Baloney Balderdash

Phenomenal Syd Barrett cover :

The best bass tone I ever had was from an old start/mid 90's 130W SM7GP 1x 15" Trace Elliot combo, which I very much regret being stupid enough to sell at some point. And I've even owned an Ampeg B15S, legendary 60W tube amp (which I regret being stupid enough to let go of as well, but that's a different story), and although that was an amazing amp too I personally prefer the tone that that Trace Elliot amp gave me. As you said it is basically just plug and play and then instant amazement, and damn loud too compared to their rated watts, punch way above their rated power. The downside though to those old Trace amps is that they weight about a ton. But still I seriously ponder on maybe trying to find and buy a used one again at some point. They aren't exactly rare and usually quite reasonably priced too (though I have noted a general tendency for prices seemingly going up lately, at least on the used market here in Denmark).

Word! Yeah, I've always thought Stanley Clarke was a complete hack on a bass too, with his cheap budget short scale custom signature Alembic totally amateur bass. And what was that one hit wonder pop band, The Beads?, who's bass player, I think she was called Paula Marty or something along those lines, played a short scale as well. She looked like a boy too. Who can take musicians like that seriously? I mean seriously, com'on, at least play a proper grown up's instrument. Face it, short scale basses are nothing more than children's toys, and the Earth is and always has been absolutely and completely flat, why I tune all my basses to B#!

Beatiful folk song :

Me utilizing a low gain overdrive, blended with clean signal via one of my Boss LS-2 pedals, as much as to introduce some low gain tube like grid as as an harmonic enhancer, and a TC Electronic SpectraComp, 3 band compressor, as much as a regular compressor as as a tone shaper/enhancer, got me thinking if there are any 3 band preamp/overdrive pedals, with freely selectable frequency crossover points for the 3 bands, that goes all the way from clean to lower medium overdrive for each of the 3 bands, and got a separate unaffected clean signal volume control as well, out there, preferably all analog, and preferably with a character similar to the Tech 21 Oxford/Joyo Orange Juice/Orange amp -esque? Probably a long shot since there would likely be a quite limited market for a pedal with such functionality, probably being too unusual and specific for it to be viable for anyone to make, unless they do custom orders. But if that's the case any idea who might take on such a task, preferably located somewhere in Europe, and what kind of money approximately we could possibly be talking about?

When the black clouds marched across the sky A mother sat awake and a child slept. And an angel´s voice sang in the night´s silence the praise of all the worlds. And the young mother heard an echo Most deeply within her the night´s silent praise: O how the world grew out to every latitude While the little one slept.

Well, I can try, the very basics I would be able to help with at least, but really I just adjusted parameters by qualified guessing from the little knowledge I had/have about how compression works, listened carefully and re-adjusting accordingly until it was spot on right, you know the good old trial and error approach, definitely worth the time it took though. No. I guess that might had been helpful to some, but to me it would have been a completely useless feature, in my opinion nothing beats actually listening when we are talking about tone. Adjusting, listening careful to what those adjustments does and then with a qualified guess adjust further according to what you hear. Though I would wish that TC Electronic would have made a thorough guide to the toneprint editors of each their pedals, cause the very general toneprint editor guide you can download from their homepage is very lacking and frankly completely useless, in that you either already know what they are telling you or you don't have a clue about what they are talking about, and in both cases you are left absolutely no wiser about how to actually use the toneprint editor for the individual pedals.

As I tune my main 4 string Ibanez Mikro Bass, which has a just 28,6" scale length, in F# standard tuning, 2 half steps above regular 4 string E standard tuning, I use a set made out of single strings, the 2 middle strings actually being guitar strings threaded through the cut off ball ends of bass strings, after much experimentation settling for a gauge .090 - .072 - .054 - .040 set, calculated via the D'Addario String Tension Pro online string tension calculator the low F# string having a tension at about 25 lbs and the remaining strings just about 29 lbs each. So I was thinking taking a shot at ordering a custom set of Newtone strings next time, and as far as I can tell from the description it seems like the Diamond line nickle plated steel hex core roundwounds would suit my preferences the best (I would very much like to keep approximately the same measurements as above). Now I actually love the sound I get from the D'Addario XL strings I use, and didn't like the tone of the NYXL strings when I tried them, so my question is how does the Newtone Diamond series strings compare to D'Addario XL strings. I mean both in terms of tone, longevity, tension, stiffness and feel in general? I calculated that with VAT and import taxes a custom Newtone set like this will end up costing me just about the same as if I ordered single string D'Addario XL strings. A longer lifetime would be a big sales point for me.

