kwmlondon

Been playing the markbass NY112 I got from Steve_M chuffed to bits! Fair price. Great communication. Friendly helpful and very happy with the can which arrived in fair time and well packaged. Many thanks!

New cab! 

I saw him last year with Louie Vega and Soul Frito at the  Royal Festival Hall. He is just unbelievable. One of the most brilliant bassist of all time IMO. NyYorican Soul is in my top 5 albums. 

Just bought a markbass NY 112 cab. The Gallien Kruger cx 210 is fine but it goes not match the amp!

Get a good soldering iron, one that can keep temperature - they only cost a tenner online. I had a crappy one for years and soldering was a 'mare. Now I've got a decent one I won't say it's my ideal evening's entertainment but I don't dread it quite as much.

Hi. Is one of these still available? Cheers!

Okay, heard back and it's on hold. Will update when it's been posted. Hope it's useful...

Hi. I bought this blue pearled scratchplate to go on my Japanese Jazz bass but I don't like the colour and it won't fit without a bit of fettling which I don't want to do. Free to the first person to send me a stamped addressed Jiffy bag. I don't know if you could get away with this just 2nd class large envelope - anyway, happy to put it in the post box for you. Still got the plastic film on it. PM me for my address.

1 hour ago, chris_b said:

Apart from a cover for my BB2, all I’ve bought since March is food, paint and sandpaper. 

I hope you'd stocked up on toilet paper early on then because... well... even if you got wet'n'dry, things are going to be *ahem* uncomfortable.

I want a 5 string now...

I saw that on their website. Have a bump...

Um, I've bought and sold a BG Custom Jazz bass that had a Status neck and Bartolinis. Ended up selling it for parts - tried to get some issues sorted but it hadn't been put together right from the off so I scrapped it and made most of the money back. Since then I got a '93 MIJ Fender Jazz and I'm very happy with it. I've messed about with the pickups and the electronics and I'd like to change the bridge to one I've got somewhere but I'll have to take it to a luthier for that - not drilling holes in it myself...

Dammit I can’t buy another thing but have a bump because that looks well tasty...

I'm now sitting here with John's new wiring in my MIM Jazz and I'm a very happy customer. The first loom supplied didn't work as it should but John was super-helpful with lots of support and swapped it straight away when we'd worked out it wasn't me that was at fault (which, being honest, was much more likely to be the case). Buy from this chap with confidence!

9 minutes ago, JohnDaBass said:

I took a USA pro bridge off my 1992 USA Fender P Deluxe and replaced with a BadAss 3 Thro body bridge. It looked great ( it's the one on the right in my avatar) but I could not discern any difference in sustain or tone.

I then used the Fender Pro bridge on my YOB '52 P Bitsa. It's simplicity & aesthetic sits really well on the bass. The thickness of the material used in this bridge is more than 3mm so it much thicker than the standard BOBT which allows for the grooves in the base for the grub screws to maintain alignment. The thro body stringing compensates for the three mounting screws and the string saddles have grooves for perfect string spacing. All in all great simple design that works and looks the part. 

Yeah, it's a very good design, that bridge - simple and high-quality. Really annoyed that the only ones I've seen are about £70! Nice bass, btw.

52 minutes ago, Misdee said:

You putting sustain into the bass is not the same thing as the bass having natural  sustain . If it had sustain you wouldn't need to put sustain into it with whatever technique. You could, by the same token,  add sustain with a compressor, but that would not change the fundamental sound of whatever bass.

