Obrienp

I think it is the same bridge as used standard on Maruszczyk basses. I hated it immediately on my Elwood, partly because I wanted to experiment with strings and action. I found it really difficult to move the bridge saddles accurately with the strings in place to get the intonation right. I then spent ages trying to find a direct replacement with the four hole retaining screws (why don’t they go for standard Fender style 5 hole!?). I eventually found a Gotoh bridge with reasonable mass, plus screw and spring intonation adjustment. It also has quick load for the ball ends, which is an added bonus. It wasn’t cheap though for what it is: it’s not really in the Babicz league but nearly the same money. I bought the Elwood used. If I ever spec a Maruszczyk on the configurator (unlikely), I would definitely go for a non-standard bridge. However, if you are lucky enough to get the intonation and saddle height absolutely right, then the standard model is probably more stable in the long run than the conventional screw and spring intonation adjustment.

A friend got hold of a Lionel used last year. He loves it but he changed the pickup set within a few weeks. He said it just didn’t sound like a P. He hasn’t complained about the bridge but he had it set up by our local luthier when the pick up was changed, so perhaps he hasn’t wrestled with it yet.

I must remind myself not to accede to every request from a band mate to play a freebie. Yesterday evening it was a fund raising for a community hall in a very bijoux local town with a large private school. It was billed as a Spring Spectacular and we were the last act. There were 10 acts on before us, with an opportunity for us to put our gear on the stage but not sound check during a 20 minute break. Anyway we sat through various acts singing along to backing tracks with the odd guitar player, mostly flat (excruciating) but with the exception of a couple of teenage girl soloists, who could go far with some coaching; a choir (some good moments); couple of acoustic duos (one of which involved our lead guitarist, so good) and a “comedy” act involving some of the volunteers dressing up and miming to three Shawaddywaddy tracks: the joke wore very thin after the first song. All of this to rapturous applause from the audience. At the point when we were about to go on ( one and a quarter hours after originally scheduled), one of the organisers (and perpetrator of a great deal of flat vocals) announced that it was the end of the main show and over to us! Oh thanks mate! The audience quickly reduced from around 150, to around 12 by the time we had tuned up! We got in about 6 truncated numbers before noise had to stop at 11pm. This having sat there for three and a half hours, being as encouraging as possible to the other acts (and some were a bit grim). I thought some of them could have shown a bit of solidarity, including the one we lent some gear to but obviously it was past their bed time. We were probably pretty torturous too, as our on stage sound was dreadful, due to lack of a sound check and no PA support. My bass sound was heavily and inappropriately distorted, for some reason I couldn’t work out but that can be the drawback of FRFR cabs (LFSys in my case), garbage in/garbage out to pinch an old computing adage. The vocalists couldn’t hear themselves, despite a couple of monitors. Anyway the remnants of the audience seemed to enjoy it and were dancing away. I can only assume they had over-indulged by that stage in the evening. Best forgotten now, I think! Note to self, be very wary of any further freebies!

That H-B 6 looks good for the money! Plus it has a distinct advantage over the Squier/Fender offerings in not having a tremolo bridge.

I agree with the comments about the Hofner Club. Bit of a one trick pony IMO. I have a Starfire 1 (with the P pickup). Great bass but it is a big instrument both in body width and in length. In fact it is as long as my full scale P bass, so I can see why you would want something smaller bodied. It does look like a “proper” bass on stage though, whereas some SS look like toys.

I have a V1 Acinonyx and was looking forward to the 5 string because it might be one that I can play: arthritis in the base of my left thumb means the stretch on other fives is too much. A five with say a 42mm nut and similar proportions up the neck might be something I could play. However, a USA made version would be out of my price bracket and TBH perhaps not that well made? The pickups on the V1 Chinese made Acinonyx are meant to be made in USA but my local luthier (who makes pickups himself) reckons they are really poorly designed and manufactured. He has already had to repair a few because the mounting screws just go into a plain (cheap) metal baseplate. The thread soon strips and the pickups drop. Shame because they sound great; so much so that Nordstrand now offer the pickups in their own right. I have been lucky so far with the pickups; ditto with the switches that other people have had fail on them. The Hipshot bridge has also caused people problems: dropping bridge saddles and you have to be careful where the ball ends sit when you change strings. I can’t see these things improving just through US manufacture, unless there are some design changes along the way. I don’t say this to put people off the Acinonyx because I still think they are great little basses, with an amazing sound (obviously personal taste) and these kind of issues are by no means unique in Chinese made products. It only takes a little bit of sorting to deal with the issues mentioned. I am even considering having a custom pickguard made so I can replace the pickup selector buttons with a strat style 5 way switch and the tone buttons with a rotary varitone control.

I’ve given up on Schaller strap locks. I’ve found the strap buttons gradually unscrew themselves; perhaps from binding as you describe. I had them suddenly come off twice during gigs. I didn’t think I moved around that much. I’ve gone over to Loxx now and not had any issues with them.

I bought a medium scale jazz neck direct from China off fleaBay. It has binding and block inlays but was unfinished. It cost around £60 if I recall correctly. Anyway, it is more than half decent. A bit of fine sanding and a couple of coats of Rustins matte varnish finished it nicely. There were a few sharp fret ends and the nut was a bit rough but didn’t require too much work. The heel was a bit wider than standard Fender, so I had to ease the pocket on the body I was putting it on. The neck profile is interesting in that it starts very jazz like but gets quite precision like towards the 12 fret. Quite reminiscent of Ibanez SRs. It could well have been a factory QC failure because of the fret ends, nut and heel dimensions but try finding a medium scale jazz neck in the UK, especially for that money. I’ve gigged this neck on a P body and it is more than fine.

