thodrik

Get a valve amp and drive it hard. P bass optional. Getting an all valve head is expensive buying new though. A second hand Ampeg Pro hybrid would be pretty good. Failing that get a tube pedal like the English Muff'n or EBS Valvedrive, or a VT bass type pedal and stick it before the Ashdown. It would do the job and save money. Like what others have said I would look at maybe getting a new pickup or bass before deciding to spend loads on an amp. You could do far worse than an Evo head.

Sometimes it just comes into my head, when doing something else, then I need to find an instrument to try it out, usually it the bass. Sitting down composing is usually with the bass. I usually compose it as if its a bass solo piece. So I build up chords, melodic runs, and loads of other bits that I have no intention of playing in a band environment. This way I have the skeleton of the song and an idea of what I want the guitar to do. I write with the guitar as well, but I don't believe that the guitar is necessarily a better instrument for composing. The bass is only limited if you are trying to write a bassline, rather than a song/composition. If you are using the guitar to write a bunch of bloc guitar chords, then its not really any better. I just tend not to use keys/piano. Mostly because I don't own any.

I really liked the bass tone from the guy in Dozer, nothing fancy just great tone that was usually mixed quite well. And on the singing stoner bassists front I'll say Lou Gorra from Halfway to Gone. Just cool. My personal favourite would probably be Torche though, as the whole band provides bass tone! If Deftones count as a modern band I would stick them in too. In terms of famous bands of the moment, nobody really springs to mind. The guy in Alexisonfire has a fairly nice Jazz bass growl at times. Sometimes I almost think the guy in Nickleback gets a good tone, but I'm not sure if it is 'tone' but rather a case of each note being produced to within an inch of its life!

Awwww, this is an valve amp that gets me a bit giddy!

Tried out a Classic in a shop when looking at a bass. I was playing at a very low volume and a tube went. The guy in the shop then plugged me into an Aguilar DB750, which just sounded so much better. That said, I've seen so many bassists using SVT Classics that have had a great tone and I've never been at a gig where a tube Ampeg has cut out or gone wrong live. Tube amps both excite and scare me. The quality control on Ampeg seems to be as varied as trying out a Fender bass, you could try one out and have a dud, or try one and think 'this is the best thing ever!' They are still a big name, but I'm not sure they can really be classed as the 'industry standard' anymore. I must say that I was buying my last amp, I really didn't consider Ampeg Classic or VR, because I just didn't feel I could trust it in a gig to gig situation. They are also expensive and power tubes are expensive!

After listening to a few, I just concluded that Dual Recs tend to swamp over a lot of the bass frequencies by stealing a lot of space in the mix that would normally be taken up by the bass, which in turn can make it difficult to get the bass to cut through. That said, a good amp even if only 300 watts, played through a decent 8x10 should cut through any live/practice situation. The Ashdown ABM Head shouldn't really struggle, though I'm not keen on their cabs but that is just me. Don't rule out a good 6x10 either, just about as loud as an 8x10 but a but more portable. Unless, you are playing large venues all the time, turning up with an 8x10 to smaller venues can make soundmen take an immediate dislike to you. If you are tuning down and have space to transport them, you could buy a couple of 2x15s and find some space under the guitarists. Its funny that these amps are designed for use in large arenas and stadiums, but the Roadrunner bands playing said arenas probably have empty cabs and are playing through rackmounted effects units sitting behind the stage. Regardless, if those guitarists are turning up that loud, they had better be good!

If you still love the tone of Trace Elliot, you could always just get another head. Second hand Trace heads are everywhere and a Series 6 or SMX type head would also be dirt cheap and be generally pretty reliable. That said if buying new I would personally be looking at other options than Trace Elliot, as I find the new stuff to a little bit overpriced. You wouldn't really be going wrong with a Markbass, the couple I have tried have been great. Also around that price you could try the EBS Classic 450, HD 350 and the Aguilar AG500. Thats a bit of a shame on the amp front though, with the issues of the amp though, you may not get that much money for it. Might be an idea to just play it until it craps out.

