Paddy Morris

You've been to a luthier twice, and your bridge doesn't adjust properly and your strings are buzzing. Sounds to me like you need a different luthier. Some luthiers can get a little snooty when they learn that you're not playing in an orchestra. I think you need to ask around and get the right guy for your bass and playing style.

Quick question. Should I change my G yet? It's about 5 years old and I've been trying to keep up with trimming off the odd strand of gut that peels off it using nail scissors, but I'm not great at it. I oil them infrequently when I remember to do it. It still sounds OK. Possibly not quite quite as good as new, but it's subjective and hard to tell, as I've changed amps, cabs and pickups many times since I put it on. It still sounds lovely and warm and loud acoustically. I have a spare I could put on now, but they tend to drift in pitch radically for the first week, and I've got 3 gigs and 2 practices over the bank holiday weekend. I really don't want to be re-tuning after every song (or worse, during every song!) What would the Bass-Chatters do?

Love this. My cat leaves the house whenever I pick up any instrument at all. Everyone's a critic.

Neal Heppleston in Mirfield, West Yorks - brilliant. John Marlow - Dewsbury, West Yorks, also very good for running repairs.

https://youtu.be/Y9LWfVjXXAU?si=1FCsZGmx0IEVrgpU

Define North England. Neal Heppleston in Mirfield, West Yorkshire is a legend.

That IS the sound. Amazing. Compression sounds about right too.

Thanks for all the info @stevie I'll keep an eye out for someone using a Monza, and maybe go to a gig.

Thanks for sharing that. It's good to know what the issue was. Glad it's sorted.

Sorry if this is an ignorant question, but couldn't you just turn down the volume on your instrument a tad?

Thanks for the response. Very sorry to hear about your guitarist.

Has anyone tried one with a double bass? They are fussy instruments to amplify. Any peaks or resonances from reflex tubes and ports, tend to case feedback issues. Barefaced Big Baby 3 seems to work well. Was wondering if the Monaco might actually beat it?

I had a pretty good scour of the Internet last year and no one could beat Thomann on Spiros. As an experiment I had a look on the internet whilst in Austria in February, and they were actually slightly more expensive in the country of manufacture than Thomann UK, for some bizarre reason.

I have this config. You do really notice the smaller cabinet on the Super Mini. I tend to use mine for practice on it's own. Then in parallel with the BB for bigger gigs. Also sometimes the BB for main backing, with the SM pointing up like a floor wedge, so I can hear my intonation, where the missing bottom octave makes it easier to hear the notes.

https://reverb.com/item/81433078

Believe the hype.

I actually think this is pretty interesting. The previous Magellans were super-clean, super-accurate, high slew rate racing cars. People would complain that they didn't 'add' a sound, and I think that's probably fair. That's the reason I like them. But if you're an Ampeg or ABM user, I could see how you'd be disappointed. I'm not sure what an ultra modern, super-clean amp with a 3-stage tube front will sound like. But I really want to try one and find out. It's a shame that the curve control and the sweepable mid has gone. It's also a shame that it's priced for lottery winners only.

We used to have big issues with vocal mics howling at mid/high frequencies. It never occurred to me that my bass might be involved. But after taking advice from you guys on Bass Chat, I did all the bass feedback prevention measures: LPF, f-hole blockers, amp off the floor, etc. And as soon as I damped my instrument down, all the vocal mic feedback disappeared.

it inverts the absolute polarity of that single input. Makes very little difference at mid and high frequencies. But at low frequencies where the wavelength is very long, inverting the waveform can alter the speaker to instrument feedback path quite significantly. Might make it less feedback prone, but also might make it worse. Definitely worth a shot.

I've got a Gnome and have tried an Elf also, into a Super Midget. Then I got the little 350 watt Magellan, and I'm never using another amp. Yes, it's twice the price of most of the micro amp heads, but it's also 10 times better.

I'm a bit late to this one. I got a gnome to use with 2 Barefaced cabs. Super Mini T and Big Baby 3. It's very good, very clean, plenty loud enough. But the EQ frequencies don't really suit the cabs, and at low a volume practice the fan is a bit noisy. I also ordered an Elf on that basis that I would keep the amp I preferred and sell the other. But when, after 4 months it was still on back order with BAX, I cancelled. I just took delivery today, of a Genzler Magellan 350, and it's absolutely awesome. Just immediately clean and musical. The tone shaping is incredibly flexible, and I now think my entire pedalboard is going to be redundant.

That's interesting. I plain plain gut on D, G and I had expected those to go before the wrapped synthetics. But seemingly not. They're still actually improving after 4 years.

Well, in the meantime I put an Oliv A on, that I bought cheap and haven't managed to sell on. I'm liking it. I'll bet I don't get 4 years out of that!!

I know a few people on here are fans of Evah Pirazzi Slaps, as am I. I was wondering how often people change them? My E and A strings have started to sound a bit lifeless. Well, to be honest, the E string always did, but the A has really dropped off recently. Mine have been on since about 2019. They get a fair bit of hammer under normal circumstances, but due to the pandemic, they had a pretty substantial holiday on 2020. I was hoping to get a bit longer out of them to be fair, as they don't come cheap. Was wondering how long other users would expect them to last?

Another vote for the Stanley Clarke preamp. It sounds exactly like what you need.