Baloney Balderdash

And another hit from their masterpiece of an album "Deep Cuts" :

I really love that pedal! So much I got 2 of them. Currently only use one of them in my bass pedal setup though, for a really great slightly grinding medium overdive kind of thing, that I blend with cleans via my Boss LS-2. It is capable of some serious amazingly clanky grinding high gain overdrive to medium distortion though, with the Drive knob cranked up higher, the Voice knob boosted a good bit, boosting the frequency area around 800Hz (but with a pretty wide Q curve, cutting the area around 400Hz bellow the 12 o'clock position. The reason it overdives the pedal when you boost it is that it's a pre gain stage EQ control), and the Tone knob turned slightly above the 12 o'clock position, slightly cutting some low end, especially great that way blended with a bit of clean signal, where it will deliver this really edgy and seriously aggressive grinding medium gain distortion tone that will cut through everything. Cranked the distortion kind of having a character that somewhat reminds me of a mixture between a cranked Boss BD-2, and especially a cranked Boss DS-1, just way more full and not in any possible way thin, perhaps somewhat more amp like, sounding. How I use it currently it is considerably more moderate though, and actually really great as my main overdriven tone, still slightly to the more clanky and grinding side, but nothing too drastic, and still with a good amount of low end included, since I blend it with clean signal via my Boss LS-2 at an almost 50/50 ratio, just adding a slight bit of grind and edge to an otherwise a lovely full sounding medium gain kind of overdrive tone. Would have loved to own the, sadly now discontinued, but also much more expensive, Tech 21 Oxford pedal, from their Character Series, that the Orange Juice is based on, for a much more extensive EQ section. Or Joyo just making it in a bigger version, with the same EQ controls as their Sound series of pedals, like the original Tech 21 Oxford pedal got. It's not bad in this scraped and seriously sized down version though, still an absolutely amazing drive pedal, just sometimes could wish for a bit more control over the EQ.

So, yes, let us see those of your basses with distressed finishes, cracked off polythene coatings, bumps, scratches, scars and other blemishes, or as some might call them battle scars, or even charming character strengthening marks of honor. I wouldn't exactly call the damage done on my 4 string Ibanez GSRM20 Mikro Bass marks of honor, rather cautionary marks of carelessness and plain stupidity, but I do actually think they do kind of add some rough carefree and somewhat unique character to it at least. First of all here's how the bass looks in it's entirety: The first thing you'll properly notice it the kind of crooked star like, roughly sort of engraved, figure between the 2 pickups, beneath the strings, on the body. This was actually done on purpose as an impulsive idea and haphazard attempt to decorate the bass, by hammering the tip of a flat screwdriver into the body of the bass repeatedly to sort of engrave the figure, all through the thick polythene coating and down in the mahogany wood of the bass's body, and it actually turned out pretty much as I pictured it, weather then I should have acted on that spontaneous whim or not, but I actually kind of like it. Special paint that is supposed to give a somewhat marble like effect, and then, at a later point, further more transparent glitter nail polish, was then dabbed down in the cracks that forms the crude star like figure with a small brush. The actual point of the idea originally being to make it look sort of like a crack in a piece of glass. Here's a closeup picture of it: The next thing you'll properly noticed is the relatively big, odd blemish above the P pickup, right at the end of the neck on the body of the bass, that is the aftermath of a haphazard and failed attempt to drill an extra pickup cavity in the far neck position, that I then later, unfortunately also kind of poorly, filled out with filler mass and then painted and varnished over. Kind of really regret that one, as it turned out I even didn't really need that extra neck pickup, and that I really shouldn't have used a drilling machine to do it. The 2 holes on the last fret, that you can also see on the below closeup of the blemish, one partly filled up with a glued in wooden stick, and the other, which I actually pretty nicely managed to fill out, almost perfectly, with another glued in wooden stick (though as you can see made from a light color wood), is something that happened after I, at a later point, removed the neck to shim it, and then as I decided to fill out the holes from the neck screws, for a tight fit back, discovering that I would need to drill some new pilot holes, but ending up drilling too deep, all the way through the fretboard. So the closeup of that: And as you might notice on that closeup there's a chip in the fretboard just after the last fret, low E string side, which was caused by a sliding out of control drill, from that failed drilling an extra pickup cavity attempt, as I unfortunately hadn't even bothered removing the neck first. I manage to glue back one of the chips that was ripped off by the out of control drilling machine, which actually seems to have worked well, and like a pretty sturdy fix, but another chip went missing. Luckily though nothing happened to the fretwire, that stayed firmly in place all the while. On this closeup it is possible to see the missing chip a bit better, as well as the edges of the glue joints where the other piece was put back on: Finally the oldest injury that my bass suffered, not visible on that first front shot of my bass, since it's located on the side of the upper part of the body, which is a relatively big piece of the thick polythene finish, which the bass is coated with, has chipped off, and later then sprayed with a clear coat of varnish, that it suffered back when it was still relatively new, when I dropped the Mikro Bass gigbag, that the bass came with and was in at that point, on the concrete sidewalk on my way to band rehearsal, partly because I didn't pay proper attention, and partly because those gigbags, that the Mikro Basses used to come with as a standard accessory from factory, for some reason only is equipped with one shoulder strap. Kind of a miracle that that was the only damage that the bass suffered from that fall, especially considering the padding of those gigbags were kind of on the crappier and thinner side. Anyway here it is in a closeup shoot: As said I do kind of really regret the damage that the bass suffered from me being stupid enough to on a whim haphazardly trying to drill an extra far neck position pickup cavity, but otherwise I actually don't really mind the other scars at all. All in all I am not all too concerned with the looks of my instruments, as long as it doesn't affects the actual playabillity negatively, and I actually think a battered instrument can have a certain charm, like the scars often kind of adds a somewhat unique character to it.

