markdavid

52 minutes ago, prowla said:

Epiphone is Gibson's Squier - made to a price point.

If you want the real pro gear, then £1k or so ain't huge money; I know it's not loose change, but compare it to other professions' kit.

But if you take a step back and look at what you are saying, you are justifying Gibson's actions; you want one of their instruments but are buying copies.

I own no copies of any Gibson basses.  I know Epiphone is Gibsons Squier but the difference is that Squier at least produce versions of Fender basses that are fairly decent quality at all price points, Epiphone on the other hand!! I would totally gig an affinity Squier P or J bass, I would not rely on an Epiphone EB0.

17 minutes ago, BigRedX said:

@markdavid So you appear to be justifying IP theft just because you can't afford the real item.

No not at all, I am just saying that Fender by providing products at all price points have provided ways that everyone can afford to buy a decent quality P or Jazz bass from them (even the affinity range is decent these days) which is surely a better way of going about things than Gibson have done

The problem I have with Gibson's approach is that there Gibson basses are prohibitively expensive (too me at least) and whereas Fender at least offer Squier Affinity, Squier VM and Fender MIM basses and offer most of their designs in each so that you can have a useable instrument at every price point Gibson offer Epiphones which range from godawful to decent with very confusing pricing to add a little more confusion.

Take for example the EB0 (or SG as they now call it) bass, the Gibson version is around £1200.00, I cant afford that and neither can a lot of people, the Epiphone equivalent the Epiphone EB0 has crap tuners, an awful pickup that sounds not even remotely like the original and is often microphonic and questionable build quality.  In short the Epiphone EB0 is not a good bass there is not way I would gig one without considerable upgrades but that is what Epiphone offer, you could argue that I could get the Epiphone EB3 but then I lose the 30.00" scale and in ant case the Epiphone EB3 doesnt really sound anything like the Gibson version so you have 2 basses one of poor quality and one of passable quality neither of which are actually anything like the original.

Now if I look around I can fairly easily find an EB0 clone of far superior quality to the Epiphone and with a proper mudbucker for a fraction of the cost of a Gibson, however if Gibson offered a better quality Epiphone version then I would pick that without a second thought

On 10/06/2019 at 20:09, Stofferson said:

Erm, I traded it for a Warwick Thumb. I am immensely happy 

Wise move, no point wasting your time with a bass you don't click with , Ricks are gorgeous basses but so many idiosyncrasies to deal with and things that imo have no place on a bass costing as much as they do.  That being said if they brought out a short scale bass I would no doubt be tempted.

Watched this at the weekend, this is without a doubt the funniest film i've seen all year,  I laughed so hard it hurt, it is absolute comedy gold.  I don't want to spoil it for anyone that hasn't seen it so I wont say too much but my favourite bit was the dog painting.

Ok, my bass tone has taken an unexpected change,  in my defence despite playing for a while I have only recently got a proper decent combo amp so am still finding my sound. 

Anyhow with the rounds on my bass I was aiming to get a dark, ballsy, cutting tone, engaged the vintage switch which gives that tone but does not work for a lot of songs, then found myself gravitating to the complete opposite end of the spectrum and found myself cranking the treble on my amp and engaging the bright switch and switching on the amps tweeter, despite the  Hofner's reputation for bassy, thumpy sounds it can get surprisingly bright and aggressive with the right strings.

Funny how I started trying to get a sound like Paul Simonon and ended up sounding more like Bruce Foxton.

16 minutes ago, hooky_lowdown said:

Think the Hofner rounds may be steel. You need to use nickle rounds which will be more meaty than steels. Daddario nicklel rounds or DR lo riders are best imho.

Thanks, info on the Hofner rounds seems to be very limited, they feel like nickel but the tone is bright like steels so maybe they are steels.  The brightness is nice but yeah it would be nice to have more meat to the tone as they seemed to be lacking something, am not very good with eq but I am guessing it is in the lower mids as the Vintage button which is basically a low pass filter seemed to flesh out the tone considerably

On 08/06/2019 at 12:34, markdavid said:

And, after not using the Jaguar bass for a while took it to rehearsal, not sold on it tbh , strangely and almost unbelievably I have actually had more success dialling in the tone with my Hofner, maybe it's the Ti jazz flats but the Hofner actually cuts through better as well, very strange, the other thing is that after playing the Hofner exclusively for over a year the Jaguar felt really odd to play. Just goes to show what works for one person may not work for another, YMMV and all that. Will be off to get some rounds for the Hofner.

Ok so tried rounds on the Hofner with mixed results, I used really cheap rounds (Hofner contemporary  roundwounds, about£12 a  pack) so I think other rounds may give more consistent results.

Anyway I used rounds for rehearsal and did a lot of fiddling to get a decent tone in the mix with my band, initially I found the tone lacking meat, boosted low mids and the tone went kind of nasal, boosted high mids which didn't work either, tried the bass on slider on my Hofner but the tone then got too muddy.  Then I soloed the neck pickup, backed off my amps bass control a little and engaged the Vintage button on my amp and bam, there it was, not exactly like the London calling tone but close enough, a nice thick tone, dark and thick but not muddy.

