Baloney Balderdash

The budget The Box PA 502, 1 x 15" + 1 x 1.7", sounds no short of amazing, and that is regardless of price. Very clear and well balanced tone, with an impressive, but tight and punchy, low end response, better than most other, even quite high end, PA speakers, heck even a lot of dedicated bass cabs. This is a passive PA speaker though, but it does come in an active version as well, the The Box PA 502 A, which is powered by 2 (bi-amping system) real transistor based SS poweramps (not Class-D). Now it does weight about a ton, and it can "only" respectively handle 300W for the 15" low frequency woofer/mids driver and 100W for the 1.7" high mids driver/high frequency tweeter, but with a quite decent sensitivity of 96dB @ 1m/1W, rated to being capable of delivering 300W RMS. https://www.thomann.de/gb/the_box_pa502a_aktives_fullrangesystem.htm If the relatively limited power handling and the quite heavy weight is no issue this is THE PA speaker to get for FRFR bass cab duties, as said simply amazing sounding, regardless of its budget price point. Simply can't recommend this enough.

I would personally get a graphite one.

I do! High G string does appear to be a bit closer to the edge of the fretboard than the low E string, all the way up as far as that picture allows you to see. And while the pickups seems perfectly in line with the neck on that photo the bridge doesn't quite. Not that I personally think it impose a real issue, but I am pretty certain the bridge is in fact slightly misaligned, and that that is the main reason for the strings slightly misaligning with the pickup pole pieces.

I think though that the ELF DI is post the EQ section. Which means that the DI'ed signal will have the baked in preamp tone, as well as whichever EQ settings used, of the amp. That could be a disadvantage or advantage depending on preferences/application/context. But yes, it can very much be used as a DI, and doesn't necessarily need to be plugged into a speaker/cab either.

This!

By far most of the more recent music I have created even utilize programmed drums and percussion, that is there isn't even any drummer or physically played samples involved at any point, just bars plotted in in a midi grid that I play to through headphones. So I guess my answer is no. I do however still enjoy playing with a real drummer with a real acoustic drum kit. Also your problem sounds more a case of your drummer choosing the wrong drum samples (well, wrong for you at least), rather than being an inherent issue with electronic drums as such. It is totally possible with a proper electronic drum kit and playing, or proper programming for that matter, using the right drum samples, to have electronic drums sound pretty much indistinguishable from the real thing, if that is what one really wishes to do. Personally though I most often find it way more interesting to actually make use of the alternative possibilities, options and sounds, electronic drums/drum samples actually offers you/allow for.

TC Electronic Ditto X4 Looper 205£ at Thomann.

Or maybe this Ibanez AM93ME, with Ebony fretboard and Makassar Ebony body:

I see your disconnected tone pot, and raise with a P pickup wired directly to the output jack socket. You should be aware though that just disconnecting the tone pot without using a different value volume pot or inserting a resistor of matching value to the tone pot to compensate is going to raise the resonance frequency of the pickup some, and thereby make the tone your pickup reproduces slightly brighter than it was with the tone pot.

Fender, but especially Gibson and Rickenbacker, basses are heavily overpriced compared to what you get. That is not a prejudice however, that's a fact! There are way better instruments on the market that can be had for far lower prices. By far what you predominantly pay for when buying a Fender, Gibson or Rickenbacker is qualifying yourself for the questionable honor of getting to do free advertising for overpriced inferior products. Branding anywhere, regardless of price. Is to be covered up! Unless we are talking an independent luthier or a master piece/piece of art.

I know it has been asked before by someone else, and never really answered with certainty, but what is the string spacing at bridge? Could someone who got one please measure it, maybe?

The Aguilar Agro did sound great as well, and on pretty much all settings, unlike pretty much all the other pedals. Still on more specific settings for me the Scrampler and Soul Food won. I'd imagine though that the Agro might have won if it had some parallel clean signal blended in, as well as I think the EHX and EBS tube pedals would work really great with clean blend.

