ikay

There's an Entwistle JBXN neck pup on ebay at the moment (bridge pup out of stock) - https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/333702776098

It's a '78

👍 I'll mention it when I'm there

I think round core strings are more prone to the straight cut/dead string thing, hex core much less so as the angled edges offer a bit more grip for the windings.

👍 PRO17s ordered and ear impressions booked for next week.

Ah ok, thanks.

Sorry if I'm being a bit thick but what does 'cut the string straight' mean and how does that deaden the string?

I found a few vids on youtube showing how to get the flush ones in and out and looks OK so I'll go without the lugs. Cord comes as standard and looks useful. Thanks for the help.

Thanks for the replies. I'll go for a set of PRO17s. Is it best to add the 'grips' option (extra silicone lug) to help with getting them in and out or are the flush ones OK?

I play in a band with an uncomfortably LOUD drummer. Having been in bands for the best part of half a century my hearing has a bit of wear and tear so I need to do more to protect what I've got left. I find playing with earplugs quite difficult as everything sounds muffled and I feel disconnected from the band. I currently use a fairly old set of ACS ER20 plugs which claim to 'preserve the fidelity of the sound' etc. However, to me it just feels like playing underwater. Ideally, I'd rather have some sort of hearing protection that works more like a limiter and only kicks in above a certain threshold, rather than knocking everything back by 20dB or so even in quieter sections. Are there any earplugs out there that work like this? I can't find any, so I'm looking to upgrade my earplugs to ACS Custom Pro series with moulded earpieces in they hope that they'll be better quality and more transparent than my cheap off-the-shelf ER20s. At around £150 I'll be disappointed if it still feels like playing underwater! But with my already dodgy hearing it probably will. If I get the ACS Customs, I'm also undecided which filter to go for (see chart below). I'm tempted to go for lower attenuation (eg. PRO 15) in order to reduce the underwater/disconnected feeling. Alternatively the PRO 17 which seems to be a popular choice. Or, with the snare/cymbals in mind, perhaps the PRO 20 which is somewhere between the two at lower frequencies but attenuates progressively more in the higher range. I'd appreciate any advice or guidance from anyone who uses ACS Customs or anyone with similar hearing/drummer issues and can recommend other solutions. Thanks for any input.

As mentioned above, have you tried using the allen keys you already have to narrow down the size? Metric sets usually increment in 0.5mm steps so if none of these fit then it's most likely an imperial size. If you can identify the metric size that's just too big and the one that's just too small, that should give you a pretty good bead on the imperial size which will be some multiple of 1/64". Here are a few imperial to metric conversions. It's easy to see how imperial sizes slip between the metric keys, and not all imperial sets will include odd ones like 7/64 or 9/64 etc. 7/64 = 2.778125 1/8 = 3.175 9/64 = 3.571875

I'm sure it will sound just as good in a band setting. USA SUBS are great no-nonsense workhorse basses.

These are great basses, I love my active USA SUB. Out of interest, do you find any use for the bass cut control on the passive version?

What type of bass is it? If it's US built the chances are it will be an imperial size. Anything else most likely metric. Using the allen keys you already have you can then narrow down the size to be somewhere between the ones that are too big and too small.

This sounds good to me. A clean boost pedal before the input on the amp, set at a level that pushes the gain stage into the desired level of overdrive. Overall volume may also increase which may (or not) be a problem depending on the context of how you intend to use it (eg. stepping forward for solos or just adding drive for tone). That's where having a switchable channel on the amp with it's own gain and volume setting comes into its own.

You might find something useful here:

I did exactly this and it works perfectly