Great venue for a first gig! Proper stage and decent house PA. Result!

You all look so cool in your gig pics! Any pics of the bands I play in look like entertainment day at the old folks home and we are the residents! 🥴

Yep, a lot of people actually prefer the tone you get with a BBOT. I just appreciate the better engineered appearance of a Babicz, even the Fender high mass bridge (good value too).

Nice if you can get a bass that is exactly what you want. I guess that is why Public Peace has the Maruszczyk/Mensinger configurator and luthiers make a living in the face of cheaper mass produced products. Thing is, you pay a lot more for the individual parts that way.

I often modify basses with better parts. I always try to keep the original parts, unless they were replaced because they were defective. If/when I come to sell, I reinstall the original parts, not because of what the OP said but because you never recoup anything like what you spent. You get much more selling the parts on their own. The problem comes when you have to do a bit of woodwork to fit the upgrade parts. In that case you have to leave them on the instrument and hope the upgrade appeals to a buyer. I can understand why some people get put off by “upgrades”. Some are pretty bizarre and some are poorly executed.

I bought a replacement stereo jack socket for my Maruszczyk, which I don’t think counts as a fail, as the original was on the blink. I was about to fail big time by buying another cab but the band I intended to use it with has suffered a huge wobble in the last few days. The wobble almost provoked me into throwing in the towel but I decided to see if we can still ride it out. Time will tell if I am going to need that cab. At the moment, I’m not about to spend a big chunk of cash on something I might not need, so I’m still on the wagon.

The fan comes on pretty quick with the Gnome. I haven’t tried using it in an acoustic situation, so I couldn’t comment on how intrusive it would be. I don’t find I notice it when using it for solo practice. The Gnome is a very aggressive little amp and you have to play with the EQ a lot to get it neutral, which means that it can sound a bit unpleasant with a FRFR type cabinet, until you sort the EQ. On the other hand, I find it livens up my Barefaced Two10, which has a vintage voicing. I currently have the iPro (280 watt) version but I had the base 200 watt version before and the same applied. I can’t speak for the 600 watt version. There’s also the TCE Bam 200 in the cheap, compact amp category. I have no idea what that is like but as it and the Gnome can be found pretty cheap used, they might be worth a punt.

I’m with you on that. I have the fretless version. The neck is just so well finished and comfortable for a relatively cheap bass. No hum either, which is good for mass produced stuff. I can understand the OP’s “problem”. WRT the knob; they look a bit parts bin to me. No luck on fleaBay, or NorthWest Guitars?

Interesting. My experience is that you really need to call them to get reasonable communication. I bought a Nordstrand Acinonyx from them a few years back because they were marginally cheaper than Bass Direct. It was probably a year between ordering and receipt of the bass but a lot of this was down to Nordstrand. There were a few false alarms, when they thought the bass was going to arrive and then didn’t. It did arrive eventually but I didn’t get the impression that Bass Gallery were trying to expedite delivery. Similar experience to @attackbass: I was amazed when it arrived to find it was just in the inner Nordstrand box with no extra padding. How it survived the courier, I don’t know! I don’t think I have ever received a guitar, or bit of kit, from an online sale that wasn’t double boxed.

That’s the story as I understand it. I think the original was fretless and you can get the Bass Centre version fretless for a hundred quid more LoL! I thought about the Bass Centre Wyman bass but it does look weird and it’s quite a wide nut (41mm).

Kinda.

This is why I have about half a dozen music theory books and the same number of scale compendiums. I have yet to find an explanation that I can understand. As for the circle of fifths….. Fortunately, I have got to a place where I know enough theory and have enough practical experience, to be able to come up with reasonable bass lines on the fly. They may not be the most original but they work. BTW, I rarely use the minor pentatonic on its own but it can be unavoidable, if playing rock and blues based on riffs. I do like the advice, attributed to Victor Wooten, that you can only ever be one semitone out and the groove is more important than the notes.

I could probably sum it up as very little. I have books and charts of different types of scale in each key ranging from major through Dorian, Phrygian, Lydian, mixolydian, etc, pentatonic major and minor, etc. I then have theory books that talk about modes of each scale and say things like the Dorian mode is like starting the major scale from the 2nd degree of the scale, which is clearly different to the C Dorian scale on my charts because that starts on the root and has flatted 3 and 7, whereas the C major scale has no flats or sharps, wherever you start playing it from. I don’t find this particularly helpful, or useful.

Er, not really but thanks for trying.

Yeah, I understand that (I originally got there through experimentation) but is that modes, or scales?

I was very interested to see this thread. @Sean mentioned the difficulty I have with modes in general. Very interesting but how the hell do you use them? I am still waiting for a good explanation beyond the sort of throw away comments that usually accompany tutorials like “commonly used in Latin music, or used in Jazz”. It seems to be a largely academic exercise. I am sure that for some people the penny drops eventually but it hasn’t for me. It’s seems a bit akin to learning maths: maths teachers are universally bad at explaining the why. It just seems to be something you get, or something you don’t. Personally I only discovered the usefulness of some maths concepts when I started coding software, long after I left school. This is the way I feel about modes but the light bulb moment hasn’t occurred for me.