgement until I see a UK price on this

It's what a feared, but thanks for confirming. Maybe my bowing technique has improved since then (hahahaha), but I found that while you could just about get away with it in an acoustic setting, the scratches through a piezo pickup just were too prominent to be anything approaching pleasant. By contrast the Obligato gave a lovely full arco at the expense of the Spiro growl when plucked. I'd probably say that the Obligatos have made me very lazy with respect to intonation as it's so forgiving on that front. I'm going to be in for a shock with a crisper set of strings. Argh, decisions decisions.

I seek the collective wisdom of the bass-hive mind. On my upright is an 11 year old set of Pirastro Obligatos. I cannot remember what it sounded like 11 years ago and Obligatos are famed for being warm with less definition and my ears are surely degraded in that time, but I swear it's far deader and woolly now than when new. Trouble is bass strings are a not insignificant chunk of change now and I'm not one for wasting strings that can be restored. On my electric one very nice trick I've used successfully is the detune and slap technique. This fairly obviously cannot be done on my upright so does anyone have any tips for bringing a bit of life into strings, particularly Obligatos? Failing that, what's the general feel for arco and pizz strings these days? I totally get it's personal, but it's been 11 years since I last looked and there are brands I've never heard of now and I don't know where to start! At the time I really liked the sound of Spirocore when plucked, but the scratch when bowed put me off. Is there a proper hybrid on the market now?

One thing I've found with my GSS amp is that the gain pot is linear. It's actually a nasty trick that other amp manufacturers use to make their kit seem louder. I'll just copy-paste what Gollihur has written on the EA iAMP classic, which also uses a linear volume control: Like you I was unimpressed with the loudness of my GSS amp head when I first received it, but I think that was my expectation of volume controls rather than the amp itself. I should say it wasn't the Sumo so take your own experience over my anecdote.

I'm in pretty much the same situation. AI told me to ship back to the USA. I guess given I'd have paid postage both ways it makes no difference to them. Add me to the list of happy @bassadder users. He shipped me a replacement preamp, no fuss and very quickly.My CODA III is now firing on all cylinders again.

Using just the neck pickup I'm satisfied that nobody but the geekiest bass-head would be able to tell the difference between my bass and an actual P bass. Once you've run through an amp/cab with a voice it's completly indistinguishable even to them! If I had a Precision to hand I'd definitely be up for playing the same bass line on both, uploading both and seeing if people could tell which was which. Hmm, maybe I should buy myself a Precision

Hi all, Just to jump on this thread to agree with everyone who says that Sandberg is amazing. Over ten years ago I went searching for my "last bass", the one that would see me through to the end of times. I went into every shop playing Fenders, MM, and the rest but nothing clicked. Long story short, one shop owner pointed me to a brand I'd never heard of called "Sandberg" and I fell in love with the range despite them looking so simliar to the other basses. It was the sound that drew me in. Speaking of sound, I was certain that the bass would be a MM style humbucker, but in the end, the California JJ (now TT) proved the most versatile and pleasant. I even narrowed it down to two seemingly identical JJs which sounded different enough that you could tell them apart in a blind test. As an aside, I realised then that buying instruments online is not for me. Well, ten years have passed, and I've been true to my word in that no other basses have passed through my hands since (eagle eyed may see a different bass in my profile pic; I bought two basses that day!) Sometimes a little GAS has bubbled to the surface, but overall I'm satisfied that my search is over and resisting it has been relatively easy. At the time the bass(es) was a significant invesment, probably one I couldn't make now, but it's been a worthy one in my opinion. The California JJ isn't an aged one, and this probably needs to be said that, while I'm no John Entwistle, the bass has been gigged and played extensively in that time and yet it looks as good as the day I bought it. In other words, if you buy a "shiny" Sandberg hoping it'll look aged after a few trips down the pub, then forget it: they're built like tanks. Picture was taken yesterday next to my other old faithful of similar vintage: my Acoustic Image Coda III.

A bit of advice I wish I could give to my younger self is to buy headphones with replaceable parts, especially the cable. Pretty much every pair of cans I've owned that has failed has been cable breakage. Similarly I've owned some Sennheiser HD580s, and is on its third cable now. Official cables are much more expensive, but last longer than the eBay knockoffs. I've tried re-soldering the contact points, but often you have to break the damn things apart to get at it, which kind of renders the exercise pointless.

This amp very much reminds me of an Ashdown ABM 600. I'm sure thats entirely coincidental.

Aaaand they're gone. You snooze you looze. There's still an ABM-1200-EVO IV B stock in for £650, but I understand they're much heavier and not everyone needs that kinda headroom. https://ashdownmusic.com/collections/b-stock/products/abm-1200-evo-iv-head-b-stock

Like @Dan Dare I'm hesitant to recommend anything without a budget, but I will say I own a 6.5" combo, and it's too good for practice in that it can get seriously loud and the tone is excellent: The GSS 06B400 Mini Bass Amp[1] at ~£300 https://www.guitarsoundsystems.com/gss-06b400-mini-bass-amp-c2x15043753 Your needs will probably be different to mine, but I bought it with the intention of gigging it with an upright bass. I wrote a review of it on TalkBass comparing it with my other combo, an Acoustic Image Coda Series III. Hope that helps. [1] Well, I actually got the more expensive coax version which goes full range and is fantastic, but for just bass guitar may not be worth the added expense.