largo

I'm currently playing LaBella White Nylons on one of my 5-string basses.

The E string especially looks like it's rusting in places, underneath the nylon coating, so I'm thinking it's time to change them. They're expensive wee buggers! 

So, I was wondering should I buy a 4-string set and leave the old B on there, or should you always replace the whole set?  I don't play that B string nearly as much as the others, usually more a thumb rest and I don't need the "sparkle" from the B like I do with the other strings either. 

Any other cheapskates on here 😂

🤣🤣🤣 I actually said I’d buy him.a new bass and he’s having none of it. 

Being honest, I have no idea but my guess is it’ll take the finish off when the sticker is removed. It’s pretty badly checked anyway & that was before it was put on. My dads old school and thinks a bass should look new & none of this modern-looking relic stuff 🤣

So, popped to see my Dad this afternoon and he’s vinyl wrapped the front of his original ‘72 Sunburst Fender Precision 😳 Just had to share...

it's just a shame that somebody drew a c0ck & balls in the top corner 😂

That looks exactly like my first bass ❤️

OK update, I've now heard from the seller with an apology, so I'm happier about that. Think he's just fed up answering emails and buyers then not going ahead. Good news, I negotiated a further discount and I'm now the owner of a black/maple Stingray USA bass. Always fancied trying one & think it will suit my sound and at the price, if I don't like it I shouldn't lose too much cash on it. Thanks again everyone for their comments and advice, believe it or not it helped. 

I'm guessing that too ☹️ there is a returns policy but it is a private seller so not sure how much that holds either. 

As the title says, there's a reasonably cheap bass on eBay that has taken my fancy on a BIN price. I've emailed the seller twice with no reply, asking for pics of the case that is included & the weight of the bass. With no response in 3 or 4 days I'm wary of hitting the Buy It Now button but wondered what others views were? Am I being too cautious.

Cheers everybody for your help. I've now spoken to the man himself and the plan is to send John my preamp so he can investigate further. Weird me playing my bass down the phone while he tried to figure things out at the other end! Anyway, fingers crossed it's nothing major and thank you all again.

Thanks everybody for your help, I’ve tried a Facebook message so will see how that goes. Plan B is to buy some of the Deoxit if Mr East ignores my Comms. Thanks again.

Ah poooey!  Thanks for helping though, might be time for a new preamp.  Always fancied trying the Sadowsky.

it's the J-Retro 01 Deluxe found here at https://www.east-uk.com/index.php/all-products/j-retro-01-deluxe.html  

Cheers John, I'll certainly look into that.  I had heard the East preamps used sealed pots, if there is such a thing. Anybody know?

I have a J East Deluxe preamp in my Shuker bass. It's a few years old now but the volume pot is very noisy, especially over the last half of it's travel. Would appreciate any ideas on how to clean this?  I've emailed John East but no reply so thought I'd ask the group if there's anything might help.  Cheers.

18 hours ago, PJ-Bassist said:

I'm 95% sure I'm going to go for Aguilar pickups as I love the ones in my current J Bass (which has a Alder body and flamed maple top) along with an East pre.

Funnily enough, I have Aguilar pickups in the passive 5-string PJ built by Jon Shuker and a customised East J-Retro Deluxe circuit in the active one. 

I've gone through builds with both Sei & Shuker, 3 builds with Martin & 2 with Jon.  I still own the 2 Shukers, if that helps. Both luthiers were fantastic and all basses were top quality.  I'd say the Sei was more "delicate" and Martin was reluctant to deviate from his styles whereas Jon (Shuker) would give anything a go.  I never could stop the neck "moving" on both the Sei basses I had, constantly tweaking them.  The Shuker's are top-quality instruments too but, in my opinion, are proper gigging basses. I know that probably doesn't help too much. All I can say is, you probably can't go wrong with either.  For the record, I had a used GB spitfire bass as well, again great build and finish but I felt the electronics overpowered the natural tone of the bass. Not had an ACG as, again I didn't like the body shapes. We can be a fickle lot us bass players!

I'm going to try going IEM-only but I'm looking for an easy way to change my EQ & volume without mucking about with an iPhone app. I have one thought but wondered if there's a better/easier way to do it.

So, current rig is passive 5-string > Mesa D800 > 2 x Barefaced One10 with pre-EQ DI to a Soundcraft UI24R PA desk > Aux Send to Behringer MA400 headphone amp > Lugs Quad IEM. 

I have a band mix in my IEM coming from the desk but there's times I would quickly like to tweak the EQ or volume of the bass in my IEM & not effect the FOH. We have an iPhone app but it's a pain setting EQ on this & being old-school, I'd much rather just turn a knob on an amp than fiddle with a phone in the middle of playing a gig. *we don't get much if any time to soundcheck as it's mostly weddings we play.

So, is there a way to still send the bass to the PA pre-EQ and somehow get a post EQ feed into my IEM that I can tweak easily by going to an amp? Or possibly a pre-amp pedal as I'm looking at Line 6 Helix Stomp and ditching the Mesa & Barefaced altogether if I can make this work. Initial thought is an active DI sending to the PA (so that's pre-EQ) and then DI from the amp to my IEM into a small mixer that also takes the DI from the PA for the rest of the band mix.  Is that the simplest way?  I have a Sansamp VT Bass DI kicking around if that could be used too.

All advice gratefully received.

Yep, you'd want the 760's for a similar tension to usual.

One of the things Jon did for me & continued through to the JJB series was chamber the body to lighten the weight of my bass 😁

Funnily enough I’ve had basses built by both Martin at Sei and Jon at Shuker and both were fantastic experiences. If I had to choose though,  Jon was the more approachable and much more open to working with me on my design and build. Both very high quality builders though & all fantastic basses.

Proof of the pudding is I now own 2 Shuker Jazz basses (both shown on the Shuker web page you’ve linked to) and no Sei Jazz basses. 

A weird case of deja vu! I had the very same thing when I got an M6 Carbine amp & posted pretty much the same question to Basschat. Let’s just say I no longer have the amp but still think it’s the best sounding amp I’ve ever owned. Just couldn’t tame the loudness! Sorry that’s not much help & probably not what you want to hear 😟

Thanks everybody for their comments & advice, especially Jacko 😀  Think first thing is to borrow a wireless system & get my FOH EQ sorted, although difficult to do as I’m wired to my IEM. Fingers crossed that means turning the bass drum down too 😂

Our singer (also guitarists wife) does go out & check mix when we’re playing. It’s quite funny though as he won’t give his wife the IPad mixer and she has tell him what adjustments to make. Never get any reports that people can’t hear the bass but I will try & get a decent recording next time we gig. It still depends on the mix our guitarist is giving us I guess.

out of curiosity why do sound engineers always do the drums first & mix from there or is it just line levels their getting?

Am I naive in thinking a Full Range PA speaker can’t recreate the tone I get through my IEM? I appreciate it’s tiny little speakers compared to fairly hefty ones.