Baloney Balderdash

Jesus Was An Alien - Electro Jar (an electronic duo I was part of)

I have always used rounds, and personally I prefer the light gauged balanced tension set by D'Addario, the gauge .095 - .070 - .055 - .040 set. Has a so much richer tone than flats. Until fairly recently I even hated the tone from flats, but have since learned to appreciate the sound of them, even if they are not for me personally. Flats absolutely do have their place. But anyway congratulations on your discovery. Perhaps worth trying out a lighter set rounds, if your fretting hand fingers are struggling, just as long as you remember to adjust your picking technique to a lighter touch, to accommodate the lower tension, who knows might lead to another revelation.

Who Knows Where The Time Goes - Sandy Denny

I would think so, but I am nowhere nearly knowledgeable enough about electronics to say so with certainty. I would think it would for someone with proper experience with tube circuits. The issue is that it makes a very prominent hissy, sometimes crackling as well, noise, and this get's worse, to the point where there is nothing but hiss and crackling, when turning up the Post Gain (which would be output volume). I tried to clean the pots, as that helped last time I had noise issues with this pedal, but it didn't help one bit this time (and yes, swapped out the tubes as well, to no avail, and yes, with tubes I knew worked perfectly fine). The thing is it actually works as it is intended to, as long as one doesn't turn up the Post Gain pot up too high, except for the background noise, that is so bad that it makes the pedal practically unusable at any point. As far as I gathered, and with my limited knowledge about electronics, my best bet is a busted capacitor somewhere in the output gain stage circuitry.

Yet another EHX Black Finger, which will be my third. Reason is that the one that served me well for about 20 years sadly died recently, so I am now using the one I bought as a backup a while ago, exactly for the case that my beloved old one should stop working. So now I bought a backup for that one as well. A practically mint condition one, with original wooden case and all included, and for a price at under 2/3 of what they usually go for (not including power supply though, and the original EHX tubes having been swapped, but no big issue since I got the power supply from the deceased one, and extra EHX tubes (which is really my preferred preamp tube)). For those who don't know the Black Finger is a tube driven optical compressor, with its two preamp tubes operating at proper high 300V plate voltage, I however use it dialed in so that the compression basically never kicks in, more so as a tube preamp stage, with the gain set to drive the tubes to just at the edge of breakup. Amazing pedal, in fact the most important pedal in my setup, and crucial for my tone, just makes everything you run through it sound better. This is the one: Also I just yesterday got the One Control Crimson Red Preamp, that I ordered from Thomann, but it is going back. Mind it work flawlessly, and is a great piece of kit for someone who plays dub or reggae, or just really likes their bass super deep with subdued highs. And the lows, while massive, aren't floppy at all, you can get some proper low end punch out of this. Just not for me. Here is what that looks like (mind just a random Google image):

I actually gave this quite a lot of thought: A custom made 4 string, 28,6" scale, bass, with a slim modern C profile, bolt on, clear satin finish, 5 piece laminated Jatoba/black Ebony (just 2 relatively narrow layers of Ebony in between 3 wider layers of Jatoba) neck, with graphite rods enforcement and a double action truss rod, a tilted 2+2, gold plated tuning mechanisms, classic B.C Rich inspired, headstock, but overall slightly more narrow, and with the "devil horns" slightly shifted, so that the upper slightly larger "horn" is sitting a bit more forward than the slightly smaller and slightly retracted lower "horn", and a 24 medium jumbo stainless steel frets, 12" radius, figured Ebony, fretboard, with an ESP LTD F-204/F-1004 style inspired Mahogany body with a spalted maple top, in a transparent matte black burst finish, with a blood red solid circle figure with a black OM sign in the middle, placed approximately right above the bridge, and equipped with an EMG Geezer Butler reverse P pickup in the neck position, and in the bridge position a gold plated DiMarzio Relentless Middle reverse P pickup with a gold plated series/parallel switch, with an active stacked LPF/HPF tone filter control for each of the 2 pickups, and an active pickup blend control, equipped with knobs made of solid transparent red plexi glass encapsulated in hollow gold plated cylinders with a thin spiraling gold rib going upwards around them, gold plated steel mono rail bridge pieces, milled from solid brass, with a string spacing of 17,5mm (or perhaps instead even a wammy/tremolo bridge with 17,5mm string spacing), and an accordingly more narrow neck, with a 38mm wide graphite nut. Equipped with Elixir Nanoweb guitar strings of the gauges .074 - .056 - .042 - 030, and tuned to tenor bass, A standard, tuning, as in the upper 4 strings of a 6 string bass tuned to regular B standard tuning.

I am pretty sure it is 17mm.

Preliminary poll results fits its name "Dud Bottomfeeder" well.

