LeftyJ

I've had several PJ basses, and didn't bond with some but loved others. Can't really put my finger on how or why to be honest, but I recon it must have something to do with experience. I've never been one to tweak knobs a lot and put a lot of effert into finding tones I like. I've always appreciated basses where I could just set the controls to neutral and max the volume and get a good base tone. If that didn't work for me, a bass was often quickly dismissed. Nowadays I do appreciate having to fine-tune the controls a little before getting a useful and good tone from a bass. 1987 Ibanez SR800LE with active pickups: sounded nothing like any Fender (obviously). Totally had its own thing going on, and it wasn't for little, inexperienced me back then - but I might like it now. Very clean, somewhat bright and a fantastic slap tone (I played a lot of RATM on that bass!); 1990s G&L SB2 with the most loudmouthed splitcoil I've ever experienced: MFD splitcoil + singlecoil, with just two volume controls and nothing more. Could do a traditional Fender P-bass tone when I kept the volume below 80%, but would eat woofers for breakfast with the volume maxed: really loud, high-output with very strong low mids. The bridge pickup was useless on its own to me, but worked great for using it as the "tone control" of the splitcoil. Wasn't for me, I'm a everything-at-10 kind of guy and that was too much on that beast. It was beautiful and played great, and I really wanted it to work out; 1981 Ibanez RS924: fantastic. Did a great P-bass tone and amazing slap tones. Only sold because in the end, I found that thinner and narrower necks suit me better; 1983 Ibanez MC924: fantastic. Will never sell that one! It's just one month younger than me, it looks like it went through a LOT but it plays and sounds fantastic; 2001 Warwick Streamer LX: only bought it because it was cheap and I wanted to try one. Quickly became my favourite 4-string ever! The active reverse P + J sounds bright and hifi but the on-board 2-band EQ is voiced very nicely and offers a huge range of tones. Won't do traditional Fender tones, and the J pickup is too weak to use on its own but I've really come to appreciate what this bass can do. Only the MC924 and the Streamer are still mine, I sold the others.

That thing frightens me I'm a huge fan of the Warwick bridge. The adjustability is great: - the saddles can be raised and lowered; - the intonation range is huge; - the string spacing can be adjusted (limited adjustment range, but it's there); - the bridge as a whole can be raised and lowered; - everything solidly locks into place. It has some downsides too though: - the stock bridge on Rockbass and most German basses is a cast metal job, and on 6-strings and Broadneck 5-strings has been known to bend under string tension. There is a version machined from solid brass, but it comes at a cost (scary money); - the separate tailpiece is picky about string gauge: too thick and you'll need to squeeze it flat with a pair of pliers first or it won't fit; - it's pretty big, and requires routing for both the bridge and the separate tailpiece.

My disappointment was immeasurable when I clicked the thread and it wasn't about Super Mario. I misread

I think that Torpedo bridge was a concept by an engineering student who did an internship at Aristides Guitars? Very cool and clean concept, I like it! I think the top picture shows an Aristides 050 as well?

Calm down now, nothing to lose your head over.

The emoticon won't show, so I'm not sure if you're trolling or being serious but literally no two are the same.

Ibanez just released a unique range of 50 one-of-a-kind custom shop guitars and basses to commemorate 50 years of Hoshino USA. Some are made in their LA custom shop, and some in their Japanese shop. Most are guitars, but there are some basses among them as well. They won't be available outside the US, and there's only one of each but I thought they were too beautiful not to share 😎 Each one of them has a story, and several detailed pictures. https://www.ibanez.com/usa/special/50th_Anniversary/50-guitars.html

My band used it in 2013 when we recorded an album. We recorded the guitars through a buffered splitter, with one channel straight into Cubase and one channel going through an AxeFX to have the feel of the amplified tone while recording. The guitars were then reamped through a Radial X-amp reamp DI (to solve any impedance issues when going from a line signal back to an instrument input) into an ENGL Powerball with a mic'ed ENGL 412 and a Mesa Mk IV with a dual-mic'ed Mesa Road King 412 cab (dual mics because one half of the cab is closed-back with V30's and one half is half-open back with Celestion Custom 90 and sounds very different). Worked a treat! We have the luxury of our own rehearsal space in a former cable factory, which we share with our sound engineer, who has built a brilliant studio in the same space with a well-insulated control room, and we did the re-amping at night when the building is empty so we didn't bother anyone with the volume.

Passive basses: all controls wide open. Active basses: volume wide open, EQ controls all at the center detent and ocassionally changed to taste when the song asks for a subtle boost or cut. Exception: my Status S2 Classics. They have a filter-based mid control that's finnicky, with a variable frequency sweep and fixed boost and cut. I don't touch it much as it can be a bit overwhelming, but I try to leave the filter knob in one position that just "works" for a solid low mid boost, and leave the switch in the center (off) position until I need said boost. I never use the cut setting because it comes with a significant volume drop. It's mostly a set-and-forget affair for me.

Antigua! Or 1961 Surf Burst.

LOL, never gets old huh?

