Boodang

I'm a diehard pedal fan and I think the reason for this is that I've yet to find a multi fx that can sound as good as dedicated effects. For me it's quality over quantity, although the size of my pedal board is suffering!

Our stand in bassist plays pick with a Pbass and flatwounds and it sounds great. Less top end than the roundwounds obviously but has a 'thump' that really pushes thru.

Over the last 2 years I've gone on a bit of a pedal buying spree and the equilibrium has settled at just over 20 units. But despite all the 'interesting' fx,and an honorable mention has to go to the Walrus Slo, the most inspirational has been the Aguilar Grape Phaser. In theory quite a 'plain' pedal but it's taken the place of all my envelope filters and set me on a path to fully exploit it with a flurry of rhythmic pick playing aka Chris Squire style.

For a change I'm currently playing drums in a cover band, usual mix of pop rock stuff. Our regular bass player has a great finger, solo tone, but live we're boosting the high mids to make it cut thru. Our stand in bassist mainly plays pick and the tone cuts thru with no eq adjustments. Interesting is the case of Steve Swallow who not only swapped double bass for electric but played with a copper pick in order to cut thru and be heard.

Our vocalist just bought the Zoom V6. Great to use live as quite possibly easier to use than the Helicon with separate pedals for individual effects.

TC Hall of Fame 2.... there's some good toneprints that will meet your needs.

Well, to achieve that we'd all have to go and do something silly like.... playing bass rather than talking about it!

One thing I forgot to add... must exclusively play an electronic kit. That way you have a volume control.

Geddy and Alex must be gutted to know how bad their drummer was.

1. Turns up with a set of spare strings as opposed to the statement 'I've never broken a string yet!'. 2. Never plays slap.* 3. Turns up with, and does play, double bass. *slap on DB rockabilly style is the exception.

As a drummer as well as a bassist; 1. Play a solid groove. 2. Fills and flourishes that are appropriate and well executed. 3. Dynamics (this can't be underestimated). As a band we operate the 'no *rsehole' rule, so all the above means sh*t all unless this criteria is met!

Basses are meant to be played and if it were me (and I've done this myself in the past) I wouldn't be precious about it. If you like the feel of the neck, get it fretted if that's what you want. After all, despite all the fuss by those that call them vintage, it's still a cheaply made, mass produced, bolt on neck solid body and hardly a Stradivarius!

There's a good YouTube video which compares about 8 different J pickups (played back to back and just a few minutes long with no commentary), which will give you a good idea of which to go for. The ones that sound the least like normal jazz pickups are the DiMarzio model J (DP-123), which is not surprising giving that they are inline humbuckers. With these you could not only fit a series/parallel switch between the 2 pickups but also a switch for each pickup for the two coils. This would give you great variety of tone without even going near any eq. Tempted to give it a go myself.

Keep all the filters of course!! Also, I found the Seamoon doubles as a really nice LPF when you roll off the depth.... really adds a lot of low end punch without being boomy, provided you don't set the frequency too low of course as it is capable of ridiculous bowel moving low end.

I heartily concur with this. I installed a Starr Guitars dual volume/tone preamp on my jazz with a serial/parallel switch. All the tones you expect in parallel and in series mode a giant humbucker with loads of balls.

Also.... with few exceptions most pedal fx's i own sound better than the equivalent in a multi fx unit. I'd rather have fewer quality fx than a plethora of average ones.

Line 6, Zoom, Source Audio and a few others, have come and gone because of their interface. Either obscure, infuriating or just unsatisfying to use and consequently have ended up being sold. Knob twiddling!! A multi fx with knobs on please!

I use the EHX parallel tri mixer to blend pedals. Three channels and each one has a phase switch.

Interestingly, and depressingly, a study was done by a UK university very recently that came to the conclusion that there is no level of alcohol intake that is safe, including the eponymous odd glass of red wine. As regards compression, I don't use any on my double bass (being acoustic I feel it sounds better without it), but with my bass guitars I use compression in all its forms from light to super aggressive as a means of tone manipulation.

Of course you mean Chaircut 100!

I'm in a covers band, this time as the drummer but I usually play bass. The bass player in the band is borrowing my kit and to get a good mix live we are boosting the mids. Specifically around 800hz and as the bassist is playing finger style there's also a slight boost around 3k. Sits in the mix nicely.

It seems genre has a bearing on this. Rock, pop etc there's an a certain energy level expectation and in the case of vocals, the inevitable change in range that comes with getting older, whereas most of the jazz legends just seem to get better with age.

Surely Ron Carter deserves a mention!

I have managed a solution to the 5 string conundrum... I string mine high C instead. But back to the OPs original question, for me tone wise it's a Jazz (I particularly like the pups wired in series) but as I hate bolt on necks with a passion it's a custom J with a set neck.

I think your example of a Martin guitar sums it up... for me I wouldn't use compression on my double bass but for my solid body bass guitar I do use it.