Jolltax

I think this is quite exciting, I tried a Sterling Sub Stingray 4 HH recently in a shop and was not impressed with the build quality, was priced locally at £469.99. As an owner of a Sire M2 I am a fan of their stuff and feel like these might make a better budget option, especially with the extra jazz pickup. Originally thought they weren't for me, even though I love the sound, but I picked up a 90's Stingray with a very slim neck last year whilst visiting someones house and really liked it and it completely changed my mind. Which StingRays have the jazzy neck vs chunky? I dunno ..... Regarding the Sire Z7, a little disappointed the neck is not slimmer, although i understand this is entirely personal preference, if they bring out a version with a neck like the one on my M2 (38mm) and once we confirm it can do a good impression of a Stingray growl, I will deffo get one This clip suggests it sounds pretty good!

I tried the same thing and even with the so-called aptX low latency bluetooth I found it to be impossible, the latency made it unplayable and drove me nuts As mentioned above the only headphones, which I know of, which allow wireless bass playing are the Boss Waza ones - these do work but in my opinion are expensive for what they are (although I know some people rate them highly) Good luck J

Hi @Bass Novice, welcome, I wonder how long before you need a new name on here I am also a learner (started in lockdown) and live near the Welsh borders in Tenbury Wells, just curious how you are learning - taking lessons? Personally I have found online lessons very helpful but also thrashing along to tunes on YouTube/Spotify, for the first year or so I played exclusively through my PC using a Focusrite 2i2 and through headphones but eventually got a head unit and cab - I found playing out loud made things a lot more enjoyable (other family members might be a bit more neutral on that, lol) J

HI @creamsoda - Welcome to the forums! I wonder if a separate post / thread outside the introduction area might get you more feedback on your app? J

Just bought your transcriptions, thank you, having fun trying some new tunes! J

I bought the ones @lemmywinks recommended and they have solved the problem. I could definitely have fixed it by just repositioning the OEM ones but the new ones are much nicer so it was a nice upgrade anyways 😃 J PXL_20230823_152801348.TS~2.mp4

Yeah, I think I will order some, the stock ones are fairly horrible anyway

Snap! Looks just like my Roadstar II, I found it through an ad my wife saw in the newsagents here when I had just started learning a couple of years ago. To me it has a surprisingly high output for a passive bass and plays nicely since I had it set up, I am fond of it and like the vintage look. Its well balanced and light, very comfy but I don't use it that much tbh. You don't see them come up for sale much in the UK. @Bassassin very kindly ID'ed it for me in the NBD thread I posted as a RB620NT, from August 1983, made by Fujigen Gakki The lights not very good in here but here is a picture :

Both the stacked pots on my Sire M2 stick to each other, its annoying as it means that adjusting main volume, tone (#1) and middle frequencies boost/cut (#2) is a two hand job. They were like this from new, but to be honest when I started playing I thought they were supposed to be like that as I didn't know any better 🤣 - I'm not going to tell you how long it took me to notice ( ***cough*** a long time ***cough ****) Any tricks I can try to fix it? Obviously I know I can change the pots out for different ones, I am hoping for an easier fix - I wonder is it possibly the buttons / knobs themselves rather than the pots? StackedPots.mp4

Agree with Gary on this one. I am in a similar position, been playing for 2 years. The problem with often very good used basses on here is that if you have never had the opportunity to play lots of basses then you haven’t yet homed in on what your likes / dislikes are. For example I bought a (non-StingRay) bass recently from someone who loves StingRays, I never thought I would own a StingRay because of the shape - but I tried one of his and now its on my bucket list, I was really surprised how much I liked it! The market is so full of basses, its a personal preference thing and there is so much conflicting information when you are starting out that I think you have to go to a shop and try them. Also : for sentimental reasons I suggest not selling your first bass, you will probably end up being sad about it in the future 🙂 J EDIT : Just re-read your post. As it happens my first bass is a Sire M2, its lovely to play and the pre-amp options make it super flexible and fun - definitely try one if you do go shopping!