This has been a very interesting thread so far, and I'm really curious how it will unfold. The issue at hand ("Help, my [Bass X] won't sound like a [Bass X]") is not an uncommon one, and I have experienced it with both guitars and basses alike with some of my instruments. Less than two weeks ago I picked up a used Ibanez guitar of which I've had 3 before, and I thought my latest one sounded much darker and woolier than I remembered. That is, until I gave it a proper setup! I lowered the action and checked pickup height (without changing the strings), and hey presto: it brightened up massively. @Tdw's and @shoulderpet's tips are very valid and useful ones, and I too would start there

I use an EBS HD350 head with an EBS ProLine 410 as my main amp for rehearsals, but I gig with a 19" preamp straight to the desk. In my rack are an Ampeg SVP-CL and an SVP-Pro, both brilliant tube preamps with the classic Ampeg tone. The CL is the preamp section of the SVT Classic in a 1HE housing, and the Pro is the preamp section of the SVT2 Pro in a 1HE space with the graphic EQ and a drive section. I also have an SWR Grand Prix (Prix / Pre, get it? ) which is very nice but which has some slight issues. I have barely used it since getting it, it needs some love and needs to get used more!

To be fair, my 01 and 03 LX's don't look too far off from that 2nd, most recent one - except for the body edges. The horns are not flat, but slightly concave as they have long been. The control area has this too, but it appears to be more pronounced on for example my LX5 below. You can still see it clearly from the lighting in the lower horn of that 5-string SS2. It's worse on some other models though: take a look at the Rob Trujillo model for example

I can safely say I get along with many types of basses too. However, there have been a few oddities in my collection that weren't for me: - Narrow string spacing at the bridge is fine on a 5-string, but somehow I hated it on 4-strings (Hohner B2A, Aria SB-1000); - Flat radius. I like a curved fingerboard or a compound radius; - Narrow bodies. I like something to rest my wrist or lower arm on (again, Hohner B2A was NOT for me); - Short (or absent) upper horns that place the upper strap button too close, and thereby move the nut too far away; - 35" scale length. I owned two Yamaha TRB5II's, and they were fantastic. But despite having large hands, I didn't like the stretch in the first few positions. Otherwise I guess most is fine with my. Gloss necks, satin necks, oiled necks, narrow nuts, wide nuts, longscale, shortscale, I really don't mind. Edit: Forgot to add I generally don't get along well with basses with only one pickup when it's moved too far from the neck! I'm not a big fan of the MM sound but it has its use, but closer to the bridge is a nono for me if there's no neck pickup to beefen it up.

Ha! Now you've got me Googling fiercely too. Looks like I got my order mixed up, and Spector weren't first: Steinberger introduced the L-series basses with the saddle lock in 1980, before Spector started using a derivative of that same bridge but without the tuning section. The Steinberger bridge needs the side lock, because it doesn't have intonation adjustment screws and the saddles would move freely if they weren't locked in place. So G&L and Steinberger indeed couldn't have been far apart!

Yep, Spector did it first around 1980. Ned Steinberger designed that bridge, and used a variation on that design on his own basses later. To me, the grand master of inventing solutions to problems that don't exist is Nobuaki Hayashi, better known as H. Noble. Formerly of Matsumoku fame, and now the mad scientist behind Atlansia Basses. His designs are often beautifully engineered, but overly complex and bulky. His wildest is probably this, with fine-tuners and a string bender:

Is that the regular pedal version, without the XLR DI out? Mine was this: It's the Ampeg SVP-CL, and it's basically the preamp section of the SVT Classic in a 1HE rack unit with a Jensen transformer-balanced DI out that sounds great. My main preamp when playing live and rehearsing is the SVP-PRO, but the CL is quieter and cleaner and I like the more straightforward EQ.

Wow, that silverburst + maple is supersexy. Would probably work well as a shortscale too!

My tactic has always been "buy to try". I buy most of my musical gear used, and if I don't like it I sell it with zero loss. I've never been much of an FX guy, and most pedals I've owned throughout the years were just to tinker with at home. Two years ago I finally put together a small pedalboard with a few basic commodities on a Pedaltrain Nano. Before that I've owned several envelope filters, chorus pedals, delays and a few drive pedals. I did of course bring them along to rehearsals to try them with my bands, because what sounds good at home could sound like rubbish in a full mix (or not punch through at all). I have owned: - Fulltone Bassdrive (an earlier model without the mosfet switch). Still owned and much loved, but I mostly use it for guitar rather than bass; - Rodenberg GAS-828. Brilliant for guitar, and has usable settings for bass as well. Still owned, and definitely not going anywhere; - Ashdown James Lomenzo Hyperdrive (long gone, not for me); - EBS Metaldrive (terrible. The drive knob acts like an on/off-switch on this one, there's zero subtlety possible); - Darkglass B7K, permanently on my board and my go-to drive pedal for my metalband.

I just picked up a 1993 Ibanez RG470 with the old square heel neck joint for stupid money. It was being offered local to me and I couldn't resist. It spent the better part of its 29 year life in the (original) case because the seller had issues with his hands and couldn't play it. He just treated himself to a nice MIM Strat and decided to sell this.

Looks cool! The proportions are weird, with that tiny dreadnought body and that long neck, but it looks like a ton of fun! Alvarez is indeed great. I had a ABT60 baritone g**t*r for a while. It was HUGE, with a 27 23/32" scale and a ginormous jumbo body. I had it tuned to B with very heavy strings (I think the lowest was a .072") and I loved the huge tone I got out of it.

New gear day! Integrated truss rod tool too. Clever.

* Tetris music intensifies *