Muzz

38mm nut, slim contour...not gonna happen with a 5, unless a couple of the strings are stacked... 😉

I like a very slim neck, which isn't gonna happen with a 5, plus on the few songs I might need to go below the Hipshot-dropped D, I've got Helix patches for Eb, D, C and B... Job done 😀

My ABZ sounds very different from the Combustion I tried...then again, I put a John East pre and two of the (Dingwall) P-Tone pickups in it...but importantly, it felt very different to the Combustion. It absolutely sings acoustically. You'd kinda expect that, as the Combustion is a cheaper range, and there's gotta be compromises somewhere... I had an AB1 for a while, and that was on a similar level, but smoother than the ABZ - then again, it had different pickups and was passive... On topic, the string tension and consistency of my Dingwall is up there with the best I've experienced on any bass.

Had a good gig at the local lairy late venue, the Helix Stomp (and in-ears) was just fantastic until a mystery cutout near the end (to be investigated), but also memorable for a not-that-drunk, obviously-muso punter coming up at the end and advising us with a completely straight face that our last number (Killing In The Name: it went right off ) should have been replaced with something 'that people who appreciate music could get into'. His suggestion was Take Five. I looked at him expectantly, waiting for the punchline, but no, was serious. A set-closer in a lairy, lively, jump-around pub at 1am. Really. Pffft.

I had an otherwise-fantastic Lakland neck with a backbow, I clamped it to a block of wood, slung an old bridge on it and some old strings and overtightened them to pull it forwards. I put it away and left it for maybe 18 months, and it brought it back. For a while. Eventually the backbow returned, so I sourced another neck. I’ve still got it if anyone wants a project...

There's lots I love - Uptown Funk and Treasure, Le Freak and Good Times, Never Too Much; no embellishments needed, the fun's in getting the groove bang on for the dancefloor, then there's the stuff like This Charming Man and I Am The Resurrection, oh, and I always like doing Hysteria...because I'm a show-off. 😀 It occurs that all the above are pretty much bass-led songs...there's a pattern there... 😃

Which finally plays directly into my hands: I humbly submit as Exhibit A my Shukerbird, The Bass With The Worst Upper Fret Access In Christendom. It should sound really, really different* * It doesn't - it's got two split-coil pickups, and it sounds like a P-bass. Sue me. 😀

True, it all went off the rails once his lad Mickey Shitenbacker II got involved...remember the digital display with combined tuner, anemometer and temperature gauge? The one that used to pick up Radio Three?

Wasn't that the one with the active trussrod? It put the Banana back into Bananaboat, IIRC...

Me too, please. Are they any good for metal?

And yet he bought a verrrry expensive FBass with lots of knobs... He lost me at "An active bass doesn't sound better than a passive bass, because if it did, we would all play active basses...", which shows a fundamental misunderstanding of, well, people, and the zillions of reasons people buy both active and passive basses. Clickbait, as we've discussed before...

All my basses are active, most of them have a split-coil pickup in the right position, the ones that do sound like P-basses if I want them to. Do I win a prize? 😀

I think what I'm getting at is the differences in EQ/sound we have mean that the more aggressive, more trebly sound I use might well mean I don't notice, or it isn't such an issue for me...

It's been so long since I used anything other than BF cabs (apart from a lovely holiday with Berg AE112s, but then I was using three of them, which kinda gets around the sensitivity issue) that I might be spoilt for sensitivity, if that makes sense... 😀

I think I may be getting around higher volume definition issues with my EQ/technique, plus up against two Rawk Geetars you can get away with moider...🙂

Looks like an accident waiting to happen to me - a surface switch, easily flickable while plugging in in the dark on a stage; with two of those into a traditional 4ohm-minimum amp, you could easily ping the switches to present a 2ohm load to the amp...it'd put me off buying one immediately. At the very least they should make the switch recessed, or harder to flick...