Sad to break it to you, but that neck is badly warped, and as if that wasn't enough the hack who installed the frets seems to have been cross eyed or perhaps intoxicated, possibly both, in any case they are anything but straight. I would return that bass immediately if I were you. How did a train wreck catastrophe like that ever pass quality control. It's almost like whoever made it did a serious effort to make it turn out all crooked. But no matter who it was, together with whoever was responsible for inspecting it, needs to be fired as quickly as possible before they can do more damage.

I've always loved the matte black finish for basses (Edit!!: on further inspection it looks more like matte dark grey, still really love it though, might also just be the light in those pictures), and the color of that fretboard wood match nicely with it (I assume very dark rosewood from the look of it), not a big fan of tortoise pickguards though, to say the least, but that particular one there is actually not all that bad, I'd definitely chose one looking similar to that if I was forced to use a tortoise pickguard, though in my opinion a black one with a red layer in, making the edge of the pickguard have sort of a red stripe around it, would have looked much sharper. But that is just me. Truly an amazing looking bass in any case. Congratulations!

This thread is for sharing pictures and eventual stories of/about your Ibanez basses. Anyway, here's my 2 Mikros : First my old battered, but trusty and beloved, main, 4 string Ibanez GSRM20 Mikro Bass, out of the December 2010 production, with a mahogany body, maple neck, rosewood fretboard, and currently with just a DiMarzio Model P, P pickup, installed, wired directly to the output jack socket, though the J pickup from the previously installed EMG Geezer Butler P/J pickup set still sits there, but disconnected and lowered considerably : And then my much newer 5 string Ibanez GSRM25 Mikro Bass, out of the January 2019 production, with a poplar body, maple neck, jatoba fretboard, and it's 2 stock J pickups wired in series, though I really need to have them replaced for something better sounding at some point : Both, beside a right out horrifying bad setup, came as good as perfect from factory, practically perfectly leveled and polished frets, and no other flaws whatsoever seemingly. And the 4 string even got what I think might be the most stable neck I ever had on any bass or guitar I have owned, despite a few of those being 1000$+ instruments, holds tuning extremely well, and I almost never have to adjust the truss rod. That one is also one of my absolute favorite basses, if not the single most favorite bass, I ever owned, such a pleasure to play on, and after I swapped the stock pickups with some quality ones it also sounds absolutely great.