And, for the reasons I have already stated,  taking the frets out of a bass will most likely  diminish the sustain of fretted notes. Your perception  may differ from that, but such judgements are highly subjective. Steel frets are likely to  enable a note to resonate longer  in a more linear fashion than when the note is trapped between wood and finger. That's a big  part of the sound of a fretless . Yes there are various things you can do to compensate on a fretless - vibrato, compression, coated fingerboard et al- but all things being equal in general terms, a fretted example should sustain more. But we've already decided that sustain isn't that important anyway. My fretless has an acrylic-coated board, but I haven't really noticed a profound increase in sustain over non-coated fingerboards, it has to be said. , 

I am equally confident that bridges can a very significant influence on the sound of a bass, some bridges and some basses more than others. I could give my own anecdotal evidence, but it would be a lengthy process . I have had more basses than I can count over the last 40 years or so.  I used to hate the BBOT but I have come to learn its' value in terms of the classic Fender tone. It's a shame it isn't just a little bit more ergonomic and  mechanically stable. That's all I am saying, really🙂.

Well, exactly. I've found a couple of USA professional bridges that have got grooves cut in for the saddles and recessed grub screws but they're over twice the price of the hi mass ones and that seems to be just down to rarity. I'm changing my bridge purely for stability and ergonomics. 

I'm changing the bridge on my MIJ Jazz simply because the cheapie one that's fitted now is uncomfortable with the grubs sticking out, and the spacing is wrong. I'm not expecting an improvement in tone except maybe that the strings will sit directly over the pickup pole pieces.

Just got the package, thanks. I'll install it over the weekend, let you know how it goes.

Many thanks!

Good grief!!!! *eyes pop out*

Hi, found this thread. Would you be able to do a custom loom? I'm going to wire some new pickups into my Jazz but I've heard great things about having a series/parallel push/pull pot. Would this be something you could do? If so, how much. Many thanks!

I'd like to recommend Jeff Beers of Zero One guitars in West Wales. He did an amazing job of sorting out issues on my Gibson SG and was brutally honest about a bass I took to him - he showed me all the problems with it and suggested I sell it for parts, doing himself out of some work in the process. The SG came back like a new instrument, I can't recommend him enough. Lovely guy, very talented and incredible eye for detail.

 https://www.facebook.com/pages/category/Local-Business/ZERO-ONE-Guitars-393710820789091/

5 hours ago, Dad3353 said:

... and haggis can be enjoyed, in the right circumstances. 

Um... after quite a lot of whiskey when you'd eat anything? Joke!

I have this EXACT same bass in red. Same era (mine's an '88), 2EQ, maple neck. Best instrument I've ever had. Whoever buys this will be very lucky... 

7 hours ago, itsmedunc said:

If it sounds good to you - use it. If it doesn't then don't. Same scenario with any gear really. Personally, I've used Peavey gear quite a lot, mostly in the early 90's. Bass gear and PA's. Sounded great then. A while ago, I did a PA and the bassist had an old Peavey TNT combo, it sounded  really great. He had bought it a couple of weeks before For £70.

In many ways it's all a personal preference. There's also the fact that the cab you used could have been old but really tired? Personally, I wouldn't hesitate to use a PA cab if needs be.

 

Yes, this is all true and... in fact... with a bit of eq tweaking I can get the sound better. I just normally don't use the EQ much at all, I find I never need it really. 

10 hours ago, MartinB said:

Maybe your bass sounds awful through your amp, but your GK cab's voicing compensates to make it sound good. If that was the case,  the Peavey cab is just being "honest". It's a shame there's no headphone out on the amp to test it. Have you tried running the amp's line out into an interface/desk?

I've got one bass that sounds great through a DI box. I've got another that needs plenty of EQ from an amp and/or cab to sound great. Neither is better or worse than the other - just different ways to achieve a good sound.

Very, very good points. My MuiscMan Stingray is generally pretty okay - it records really well DI'd straight into a desk, done it plenty of times. However... I've recently put LaBelles on it and they sound a bit odd to my ears. Not good, not bad, just different to the cheap flats I had on before. Sort of "sticky" but I suspect they will bed in over time. Maybe it's the combination of strings, bass, amp and cab that's not working. It really doesn't matter, frankly, it's perfectly fine for my needs as in I just need to be able to hear it loud enough to practise, but it's not often I've been so surprised at how much I DON'T like a cab. I'm not usually that bothered!