Jolltax

I travelled with a bass quite a lot and lived in hotels for weeks at a time, I think a lot of the super-compact basses are a bit compromised although I have only 'tried' a Steinberger not owned one. I am with @Burns-bass and others, the secret is having a cheap setup and then not worrying about it being bashed about, I do also think headless is good because actually there is no real compromise in actual playing / fretboard, unfortunately they aren't cheap. The way I did it was I bought a cheap Harley Benton JB and had the neck bolts fitted with inserts so I could easily remove and restore the neck. Then I played through headphones, or occasionally I managed to play through the hotel clock radios line-in - the Bose ones pack serious bass for their size! The bass cost £85 so it didn't matter if it got bashed or broken in my baggage and I actually sold it for £100 a couple of years later!

Me too, I own an EHB and also a Sire cheapy 4 string (M2) and am a fan of both. Gut feel the M6 is probably just as well made and specced as the EHB and given that its literally half the price of the EHB looks like a good deal.

My point is that having gone to the trouble of actually making a multiscale bass with so-called custom pickups to then ergonomically compromise it seems an odd choice and reflects the fact that the market is still developing. Perhaps its just a matter of time as the multiscale market appears to be growing if recent new models by Sire (M6?) and others are anything to go by. Mind you, the new ones all seem to have the same issue - the market will decide, I guess. My instinct is that very few players swap the pickups on their basses (more likely to swap the bass) and I think the 'standardisation' argument has already left the building years ago - my Ibanez pickups are already 'custom' so the point is moot anyway. Its like arguing 'everyone should have a P-Bass because I've got one'. I bet some enterprising individual with a 3D printer could knock something out that would be an improvement ....

Question for you fellow multiscalers out there : I enjoy playing my Ibanez EHB but the pickups annoy me as they are not good as a thumb rest, when playing they are not straight and at the moment its annoying me : Ever more annoying is that Ibanez seem to have recognised this problem as they give you a thumb rest which is a parallelogram creating a weird mountain range for your thumb. WHERE are the parallelogram shaped pickups which run parallel with the strings, surely this is what we need? Do they exist? Grumpy today (must be my age) J

Go with the bass with the nicest neck and that feels the most comfortable, as a learner it doesn't really matter about the pickup configuration as long as you got somewhere comfy to rest your thumb whilst playing the bottom string - decent basses all sound similar enough for pickup configuration not to matter. For me, comfort and the neck the most important thing. I think some of the best necks on (new) budget basses are Sire, second hand Yamaha (not the super cheap ones) are also lovely

Really cool, headless is the way to go imho Love the fact that it has a truss rod wheel for easy adjustment, nice little touches

Very true, I am an intermediate player at best, I often end up making tabs for tunes for which I can't find songs I am learning for my band (my music skill level not good enough to make transcripts) My teacher very good at encouraging me to use music, its just not always easy to find ... which is why I appreciate the work you have put into this

Just me reflecting again on this thread, if you got an active bass, a preamp / pedals, EQ on your amp (and / or maybe even going into a desk) then most of us are playing through 3 or four stages of tone / EQ adjustments, its no wonder it gets confusing (for me anyway). It makes me wonder how much of my bass am I actually hearing and how much is just electronics e.g. I wonder how many times I have cranked the treble on active bass without realising I have it turned down somewhere else in the signal chain, probably a lot of the time Conspiracy theory : maybe we are all secretly playing exactly the same sounding bass and the only difference is in the electronics and we are being scammed by bass manufacturers

Very cool website, love the emphasis on music transcriptions rather than TAB

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The gig economy unfortunately not known for its pension provision. I worked offshore with someone who was a bass guitarist in a sixties band which charted a couple of times he left to pursue a career in the Oil business, reached a fairly senior position. He didn't like talking about it.