Beside Mimi and Chelsea, I kind of also got a thing with Sandy Denny :

Without competition Mimi Parker from Low, who beside being the female lead vocalist, and backing vocalist to her husband, guitarist and male lead singer/backing vocalist of the band, Alan Sparhawk, is also being the drummer/percussionist of the band. Here's some examples of Mimi : Chelsea Wolfe comes in on a clear second place :

Hanging yourself is a guarantied solution to not only heavy basses, but all live's problems, unfortunately no one has yet succeeded in inventing a counter solution to the pretty grave side effect of death it tends to come with, so it should be seen as an absolute last resort solution.

No personal experience with it, but the NUX Melvin Lee Davis Bass Preamp, from their Verdugo Series of pedals, looks great on paper, and sounds great as well judging from the YouTube demos I watched of it, and then it features the possibility for loading 3rd party cab IRs, as well as it got 4 stock IR cab simulations to chose from. It is digital though, but as far as I understand of quite high quality, and it does mean that it is capable of amp modeling, so far the pedal only comes with 2 stock bass amp models to chose from though, one of them being an Aguilar Tone Hammer bass amp, but NUX promise that more bass amp models will be added in the future. And it would be at about almost exact same price tag as the TC Electronic SpectraDrive. I just made a thread about it in fact, with some more factual information, and links to the product's home page and a couple of YouTube demos/reviews of it as well: As far as I can tell, though I wouldn't have any chance of knowing for sure, it ought to be of considerably higher quality than the amp models and cab simulations of the Zoom B3n/B1(x) Four, perhaps rather more similar in quality to the Line6 Helix models, or who knows possibly even of higher/more realistic quality, though in it's nature of basically just being a bass preamp with amp modeling and IR cab simulation capabilities, and certainly at this current point with it's so far only 2 bass amp models to chose from, of course far less versatile, and far more limited in functionality (though, unlike the Zoom at least, it does have a real DI XLR output, as well as other features that makes it have far superior functionality as a preamp/DI unit, though nothing that the Line6 Helix units doesn't also feature).

So I originally planed to get the NUX Solid Studio IR & Poweramp Simulator to make my bass setup more mobile, but after some pondering I am kind of leaning towards getting the NUX Melvin Lee Davis Bass Preamp instead, both from NUX's Verdugo Series of pedals. This preamp pedal features digital amp modeling of both a Nux custom (as far as I understood it) Melvin Lee Davis and an Aguilar Tone Hammer (the actual amp, not the pedal) bass amp, which you can chose between via the software editor, with promise of more amp models becoming available in the future (and as this pedal seems to have just quite recently become available on the market there should yet still be a realistic chance that they actually will keep that promise too, though I would actually be quite satisfied with just the Aguilar Tone Hammer bass amp, at least assuming the modeling is of proper high quality), as well as 4 build IR cab simulations in 24 Bit, 48Khz, 20ms, 1024 Samples, resolution, with room for additionally loading 4 extra 3rd party cab IR files, giving you 8 cab IRs at a time to chose from via the software editor, and the possibility to change out the 4 custom 3rd party cab IRs at any time you should wish with new ones of your choice (the Nux Solid Studio uses 32 Bit, 88,2kHz, 50ms, 2048 samples resolution for the cab IRs, but I have no idea of how much of a real difference that would actually make, as well as if I got that instead I would still need a bass preamp), otherwise the preamp works at 32Bit, 48kHz resolution, and allegedly should have a latency of just 1ms. It all looks great on paper, as far as I can see. Here's the page for the preamp on NUX's homepage: https://www.nuxefx.com/melvin-lee-davis.html And here's a demo/review of it from BassTheWorld on YouTube: And here's a bit more detailed demo of the pedal from YouTube: The price seems amazing for what you get as well, just 152£/165 Euro, and the Nux Tape Core Deluxe, which is a digital Roland Space Echo tape delay emulation pedal, with all the original features plus a bunch other useful ones via a software editor, with capability to save and store the presets, that cost less than half as much as this bass preamp, and which I happen to own, sounds no short of amazing, which also seems to be the general consensus of reviewers around the internet, which I think ought to at least say something about the company's capabilities when it comes to digital modeling/emulations/simulations and the general level of quality vs. the price points of their products. However before I pull the trigger and buy this preamp, are there anyone here on the forum who have actually tried it out or even own one of these pedals them self, who got any advice that could possibly help me decide, their personal opinion of the quality and capabilities of the pedal, and weather they would recommend me for or against buying it, and if so why they think so? Any input from people with actual first hand experience with this pedal really I would much welcome and appreciate. And input from people with first hand experience with other NUX pedals from the Verdugo Series, to which this preamp belongs, would be welcome as well. I should properly point out that I will have no issues with only having access to choosing between the IR cab simulations and amp models from the software editor, as I will really only need one basic great tone from this pedal, and as said, if the modeling of the Aguilar Tone Hammer bass amp that this pedal comes with is of proper high quality that will actually fit me perfectly well, then the rest should hopefully be possible to achieve just by finding the right 3'rd party cab IR and dialing in the EQ of the pedal to my liking.

