Baloney Balderdash

Lefty Ibanez GSRM20L Mikro Bass? https://www.ibanez.com/usa/products/detail/gsrm20l_1p_02.html It features a just 28.6" scale length, which is 1.4" shorter than the 30" scale length most commonly used and pretty much otherwise standard for short scale basses, but I love mine and it has been my main for the last past several years (Though I did upgrade the pickups, even if the stock ones are actually pretty decent, but still probably this bass's weakest link), also this would make it perfect for your children, if they should find interest in learning how to play bass at some point as well. Here's a random Google image of the left hand version (the left hand version only comes in this finish) :

Reminds me of this masterpiece of a song that I made, all by myself:

Japanese bass and drums experimental rock duo: Kind of sounds like an odd mixture of Primus, Mr. Bungle (particularly their "Disco Volante" album) and Captain Beefheart & The Magic Band (particularly their "Trout Mask Replica" album), but then with the only instrumentation beside vocals being bass and drums.

Love the look of this bass. Would love to own the short scale version.

Also I forgot to ask: Blue or Red pill?

Depends on which DiMarzio pickups in specific, and otherwise is totally up to specific application, that is what other gear do you use and what do you play, what you want to achieve, and not least your personal preferences. If there was such a thing as the ultimate best preamp there would only be one model on the market. That said it would be worth considering an external preamp pedal instead, those often offer much more possibilities for tweaking and customizing your tone than onboard ones, which in most cases are pretty basic in comparison. But yes, depending on the specific preamp in question it can make a huge difference.

I've discovered that really high gain heavy distortion and fuzz tones benefits, both in terms of added heft but also in terms of improved articulation and definition, from having a subtle polyphonic 1 octave up effect (of course blended with a good amount of clean signal) stacked into it. Personally I use a TC Electronic Sub'N'Up Mini for this, placed as the very first thing in my signal chain, right after my bass, and loaded with a customized Toneprint that has been tweaked to deliver an as authentic/natural sounding octave up effect as possible, but I would think, given the high gain distortion and being applied relatively subtly, that even more synthy/organ sounding octave up effects would work for this without ending up sounding unnatural. Sounds absolutely huge, and as said improves the definition and articulation of the distortion as well.

Well, making an untreated Maple fretboard approximately the same color as Rosewood should be relatively simple and cheap, getting it to look like actual Rosewood would be a very costy and complicated affair that likely still would only last for a limited amount of time.

I am not much of a compression guy either, outside of post production mixing and mastering that is of course. I do tend to use some very subtle compression, but an untrained ear probably couldn't tell the difference, more so of a feel/tone thing than it is a way to control my dynamics, I very much prefer the latter intact. But since drive technically does compress the signal slightly, technically you would use subtle compression as well.

So I am in the process of totally rearranging my pedal board and I am in the need of a high gain distortion pedal. My Boss MT-2 Metal Zone stacked into a Joyo Orange Juice (set to a low gain overdrive), really tightens up the Metal Zone, and mixed with parallel dry signal, via a Boss LS-2, at an about 35% dry signal/65% distorted signal ratio, gets me really close to the kind of high gain distortion sound I want. However, judging from various demos and sound clips, it seems like either the EHX Nano Metal Muff or Ibanez Super Metal Mini could get me even closer, and without the need for the Joyo Orange Juice, since they are already much tighter sounding than the Metal Zone. The EHX Nano Metal Muff or Ibanez Super Metal Mini seems quite close in terms of character, but I am having a hard time judging which would likely give me the best result, so can someone who has first hand experience with either or both please guide me? I like to point out I am definitely not looking for the popular Darkglass fizzy distortion top end on top of clean bass sound, and I am actually satisfied with whatever low end the high gain distortion naturally cuts mixed with the full frequency dry signal and don't mind loosing a bit of low end when using my high gain distortion.

Love that band photo!

Worth to consider here is that the Tech 21 VTDI does feature a simple but all analog cab simulation, the Laney Digibeth, as far as I know, doesn't, so if you pick that one and need cab simulation (because most basses sounds best when a fair deal of the higher frequency spectrum has been cut) you would need an extra external IR loader pedal or similar for that.

This! Start with knowing what you want, then do research and adjust your desires accordingly to what you find/learn from that research, everything else is a certain recipe to later regrets! No one else but you is going to know what fits your physics, playing style, taste and personal preferences best! What is the absolute ultimate best bass for me is almost certainly not the ultimate best bass for you (this is especially true here as i got some rather unusual preferences). There is a reason why they don't just offer 1 single model with 1 single determined set of specs.