A tenor bass would usually be defined by a 4 string bass guitar, normally between 30" to 34" scale length, tuned to A1 all fourth standard tuning, while a tenor baritone would typically be around 26" scale length, have 4 strings, and tuned to C2 all fifth tuning, and a baritone guitar will typically be a 6 string guitar with a scale length of 27" to 30", most commonly 27" or 28", tuned in all fourth B1 or A1 standard tuning. However I play an 28.6" scale 4 string bass tuned in B1 all fourth standard tuning as my main instrument of choice. So do I play a short scale tenor bass or a long scale tenor baritone, or simply a 4 string baritone guitar? The tenor part of these names refers to the name of a short scale 4 string guitar, typically in all fifth tuning, higher than typical all fourth E2 standard tuning of a regular guitar, not the frequency area it operates in, just to avoid confusion. Also I would like to point out that, no, this is not something that keeps me sleepless at night, just curious as to how people would define the instrument and tuning. Here is what it looks like, by the way: I should maybe add that it is strung with regular nickel-plated roundwound guitar strings of the gauges .068 - .052 - .038 - .028, but very much sounds like a higher tuned bass.

Where Is My Mind - Pixies

Innovation have had a rest since approximately 1970, but now it is finally time to do absolutely nothing about that! - Fender

My 4 string Ibanez GSRM20 neck (with GSRM20B tuners) + GSRM20B body Mikro Bass, that I named "Dud Bottomfeeder". It features an Okoume body, and a Maple neck with a Rosewood fretboard, the stock pickups has been pulled out and replaced for a EMG Geezer Butler P/J pickup set, both pickups respectively wired directly to each their own dedicated the jack output socket, and it is strung with Elixir Nanoweb coated nickel-plated roundwound hex steel core guitar strings, gauge .068 - .052 - .038 - .028, tuned in tenor bass, A#1 standard, tuning, that is as one half step above the 4 upper strings of a 6 string bass in regular B standard tuning, making it sit exactly right between regular 4 string bass, E1 standard tuning, and regular 6 string guitar E2 standard tuning. Further more has been added a Jack Skellington skull sticker on the body, above the bridge, and respectively black, red and green electrical tape (alao known as insulation tape) cut to size over the pickups and the knob, the latter which is a transparent/black PRS Lampshade knob.

I think these demos better demonstrates what to expect from respective the Dimarzio Model P and EMG Geezer Butler P, which would also be the pickups I'd suggest to OP:

I build up my pedalboard to fit the music I actually play, all originals, and a lot of thought, trial and error, went into it to get it perfect. I honestly don't see the point of copying someone else's setup, unless you play in a tribute band.

I use a 15" woofer + 1.7" tweeter (crossover 2.3kHz) FRFR PA speaker with my setup before it emulating a bass amp and cabinet, amplified by going into the Effects Return (poweramp input) of an old 160W Peavey SS guitar amp, with lots of effects, for a sort of stoner/doom rock project, and I get an incredible punchy tone, with a monstrous heavy and ballsy distortion when I need that.

Single Mono Rail bridge pieces milled from solid brass is the way to go, if one absolutely want to upgrade their bent piece of metal bridge. They are just kind of expensive (though not any more than a "brand" highmass bridge), and rather complicated to install properly too.

I don't think compression is a subtle effect, even when it is subtly applied. Though I do understand where you are coming from. However I don't understand what it is you want to achieve when you can't hear the difference, and for certain no one of the audience, and in the mix, will either (though I hate that argument, I think it is actually appropriate here). For sure the SpectraComp is practically almost indefinitely more flexible than the MXR, which I am not sure why is supposed to be objectively better (I mean except if you need to have on the fly access to parameter control, and insist on using analog gear only, for whatever reason, the sure the MXR would be a better choise).

Also not all of us plays down the Dog and Duck Saturday night. My condolences.

Exactly my observation. The tone sounded richer with the regular bent piece of metal bridge, with more harmonic content preserved, and somewhat muffled with the highmass bridges, with harmonic content subdued (which of course does mean more low end, relatively speaking, and focus on the fundamentals, which again I suppose for some people could translate to a perceived fatter sound). The Babsicz though, which is aluminum, and not really a high mass bridge at all, just sounded overall awful and tinny to me, as in it even seemed to cut off some low end (or maybe that was just perceived, and what it might really do is to preserve even more harmonic content, not sure, what I do know is that I didn't like how it affected the tone).

Usually you would, most would, and I have it, as the very last thing in my signal chain. But I suppose it does depend a bit of it's specific function in your setup, I do have a simple (that is just gain and master volume, no EQ) tube preamp as the very first thing in my chain, then the chain ending with a amp emulation/cab sim preamp pedal going into another simple tube preamp with DI.

Try to actually watch that video and listen.

I think the increase in sustain is, at best, neglectable, they do change the tone noticeable however, but in my opinion for the worse, compared to the traditional simple bend piece of steel bridges :

Well, I think this upgrade actually valids an update: My Ibanez GSRM20B Mikro Bass, now with the added EMG Geezer Butler J in the bridge position, which I otherwise pulled out a while back, but now with dedicated output jack socket as well (the P pickup, which I have had installed a long while, is of course also the EMG Geezer Butler P) : Both the P and the J pickup is wired directly to each their respective dedicated output jack socket, and the knob is purely cosmetic.

Mosky Black Rat in Turbo RAT mode!