So you did prove me wrong, and I am happy you did so. I apologize for assuming you had ill intentions. Sometimes assuming the worst is wise, other times it's just a jerk idiot move with nothing to justify it but lack of information to prove your absolutely worst assumptions wrong, which is not exactly right or particularly nice or charming, to say at least. Guess in the end I proved to be the jerk here, sorry. However I still doubt I'd like the Alpha Omega based on the demos I've heard of it. In fact not particularly fond of any of the Darkglass stuff I've heard, and that is not to be a contrary marmalade sandwich, it just happens to not fit my personal preferences for distortion. As for the California Sound, I am not sure if this is a fault of the Joyo version, but used for bass, unlike it's more smooth tone used for guitar, it kind of has this rough, sort of brutal crackling/growling breakup that I quite like, beside in this context really mostly used as an extended EQ section for the Rat.

In that case I totally misunderstood your post, I perceived it as a reply to my OP, which you did mention (which I guess is how the misunderstanding happened to me), though I guess you did in fact not actually quote it. It's all fine with me, guess I just misunderstood your intentions with that post. Still I do genuinely appreciate you introducing me to new music that I didn't know existed, even if it wasn't meant for me personally, or that I didn't love everything about it. It was however still an interesting listen and take on the genre.

Doesn't seem to be able to find a way to include a quote in an edit of a post, so sorry for the double post. I didn't really take it as you guessing where I was going with my project, just you listing/suggesting examples of similar approaches, which is perfectly fine, always happy to be introduced to new music I wasn't aware of the existence of, even if it happens to not be love at first listen. I was just trying to explain which direction I was thinking of going with my project, which seemed to pretty much be perfectly in line with you listing/suggesting examples to me. Especially since you seemed to slightly mistake the topic of this thread for also being the main topic of the project I put it in a context with. Calling my project stoner rock might even be somewhat misleading, but put together with the other musical categories I listed (progressive psychedelic stoner rock) I think it is still more describing for what I am trying to create than if I had just made up my entire own word for it, which no one then would have any chance of getting an idea of what would imply. I appreciate your input and thanks for the music.