While I was not surprised that the Boss Bass Overdrive and the Behringer clone of it sounded absolutely horrifying bad, I was surprised by the fact that the Berhinger clone actually sounded marginally less horrible than the original Boss pedal. It also surprised me how much I liked the Ampeg Scrampler at lower gain settings, and how much I liked the EHX Soul Food at higher gain settings. The Ampeg Scrampler at lower gain settings with some cleans blended in and the EHX Soul Food on higher gain settings with some cleans blended in were the absolute winners of this test to me.

Seriously consider getting one of these. But I need to know if you can make several parallel paths within the same patch, and control the mix of them individually? It's either this or the Boss GT-1000CORE, but I'd much prefer the HoTone, and not just because of the price, and doesn't really need to be able to run 3 parallel signal chains as the Boss allows for, but it would be crucial to be able to run several parallel paths within the same patch. Like this for example: ...................................... -> [effect] ......................................... -> [effect] -> [effect] -> [effect] < ................. >-> [effect] -> [effect] <...................>-> [effect] ...................................... -> [effect] ......................................... -> [effect]

Together or Alone - Sebadoh

No harm in simply just trying it out and see if it works for you personally and with your specific setup. Really no one size fit all solution, and a lot of it is up to personal preferences. For what it is worth the very subtle compression that I use is the very first thing in my signal chain after my bass.

Now, it weight about a ton and can "only" handle 300W, but if that is no issue I can't recommend the The Box PA 502 PA speaker enough (comes in an active version too, the The Box PA 502A). It is cheap but it sounds genuinely amazing and got an impressive low end response that beats even most similar speced high end speakers and dedicated bass cabs. Very well balanced and clear tone, with an impressive, but tight and punchy, low end response.

This is absolutely true. To what extend however will depend entirely on how hard you fret, as well as your general playing style. For instance using a lot of vibratos and bends will cause slightly more wear than otherwise. But predominantly it will be a matter of how hard you fret. Normally it will take years though before it will be necessary to have the frets redressed, and only after several redresses a complete re-fret of the neck will be required. Flatwound and nickel-plated roundwound strings will cause considerably less wear than roundwound stainless steel strings, and if you fret lightly using those type of strings a re-fret by far most likely will never be needed in your lifetime. I fret rather lightly and on a bass that I played a lot since I got it from new 12 years ago, probably something like close to 1 hour of playtime a day on an average, only ever using nickel-plated roundwounds, there is pretty much 0 detectable fret wear.

I am in a position where I can either get the pedals that I believe will complete my setup, more specifically an EHX Deep Freeze Pico (mini pedal version of the Freeze, but with more features), an EHX Attack Decay, and a TC Electronic Ditto X4 Looper, or the Squier Paranormal Rascal Bass that I have had a keen eye on as well. However I have also been wanting a Yamaha Revstar RSS20 guitar for a long time, and I have fallen deeply in love with how this looks and sound: And I do kind of a need a guitar too, but if I bought the Squier Paranormal Rascal Bass I could still buy a cheaper guitar. However this Revstar would be THE guitar of my dreams, and would most likely be the only guitar I'll ever need again. What should I do?

Took it off my board eventually, but has just put it back on, last thing before the NUX Melvin Lee Davis Bass Preamp & DI (used with a digital emulation of an Aguilar Tone Hammer amp and an Ampeg SVT-212AV IR cab sim) of my "amp-less" setup, mixed at an approximate 50/50 ratio with "clean" signal, via a Boss LS-2, using the following settings: Low @ about 1:30 o'clock - High @ about 10:30 o'clock - Drive @ noon, and Level set to approximately unity. Adds a subtle low gain but quite grindy overdrive, and some extra grunt, snap and bite to the overall tone, which it also brightens and tightens up a bit. Still my favorite of Joyo's Tech 21 Character clones, Sound series of pedals, even if I admittedly have yet to try the AC Tone and British Sound, but I have listened to/watched a fair share of demos featuring those two pedals, and I do own both the California Sound and American Sound. Likely getting the British Sound at some point though, to try out as dirt pedal.

No noise to speak of, at least not as long as your bass is properly shielded, that you don't crank the Drive control, as with most dirt pedals really, and you otherwise feed it with a clean, properly isolated and filtered, power supply.