Hi! I am now 2 years into my bass, er, thing. I mostly play my SIre M2, which I love. I also have a vintage Precision style Ibanez bass which I occasionally play (got it cheap) and a Harley Benton Jazz Bass I used to take with me while working away from home to practice on. I like the Jazz Bass but feel like I want to upgrade it to something that will last me for life (the rest of it) , but have not really tried another Jazz Bass. I live in the boonies (Tenbury Wells) so am going to have to drive somewhere. Two questions : Does anyone have any recommendations of a retailer in the Midlands who has a good selection of basses I can try ? Google suggests Guitar Guitar and PMT in Birmingham, anyone been to those? Is it worth trying to trade in my HB? It’s worth next to nothing as far as I can tell …. I am not a very confident / good player so would like somewhere ideally where I can disappear into a room or stick on headphones and spend some time. J

Hi Steve, welcome! I am also from Worcs ..... I live in Tenbury

I ended up buying these and fitting and they work OK, maybe not exactly the right size but doing the job fine. I did look at M5 washers and would probably try next time as they seem very similar

Hi, Looking for a bit of advice, on my Ibanez Roadstar 2 the D string machine head is very loose and I can't add more tension through the philips head screw on the shaft. I notice that there is a little nylon (?) bushing (see photos) on all of them and the one on the D string has snapped and I am guessing this is the reason, it may also possibly been replaced with something which looks incorrect. Does anyone know how to to replace these or where to get them? I can buy boxes of bog standard washers from anywhere if they are just general fittings, but if they are something specific then would prefer to get from reputable source and know how to change them out before ordering. Cheers J

Hi Mike, I live in Tenbury, just down the road. Welcome, I have watched a couple of your YouTube videos and frankly was blown away - amazing Jolltax

Wow, I'll look them up. The shape doesn't really worry me too much, I actually like traditional looking basses although I prefer active electronics and humbuckers. I actually just bought the components to knock together a copy of a 2 band stingray preamp, bit of soldering practice. J

I am a bit of a have-a-go sort of person and like the idea with experimenting with making my own bass - I mean from actual wood as opposing to building from parts (which is also cool). I have no intention of ever becoming a luthier or proper guitar builder, its just for fun. I like the idea of doing a guitar bass building course, the kind when you show up with a bunch of bits of wood, materials and they provide workshop equipment and expertise to help you turn it into a bass guitar. The one I am aware of is at Crimson Guitars but there may be others so I thought i would ask here .... I was also thinking of finding carpentry workshops or woodworking places near me, ideally somewhere where they have the big machine tools necessary e.g. table saws, pedestal / belt / rotary sanders etc etc. Presumably the wood working skills are the same / similar to things like furniture making. All I really got at home is hand tools and a router, I think the whole process would be massively better in a proper workshop, although I am toying with the idea of just finding a chunk of cheap pine and having a bodge at making a body from a template. Even if its a disaster I can just transfer the hardware to the next disaster and evolve it into something. If anyone had any experience of these kinds of courses or could recommend places that would be cool, I live in the Midlands in Tenbury Wells so nearer is better. There is a moderate likelihood I might be made redundant soon so could have some time on my hands and this would be fun... Jolltax

Been lurking around the internet trying to find one of these, my first non-budget bass purchase, after much googling and research I had decided a Sabre seemed to be a perfect match for all my wants (looks, the sound etc), I was particularly taken with the videos made by Lobster on the Sabre I wrote to Musicman and asked if they would be re-issuing the Sabre again and they replied saying "no immediate plan to reintroduce the EBMM Sabre" The bass, manufactured May 8th 2013 according to serial number, had been bought new by the owner and stored immediately and still had the shop tags, plastic wrap and stickers on when I picked it up for the first time, the strings had corrosion on them making it a bit unpleasant to play but were replaced by the seller with some nice zingy nickel ones. The seller is a professional musician and a big Stingray fan, he let me look at / try his Stingrays and tbh this has changed my pre-conceived ideas about Stingrays - was particularly taken with a blue 90's stingray he had, added to my bucket list for the future 😀 Its still early days for me and I am still getting used to the pre-amp and options, but I think its a keeper! J

