Baloney Balderdash

By who? Try to Sleep - Low

Paz Lenchantin on bass :

If it gives you the tone you want then no amount of preamps are too many. I personally use a combination of no less than 4 preamps to get the tone I want in my "amp-less" setup. Basic tube preamp, on the verge of breakup -> analog overdriven guitar "amp in a box", mixed 50/50 with parallel "clean" tone -> digital bass amp emulator with IR cab sim -> basic tube preamp and DI with build in HPF, on the verge of breakup

I tend to mod all my instruments, if nothing else then at least visually, to personalize them. But my current main instrument of choice, is a just 28.6" scale 5 string Ibanez GSRM25 Mikro Bass, produced in January 2019 at the Cort factory in Indonesia, according the serial number, which I guess I really use more as a 5 string Bass VI type instrument than a traditional bass, though tuned in G standard tuning, and all fourth tuning, that is as in 3 half steps above the upper 5 strings of a 6 string bass in regular B standard tuning. It features a Poplar body, a Maple neck and a Jatoba fretboard, 16.5mm string spacing, and 2 J pickups, perfectly leveled frets from stock, and an incredible amount of sustain. Now to the mods I've done to it: First thing I did was wire the 2 stock J pickups in series, as it just didn't sound right, like really hollow and ridiculously burby, it helped, but it still sounded odd, until I discovered that there was something wrong with the neck J pickup, which had an extremely weak magnetic field over the lower half of the strings (I suspect a broken bar magnet, as these are ceramic pickups, and might need to look into fixing it at some point), so I ended up disconnecting the neck J pickup and wiring the stock bridge J pickup directly to the output jack socket, and it actually sounds pretty damn amazing now. Surprisingly little noise too, basically non to speak of, despite not having done any additional shielding, and despite running a single single coil pickup, which I credit to the fact that Ibanez used properly shielded wiring for the electronics and pickups, with the ground wire running as a braided shield all along the individually insulated hot wire. Rest of the mods are purely visually: A silver lotus flower with a OM sign in the middle of it decal, a paint splatter figure, made with a mixture of a white marble effect and grey acrylic paint, applied with a tooth stick, on the upper horn, and a strip of red insulating tape (also known as electrical tape) applied to the top of each of the two J pickups, also removed one of the redundant pots, covering the hole with black insulating tape, and replaced the stock dome style chrome pot knobs on the shafts of the two remaining pots with transparent/black PRS lampshade knobs, and finally I covered the brand/model name on the headstock with black insulating tape as well. I also swapped the neck pocket screws out for slightly longer ones with Torx head slots, to ensure being able to screw them in tight without slipping or risk of stripping the slots. Here it is, "Mr. Growley - The Noodlemancer", as I named it : I do plan making a few more mods to this instrument: Most certainly will soon replace the stock side mounted barrel type jack output socket, for a regular jack socket, which I will mount in one of the redundant pot holes, the one currently is covered by black tape. I also ponder on maybe at some point replacing the bridge for 5 single black mono rail bridge pieces milled from solid brass. As well as I might eventual replace the bridge J pickup, which is currently the only one I use, for a Gemini Pickups Mountain Lightning J pickup: https://www.geminipickups.co.uk/bass/jazz-bass/mountain-lightning

And they have added a pickup switch, so it is not just both the P and J pickup in parallel all the time, as it was on the first initiation of these basses, but you actually get to chose.

The Squier Paranormal Rascal, as well as the Danelectro Longhorn Bass got 17mm string spacing at the bridge, versus the standard 19mm, and as such have narrower necks also higher up, as you approach the bridge. Both amazing short scale basses too.

I'd argue Scatman John did. Though admittedly I associate him with another form of scat. But yes, absolutely very prophetic lyrics, there seems to be no limit for how much shit the music industry can pump out and make people pay for getting poured into their ears. Reminds me of the Danish comic duo Tim Vladimir and Gordon Kennedy (which otherwise weren't very funny), who had a hit in Denmark with this typical 90's Eurodance song:

Carbon Dioxide - Fever Ray

A lot of Top 40 songs can move me to tears too, not because they are great though, quite on the contrary, because I am mourning the death of music.

Music without lyrics can move you to tears too though. However, just with vocalists, it does require that the musicians actually know what they are doing.

It's like an actor not knowing their character. I never got people for whom the lyrics are not important, it would be like not thinking the dialog of a movie is important. If a song got lyrics it's because it's an essential part of, or at least ought to be. If it's really not important why even bother? You don't add ingredients to food that is not important, if not for taste, then at least the overall experience, do you?

I would recommend a gauge .120 string for the Db/C# string as well, it will tension wise be almost exactly the same as a gauge .100 low E string. Keep in mind though that thicker strings will feel and act stiffer compared to thinner strings at same tension (same goes for shorter scale length vs. longer scale length, which is why I am not an advocator of equipping short scale basses with insanely thick strings, but rather adjust your playing style to the fact that you are actually playing a different instrument, unless you really want to go to thud city).

Mary Bell - Macabre

Or perhaps just this one:

I love the Orange Juice, so much I own 3 of them, and the Oxford (own the Joyo Oxford Sound too) that it is loosely based on, great overdrive for bass, and can get really grindy if you like.

Till My Head Falls Off - They Might Be Giants

"Oom Bop"? That wasn't The Beach Boys in the 60's, that was the Hanson Brothers in the 90's!

A pickup is not an amp! It doesn't amplify anything it just transforms the mechanical energy from the vibrations of the strings to electrical energy. In fact some of that mechanical energy from the vibrating strings is lost in the transformation.

Mind Meld - Sebadoh From the album "Smash Your Head on the Punk Rock"

Tortoise :

That looks pretty damn amazing! But I won't be getting it at that price.

Yes, can't possibly be healthy in the long run, but no doubt it must have had a cathartic effect initially.

This seems almost too good to be true at that price: https://www.ikmultimedia.com/products/tonexone/ 173£/199 Euro at Thomann.

As The World Dies, The Eyes Of God Grow Bigger - Sebadoh

Old Blood Noise Endeavors Expression Ramper connected to whatever pedal that lets you control the overall master/output/input volume with an expression pedal: https://www.thomann.de/gb/old_blood_noise_endeavors_expression_ramper.htm