SumOne

The Q-strip does have ground lift and -20db (plus 2x sweepable mids and HPF and LPF), and the M81 has ground lift. But yeah, perhaps the option of different EQ settings is a reason to go for the Starlifter instead.

Perhaps I'm missing something but their website says it's a clean DI tone - if it's not adding any preamp colour at all (just 3 band EQ with sweepable mids) then doesn't the MXR M81 do the same job in a smaller footprint for about half the price? Or a Q-Strip for a similar price but with additional EQ options?

I wonder if the FX loop can be placed in different places within the effects chain for different presets, that's something I find very useful in multi-fx units unless they replace every other pedal (and I'm yet to find one that does).

The Ethiopians 'Train to Skaville' (Boops Riddim - must have been used on 100 other tunes, 54-46 probably the most famous)

Yeah, it's a shame there don't seem to be shops that have a big chain of envelope filters (or any other type of pedal) plugged in for customers to come along with their Bass and compare. Recommendations are good to narrow things down but in the end it comes down to setup and personal taste. I'm grateful for Basschat as buying/selling second hand on here is a good option, most things are fairly priced and can be re-sold for similar prices.

Ah yeah I had a Fwonkbeta too for a while and it does indeed have massive bottom end - so much so that that's why I didn't keep it as was pretty sure one wrong move and my speakers would die!

I've owned the Spectrum, EBS envelope filter, Robotalk 2 (also multi things that do envelope filters: Stomp, Zoom, Future Impact). They all do more than the M82 but don't do it's specifc thing quite as well or with the same feel and funk. So I've just got the M82 as my envelope filter (at the moment!), I guess it depends if you like its quite specific thing or not though.

That is probably true, but there is the 'money to make money' thing in that a cheap Bass is probably going to lose it's value pretty quickly whereas a rare and expensive Bass' will probably get more rare and valuable over time. Also, even if the cheap Bass does sound the same to the audience it's the player that has to spend 1000s of hours with it and have it up on their wall at home, so they might as well get something that's more comfortable/enjoyable/easier to play and looks better - and sounds better for them (and the 0.05% audience) and holds it's value better if they can afford it - why make a hobby more mundane and 'it'll do' than it has to be?!.....These are the things I'm telling myself as I look through expensive Bass adverts anyway!

Yeah, I'm doubting I'll be able to combine them! About the closest I've heard is Dub Trio

I've been on the lookout for a while too since the other half of my rhythm section moved away, joinmyband does seem to be the best....I'm yet to find myself any appropriately easy going part-timer local Ska/Reggae or Stoner/Doom bands though.

Someone who's business is to make expensive instruments with part of their sales pitch for those instruments being what woods are used (with an upcharging 'master grade wood gallery' section to their website) is probably not the most reliable witness to tell you if the type of wood makes a difference. Saying that though, I tried three identical Dingwall Combustions at Bass Direct - all new, 10 year anniversary ones, same Dingwall strings and pickups, same body and neck wood, the only difference being two had Maple fingerboard and one had Pau Ferro, perhaps I was biased by what I've read or by the look of them but it felt to me that perhaps the Maple ones were slightly brighter and the Pau Ferro warmer sounding (the main difference though was that the Pau Ferro was less sticky on the strings when string bending) so I did feel that fingerboard made a difference - but mostly down to the feel of the strings against it and the look. I'm not convinced about neck and body woods making enough of a tone difference for me to care- I would care about how heavy they made it, how robust and stable they are and how it looked though.

I'm reading 'Bass Culture: When Reggae was King' by Lloyd Bradley (it's excellent) and just got to the part in 1969 where King Tubby has set up his 'Tubby's Home Town Hi-Fi' system with U-Roy as deejay (how's that for a combination?!). Tubby also worked for Duke Reid as a disc cutter so had access to all the Treasure Isle tapes where he cut one-off specials specifically tailored for U-Roy and one night for the first time ever they played dub versions with U-Roy deejaying over them - the crowd went nuts and there were only 4x dubplates which got repeated all night with U-Roy deejaying over them - perhaps that crowd witnessed the birth of Dub and Dancehall? This was one of the originals (or as close as I can find on youtube) And the Tubby Dub with U-Roy (or what it became at some point)

Oh, hi! (oh).

Listening bars seem like a good way to hear music on a really good system https://www.google.com/amp/s/blog.discogs.com/en/top-5-listening-bars-in-the-uk/amp/

You must have been unlucky because I think London gets an unfair reputation for always raining (or an old reputation for being foggy/smoggy). The smog was due to industry and coal burning that stopped over 50 years ago and it's not really all that rainy on average: Compared to European cities London has fewer rainy days and less rainfall than places like Amsterdam, Brussels, Cologne, Dublin, Hamburg, Helsinki, Moscow, Munich, Moscow, Oslo, Paris https://www.currentresults.com/Weather/Europe/Cities/precipitation-annual-average.php none of them particularly have a cliché of always being rainy. Any time Paris is in Films it's sunshine, cut to London and it's grey and raining. And compared to the other places "(London has 557mm or rain per year and) 106.5 days of rainfall per year on average.....There are more rainy days in Miami (at 135) and Orlando, Florida (117) than there are in London. New York City clocks in at 122 days and 1,268mm of rain (over double the amount of rainfall of London). Washington DC, Rio de Janeiro, Sydney, and Mexico City all have more rainy days on average in any given year than London. https://www.zmescience.com/ecology/climate/rain-much-london-well-not-much-really/ And Auckland is on more too at 136 days and 1,210mm or rain (over double the rainfall of London). And likewise, no film is ever shows Miami or Sydney or Rio as a rainy scene - always sunny apparently. I think it's something Londoners need to realise that as far as cities go it's always quite comfortable temperatures and isn't really all that rainy. I don't hear it being a thing that people in Sydney or Rio or Paris or Auckland are always complaining about how rainy it is there but it seems to be a London mindset that it's a rainy place and everywhere else less so.

Yeah I jumped the gun a bit and returned it to be replaced with a Laney Digbeth pedal which I like so I'm not too fussed, the Nux does seem good though.

I prefer the sound from fingers vs plectrum, and the connection/feel, and the muting, and skipping strings, and being able to quickly switch to slap/pop. I'm gonna work more on thumb but it always sounds quieter and less defined and slower when I do it.

I owe the Nux an apology - I think I had been trying USB cables that don't transfer data. There doesn't seem to be any way of distinguishing the difference by looking at the cables and I've amassed a big knotty pile of them but I tried to plug in a Zoom pedal that had worked before and it wouldn't connect - which is when the penny dropped and on the 3rd cable (one I hadn't tried with the Nux) it worked.

Yeah, it's mostly 'want' rather than 'need'. I guess 'the job' to get done can be quite different for someone wanting to play 70's slap to someone wanting to play low-tuned Doom or someone playing 60's Motown so I suppose having different Basses is a bit like having different cars, or bikes, or shoes....they all get the same basic job done, but some are better at specific jobs than others and just make things a bit easier or more fun - not really needed though.

Cheers all. It looks like there's no Basschat group-think so as with most of these things the conclusion is probably 'try yourself as it's all personal preference'. I'm gonna keep the 5 but might also get a cheap 4 and muck about with different tunings/hipshot/pedal etc. I've always been a one Bass person but should probably get over that mindset....it's a slippery slope though!