I wanted to post a personal recommendation here for Tom Kenrick as bass teacher, a post to people (like me) who are looking for someone to help them improve their bass playing, technique and musical knowledge. I found Tom through recommendations on this forum and through his website whilst searching for bass transcriptions online. I have been taking Zoom lessons with Tom for about 10 months now, other than that I have no association with him at all and have never actually met him in person so I am writing this review entirely from the perspective of being one of his students on Zoom, I am biased though - because I think he is an excellent teacher! In addition to being a working professional musician in the UK, he also teaches, is an author of several books on bass and a Music Academy graduate. Tom is also the owner FreeBassTranscriptions website where he has published many articles and also runs a YouTube channel where you can read his bio or look at the uploads, teaching videos, reviews and lessons! Check out his playing on his Youtube channel, here is one of my favourites : Tom is a great guy and ultra-professional in his approach to his teaching, has a high quality video-audio setup which he uses to provide lessons, he is very disciplined about documenting our lessons, he always sends me a written plan and objectives following up on lessons and when I send him recordings he always comes to the lesson having listened to them and with comments. My initial reservations about learning over Zoom are gone completely, it works great! Tom is extremely patient (I am 56 years old and have been playing for just over year), he is very flexible and understanding of my other commitments (I have a rather demanding job which means I have a very unpredictable schedule). In lessons I can see he is very focused on making the best use of our time. One of the qualities I most value from him is that he is careful to point out my mistakes and give me the guidance I need but is always motivating and positive about it, I always leave the lessons feeling energised and encouraged, never demotivated. Oh, and he's good at bass, obviously ...... 😀 If you are looking for a teacher and want to talk to Tom about it - he does free consultations, have a chat with him - I can guarantee you will be impressed. If you are interested in more feedback from me on his lessons then feel free to send me a PM J

Hello, My thoughts : I spend a lot of time wrestling with PC and other devices, audio interfaces and encountering latency - by no means am I an expert though. In your original description its not really clear to me what you are describing - when I connect a bass to an audio interface I hear latency as an audible delay between when I pluck the string and the sound I hear on the computer through the DAW (not when monitoring). In general with unacceptable latency its very hard to play in time with anything on the PC / device because it means I pluck in time but the sound I play is always behind the beat - this completely addles my brain and drives me mad On a PC the following things are the things I fiddle with : ASIO drivers (make your DAW has the right ones selected) bit / sample rate (too low and you will get distortion and too high you get latency) Audio / sound card drivers and audio interface drivers What I have also learned is that low powered devices struggle generally e.g. unlike some others on here I have never managed to get my iPad Pro down to acceptable latency levels with a DAW. If your audio interface has a 'monitor' (the focusrite 2i2 does have this) then you can compare signals as the monitor output should not have any latency to speak of .... A high powered PC definitely helps, if you have an old PC then a lighter OS like Linux might help as suggested above EDIT : I just noticed you are not connecting your keyboard to the PC via the audio interface which means the above probably doesn't apply here! J

I mainly use online, since I subscribed to spotify I really stopped buying MP3's and CD's - so something connected will probably work better, but it seems like a pretty cool device! I think its really down to the Waza's or the DarkGlass Element, so i am pondering, I really like the idea of full wireless (Waza) but the appeal of the Darkglass is the idea that I can change out the headphones if (when) they break on the road.

We have had a Yamaha Clavinova electronic piano for 20 years, it was quite expensive (was £1300 new when we bought it) but it plays beautifully and nicer than any 'real' piano I could afford or fit in my house -and with the benefit of not requiring any maintenance. The keyboard is lovely, weighted and touch sensitive. My mum and my sisters all have always had 'real' pianos, personally I would rather have a Yamaha like ours although I suppose its not quite as nice to look at as a piece of 'furniture' I don't know anything about other electronic options but as a result of this post I googled ours and am surprised to see it sells for more now secondhand than when I bought it, they obviously keep their value. Not selling it though .... 😀