OK, so I read quite a lot in various threads about the Walkabout being underpowered, but it always mystifies me. I use mine mostly in a Rawk covers band with two traditional (read unreconstructed) 80s Geetards, both terrific players, both using JCM100s and 412s, and a drummer who makes Cosy Powell look and sound like he was in a cocktail lounge jazz trio using brushes... We rehearse way too loud, and we gig loud, too (it kinda goes with the territory) with vocals, kick and overhead through the PA in everything but very big pubs, then maybe a bit of bass and guitar in there too. I run my Walkabout through a BF Super Twin for rehearsals and smaller gigs, and I have a Compact to stick under it for bigger gigs for the whole Bass Stack look... 😀 And here's the thing: it's ridiculously loud. Drummer-flatteningly, ear-ringingly, room-fillingly loud. I wear ear protection when we rehearse, we're that loud. Even without the second cab. I EQ the very bottom end out - I use the left hand parametric set to -15db at 40hz, as I find it clears the mud, but there's still plenty bottom end present. I play mostly with a pick, and use (mostly) a pretty aggressive P-bass kinda tone, with juuuust a little drive (not into yer actual distortion - say midday on the Gain), and I'm not scared of mids - well, not on the Walkabout; it's really, really good at them... 🙂 Is it my EQing, my choice of cab(s), or just my ears that's making me think I can't imagine needing a louder amp*? * Actually, I doubt it's my ears, because the other chaps in the band don't have any problems hearing me - unfortunately, instead of asking me to turn down, they just turn up (see '...we rehearse way too loud...' above)...I suspect it's a Guitarist Thing... 😕

It was built at the same time as Wals were being built? Well, that adds £1000s to the price, and clearly warrants mentioning in the title... I should have added 'Built at the same time as the Ferrari F430' to the sale ad for my old Passat...

One analogy is if you're driving along at a reasonable speed, and you keep the accelerator where it is, but start to depress the clutch (i.e. reduce the load on the engine), then the revs will rise higher and higher, potentially damaging the engine...

Yep, them's is your options. There are a few amp heads which will run under 4 ohms loads (the Mesa 800s, Genz Magellan, etc), but the vast majority have a 4 ohm limit. As above, I don't know what the exact repercussions might be of running a lower impedance load and what triggers there might be, but if the manufacturer says don't do it, they mean 'If it goes click/boom/fizz, don't call us'...

The short answer to what the necks are like is that they can be what you like; Jon will make them the way you want. I took my custom build back to him after a couple of years because I wanted the neck slimming/reprofiling, and he did a fantastic job...and popped some Luminlays in the while he was doing it...😊

They must be good, though - look how much Mr Rundgren's enjoying his...

Took me an age to get Galway Girl where I wanted it, but the one that surprised me the most was when, after listening to it in pubs, clubs and at parties for the best part of 40 years, and playing it now and again on bands for nearly as long, I actually sat down and listened to the bass in Freebird. Blimey. Not particularly tricky, but just surprising there was so much of it I'd never heard...

I have the East U-Retro (the older model of the Uni-Pre, IIRC) in all my main gigging basses - very intuitive, very musical preamps.

Head heavy? I had a Washburn B20-8 back in the day that would literally plummet to the floor if you took your hand off the neck...and it used to snap strings alllll the time - the break angle to the rear tuning pegs was bonkers... Didn't hate it, though, because at the time it was something very different, and when newly strung made a glorious noise. I had a 78 Jazz which weighed a sniff under 12lbs and sounded Brown. Didn't hate that, either, because some collector bought it off me for collector kinda money. I presume it's on a wall somewhere...I hope he used good big rawlplugs... Thinking on, I don't think I've hated any bass I've had - if I didn't like it for whatever reason*, I sold it... * And I've had some really silly reasons, from Wrong Colour (otherwise terrific Warwick Fortress which some fule at the factory had painted Not-Brown-Not-Olive-Not-Nice) to Can't Unsee (Warwick Fortress - "That top horn looks like a nob") to A Bit Embarrassing (Warmoth Explorer Bass with bling blackburst flame maple top, pearl binding and gold hardware)...