Muzz

Here's my favourite workhorse bass, I played this one for a good couple of years until my neck/back issues reduced the weight I'm comfortable with down to 'something starting with a seven', so I just don't use her any more. A shame, because (and I say this as a massive P fanboi) it's a very well built P/J which simply does the job. The J pickup in particular is very strong...not that I ever used it (see 'massive P fanboi' above). I'm a tinkerer, so at one point she had another bridge and some Ultra-lites on her, but she's back to stock now (same bridge holes and just four very small holes behind the stock tuners where the Ultra-lites used to be)...one thing I never even thought about changing was the pickups; if you like a good passive P/J, they're it, frankly. She's strung with new D'Addarios. She weighs between 8 1/2 and 9 pounds, which is sadly out of my range these days.

Condition is very good (tho she could do with a bit of a polish), I've tried to show the small dings/bruises and two tiny chips.

I'd much rather meet up (I can drive 75 miles from Manchester to meet), but if I really have to post, let's say £20 and cross fingers.

Lekato Transmitter/Receiver running 5.8Ghz, so well out of the problematic 2.4Ghz range. Fully working, you can run this one way from a mic to the desk (it's XLR connectors) or the other way round from the desk to a headphone amp like the Behringer P2. I've lost the dual USB charging lead, but they'll come with a single one, and they're ubiquitous these days (except in my house, apparently).

Here's Lekato's blather, which focuses on the mic -> desk usage, but as I say they work great the other way round, too.  https://lekatodeal.com/en-uk/products/wireless-5-8ghz-microphone-system-plug-on-xlr-transmitter-receiver

£80-ish new now, so how about £55 pick up/£60 posted?

This was bought for a project that suddenly found itself without an endpoint, so I'm clearing out. It was fitted to a bass and then a few weeks later removed. No marks, fully working (obv). Comes with all the gubbins.

Per EMG: 'The HB was developed for Steinberger Sound for their infamous headless bass. It is a ceramic P-Style bass pickup in a guitar humbucking housing. The ceramic magnet adds presence, punch, and loads of output. It is recommended for bass guitars with a string width of less than 2 inches.'

Here's the full data link: https://www.emgpickups.com/hb.html

IIRC it was around £90, so how about £55 pick up (har har)/£60 posted in the UK?

I bought one about six or seven weeks ago from Jon, tho I note now it's showing Out Of Stock for all colour knobs...

On 07/08/2025 at 08:45, Stub Mandrel said:

Our drummer evaporated after last week's rehearsal...

Which reminds me, the new Spinal Tap movie's due out soon... 😀

Just chatting with my pal Napper and he mentioned he's working the Damnation Festival this year (Doom, Post-Metal, Black Metal, etc). Just had a look at the lineup, and not a single smile in any of the band photos, it's hilarious, they all look like the photographer's just told them the band van has been nicked. Fave band name for the weekend is Crippling Alcoholism...at least they're contemporary in their misery...I'm just waiting for an even more modern one called Switching Broadband Providers...

I was asking him about hiring a drum screen for some recording we're doing, because we're getting horrendous mic bleed, and he said 'Horrendous Mic Bleed? I think they're headlining the Friday night...'

Flats. Figured I should at least try them, but I should've known (I would these days, I'm much wiser about what'll suit me) they wouldn't work for me. After a very short tenure (in retrospect, the fact that I didn't cut them should've been an indicator that subconsciously I wasn't commited) on the original recipient, they ended up on an acoustic bass, where they work really well...and don't stink like those phosphor bronze ones do...

On 14/08/2025 at 16:13, Russ said:

When people get their first Stingray, they always do the same thing, especially if it's a 2EQ - dial the bass and treble all the way up. Then they wonder why all they can hear in a band context is woof and click, with no midrange. So they sell it. 

 

Eventually, they discover that the EQ controls are kinda interactive, as you dial up the bass and treble, it actually sucks the mids out. So you end up only adding a tiny bit of boost to each, and, all of a sudden, you can actually hear yourself in the mix! 

Nope, mine were all 3EQs, and no matter what I did I just didn't like it.

