krispn

I have a Cali TX for sale and the price hasn’t budged. Drop me a dm if interested (I’m fully paid up with my subs and had/have it listed in the for sale section so nothing untoward going on)

I was telling the guys in my 80’s band this very fact recently as it’s been suggested as one of our new tunes to learn/play.

Spark booster 4 knob version is about £30 used and is a useful tool on bass.

I’m a former Monique owner too but I had the M700 amp version. It really is a lovely unit and it’s not just about drive and saturation. At lower gain levels it really is a lovely front end and once you do start to wind it up it remains pleasing to the ear if that the the sound you like. The beauty in the Monique and from the demo’s I’ve heard of Simone give that full rich quality which when you’re noodling just sounds the way you’d expect a clean tube preamp to sound. I learned a long time ago I love a warm, clean tube sound rather than a tubby saturation which you’d normally associate with tube front end. Tube power amp break up is a world apart from a 12AX7 stuck in a preamp and often is a marketing device but when it’s been designed from the ground up and it suddenly becomes a much more integral part of the signal chain and does impart its character. I’m currently playing into a tube di with transformer/tubes and it’s doing that warm full sound which might not get noticed by many others but is very enjoyable as a starting point and I’m really looking forward to using it on a gig soon- likely iem with just the DI/eq pedal.

Use the space on the Cali to fix smaller pedals. Mine has a strip of Velcro for some pedal piggy backing!

It’s works just fine. It’s been designed to work in a specific way thing more like a blade but using coils (I think). There probably more info on the site. I use one and it’s a really nice sounding pick up.

It’d be a routing mess would it not? What’s the thinking behind that design? Reverse p style ‘tighter’ bass response on the B string? You’d be better off with a Jazz bass 😀

In theory at least you probably don’t want distortion on a DI as the DI is likely to put out a full range signal 20hz-20khz type thing and drive/dirt up at that top end sucks unless you want the harsh fizzy sound. The beauty of speakers is that they often remove the high end in a pleasing way especially with the tweeter off (unless it’s the FRFR kit). You can imitate the high end roll off at the desk but often a clean DI is far less hassle. I tend to run clean to the desk and only have drive coming out the amp or use a cab sim/IR to the desk on my hx stomp.

A Bill Lawrence P-46 will fit a 5 string, sounds clean and clear and yes it’s THAT Bill Lawrence! A quick check it’s $72 before shipping and taxes which is ridiculous value! https://www.wildepickups.com/products/p-46

Experimenting

Very smooth dealings with this groove wizard.

I always liked the idea of their bass workshop in that they didn’t just have a (massive) range of basses but they also tried to bring something a little different out each year. While not always conventional it was good to see a big manufacturer (who let’s face it could afford to take the risk) try something left field.

HX FX might be a better option but if you prefer the form factor of the Stomp it’ll have all the same fx models.

The round bass plectrum really caught my eye!

Yeah this can make a huge difference and worth messing about with as another eq option. It can be a bit of a rabbit hole with so many options but I found with that tube pre patch once you have it dialed in and like what you hear then making small adjustments along the signal path makes it a bit easier than constructing a whole signal chain from start to finish. Both options have their merits just really depends on how much time you have to invest per sitting.

The tube pre amp with an eq patch and a little compression can give a very pleasing tone too. I’ve a patch which I posted earlier which does a nice clean tone. There’s pics of my settings on this page just scroll down a bit…

While the DRoc can do some ‘conventional’ sounds the whole flavour of the tones are more modern sounding. That’s not to say you can’t eq it in a way to make it a bit more ‘old school’. I only played one briefly but did enjoy the overall vibe but did think it’s sounded ‘modern’. I didn’t play it standing up so can’t comment on how it would feel on a gig but I’d say it’ll be pretty spot on knowing how Dingwall designs it’s stuff. I’m sure you already have but check out some you tube videos for the tonal options. I think Anderson’s did a review of them. As for feel you’re gonna have to get your hands on one to really know if it’s for you. I have played other Dingwall basses and the fan frets are not a barrier - you’ll barely notice after a few minutes.

I’ve had the PC-2A and it was a lovely wee unit. To my memory it was a warm, vintage sounding unit. It made my p bass sound all warm and fat. I wasn’t really that well versed in compression back then but I enjoyed what it did to my tone and it made me thing of that classic old school sound. My gear got stolen and that’s the only reason I no longer have it. I don’t think I recall it being super squishy or at least that wouldn’t have been my type of setting. I do use an LA-2A comp in my daw as an always on (in the aux) parallel comp and think it’s a great match on bass. It’s a studio standard! The LA-1A looks class and I’ve no doubt it would sound great but I’ve not heard any examples yet (goes off looking for bass samples of the LA-1A on bass)