Muzz

Oh, and on the looks front - a mate of mine (non-musician) ruined the Corvette (and a few others) for me by pointing at the top horn the first time he saw it and saying (in front of a crowd): "That looks too much like a nob for me..."

The Roland Micro Bass DX combo does hatfuls of stuff, like mp3 in, headphones out. Plus it has lots of extras like metronome, slightly cheesy but useful drum patterns, effects (Chorus, Reverb, even T-Wah!), etc. It's a great practice tool.

Another Marmite thing, I think - I've never played a fretted one I ultimately liked (and I've had a few), tho the fretless Corvette Std I have is a fantastic bass, and the best fretless I've ever played: seems to be so much [i]nearer[/i] the wood than other fretlesses. It's an older one, neck will be Ovangkol, but I think the board's Ebony, Ash body. A keeper. The build quality of every one I've played has been, well, German: very, very well engineered. New prices are bananas compared to s/h, but then I guess that's true of a lot of kit these days (new Stingray for £1350, anyone?).

All of the above from NJE, except with my Schroeder 1515L, it's a single 40lb cab which, with a LMIII, will go stupidly loud - 500w into 4 ohms. It'll certainly swamp our drummer, who don't half hit 'em when he's in the mood. It's been a revelation, coming from biiiig old stacks in the past. So the answer from where I'm standing is a stack (but one smaller than most combos), and stuff the laws of physics...

Here's a thought - what about the Schroeder 1515L? Same size and weight as the 1212L, but more bottom end. Lots of low mid punch, but IME, shifts it down the frequency scale, too. Definitely a single cab solution - it'll go cataclysmically loud. Works for me. Depends on how set you are on 12s, tho. Oh, and there's no tweeter.

OK, I'll be the first mildly dissenting voice - I've had a lot of basses over the last few years since returning to playing more, and couple of boutique basses (Overwater and GB) in the lineup, and I've found that it really does depend on what works for you feel, response and soundwise. I found I could admire the workmanship and finish of the boutique basses as objects, but the sound in my head (which is, I'd venture, what we're ALL after from a bass/rig) I couldn't get from them. I've come in a huge circle back to basics, and what I want from an instrument means the bass I play more than any is a Frankenfender which stands me at £200. It makes me play better than the £2k+ basses I've played. But that's just what works for me - something else may work for you. I don't buy in to the 'a more expensive bass will raise your playing game' ethos, but I do believe a 'better' bass will make you raise your playing game. The definition of 'better' in this context is everything. I'd say that the whole question is entirely subjective, and the best thing the OP could do is, yes, save up an amount of money which might afford you a boutique bass, but in the meantime try EVERYTHING you can, even multiples of the same instrument if mass-produced - I know a bassist who's said to me "Oh, I don't like <insert bass name here> : I played one and it was dog" - which is IME piffle, what he didn't take into account is there are huge variations even at the high end of mass-production. Bottom line is, if you don't know exactly what works for you (and it took me YEARS to find out), keep looking - everywhere.

Betcha I can get 6 Alembics onto the top of the For Sale thread in ten minutes...

I love these pictures. I have used them several times to put my small collection into perspective with a cynical spouse...

Rare, broken, and £500. Can't believe this hasn't gone yet... [url="http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/MARKBASS-F1-ULTIMATE-BASS-AMP-500W-RARE-/170518655009?cmd=ViewItem&pt=UK_MusicalInstr_Amplifiers_RL&hash=item27b3b43021#ht_500wt_1154"]http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/MARKBASS-F1-ULTIMATE...1#ht_500wt_1154[/url]

Jim Caviezel wasn't struck twice by lightning. He was struck once with an AD while sheltering under an umbrella. The AD was also struck month earlier. So, not even that bit's accurate... Why am I not surprised?

Yep, they're great for the money. I had one on a Jazz, and it was an improvement on the original IMO.

Amp (LMII) flat, Schroeder 1515L, Sansamp BDDI EQ flat with varying amounts of Drive. Maple Precision with EB Slinky rounds, tone open, or Maple Stingray with EB Slinky rounds, flat treble & mid, bit of bass. Played with a Dunlop .88 pick and enthusiasm. Lovely. GAS-free.

I think if the OP hadn't got it sorted in 14 months, then it was beyond sorting... check the dates...

If you like the basic tones from your Micro Cube, and all the bells and whistles it gives, then I'd say the best (if slightly unusual) solution in your budget could be to buy the Roland 115X powered cab currently on EBay (it's nowt to do with me, honest!) for, I think, £200. You could then run your Cube into it and turn it into a 300w 1x15" & tweeter rig. I've used one of these as an extension speaker when I had my D-Bass 115 combo, and it was great. The Roland stuff is seriously underrated, IMO. Ticks all the boxes, and worth a thought. Plus, there's comedy potential to be had from walking into a gig with the Micro Cube... Ah, just re-read your post and noticed "small and light". The 115X isn't massive or light-bendingly heavy, but the castors do come in handy...

Way to photograph a bass, tho - how close are some of those shots?

Well, I've got the Ash Standard (in the Ocean Blue), and it's got a lovely tone - very woody, and with rounds it absolutely sings. It's the only Warwick I've ever got on with, to be honest. It'll be a shame to sell it, but I think the day's coming, thanks to redundancy... Anyhoo, I can recommend the Ash one. Never tried the Bubinga personally.