On the Markbass heads thing, there's a jumper (well, there was on the LMIII, and I suspect others, too) on the main board that sets 110/240v. I bought one in the States years ago and brought it back here. Not going to say setting the jumper wasn't a tense moment, but it ran for years afterwards...

23 hours ago, Lozz196 said:

Jazz Basses  - I`ve learned to love them, but it took me a while (and a good few)

 

Stingray Basses - The third member of the holy trinity, I love how they play, love how they sound when others play them, just not when I play them

 

The Stingray thing? A brother from another mother there, Lozz, I bought three over the years just to be doubly, trebly sure...and I was right. Still don't like Jazzes, tho, but every bass I have has a Jazz width neck, so there's that.

I bought an Alembic, an Overwater and a Sei (not all at once, I'm not made of money, it was over a couple of years) just to see what the fuss was about, and I didn't like them much...at least they're the sort of thing that if you buy carefully secondhand you can move on without losing much money for the experience...

First 'proper' bass, a Jetglo bought for my 16th in 1980*, I had it for about four years, sold it for an arse-clenchingly small amount, bought a 70s P** which wasn't very good, then about a year later Pointy Things were all over the place and I succumbed to them for a good while...bought a new one for my 50th (the old misty-eyed nostalgia thing), really didn't get on with it so it went back by return post, then I thought I'd made a mistake so I bought another and realised nope, I hadn't...

*Not wanting to sound to privileged, this was a 'No, don't want a party, no, don't want anything else, yes, you can have all the money I get from anywhere else, I JUST WANT TO BE GEDDY LEE...'

**And I was so numb I've no idea what year it actually was; it was black and maple, and so was JJB's, soooo...

The problem/common factor is the SE didn't do (or get to do) his job properly. In the case of the Stranglers, everything else was good, but the bass had been reduced to the new Subsonic Mud Rumble which seems, along with the Deafening Cannon Kick, to be the latest in sound trends for SEs mixing rock bands.

I've used backline a couple of times of late (not my idea), and both times it's reminded me of how hard it can be to get a decent stage sound without over- or under-whelming the room with bass; I've been spoiled by a mixable feed to my inears, where I can hear exactly what's going on at a reasonable volume, something that's often elusive with backline.

Oh, and the ability to turn the guitarist down cannot be overstated...

12 minutes ago, Lozz196 said:

Yeah a sound man did similar to my sound, I gave him JJ Burnel and he changed it to J Jamerson. I didn’t have the heart to be angry with him as he genuinely thought he’d worked hard to do me a big favour.

Tragically, the last time I went to see the Stranglers (admittedly a couple of years ago, the first tour with inears, so they may have got it sorted now) at the Manchester Apollo, the soundman did exactly that to JJ Burnel...

They're like Stingrays for me: I love everything about them except playing them, because they really, really don't suit me. I've had three of each, because on at least two occasions for each I thought 'I must have been wrong about the last one'.

They are an iconic bass, and I really wish they suited me.

This one is for a close friend of mine, he offered it to me but I said I'd just sell it for him and pass it on. Great condition, just a little dusty because it's been sat in a house for a long time and not out on the road.

I guess everyone knows these; a great compact 410 that's plenty for gigging and is comparatively light and easier to schlep than most 410s (it's pretty much 2ft x 2ft x 19"). I had one of these for a couple of years and if it hadn't been stolen (not this exact one, obv) I might well still have it. FWIW it's one of the earlier Made In Italy ones, rather than the later Indonesian builds.

I note the Indonesian ones are around the £650 mark new, and this one's had very little strenuous use, so I think £300 firm is right, given the logistics below...

Logistically I can meet up/deliver within a 75 mile radius of Manchester, I'd much rather do this than ship.

Funnily enough, I had this at a gig last weekend; a chap came up to me to say he was enjoying the band and then said 'I'm a bassist, too; I play a Fender Jazz...a US Elite Fender Jazz'  My complete lack of reaction to this* seemed to nonplus him, and he walked away.

* I may have said 'Oh.', just because there was a gap in the conversation...

22 hours ago, BlueMoon said:

Question: would the knobs from a J control plate equipped with stack knobs fit the East pot shafts?

 

I would say very probably; I've switched to some smaller knobs from another East preamp on one of my lesser-used Shukers for the time being...

