gjones

My old 80's P/J bass has a neck like Mike Tyson's. Don't know if they make them THAT fat anymore though.

Well I played my TC classic 450 through my TC BC212 for the first time last night and the first thing I noticed was how bloody loud it was! The cab is rated at 250W at 8 ohms and I have no idea what wattage the Classic 450 was putting out at that resistance. All I do know is that we were playing pretty darn loud (we play electric blues and can pretty noisy) and the amp was at 7 on the gain and only 4 on the master. I do have another 8 ohm 15" cab, which would reduce the load to 4 ohms, but can't think of a situation I would ever need it with that kind of volume on tap.
So who cares what wattage an amp is rated at? Most bassists are only interested in clean loudness levels with plenty of headroom and my TC amp is plenty loud enough.

I heard one a few months ago owned by the bassist in a band that was on the same bill as me. It had a great sound on it's own at the soundcheck which made me instantly prick up my ears and head to the stage to find out what the guy was playing. I didn't hear him playing it with the band but I'm sure it sounded good. Great basses but no bass is worth £3000 however well it's put together or how great it sounds. Very few working musicians could afford one. A boutique bass, the preserve of superstar bassists and rich dentists I think.

You can have the best amp in the world but if you've got a farting cheapo cab you'll still get a rotten sound. They are both important but if you're putting a low end amp (as long as it's got a decent amount of power) through a decent set of speakers you'll get a better sound than putting a high end amp through a set of cheap speakers that break up at volume.
In the 90's I had a horrible calsbro stingray combo which sounded totally awful through the nasty cardboard speakers it had but actually sounded surprisingly good when I put it through the 2x15 ohm speaker cab of a friend of mine. If money is an issue go for a decent set of speakers it's definitely money well spent.

Just bought James's TC Electronics 2x12 cab. Great communication, great packing (2 rolls of gaffa tape) and it arrived in 3 working days!

Deal with confidence, great guy!

Gareth

I was reading some posts on a basschat topic today about a Trace rig on ebay and how great they sounded back in the day. Different strokes for different folks I suppose but I've never got on with TE stuff. I can never get (in my opinion) a good sound from the things. When I was getting serious about bass, in the 90's, these were the holy grail of bass amplification but I never got on with them. In the past whenever I turned up at a gig where the backline was TE or a rehearsal studio (where all old TE gear goes to die) and one of these greeted me I knew I'd be spending most of the first hour trying to get a halfway decent sound. Thank goodness for lightweight bass heads because now if the bass amp is a Trace I can just plug my TC head into the cab and get a decent sound right away.

Does anybody else have a dislike of TE stuff or am I just a weirdo?

I wouldn't have a problem spending some decent cash as long as I knew I could get what I paid for it if ever I sold it. I hate buying basses new. In fact I like beat up basses they have a bit of a history to them. I'm playing some festival gigs soon and with the cash I'll make I was thinking about buying a USA Jazz. I played a new one in my local music shop which I fell in love with but I hate the idea of buying it at the new price which is over £1100 (if I walked out of the shop and sold it on basschat the next day I'd be lucky to get £700 for it as a secondhand bass). The thought of it getting it's first dink brings me out in a cold sweat.

They look nice.....

[quote name='gjones' post='1349320' date='Aug 23 2011, 07:09 PM']I have a bass made of mighty mite parts I bought in the early 80's (my first proper bass). It had a dodgy looking decal on it. It was a water transfer so I just rubbed it off.[/quote]

Well no the decal is a heart with mighty mite written across it and that doesn't look too bad. I've a feeling it was some kind of cartoony looking dude back then which looked pretty naff frankly which is why I got rid of it.

Good question! I always wondered. When MM first introduced the SUB did they sell the passive ones cheaper? And how come they still seem to have 3 knobs? Volume, tone and .......eh something else? Can you boost or cut bass and treble on a passive bass? I didn't think you could (in fact I'm a million percent sure you can't). So what are they for?

Somebody somewhere must know?

It's simple I do what I do on all depping gigs. I turn my volume down and smile, while looking like I'm plonking away furiously on my bass.
I told this trick to a guitarist I was depping in a wedding band with. He had been thrown in the deep end as well and during one song that I hadn't a clue how to play I turned around to find him strumming happily away with his volume turned right down..........just like I was! When he realised I was doing exactly the same thing we broke into hysterical laughter - much to the confusion of the keyboard player who could see us playing away but could only hear himself and the drummer.

I have a bass made of mighty mite parts I bought in the early 80's (my first proper bass). It had a dodgy looking decal on it. It was a water transfer so I just rubbed it off.

I swopped a Musicman SUB for a beat up 1990's MIJ 57 reissue Precision. The guy I swopped it with probably thought he got the better side of the deal but i really love it. It has quite a shallow neck which is very easy to play and sounds great. I have another SUB and a Jazz but the Precision is my bass of choice.

Yes you're right. Although it took me buying 6 basses and selling 3 (in the last 18 months) to figure that out.