[quote name='ironside1966' post='879828' date='Jun 28 2010, 01:22 PM']It has a 3 way switch, cut, bypass, and boost on the down position. I looked at the new preamps on the Status web site and they have surface mounted pots, this one has separated wired ones. I can’t find an internal volume screw. Anyone knows what to do with a status energy body? I had an accident with the neck[/quote] An accident with the neck? Ouch. Go on, tell us what happened - we're dying to know... M

Following on from the giddy thread about my rig, I thought I'd share some bass giddyness. After a lot of basses recently, I've ended up with a really unexpected go-to bass, which is a bitsa Precision based on an SX bought on here as a beater. I paid less than a hundred quid for it, so I wasn't expecting much, but with some touring gigs coming up, I wanted a cheap spare. The neck was a Tangoed nightmare as thick as my arm, but the body was nice and light, and the sound plugged in was really, really good. So, after a bit of pondering, I Ebayed a MM maple neck for £78, a Schaller 3D bridge and a black scratchguard, and had Steve at PMT in Salford set it up for me. Result: the best Precision I've played: tons of growl, tons of zing and lovely and light. There's a picture of it in my avatar (complete with chav decal). The Stingray is (and all the others are) now second fiddle to a bass which set me back about £220 all in. Funny how, after spending several grand on basses, the cheapest one of all ends up being the best for me...

[quote name='Wil' post='855712' date='Jun 3 2010, 09:28 AM']I very much like my 1212L. Lovely little cab, does pack a fair punch, but I wish it was 8ohm so I could put another one underneath. I mean, it's loud, sure, but it's not as loud as I'd like in a rock/punk band. If you really push the volume, you tend to have to roll back the lows a touch. Maybe a bigger box would help there, they are dinky.[/quote] Lord above, how loud do you play? Either the 1515L is a lot louder than the 1212L, or my ears are duff, because I was standing next to our drummer (who hits 'em a bit), and I had the amp on "bugger all" (OK, less than 9 o'clock) and was easily loud enough - even at Montrose Town Hall, which is a big stage. One of the best things about the rig (and the part I was most paranoid about before I bought it) is the headroom. If I ever need to push this cab, I'll be playing far, far too loud, and the drummer will have exploded. IMHO, YMMV, God help your ears, etc, etc On the box size, the 1515L is the same size as the 1212L, but it puts out a ton of bass. Maybe not bowel-loosening deeeeep bass, but with a Precision/Stingray/pick, it's tonally where I like to be. Ditto the lack of tweeter - I don't need one, YMMV, but there's plenty of zing for what I need. The dropped D on the Ray needed a touch of bass from the amp (forgot to mention, I run the LM flat on all EQ), but then it delivered in spades. I'd have loved to have tried a Barefaced Super 12, but time was against us. On that subject, a big nod here to Alex, who was a gent while I was dithering (not entirely my fault, but the circumstances are far too dull to go into here), and had it not been for external pressures on me, I might well have had a Barefaced cab instead.

[quote name='51m0n' post='853609' date='Jun 1 2010, 02:32 PM']Exactly which sansamp doo-hickey is it that you have? They do a couple of programmable jobbies you see...[/quote] It's the BDDI one. Had a Behringer one first, to see if it was what I was after (they're pretty much identical in operation/sound apart from the build quality and programmable bit), then went the whole hog. Great piece of kit - here's a linky: [url="http://www.basscentre.com/bass-effects/sansamp-bass-driver-di-programmable.html"]http://www.basscentre.com/bass-effects/san...ogrammable.html[/url]

Well, it's been a long journey - into my fifth decade buying gear*, and after God knows how many rigs, from combos to the full SVT/8x10 nine yards, I'm finally done. I was after a single cab, light solution that would nevertheless keep up with a loud drummer up to the point where we'd both be going through the PA, and possibly beyond. The LMIII has been done to death (in a good way) on here, so I won't go over old ground, other than to say I'd tried most of the other newer kit like the Orange head, the RH450s, etc, and it was the one for me. The 1515L is simply a revelation - it weighs 40lb, and produces an ENORMOUS sound. With the Sansamp pedal to warm things up ever further, I'm getting all the sound of the SVT rig (including volume) at a tiny fraction of the weight, size and cost. (IMHO - I do prefer 15s, YMMV, etc, before I get lynched... ) We played four gigs over the weekend at the Montrose Music Festival, and the rig was just perfect. At one of the gigs, the sound engineer was a very experienced guy, and when we first set up, he got the kit through the PA, and said he'd do the bass next. I said we could probably speed things up by not putting the bass through the PA, and he gave me a pitying look. Five minutes later after we'd played a bit, he came back on stage, and said "Is that your rig there?" I said yep, that's it (it was a small stage, so it was sitting under one of the guitar combos). "And that's all of it, is it?". Yep. "Blimey". The Schroeder is a 4 Ohm cab, I never got the LMIII past 9 o'clock on the volume, and we filled every venue with a ton of sound. The Sansamp is the three channel programmable, which is very very useful for setting up three (four with it off) sounds of varying tonal warmth (up to a great overdriven sound) with a single pedal. That's as complicated as I like to get. Can't recommend any element of this rig highly enough. Just thought I'd share, in a giddy manner M * Not quite as long as it sounds - started in 78...