Now I just need to find a roundwound with a good beefy tone with some good growl for the Hofner

3 hours ago, Doctor J said:

Elixir own the patent for wrapping the whole string after it has been wound. All other manufacturers coat the outermost wrap before it gets wound onto the string. In my experience, the Elixirs work and the others (I've tried D'Addario and Warwick, won't be squandering any money on this kind of string anymore) are pointlessly expensive with no discernible benefit.

Imo they are all pointlessly expensive, they coat them with a coating that probably costs pennies and then charge twice as much 

21 hours ago, No lust in Jazz said:

Before the Captain Birdseye Years..

 

Wow , sounds like his bass is compressed to hell in this vid

1 hour ago, hooky_lowdown said:

London calling uses a hollow bodied bass, so no coincidence your hofner gives you a sound you like.

Yeah, a lot of people say it is a p bass but tbh he uses an EB2 in the video and that is what it sounds like to me now that you mention it, it has that kind of pillowy quality to the tone 

And, after not using the Jaguar bass for a while took it to rehearsal, not sold on it tbh , strangely and almost unbelievably I have actually had more success dialling in the tone with my Hofner, maybe it's the Ti jazz flats but the Hofner actually cuts through better as well, very strange, the other thing is that after playing the Hofner exclusively for over a year the Jaguar felt really odd to play. Just goes to show what works for one person may not work for another, YMMV and all that. Will be off to get some rounds for the Hofner.

I have another suggestion.What strings are you using? Some strings (any made by Daddario for example apart from the ones they make for other companies) are naturally mid scooped. Maybe the strings on the bass do not work well with its core tone, may be worth trying other brands. My only other suggestion is try turning the bridge pickup to about half way and the neck to the point where you just start to hear it.

Thanks for the replies, sounds like a p bass is the way to go

28 minutes ago, cheddatom said:

It doesn't sound that dark to me. I'd have thought the P pickup would do it. What's your amp?

Fender rumble 500

Just now, EliasMooseblaster said:

The expensive answer might be a different bass: "dark" makes me think Thunderbird. I've heard them described as a P-bass on steroids - a lot of the same characteristics but with more thickness, and less brightness.

The less expensive answer is that you're probably right about the strings. Not a Clash expert, but I'm fairly sure Paul Simonon played a Precision with rounds. I'd have thought you could get pretty close to that tone by popping said rounds on, soloing the P pickup, and maybe playing with the tone control to suit taste. Rounds are often characterised as being all "clank" and "growl" whilst flats are more of a "thump" - and it sounds like "growl" is what you're after.

Yes, I agree about the Thunderbird, I hear that darker, thicker kind of tone on Charmer by Kings of leon (another great bass tone) , thanks will try rounds on the P and see if that works

Hi all

As per the thread title am after some advice with regards to eq, I have a Squier Jaguar p/j bass and a Hofner club , am trying to get a dark-ish tone that cuts through but am clueless when it comes to eq, whenever I try to get this kind of tone I just end up with mud,  I am using TI  flatwounds on all my basses so wondering if maybe rounds are the missing piece of the puzzle.

For a frame of reference the kind of bass tone I am aiming for is something like  London calling by the Clash ,  the bass is fairly dark sounding without being muddy  and it cuts through really well

Thanks

I hate going di but one piece of advice I can give is get a cheap backup di box, I was using one for a while and one rehearsal it died without warning, inconvenient at a rehearsal but if it was a gig would have ruined the whole night.

If you are on Facebook there are a couple of Hofner pages on there , you will need to join them but they will tell you in no uncertain terms if it is fake or not although it seems unlikely that it is, at any rate given the low price point the most important thing is whether you think it is worth the money, whether you like it or not

https://www.facebook.com/groups/329769803775341/?ref=br_rs

https://www.facebook.com/groups/2260582823/

Ok, had a listen and I don't hear a p bass tone as others have suggested though I see why they would have thought that, there is a very specific quality unique to the mids in a p bass  and that I am not hearing in the soundclip.  Not sure what bass to recommend for that sound but maybe @Reggaebass suggestion of fender 62RI is a good place to start, I am hearing a warm tone with not a lot going on in the upper frequencies so I am thinking something with vintage voiced pickups and the right strings will get you there, I am guessing it is either flatwounds or nickel rounds with some highs rolled off in the clip.

That may be why the OP is having trouble finding that tone from a Jazz bass , not listened to the track yet btw so am going purely on @kyuuga s post

Thanks guys

Am wondering what kind of money we should be asking for gigs, we gave the place that we played at a really good price as it is our first gig (band has not been together that long) and we knew that in all likelihood there would probably be a fair few bum notes played.  For the moment we will be playing pub gigs.  Thanks

42 minutes ago, Staggering on said:

I hope I'm not being rude but I can't be the only one who is wondering how the gig went...don't keep us in suspense any longer.😧

...oh,maybe it's because the post gig party is still going on and you are also in intense negotiations with agents and others who want to manage your ascension to  stardom...let's hope!😊

No not being rude at all.

Thankfully we cut the set list to 20 songs

The first half of the gig went well, almost flawless.

The second half was mostly ok but a few bum notes, mostly in the song that I anticipated that there would be (tried to get the singer to axe that song but he won't) , thankfully none of the audience seemed to notice and we received a few compliments afterwards.

All in all I consider it to be a minor success and hopefully we will play tighter on the next gig.

Thank you for the well wishes, hopefully the gig goes well tonight

How about these

Daddario Eliptical end pins

I use them and seem to work well, less than a tenner too