I kind of doubt that. Doesn't sound very Rat like to me. Also not too fond of cheeky patronizing comments, lots of truly great music was made on crappy cheap equipment, though cheap doesn't necessarily mean it will also sound crappy. Or that crappy sounding gear can't sound good put in the right context for that matter. At least not if you know how to use it properly and actually use your ears. Not apologizing for being poor here, just raising my voice against rich people who somehow thinks it makes them better persons. As for OM I can only agree, but as I said this is not going to sound like OM at all, just more in that direction than the other example of bass driven stoner rock posted. As I tried to describe it: I guess kind of think very early Pink Floyd but with the musical aesthetics of the band Low, then put that into a more stoner and metal type of music context with some progressive attributes, and with the instrumentation I have in mind utilizing, if that makes sense. Just to use known examples to hint in the direction I am going. Calling it stoner rock might even be somewhat misleading, but put together with the other musical categories I listed (progressive psychedelic stoner rock) I think it is still more describing for what I am trying to create than if I had just made up my entire own word for it, which no one then would have any chance of getting an idea of what would imply. I guess being original doesn't necessarily mean you will get popular. I'd rather stay original though, thank you. That's not to say that you are not allowed to like the snips of bass lines for the songs of my project where I utilize high gain distortion that I will post at some point though, as promised. In fact I kind of hope you will prove my assumptions wrong, based on what that comment of yours seemed to insinuate to me, the world already got way too many jerks as it is.

To start with the music you posted, I wasn't aware of the existence of this band, but I actually quite like the music, though the vocals kind of ruin it for me, but that is just me, I am pretty picky about music. Also pretty far from the kind of music I have in mind for my project, though it won't exactly be traditional stoner rock either, but in a way more minimal and far less chord based way, and perhaps more experimental way too. Although it's not going to sound like OM at all either, it will be considerably closer to that kind of thing, than the example you posted. Here's one of my favorite tracks by them, though this is not from their early days where the instrumentation was really almost exclusively consisting of just bass, drums and vocals, since a lot more has been added into their sound, as in this one: Also while a simple loud ultra distorted setup no doubt would generally likely work great for bass driven stoner rock type music, it wouldn't really work either for what I have in mind. While my high gain distortion will definitely be one of my more used effects it won't exactly be a predominant effect that will be on by by far most of the time. And as for how it sounds I kind of found what worked for me, with my setup and the type of music I had in mind creating, by a lot of trial and error and not least using my ears, there wasn't really much acoustic theory involved in my experiments, so theory is really not something I am concerned about, I set it up this particular way because it is what sounds good and works for/to me, so kind of don't care about people telling me reasons why it works poorly in theory when my ears tells me a completely different story, after all it's music I am working with, not theoretical science. As for your suggestion of using an octaver, I did indeed originally, and when I wrote the OP run my bass signal through an always on octave effect, giving an effect somewhat similar to that of an 8 string octave bass, with pairs of bass and octave strings, but recently discovered that unless I wanted to go down the road of running the octave up signal in completely separate chain and use separate effects for that, which would evolve into more of a step dance of turning pedals on and off, I actually got better results just keeping to my plain bass tone, of course then combined with the other effects I use for it. Even though this will mainly just be my bass, played clean, overdriven, distorted and through various mod effects and delay at times, drums/percussion and vocals, with some extra more sparingly added instrumentation and ambient effect, exclusively having a more flavor oriented function, the octave up just kind of sounded messy and not just right when run through effects, even if I actually managed to get a pretty clean, extremely low latency, fairly natural sounding octave up tone, without any glitches or digital artifacts, using the Toneprint editor EQ options of my Sub'N'Up Mini, and to be honest I discovered I kind of even liked my clean bass tone more without the added octave as well. Also I did in fact start out using a 5 string Mikro bass for this project, also with the lowest note being a F#1, as on my 4 string, but with an added upper D3, but as I found I rarely really utilized the extra upper register in my compositions anyway, and kind of liked playing my 4 string better, as well as I actually also really liked the very idea of it just being a regular 4 string bass, even if tuned 2 half steps above regular 4 string, E standard, tuning, that keeping things fairly minimal aspect again coming in play, I settled for just using my beloved 4 string Mikro. I do in fact have a pretty clear idea of where this is going, even if I am still just working on the bass parts for the songs so far, but I guess they are going to play the lead tole anyway too. Something about a fairly minimal sound, with few things going on at the same time, a lot of space, but quite melodic and with the actual sound/tone of what is going on playing a big part, hence why I also use quite a fairly wide array of effects for my bass, and I guess the progressive aspect mainly comes in with the fact that my riffs just often happens to turn out to be in odd time signatures and that it often seems to want to shift over the course of a song. I guess kind of think very early Pink Floyd but with the musical aesthetics of the band Low, then put that into a more stoner and metal type of music context with some progressive attributes, and with the instrumentation I have in mind utilizing, if that makes sense. I did end up making some changes to my overdrive and distortion setup too though, as a natural part of things that kind of worked for the fake 8 string "octave" bass tone not working quite as well for just a regular bass tone, but it's really fairly minimal EQ adjustments mostly, as well as I ended up running my Rat clone in Turbo mode, instead of Vintage mode, and turned up the gain of the California Sound overdrive it goes into a bit, but I am fairly confident that I pretty much got my rig in it's final form now, likely only with maybe fairly minor changes happening at some future point when I get closer to start the actual recordings. One thing I will try to add though is a Behringer SF300 Super Fuzz (generally praised, but super cheap, Boss FZ-2/Univox Super Fuzz, octave fuzz, clone) that I should get in the mail tomorrow, and that I am going to experiment with how will sound on it's own mixed with clean and eventually which of my other dirt pedals it will work mixed or stacked with, as a third kind of dirt flavor, might not turn out working at all for this, but I'll make a serious attempt to get it worked in at least, before eventual deciding if I am going to keep it as part of my setup for this project.