The old solid state Trace Elliot amps are known to be capable of sounding much louder than what their rated watts suggest. I guess that just means they were conservatively rated (as in rated lower than their actual capabilities), not that the actual amount of watts they put out somehow magically sound louder. I had no issues whatsoever of hearing myself or being heard by the others with my old SMGP7 130W 1x 15" solid state Trace Elliot over a loud guitarist and hard hitting drummer at band rehearsals with a hard rocking power trio, and that was with the master volume of the combo set just around the 10 o'clock position, if you took out your earplugs it literally hurt badly in your ears.

The TC Electronic SpectraComp does not act like a limiter, it acts exactly according to how you dial it in in the Toneprint editor, making it one of the most flexible and dare I say greatest compressors out there. That is unless you ignore it's biggest strength and just stick to the stock toneprint. Admittedly non of the premade templates or artist toneprints for this pedal was to my liking, but bothering to actually thoroughly dial in my setting exactly to how I liked them using the Toneprint editor got me just that, a compressor that sounded exactly like I wanted it to. I am extremely satisfied with mine. You could claim just about every pedal on the market to be absolute RUBBISH if you refuse to use 90% of the adjustable parameters it offers, that however is on you, not the pedal. Though I agree the EHX Black Finger is great too, but for completely different reasons.

So today a new EMG Geezer Butler P pickup arrived with the mail service and I have just installed it, tested and adjusted it properly this evening. The old one from a P/J Geezer Butler set had developed an issue, from previously being dead quiet it suddenly begun to hum slightly when my skin was not being in contact with the bridge ground, and I tracked down the issue to being the lower pole piece of the pair under the D string. Whenever I touched that pole piece it would start making crackling noises, now this wouldn't be much of an issue in it self, but I assume the culprit, rather than being that that pole piece somehow having lost ground connection, was caused by the pole piece actually somehow having come slightly in touch with the hot circuit of the pickup, since I have also lately been suffering from unexplainable sudden rather drastic tone changes, one moment my tone sounding absolutely awesome, well articulated, and super snappy and punchy, the other really thin and anemic, and then suddenly muddy and unclear, and after going through my setup having ruled out everything else as being the possible course. Well, good new's is it seems like my spontaneous tone changing issue has indeed been solved, and in return my setup is almost dead quiet, even without my skin being in contact with the bridge ground, just like before my old Geezer P pickup suddenly went faulty. I suspect the issue might have been caused one of the times I soldered or de-soldered the pickups, perhaps leaving the heat from the solder iron on a bit too long, when I was experimenting with using a DiMarzio Model P pickup instead, that while also sounding awesome, very full, ballsy and punchy, wasn't quite as dynamically responsive, articulated and clear sounding as the Geezer, why I went back to that. Here the new Geezer P is, installed in my main Ibanez GSRM20 neck + GSRM20B body Mikro Bass, wired directly to the output jack socket (yes, I swapped the stock barrel type jack socket out for a regular front mounted one. And yes, the strings are rather thin for a bass. It is gauge .090 - .072 -.054 - 0.40 strings, tuned to F# standard tuning, as in 2 half steps above regular 4 string bass E standard tuning) : Sounds absolutely as awesome as I knew it would.

Tyler, The Creator :

Low -"Things We Lost In The Fire 20th Anniversary Visual Album" :

If you can find an old Aria Pro II bass produced in 1986 or before that, which means produced in Japan at the legendary Matsumoku factory, before they moved their production to Korea, you will get a huge amount of high quality for your money, and you should be able to find one within your price limit.

Barra Head from their album "Go Get Beat Up" :