SteveXFR

I'd say even then, over here at least metal was uncool. Metal heads are the nicest, best people though.

When was metal ever cool? Metal has always been for misfits and outcasts. I love metal but I'll be the first to admit it's not cool.

I had a 36" multi scale 5 string. I used it to play sludge metal. Very, very not nerdy. Simple riffs played fast and low with an unnecessary amount of distortion. I really liked that bass, an Ibanez SRMS805

Those aren't nerds. Those are people born in to incredible wealth pretending to be nerds while paying real nerds peanuts to do the actual nerdy work. I've seen R&D jobs advertised at Tesla and the pay and benefits are crap even by engineering standards.

Those are basses for stock brokers, dentists and lawyers. Nerds rarely have lots of money, they spent it all on dungeons and dragons.

I go to the nerdiest, proggiest metal festival and jazz basses are a rarity. Warwicks and Status' are the most popular 4 strings and Zon are the most popular 5 string. Jazz basses are really popular in more traditional metal and stoner metal. I don't think anyone has played a BC Rich without wearing either sparkly lycra or corpse paint.

I always modify my P basses because I hate the stock bridge. I know I won't get my money back but also, I don't think it's worth the effort of refitting the stock bridge and setting it up again. If that puts some people off, that's fine, someone will buy it.

I used to have a Two Notes Le Bass which has since disappeared on to my daughters pedal board so I'm in need of a new preamp. I really liked the nice bit of valve overdrive from the Le Bass and found the DI really useful so I was going to get another but I see it's been superseded by the Revolt. I think I might find the modern drive channel really useful as well as the vintage channel. Has anyone used both? Is the new one as good/better?

Scheduled Diarrhea - Clown Core

Up The Bracket - The Libertines

Unfortunately the don't do a Stingray style humbucker but Tonerider pickups are pretty good and decent value. I've used their classic P style pickup before and it sounded great. A good upgrade on my old Squier, at least as good as Mexican Fender pickups.

Some ceramic pickups are more powerful than some alnico pickups although that doesn't really effect tone. My old Sterling Ray35 sounded really close to a MM Stingray and that had alnico pickups with a Darkglass tone capsule preamp.

The stock Roswell pickups are really pretty decent. You'll be spending good money to beat them. You won't get it to sound like a Stingray because the pickup position is wrong and most Stingrays are active.

I find the same with picks. Different thickness, material, shape, picking positions, the angle I hold the pick all makes a difference.

Madagascan, hand caught, wild, organic tort obviously.

I'm working my way through the lineup for a festival I'm going to this summer (ArcTanGent) and this morning it's Lowen. This is really good. Not sure how to describe it so here's a video

Let's be honest, if you bass isn't made from the heart wood of the rarest tree in the western central region of the upper amazon, crafted by 800 year old artisans from a lost village on a remote island and painted using a 400 year old secret recipe for a colour known as slugs nipple and then strung with flat wound, hand forged uranium strings then your tone will always sound like s**t

It's good to know what sounds you get from picking in different positions. I used to have a really clanky, nasty, distorted metal tone but found that for solo parts if I picked at the base of the fretboard, it was much more acceptable and then move back to picking over the bridge pickup when the guitars came back in.

Amnesia - Swans

Boredom - The Buzzcocks

Have you heard Steve Harris and Cliffs bass tone in isolation? They're not pleasant. They both created a tone which cut through fantastically well to sound good with the band.

You can't cut or boost frequencies that aren't there.

In my experience of playing in heavy bands, that absolutely would not work. You've got two heavily distorted guitars and a hard hitting drummer. There's no compromise going to fix that, as a bassist you have to find a tone that fits with the band and it certainly exists but I can guarantee it will sound bloody awful in isolation.

I found overdrive made a huge difference in creating a sound that could cut through heavy guitars. EQ is definitely a big part of it though.

If you want to play in bands forget about YOUR tone, it doesn't matter. It's no good having great solo tone if you disappear behind guitars and drums.