I can totally see how Double Negative could throw off some classic Low fans, on the other hand knowing where they come from music wise and some of the music they love it isn't that much of a surprise really, and as said, there is still something about it that only Low could make, something very unmistakingly Low about it, even if so radically different in other ways from especially their earlier music. Guess you need to love experimental and noisy music to really love it, which I happen to do (just try to listen to some of my experimental dark drone/ambient linked to in my signature and you'll understand, even if you likely won't like most of that either). Admittedly after my first entire listen through of the album I was left with a sense of great disappointment, even if I loved the early single "Dancing and Blood", and kind of found "Quorum" intriguing as well, which I both heard priorly, so kind of know where you are coming from. But then something strange happened on my second complete listen through, which by the way was straight ahead following right after my first listen through, it was like something in me all of a sudden had made a complete 180 degrees turn, like the music made me drop all parades of preconception and suddenly I was deeply in love with the whole album, and that feeling kind of only grew from there for every following listen. Like the point of the album was completely lost to me on my first entire listen through, but that I then all of a sudden understood it it perfectly clear at the second entire listen though. There are other Low albums that took a while for me to appreciate in their entirety, but far from the way this one worked on me, going from complete disappointment to sudden deep love, in a matter of 2 listen throughs, following directly right after each other. Quite a strange experience. Never happened this way with any other music before, usually it is something that either happens immediately at the very first listen, or more often, I find at least, something that fairly slowly just grows on you, from kind of indifference, kind of like a "Nice track, but it doesn't really speak to me personally" thing, but then slowly growing on you the more you listen to it, sometimes ending up with genuine true love, some of my absolute favorite songs were like that, but with this it was just going from true disappointment and mildly dislike to all of a sudden absolute love, like if something had clicked an emotional switch in my head. Though I do suppose it is one of those albums that you either don't get at all and hate, or totally get and absolutely love. I guess all I can do is assure you that the entire Double Negative album in fact is genuine great musical art, and hope you'll be able to get it at some point as well. I never really managed to get to truly appreciate "C'mon" and "The Invisible Way" as albums, even if there are a few songs from those albums that I like a lot, still non of my otherwise many absolute favorite Low songs are from those two albums, which otherwise there seem to be some of on just about every other album Low made, topping with my 5 absolute favorite Low albums of course, that I mentioned in my previous post.