I am pretty sure OP's pickups are stacked coils (on top of each other), not split coil (side by side), ("faux singlecoil") humbuckers.

Damn, that sucks... I've managed to rip out the bridge ground wire of one of my basses once too. Not when installing the Geezer P though. Thing is that the only thing that holds the bridge ground wire in place is the downward pressure from the bridge against the wood of the bass's body, so while it definitely will never rip loose by it self it doesn't take a lot of pulling strength to do so. Guess you will have to remove and then reinstall the strings and bridge again after threading a new ground wire. Edit!!!: You did mean the bridge wire came loose, right? Or did you mean fell out of the ground cap included in the set to splice the bass bridge ground with the EMG ground wire? If the latter it isn't exactly a huge issue, just remove a bit more insulation from the EMG ground wire and splice them, you don't even need to solder them, just give them a thorough series of wiggles/twists to attach them to each other properly and apply a some electrical tape to the joint (nothing is going to rip them apart as long as they are sheltered in the control cavity, and the connection should be plenty firm for proper conduction), or you could also just solder the the original bridge ground wire from the bass directly to the jack socket sleeve connection, or really any spot that got ground connection.

Not to be pedantic but it's due to the extra resistance and not impedance, making less high frequency content bleed to the ground (unless I have misunderstood something, might have something to do with raising the frequency of the pickup's resonant peak as well). I prefer my P pickups wired directly to the output jack socket, which I've found makes them sound much more open and clear, though that of course is at the expense of any onboard control of Volume and Tone.

Ballsy move...

My best bet is a 5 string J pickup. And possibly a stacked coil design too.

I composed (programed, played, sung, mixed) this with relatively little technical understanding of music theory, but of course a lot intuitive understanding of the mechanics of music, with all that implies, simply from years of playing and composing music, and very little theoretical knowledge about how to record and mix properly too for that matter, making all this predominantly based on experience and intuition alone :

You would want a pair of decent studio grade (which basically just means FRFR, full range flat frequency response) headphones for that, as you would want an as authentic and neutral representation of your recordings when mixing as possible, and also wouldn't want bloated bass frequencies (which is often the case with regular cheap, and sometimes higher end too, headphones, made with regular common use in mind) when practicing bass, I assume already using some sort of bass amp and cab sim. Also if you plan on recording anything with a microphone (vocals, acoustic guitar, drums/percussion e.t.c), and especially if you are using condenser michrophone(s), you would want the headphones to feature a closed-back design, to prevent, or at least minimize, the monitored played back, or click, track, to spillover/feedback into the whatever you are currently recording. I am extremely satisfied with my Sennheiser HD-380 Pro, but unfortunately that model have been discontinued and the closest current production equivalent model would be the HD-300 Pro.

* My main, predominantly experimental and dark, drone/ambient solo project "Fjernsind" The name "Fjernsind" is a word play on the Danish word for "Tele-vision", "Fjern-syn", that directly translated means "Distant-vision" or "Remote-vision", but instead of "syn" ["vision"] as the last syllable, the Danish word for "mind", namely "sind", has been used. * My alternative folk project "...and for such a long time" From a Molière quote: "We die only once, and for such a long time". * My stoner/doom rock project "all I nil", that has bass and drums as primary instruments. * My, predominantly experimental, electronic music with free, primarily bass, improvisations project "Itu [ɛt ˈtuː]" "Itu" meaning "out of order"/"broken" in Danish. * And yes, very pleased.

Yes, the Seymour Duncan SPB-3 Quarter Pounder should have been named Mid Scooper instead, which invites to an inarticulate mud fest. I love the EMG Geezer Butler P pickup that is currently installed in my main bass, vintage voiced, but exceptionally well defined and articulate, very clear, dynamic and well balanced, tone, though with a slight emphasis on the upper mids, which gives it a nice amount of snap and bite, as well as it got a slightly higher output than your average vintage voiced P pickup. And then it is almost dead silent, even installed in a bass that otherwise has not been properly shielded, as this pickup is shielded internally and got shielded wires as well, that is the ground of the pickup wire running as a braided shield all along the insulated hot wire (same with other connection wires). Also the solderless system makes it so easy to install, but without compromising on the sturdiness of the connections. Of course a matter of personal taste and preferences, but to my ears the Seymour Duncan SPB-4 Steve Harris P sounds a bit dull, almost somewhat muffled, compared to the EMG Geezer Butler P :

Love how the 3rd plate looks isolated, but for this bass in specific the 1st and 4th looks just absolutely perfect.