SumOne

I've seen the Macc lads live a couple of times, I don't find their humour offensive - it's like listening to Viz characters. Clearly it's a joke. Unfortunately, the crowd in both occasions included quite a few people too dim to realise it's a joke taking the fosters out of people like them. Typical uniforms of cherry red DMs and green bomber jackets and an air of menace rather than fun, saw a bloke who was about 60 get punched to the ground.

I'll add a few annoyances: Pedals that are unnecessarily massive (e.g. Brassmaster). No volume control - especially annoying for effects that often have a real or perceived volume drop/gain (e.g. most Phasers). Blindingly bright LEDs or ones that constantly do some sort of unnecessary distracting flashing.

Possibly others have a different definition of 'high-end' but lots of Basses mentioned in this thread as having good B string are things like: Canadian Dingwalls, Modulus, Ken Smith, Pedulla, Marleaux, Sadowsky, Mike Lull, they are all pushing towards or sometimes well above the £3k mark and aren't Basses you can even buy at shops like Thomann and Andertons where the average price is more like <£1k. I think a lot of general punters would see a £1k Bass and think it's quite expensive when there are £300-£600 Squier/Ibanez/Yamaha type alternatives. I know a few cheaper Basses have also been mentioned though so I guess ocasionally a relatively cheap Bass can have a good B string if it's all well set up and you're lucky. I guess it's partly due to high-end Basses having good set-ups but it must also be down to the whole package of things like how precicely they are engineered, quality control, how the neck joins the body, the materials used and overall resonance, pickups and preamps, bridge and nut, etc. And I suppose it depends on what you call a 'good' B string, some people quite like one that sounds tonally different to the other strings or has overtones. Once I'm playing through a few pedals and an Amp/Cab I'm not too fussed as it's hard for anyone other than me to notice and I probably wouldn't even know that's not how they all sound had I not recently played a few high-end Basses in shops which have better B string feel/sound - like it's more integrated with the other strings..... I kind of wish I hadn't played those high-end basses though as it's got me wishing I had one when I was quite happy with £1k Basses before!

All good advice, but also in your signature I see you are playing a Pedulla MPV 5 which is a Bass I'd not heard of but just looked up and looks very nice...and has a £5,750 list price at Bass Direct. This is all helping to strenghten my argument with my bank account that to have a good B string generally seems to need a high-end Bass.

This is as I thought and is helping me justify the idea of gettting a higher-end 5 string!

Do you think that's perhaps because the Sadowsky, Mike Lull and US Lakland are all quite high-end Basses though? Or has it sounded fine on cheaper Basses too?

I've got the same sort of issue that 5 string Basses tend to feel like the E-G are all part of the same family and the B is a bit of an odd-one out. I've tried solving that adjusting a lot of variables: Scale actually doesn't seem to make a whole lot of difference, I've owned quite a few different scale Basses and the B still always feels like the odd one out: 34" Fender Jazz and Sandberg TM5 35" Lakland 55-02 35.5" Ibanez SRMS 805 37" Dingwall Combustion Strings: Roundwound, Flatwound, Tapewound and various tapered and steel/nickel options don't make a huge amount of difference - it's more a differene in tone/brightness. Setup: Getting the correct neck tension and intonation can help, so can string height and pickup height. Playing style: Rolling my fingers over the B string rather than plucking and playing further towards the neck seems to work best. All those things make a bit of difference but the B still feels the odd one out so I was starting to come to the conclusion that it's just the way B strings are but then I played an Xotic XP5 (34" P Bass style) with roundwounds the other day and it was the most even sounding Bass across all strings I've ever played (I did only play it in a shop for about 10 minutes though) so I now think certain Basses nail it while others need work-around and compromise. The main issue is that XP5 is about £2,500 new - so considerably more expensive than any Bass I've owned, perhaps that quality is the answer? Or perhaps it's the P Bass style pickup/sound whereas most of my Basses are more J style, possibly that J style always just gives more of a 'overtone/growl' to the B string? A good work-around I've found (other than adjusting playing style) is using pedals: Adding some mild overdrive and preamp tone (One Control Crimson Red reduced treble and adds Bass with some mild overdrive that evens out tones across all strings - but it's only good if you want stuff sounding dark and dubby) and some compression and focussed EQ can subtly make all the strings sound more even and mask some B string differences. Also, playing loud through a Bass Cab and with a band rather than through headphones or monitor speakers at home makes everything sound more even as it's harded to hear the subtle differences. I'm torn at the moment if it's worth spending a lot more money on a Bass or just learning to live with the compromise knowing it's only really me that's likely to notice the difference.

Yeah, I'm with you on that. They need an fx loop and switchable overdrive unless it's the only pedal being used.

Yeah I thought it tracked really well, and can choose how many semitones up/down. It has that digital polyphonic sort of sound though - not quite the same character as Analog ones.

Yeah, I keep thinking I'm done - then something like this comes along.

This looks good https://www.jimdunlop.com/mxr-poly-blue-octave/ "MXR has unveiled the Poly Blue Octave, a pedal that offers four separate octave divisions and a “thick, unruly” fuzz. The octaves include one down, two down, one up, and two up." “You get to control the level of each in the mix as well as decide whether to run them with the contemporary clarity of polyphonic mode or the raw vintage grit of monophonic mode,” the company writes. “With a Blue Box Pedal-inspired fuzz mode and a dual Leslie-inspired/Phase 90-inspired modulation mode, you can infuse your pitch-shifted output with liquified thunder and lightning."

Bought a Bass from Gareth, all good communications and posting and the Bass is all as described and plays well - thanks!

Aside from the main selling point of it's ridiculous/excellent concept this seems to actually be quite a useful pedal: I've just tried a few (non body) fluids and they sound quite different but each sounds good - everything from Bass heavy light overdrive through to Fuzz with a lot of treble. Gain depends on liquid's conductivity and treble/bass depends on opacity. Obviously a limitation/selling point is the hassle/fun of changing the liquid but I've got fuzz pedals that only basically do one flavour of fuzz and overdrives that only do one type of overdrive so in a way it's actually more versatile than them. I expect once the novelty wears off I'll just settle on keeping one liquid in it depending if I want a fuzz or light overdrive or whatever - but it gives that choice that a lot of pedals don't. Small size and top mounted jacks and power. Cool looking way it lights up and it has a tough chrome casing.

Got to love a pedal with this in it's warranty:

First unboxing and I thought Rainger might have developed ideas from this thread and taken them a couple of steps further:

No, but I'm interested in that one too. I've got a Laney Amp that's decent and had the Laney Digbeth Preamp which was good too (currently on sale for £125 at GAK) so I'm impressed with what I've used of theirs so far.