Boodang

I have a headless bass with ABM hardware and I've been unsuccessful in clamping any Thomastik strings on it without them unraveling when tuned up. In fairness to Thomastik they're not the only ones that don't like being abused in this way. Unfortunately I believe that by going headless you're restricting the number of strings you can use. Most strings are not designed to be cut below the silk and then have the windings crushed! Consequently I'm using double ball end strings but the choice is limited. Worse thing I did was have a custom made as a headless.

I love barts and feel they have an organic tone. For my Sei bass I had a custom triple coil MM Bartolini made.... 2 live coils and a dummy coil for humcancelling, and the ability to switch series or parallel. Originally had an active preamp onboard but like the raw sound of the pickup so much I took it out. And I have an 8S P which sounds fantastic on my fretless.

I bought a protection racket case recently for my custom Sei as the foam had disintegrated from it's original flight case. I bought it as a temporary solution but it's so good I'm not going to bother to get the flight case refitted.

My 2 main basses are a Jazz and a custom Sei Flamboyant. The jazz neck starts to join the body at the 15th fret and the Sei at the 24th fret. In consequence the body on the Sei bass is about half that of the jazz and far more ergonomic to play. When you put the two side by side the jazz body looks unnecessarily large. I love the jazz but I might be tempted to get a smaller bodied version made without a cumbersome neck joint.

Slight update as I got a new sound out of the pedal. Was playing a root octave by repeatedly plucking with thumb and index, and it does a remarkable didgeridoo impression! Quite hypnotic. I'll do a sound clip of it soon.

Yep, same here... have gone full circle and now very much into my passive basses.

If I remember correctly, Schack guitars used to do a neck joint which was a 'tongue & groove' design, so it was held together by the tension of the strings. I could be imagining this but I always thought that this arrangement would make it easy to disassemble the bass by just releasing string tension. Not sure how well it would work though.

Actually the sustain is quite good. On most presets you could hold a note for at least a bar at a slow-ish tempo. The sounds are really good but the thing that's made me keep it is the addition of an expression pedal which really brings it alive.

If you do have to open the wallet.... I have the ehx mono synth and you just have to be very clean with your playing to avoid all artifacts but other than that it does sounds good. Alternatively, you could always use a bit of octaver to get synthy overtones and an octave pedal would probably be more versatile for other stuff as well. ... just seen your latest post!!

How on earth would you amplify it?!! 11.5hz!!

I bought a Palmer PWT 12 from Gear 4 music for £121. 12 isolated outputs, 8 x 9v, 300mA each output and 4 variable from 6 to 18v, 500mA each. Works a treat. Only issue, it comes with a 'wall wart' psu with the 2 pin euro plug. I just use an adapter but it's not really a problem.

So, @BillyBass, with the Jam Ripple Fall bass pedal.... how are you liking it? And do you want to sell it?!

Ah, the difference between acoustic, woodwind, brass, violin family, compared to a lump of wood with a pickup.

Is that because your fingers are busy picking your nose rather than your bass?!

Yes.... but you started it!!

Don't know about the Ibanez but I have a custom headless with ABM hardware and there are many strings that refuse to be clamped. So, strings I've tried to use with my fretless but have resulted in destruction; TI flats, La Bella nylons, Galli Synthesis, DR Sunbeams. Not saying the Ibanez will do the same but non double ball end strings in general are not designed to be abused in this cut & clamped way. I think by going headless you are restricting the type and number of strings you can use.

Actually, now I think about it, as much as I might have a sound in my head, my sound has more or less found me. My first bass was a s/h fretless because I thought it looked 'sexy'! My first amps I bought because they 'came my way' and were cheap. And bought pedals because I like the artwork on them. So to a certain extent the tone I have at any given time happens a bit by chance.

Jam pedals are great... looking at this for those 'Jaco' moments...

A very interesting take on a flanger... I'm interested in this... more gas, aaahhh!!

Doc Lloyd photon death ray! Compressor with a side chain eq based on the human hearing.... so were assuming logarithmic (side chain is for triggering comp not eq'ing signal). Sucker for pedals which take a different approach. Has good reviews and apparently good for bass, has a slower attack than the Diamond comp so let's initial transients through. And great artwork! Can't find one for sale though.

See... now I want one of these as well! Trouble is, you know it's going to be expensive when you have to email to find out the price.

The guy at New Cut Studios really knows his stuff and what could have been a dry article is actually quite entertaining. Trouble is I now fancy an AMP BH-420 as a result of reading it... more GaS!! I did see one for sale which is supposed to have been the one Jaco was given by the company. As you can imagine, quite expensive, but then maybe it still has some of Jaco's mojo in it!!

Maybe if you had played the John Cage piece 4'33" you would have had more success.

My expensive custom bass doesn't sound any better than my cheap basses but it does play better. Having said that, at the moment I seem to prefer playing my Squier basses which all have custom pickups installed. It changes but at the moment the most important element in my tone (other than my fingers!!) are strings, which I think are a critical factor, and a decent compressor. At the height of his career Jaco almost wouldn't play live without his Acoustic 360, saying it was an essential part of his tone. But Jaco would sound like Jaco whatever he was playing.

Anybody got experience with this compressor? Just came across it and been reading some reviews, so now I can feel some GaS coming on!