I love old Fenders, I have a 1978 Precision which plays great and I could never sell With that out of the way at this point in my life if I'm getting a bass it has to be one that I'm going to play and gig regularly. Owning a piece of history is great, but as I've found out, history can sometimes play and sound like a dog. I always thought I would pay £2000 plus for an old Fender J bass if it was 'the one', but knowing that a Sandberg, a new Fender Deluxe or a Sadowsky Metro are all cheaper than a lot of these vintage basses makes me wonder if it the 'Vintage' basses are worth the bother, from a general playing standpoint. Although lacking in 'mojo' these basses are finished to a very high standard, use good quality wood and have improved pickups and eq systems (to my ears anyway). I suppose its like wanting a Wal or Fodera though, if you really want an old beat up Fender then you need to pay the price. You can try out the 'relic' finishes, but it just never looks right!

Aaarrrgghhhh, every time I see an Arpege or Passion it just about puts me in fits! I've never tried one, but I have owned an Excess for the best part of six years. The best built bass I've ever played. I would love to get my hands on an Arpege or Passion, I've heard that the neck profile is a bit slimmer than the Excess, but until I try one I can't really tell if it would agree with me. Also since I'm not in the frame for buying a bass, I fear trying one out would be a bad idea, because if I liked the bass it would then mean I would somehow have to find a way to buy one, which given my current financial status could be a problem! Although I love the Excess, I find the neck to be a bit wide near the nut compared to a Fender-J style bass, and with my small hands I can't really cover the fretboard with the speed I would like when just practising technique orientated stuff. The sound more than makes up for this though.

I use a Park 25 watt amp. It has lasted 11 years without any issues. The tone is actually pretty good. Apart from the VBA 400 its the best bass amp I have tried that is associated with Marshall. I'm guessing that most of the modern practice amps have a lot more cool features though! I love the new little EBS combo and once saw a little HiWatt combo in a shop that at least looked awesome. I would love a cool practice amp, but until this one breaks I'm gonna just make do.

[quote name='Annoying Twit' post='776126' date='Mar 16 2010, 11:45 AM']Not a Vintage Modified? The VMJs are going for about £220 lowest online price. Plus p&p of course. The Affinity Jazz is about £150 same deal. Surely the VMJ wins for value for money? No?[/quote] Well, the Affinity Jazz is cheaper. If what you want is a cheap electric bass that looks like a Fender Jazz bass, has four strings, pickups and a bridge and works fine, surely that is the definition of value for money? VMJs are more expensive, and have a few extra features. In my opinion they would only obviously be better value for money than the Affinity series if they were the same price. But the VMJs are more expensive. Its about £75 quid difference for what is still a pretty basic bass, which is about half the price of an Affinity Jazz. I'm sticking to my original answer.

[quote name='ThomBassmonkey' post='775912' date='Mar 16 2010, 03:25 AM']It's an active, as per the title. Yeah I have tried changing the battery, sorry, forgot to cross that off the checklist. I do have to crank the amp compared to my other basses and in the studio they had problems getting a strong signal. I talked to someone else on here that was selling one recently and they said it was quiet but not that bad. Maybe it's just they haven't been in a situation to notice with it or something. This may be a silly question, but when a SS amp starts breaking up, is it at a set point on the amp (e.g. always 5 o clock) or is it to do with the signal strength too? I'm pretty sure that one or two of my other basses can go through my amp and get louder without it breaking up. Is it because the input signal's stronger so the amp isn't working as hard to amplify it or should the amp start clipping at the same internal volume regardless of the input strength? Like I said above, it has lasted me years, ironically I'm hopefully going to be getting a new bass this year, so it's quite late to think about doing something about this. If I hadn't had problems in recording with it recently, I wouldn't be questioning it so it'll do until I get something new in a few months. Just one of those things where you think "well if I can find an easy solution, I should go with it". Thanks for the helpful reply though.[/quote] My eyes weren't working last night, I totally missed the 'active' bit!

Is it an active or passive bass? A passive is generally not going to be as loud as an active bass. Unless you try your bass side by side with another bass of same model, it will be difficult to tell if yours has a lower output than the rest. If its active, I know this is stupidly obvious but have you tried changing the battery? Sorry, if there are obvious problems with the eq etc then its probably best to take it to a repair shop, if possible one with experience of Ibanez basses. Also if it sounds great but just has a low output, couldn't you just crank the gain on the amp a bit? Amps in my experience only start breaking up or clipping when they are being driven hard/too hard. If the output is too low to even drive an amp properly then you might as well take to repair shop as there is clearly be something wrong with it.