I've played in bands for years including my fair share of weddings. All we ever used was a decent 600 watt PA with a desk for vocals and keyboards and everyone else just used backline which sounded fine. I went to a friends retirement party the other month and the band had brought so much gear I think they thought they were playing wembley not a retirement do in a British Legion Hall. It took them 4 hours to set up everything and although the sound was very good it was definitely overkill.
My impression was that because the band was pretty successful on the wedding/function circuit and they'd invested so much money in their gear that they felt they had to use it at every gig but in reality a smaller setup would have made much more sense.

I just sold one! The necks are great and the sunburst ones look fantastic. I bought mine about 4 years ago and the neck was so, so easy to zip around on it rejuvenated my love of playing.The sound is quite twangy for a jazz compared to my old 62 reissue and my japanese Squier. I put this down to the ULTRA THIN maple neck.
One problem I did have is that although I could always adjust the action to be very low, thanks to the badass bridge, which made it a dream to play, the neck is very sensitive to temperature changes and sometimes I would find that a bass which played fantastically at home ended up unplayable when I got to the venue because the neck had shifted by the time I got there.
For that reason I never set the action too low just in case I got a nasty surprise at the gig when I plugged it in and started to play.

I've heard lots of good stuff about Blazers and MIJ Squiers are great too (I have a Jazz). But one thing you can't can do with Blazers but you can do with Fenders is upgrade them with standard Fender parts. It's one of the reason I bought an old MIJ Fender instead of a Blazer when I was loooking for a P bass.

Bass now sold!

[quote name='Johnston' post='1340935' date='Aug 15 2011, 06:04 PM']On here it's a bitsa.

On ebay it's a Professionally custom modified and restored much Fabled and rare JV Squier by Fender built by Tokia and therefore worth 3xs the price of any normal JV and 10 times better than any MIA Fender Precision. .

Honestly it's the best bass you have ever played but you have to sell it to make room because you have too many basses and want to keep those basses that are not quite as good.[/quote]

And it plays like butter.

[quote name='dc2009' post='1340251' date='Aug 15 2011, 02:09 AM']Sorry for the slight thread hijack, but thanks for the great info

Thin (ish) necks are a must for me, or at least not as chunky as your average p bass!

What are the Geddy re-issues? I'm a bit of a numpty on the Fender front, P basses put me off them at an early age and I've tried to steer clear of them, but I've loved the playability and sounds from the MM and GL sigs I've tried.[/quote]

Geddys are replicas of a 1972 Jazz that is Geddy Lees main bass. The only difference from any other 72 Jazz is that he got a luthier to sand down the neck which is why it's so slim back to front. So I suppose a Geddy Lee is a 72 reissue with a slimmer neck..........if you see what I mean.

And here's the man himself playing his [url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geddy_Lee#Bass_guitars"]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geddy_Lee#Bass_guitars[/url]

[quote name='dc2009' post='1339940' date='Aug 14 2011, 07:46 PM']Ok mate, thanks very much. If mine gets no trade interest I'll try and mark it as for sale, and maybe I'll come back. It'd be a tough call between this and a Marcus Miller J though, what do you make of the differences between them?[/quote]

Well the Marcus does have the active eq but one thing about Jazzes with inlaid necks, that I've found, is that they can be quite chunky. I've played a couple of 70's Jazzes (a 73 and a 75) and the necks are quite deep. The re-issues seem to be as well. The Geddy Lee on the other hand is based on a 72 Jazz that Geddy Lee bought secondhand and had a luthier sand the neck down so it was much shallower than a normal 72 bass would be. The Geddy re-issues also have incredibly shallow necks which is why they are so easy to play. Also Geddy Lees are usually cheaper than MMs.

Geddys are great!

But then I would say that wouldn't I? I'm selling one.

[quote name='dc2009' post='1339606' date='Aug 14 2011, 01:54 PM']This is probably exactly what I want, let me know if you'd be interested in a bass + cash trade for my beautiful Bartolini equipped Dean, which can be seen in the FT thread here:
[url="http://basschat.co.uk/index.php?showtopic=150168"]http://basschat.co.uk/index.php?showtopic=150168[/url][/quote]

I'm just looking for cash at the moment but your bass sure looks nice.

[quote name='douggie' post='1339274' date='Aug 14 2011, 03:25 AM']Guy Pratt would like to say thanks to all the people who've posted nice positive things about him here..As for the bashers, he's rather puzzled as to what he's ever done to them? Perhaps if they could give examples of his most heinous crimes so he could at least respond?[/quote]

They love you really Guy.

Oooooh, you get to play 'Hit me with your rhythm stick' how exciting!

It's the recurring intro bit you're struggling with I assume. The difficulty depends where on the neck you're playing it. Playing it with open strings is difficult for me but I find it much easier playing the notes fretted. Playing it around the 5th and 7th frets is tricky too.
I recommend using all 4 fingers so that you can stretch from the B on the A string (2nd fret) up to the D on the A string (5th fret). That way you can play it by fretting the B on the A string with your index finger while you play the D on the A string and the A on the E string with your pinky.

I like the sound recorded and at low volumes as they sound nicely retro but live they don't seem to do the biz. They're La Bellas and they cost me £30 and I want to like them but my precision has much more definition with rounds when playing loud than flats. And sound engineers haven't got a clue what to do with them when my bass is DI'd and I usually get a muffled woolly sound because they don't add enough mid into the EQ.

But I will persevere.