It's not just you, and in fact I did mention and acknowledge that in my OP, and I did in fact conclude it by encouraging people to post audio clip examples and with a promise to do so myself at a later point. When that is said I don't actually think posts without audio clips are in fact totally useless, but actual may still be of some real interest and inspiration for some people. After all people post claims about how awesome this or that effect, bass or amp is, on this as well as just about any other similar internet forum, all the time, without backing it up with sound clips, and that without anyone pointing it out as being an issue.

First time I heard it too, just before I posted it, and Low happens to be one of my absolute favorite bands, if not single most favorite band of all. My favorite albums with them is without competition the hat-trick they made in the late 90's/early 00's with "Secret Name", "Things We Lost in the Fire" and "Trust", together with their debut album "I Could Live in Hope" from 1994, as well as their most recent one, "Double Negative" from 2018. All those 5 albums are genuine equally great master pieces as far as I am concerned, though Low never really made an album that wasn't at least just good, and at least still had a few truly great songs on it. Even if "Double Negative" in some aspects is radically different from what could be considered classic Low, though in other aspects unmistakably still very Low, I absolutely love it to pieces, in my opinion that album is fully up there on level, or even perhaps slightly above, the other albums that I personally consider true Low master piece classics. To me it was like "Ones and Sixes", which is a great album as well, if though not quite on the same level of greatness as the 5 personal favorites I mentioned, was kind of a come back turning point for Low, after, in my opinion, a couple of weaker albums, here I am thinking "C'mon" and "The Invisible Way", that while not exactly bad albums, and while they did still feature a few truly great songs, for me was far from the usual amazingly high Low standards, to the point where I began to be concerned that they might have lost their magic touch. These 2 songs are some of my personal favorites from "Double Negative", and 2 out of many many of my absolute all time favorite Low songs:

Balanced tension when talking strings usually means approximately equal tension, as in balanced, not spot on straight dead on equal tension in numbers, but pretty much in feel. With the kind of tension differences like for instance in the set I mentioned you practically won't actually feel any tension difference when fretting, bending e.t.c in your fingers/hand. You might call it balanced tension feel instead if you please and it bothers you that the numbers are not exact matches. If you were to make a set where the tension numbers were straight dead on equal you'll end up with some pretty odd string gauges, so I guess they just settled for it actually feeling as if they were exact equal tension instead, which is what really should matter anyway, so they wouldn't have to fabricate all sort of special custom odd gauge strings, just to soothe people's OCD rather than fingers.

My current 4 string set of D'Addario XL Nickle Plated Steel Roundwounds, tuned in F# standard tuning, as in 2 half steps above regular E standard tuning, on my 28,6" scale Ibanez GSRM20 Mikro Bass I deliberately chose to be pretty balanced: .040 - A2 string = 28.90 lbs .055 - E2 string = 30.92 lbs .075 - B1 string = 31.20 lbs .095 - F#1 string = 27.73 lbs Really just a standard short scale D'Addario EXL 220S, Nickle Wound, Super Light, 40-95, set, with the .060 string (usually tuned D2, but in my case E2), swapped out with a seperately bought single .055 string. And it actually works really well, plays, feels and sounds great. But honestly not that much of a real difference from just using the usual much higher tension standard .060 string. The 40-95, Super Light, EXL220 set is one of their most tension balanced sets already though, even if they do actually offer a .040 - .055 - .070 - .095 set, called EXL 220BT too, actually labeled as a balanced tension set, where the .070 string, in my situation, tuned to B1, would have a tension of 27.53 lbs, technically not really all that much more balanced than using a .075 string from the regular EXL220 set instead, compared to the average tension of the other strings, I just personally prefer it to have slightly higher than average tension, instead of slightly lower than average tension, hence my choice. Using D'Addario's online string tension calculator "String Tension Pro" : http://web.daddario.com/StringTensionPro/