Yeah, they're out of the stacked chrome ones, just like John is...

Played a rare gig with backline and without inears over the weekend...never again (if I can help it). I'd forgotten what a rare thing it is to have a decent onstage sound (I didn't have one, obv), and obviously everything was wayyyy too loud...pfffttt...

Once you've gone inears (with your own mix), it's tough to go back...

On 12/07/2025 at 12:05, 12stringbassist said:

It's been a while since I've been able to post in this topic, as our old guitarist opted out at the beginning of May.
It's been cancellations, auditions and just a couple of rehearsals since then. I think we've got the right new guy.

I was slightly nervous in the run up to last night's first gig, as we didn't manage to rehearse this week as our drummer has been taken into hospital for urgent surgery. He's going to be out of the game for a while. A good friend of ours is going to sit in on drums for a while when he can and I am meeting another drummer this evening, when we play another gig (and he's on drums).

We're deviating from usual set to a degree, as our new guitarist has some songs he's pretty good at, so to get a set together, and to change things a bit (the old band was a bit of a museum, as we couldn't add new songs without a distinct lack of enthusiasm from one corner of the room). We've pulled the best set together of crowd pleasers that we can .

There were a couple of hairy moments, but the punters didn't notice.
The good news for us is that we are back doing it and enjoying it.

 

Nige! 😀  He deps for us now and again...  The Inn On The Wharf is a great gig, we're trying to get back there ASAP...

Zombie thread revival, I know, but I've recently bought a P-Retro from John  - they don't have the silver knobs in stock, and the website looks like it's Out Of Stock completely, but they're not, they have the black ones. It's now a v2, I think the change is the battery.

I shouldn't be surprised (because I've got U-Retros in everything else), but it's a stellar preamp; it takes the workhorse P and, somehow without changing it fundamentally, takes it into another league of usability. That two-way parametric EQ thing is genius (clockwise for mids boosted around the frequency point of the other dial, anti-clockwise for a bass/treble boost/scooopiness), and the selectable pull-bass (4 points of boost, I use the 100Hz one) is really useful.

It sits post-tone control, and when switched out you have your original tone without any bells and whistles. As if you'd want that... 😀

Not exactly cheap, but for my money (which John now has 🙂) it's worth every penny.

I've just finished off building/modding the best P I've played* with a John East P-Retro (it's also got an uprated bridge, Hipshot Ultralites, a DiMarzio DP122 and a gold scratchplate I found in my bits pile) and it's my go-to bass (along with one of my Shukers, which was more than 10x the (original) price of the P) - at first sight, it's a £150 Squier Sonic, near the very bottom of the price range for a factory P...OK, the upgrades triple that, but I've added them slowly (some from the parts bin) as I've realised what a great foundation instrument it is.

Bottom line is the Squier Sonic sticker will be staying, anyone who might want to look at it from a distance and curl a lip can feel as superior as they like, I've had several full-on Fender Ps over the years, and for me (who else?) this is better than all of them.

* My criteria have changed a good way over the years, not least around weight: this one is 7.7lbs, which is a big thing for me gigging 6-8 times a month...it's very good in other ways, too...

Yep, it's quite an odd thing: I regularly have to say to people 'Don't shout, I can hear you' in loud environments when I have the ACS attenuators in...and then I have to shout so they can hear me... 😐🙂

Yep, mine kicked off properly thanks to a dep guitarist (who we never played with again - nothing to do with the tinnitus, he was just a bit of a d*ck) and his 112 combo pointing at my head for 1 set at a gig maybe 15 years ago. At half time I moved it to point at his head, he winced and turned down...

Anyway, it turned up, moved into the spare room and never left. ACS inears for gigging and ACS attenuators for other people's gigs and clubs. Hopefully that'll have slowed the march of The Whine.

One thing that sets me off (well, it draws attention to it) is that thing they do in movies when there's been an explosion and the hero's staggering around in the dust...aaaaand there it is, that's The Whine...

A lesson in How To Be Cool In 100 Degrees...loved it; you can see the fella on the left in the sun's suffering the heat...  Great groove and feel, you're making it look easy...which is the hard bit... 🙂