I love that this thread is 3 years old and the vote is basically 50/50, which as it happens I think is the correct answer . I switched to a 5 string headless Ibanez EH1505 which has multiscale neck bought about a year ago, really like the bass. I think one tries to weigh up the pro and cons of any innovation to conclude whether they are a net improvement. My conclusion / opinion : Headless is the way to go, better balance, lighter bass, same playable string length with shorter neck, good tuning, no obvious downside I have found yet Multiscale is of marginal benefit (if any) and for me has downsides, I'll probably prioritise other things in future purchases. I do like the way it looks though. For me, its a wash - I am 50/50 on it To elaborate - the downside of multiscale for me is subtle : the fan frets mean I feel like I am having to stretch / adjust my hand more at the extremities of the fret board particularly at the low end of the neck where I am already least comfortable and perhaps making it a bit more difficult to accurately position fingers at the fret. If you have huge hands, I guess this might not be an issue ! Worth bearing in mind I am an intermediate level player only, not super experienced. As other mentioned I would like to try the new Sire M6 as in my experience the necks on Sires are nice... my Ibanez will be hard to beat mind you

OK, good point, I get it. I have PowerDrumKit (which is very cool btw) for that kind of stuff but I guess my (the lazy) way is to get the stem

That's awesome if you play all the instruments, I only play bass I see two usage cases for remixing my own tracks from stems: High quality practice tracks customised for myself (without bass) or for others (excluding their parts), possibility to add click track and prompts for in ears in future Current band has guitar, bass, drums, vocalist - could use STEM's to build custom tracks to add keys and additional guitar Also easy to create the tracks in the correct key as the band often decide to pay in different key to the original. I downloaded the stems for three tracks yesterday and have since been messing around in FL Studio, its going quite well! J

I am exploring the idea of using stems to create backing tracks, filling in missing instruments. Currently the band I play in just lost its rhythm guitarist and has no keyboards. I also like the idea of making my own custom practice tracks. Where would you go to get good quality stems, so far I found this place, Karaoke Version seems OK I also use Moises, its an AI separation tool which is very good for practice and helping making tabs / transcriptions for music but the stems it creates are not of high quality so I wouldn't want to use them with a band etc Any thoughts? J This long video explains the process I am looking at pretty well except ill be using FL Studio as a DAW and probably my phone to play the tracks :

I still practice on mine most days (sorry about the dust and dog hair in my shed, lol) - awesome! @djk Although cosmetically mine is a bit primitive I deliberately made it quite beefy so its not that light, if you going for lightweight suggest you think carefully about construction with that as a priority, I am sure other more experienced builders can advise here. J

I love my active basses with all the whiz-bang controls but every time I travel/ move with my bass(es) and set up somewhere new it sounds nothing like it did at home. I then spend ages fiddling with all the buttons and switches and getting annoyed with myself because I can't make it sound right. Halfway through the session everyone else in the band turns up the volume and are playing so loud that I can't hear myself playing anyway so my 'tone' obsession is a bit irrelevant

Hi losting, I think this is sound advice from @ian61and @bass_dinger. Personally I would try and get a grip of the basics before trying to play with others, and a teacher does help. In your situation I would buy a modestly priced decent quality second hand bass, there are many on FB / ebay and start playing along with your favourite tracks at home. I spent my first year watching and playing along with videos on YT, I didn't even buy an amp! The best thing I did is find a good teacher online, you progress so much faster. The electronics side of it is interesting, some good advice on here about self builds, speaker cabs Have fun J

Hi Steve, welcome I'm originally from Cornwall (Mylor Bridge), like many of school friends I left to find a job, haven't made it back yet but it will always be home! I bought one those HB basses in lockdown, mine was a 5 string stingray - the same black colour with black headstock, they look really bad-ass! It was amazing for the price. J

Gutted when I found UK tour dates were just finished, next time ...

Just found him through Justin Hawkins who recommended him on his channel. He has got something weird but wonderful going on here, clearly a talented guy. He is a great player, I'm watching his videos and I'm laughing as well as really enjoying his playing - I got to assume he has irony turned up to 11, absolutely brilliant J

Dani California (RHCP) - putting the main riff on a loop and practicing the fills between each cycle Save a Prayer (Duran Duran) - so nice to play, the bass line is almost the melody Le Freak (Chic) - I can get up to speed, but how long can I stay there and will I last the whole 5m27? .... No. Can I do the fills , also frankly no .... ? If you click the link you can see Tom do it properly Hungry like the Wolf (Duren Duran) - fun when I get tired after the above J

I also completed the survey and as another person with experience of surveys and data collection I also whole-heartedly agree with the above statement.

I bought my Ibanez from them and they did a set up before dispatching it, I think they have a dedicated pro-audio and music department - I met a bunch of them last year as they had a big stand at the Guitar Show in 2024, not sure if they were there this year. Like others above I have used them on many occasions over the years to buy computer parts and equipment but it wasn't until I saw them at the show that I realised they do music stuff. I rate them highly they have always been very good with me - they have a solid returns policy which I have used in the past and decent customer service.