Buying new, if you find a good Squier Affinity Jazz then it surely must be considered value for money. Or a Westfield. Buying second hand bass, you can always find some guy selling a great piece of kit for silly prices simply because they don't know what they have. Almost new Stingrays going for £400 and so on. You just have to be lucky I guess. Always thought that the Marcus Miller Jazz stood out as a great mid-price bass that could compete with more expensive basses. I've not tried a Geddy Lee but it seems to have a good reputation as well. I suppose it depends on your budget and what you want to get using said budget.Using the philosophical 'whatever bass makes you happiest', it could be a Six string Fodera constructed only out of the wood from the tree from the Garden of Eden.

Well I suppose I'm using some kind of moveable anchor/floating thumb technique. I find it to be more flexible personally allowing for quick changes to tapping, slap or double-thumbing (none of which I tend to do at gigs!) I always found thumbrests to get in the way when playing a jazz bass, also I have small hands so I always find them to be too far away from the strings! Probably why I move my thumb about as well.

[quote name='ThomBassmonkey' post='772091' date='Mar 11 2010, 08:54 PM']I've not had that yet, drop D is for lazy 5th chords so guitarists don't tend to go so fast if they have to move back to a normal fingering position IME. Lazy buggers. I've never had problems with changing strings at all in 4th tunings while the guitarist's been in drop D. Yeah, I used 110s I think last time but if I'm dedicating a bass to the tuning, I'd rather have the right gauge strings. Would 115s be enough or should I try and search out some 120s do you think?[/quote] Yeah, I tried doing DGCF tuning and then the guitarist decided to do a riff that needed an open D and G string as well, it just made more sense for me to stay in drop D (which I still don't like if I'm honest). I think lots of Tool songs are based around a low D and a higher open D as well. If its for big sounding riffs I would take 120s, they wouldn't feel loose or slippery and would sound fairly tight. Anything more than that would be a bit excessive in my opinion as its only tuning each string a tone down.

Problem with drop d guitarists is that sometimes the riff is only playable using Drop D tuning, and as such trying to play the same riff using DGCF becomes a pain in the hole leading to even more annoying shapes! Used to hate playing in drop D (every band seems to do it), but I've had to live with it for so long now that you just get used to the shapes and get on with it. I ended up just putting thick strings and changing just the bottom string to get lower notes so at times I'm tuned CADG, BADG, or on the one occassion, AADG. I don't need a 'tight' low B so I've never really felt that I needed a five string. Saying that, going to DGCF isn't that severe, even a medium set 105-45 would probably do the job, though 110s or 115 would probably sound better, but I suppose it depends on the string tension you want.

I've owned an all original 1978 Fender Precision for about 9 years. I got it for £390 quid and apart from a few dings it is in mint condition still. See when I got it, the late 70s fender Precisions were cheap 'players' basses in that 1970s basses were not held in high opinion. Now even 1970s Precisions are going for over a grand and are becoming more of an investment than a working bass. I absolutely love my Precision, it has so much sentimental value to me as my first proper bass. I have never played a Fender Jazz new or old from the same period that comes close to it, and it plays as well as any bass I've ever tried. Yet, sentimental and notions of 'vibe and history aside, does it come close to my Vigier and Sadowsky Metro in terms of build quality, electronics and amplified sound without the aid of a good preamp and much time spent working with the eq? Not even close! I'm tempted to stick on a new bridge and some pick ups, maybe even turn it into an active bass. However, then it loses value as an investment and loses the original 'vibe'. Tricky issue, but I'm never gonna sell it anyway, so the value isn't that important despite them being vastly superior basses the Vigier and the Sadowsky would go first, as the Fender, despite all its faults, is still a Fender.

They certainly look very nice, very Sadowskyish in terms of features. I kinda liked the humbucker on the P bass as it added a real added 'ooomph' to the sound, now its just a standard PJ bass which really doesn't excite or interest me. I might be in the minority though. Colours and body shape are a great improvement on the last/current US Deluxe line. I always hated the Black/Montego orangey combination! The move to 22 frets is a shame but maybe they needed to do that to complement the new body shape. I would have liked a 24 fret jazz bass but there you go.

Well, I watched it and apart from the inclusion of Budgie and Diamond Head bits it felt like I was watching Deep Purple and Black Sabbath, Rock Family Trees, except at the same time! Since these shows were played later on, made me hear Ian Gillan telling the same stories, but with several different hair cuts. Seriously though, a lot of the stories have been told by the same guys on so many other documentaries. Its good for what it was but it would be nice if the beeb put any interest in contemporary heavy rock/metal rather than basically pretending that heavy metal/rock music ceased to exist after about 1983, much like most 'rock' radio stations! Saying that, I though Rob Halford's contributions were brilliant, and outlining the importance of the midlands was a nice touch.

[quote name='JMT3781' post='766902' date='Mar 7 2010, 02:25 PM']the salesman came out with this jem: "The thing with sadowsky metro basses, they arn't trying to be anything special" anyone else thinks this warrants a 1500 + price tag? surely this isn't one of sadwoky's marketing slogans [/quote] I think they were probably meaning in terms of looks, in that they look very much like Fenders. They don't have any overly fancy tops or finishes or relic effect. The key to the metro basses are the pickups, the bridge and the general fit and finish which are generally great. Yes they are Japanese rather than American but they are far from being budget basses. The ones I have tried more than hold their own against the few Overwaters, Peavey Cirrus, Wals in terms of construction, pickups, sound and playability, if not in terms of having a distinct unique look or design. They are also very unfussy basses that don't require much time spent to eq etc, which makes them really great when playing gigs or recording. The sound as well is pretty unique to Sadowsky in my opinion, which some people just don't take to anyway. I find it almost impossible to dial in a 'vintage' fender sound on a Sadowsky, even with the VTC. If you want that sound, then you are probably better off getting a Fender. I think that when the four string metros were in the £1300-1500 category that was bang on. Now they have gone up again to starting at £1700, which is pushing it a bit. Suppose its a sign of the times though as the prices of NYCs have gone up as well.

Its not just shops, have you tried to listen to any kind of gear demo video from NAMM only to be distracted by a "KATOWWWW CACK" noise in the background. Many of them are fairly interchangeable as well. I suppose being 23, a lot of my generation grew up on Flea. When I moved to Glasgow aged 18, I quickly learned that if you go into a music shop and find a suspicious looking guy plugging in a Stingray, then its best to have an exit stratagy, as bad slapping is likely to take place imminently. Personally I like slap bass when used alongside other techniques to create a variation in tones, textures etc, but for me it should be learned only after mastering the basics. These include: playing in time, knowing when a string is way out of tune and how to fret a note. Not that I think of myself as a guide to all other bassists but I only started slapping when I was seventeen and had been playing for about 5 years. Mind you, I grew up in an 'unfunky' environment, mainly listening to rock and blues with Flea and Les Claypool being my only slap bass heroes. A person growing up with motown and Marcus Miller might have had more of an incentive to pick the technique up more quickly. I'm sure that the bass section of the shop in Waynes World with the 'No Stairway' sign had a similar sign which said: 'No slapping and popping in the key of E'.

[quote name='bassatnight' post='766445' date='Mar 6 2010, 08:37 PM']Heres my baby![/quote] Wow, that is beyond nice! I really like the Sandbergs without the aged look, as nice as the detail is in the relic models. The natural look is stunning. I noticed you also have a Sadowsky Metro. Lucky you, I had to choose between a Metro MV4 and a 'hardcore aged' Sandberg JM4 at the tail end of last year. I ended up choosing the Sadowsky. I don't regret it, but man, I nevertheless still want a Sandberg JM4 at some point in my life! Brilliant basses.

Something that can sound old and valvey and can go down to 2 ohms? I'm biased but I would say EBS Fafner or the TD650. Although not exactly portable, both of them can do clean or dirty valve sounds, where as Eden are more known for a great 'clean' tone. Saying that I wouldn't regret buying an Eden head, the few I've tried have been great! The Bass Terror would also do a great job and is also very portable and a good price. The Mesa heads are also great too at sounding like an all tube head. You could also just get a solid state and use a tube/tube simulation pre-amp pedal a la Sansamp. Or just buy a MArshall VBA 400 and try and recruit some powerful friends to carry it for you!