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minor annoyances with gear?


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What are the minor annoyances you have with gear?

I'll start:

1 - Hipshot only selling nickel plated extenders which look out of place on a headstock with chrome plated tuners. Also the nickel plated stuff used to be described as chrome plated, but the website has since been updated.

2 - Hipshot again - the lever on detuners look like they're probably unplated stainless steel, so it doesn't match the rest of the thing.

3 - Epiphone - fitting generic wilkinson tuners to the thunderbird vintage pro - I've upgraded both of mine to gotoh GB640s which have match the vintage aesthetic much better.

4 - Reverse tuners - why not fit tuners which look like the period correct vintage ones but turn the same way as all other tuners? Only Gotoh GB640s get this right.

5 - crappy output jacks - I always fit switchcraft jacks when I find one of the flimsy lookalikes in one of my basses which will eventually fail at the least convenient time. I can forgive a Squier for this but not a japanese fender. Cheapo jacks are often accompanied by cheapo mini pots also which need to be replaced with CTS or similar.

6 - Cheapo Jazz bass knobs - the proper US spec jazz bass knobs look great. The cheapo push-on ones that came on my CIJ Mustang looked nasty until I upgraded them to US vintage ones (after upgrading the loom to include solid shaft CTS pots)

7 - Silks on strings. Surely there must be a way to colour code the silks to make the strings immediately identifiable. eg: EB Cobalt flats come in different coloured packaging depending on the guage - why not make the silks the same colour as the packaging? Maybe a combination of colours to give a striped effect could be used to make each set unique?

8 - Straps. Most straps don't have enough adjustment to go long enough which limits the choice of suitable straps. You can't rock out with a thunderbird at nipple level.

9 - Not much can be done about this one, but its always struck me as odd that pedalboards have to be set up with the pedals right to left instead of the more logical left to right due top the placement of the input & output sockets on pedals.

10 - EMG don't make much noise about how their active bass pickups really need at least 18v to sound great. I'm sure people are put off using them when they don't sound particularly special with a single 9v battery. I use 24v from a pair of 12v A23 car plipper batteries in mine - which take up less room than a standard 9v.

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Fair enough.

But then, and this is clearly only my opinion, but if I stand in front of the pedals then, being a righty, the lead from my bass is on my right hand side, if it were to then go into the left hand side of the pedal it has to cross my playing space from right to left at some point.

So pedals right to left makes more sense to me to keep the cable run logical and tidy.

Edited by Si600
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36 minutes ago, Si600 said:

Fair enough.

But then, and this is clearly only my opinion, but if I stand in front of the pedals then, being a righty, the lead from my bass is on my right hand side, if it were to then go into the left hand side of the pedal it has to cross my playing space from right to left at some point.

So pedals right to left makes more sense to me to keep the cable run logical and tidy.

he's right you know.

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36 minutes ago, Si600 said:

Fair enough.

But then, and this is clearly only my opinion, but if I stand in front of the pedals then, being a righty, the lead from my bass is on my right hand side, if it were to then go into the left hand side of the pedal it has to cross my playing space from right to left at some point.

So pedals right to left makes more sense to me to keep the cable run logical and tidy.

Absolutely this. Which is why, being left handed my minor annoyance is the input being on the right!

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7. Different colour silk per string looks horrible. My favourite strings don't use silk at all, so I got lucky there!

8. You can rock out with your bass at any hight, Entwistle for instance. I like to play at about the hight of my pockets and being 1.92cm have not had much difficulty finding good straps.

EMGs sound good at 9v, great at 18v IMO. I can't seriously tell the difference between 18 and 24v on them (my 2 main basses have EMGs).

Good thread!

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Amps with a really nice sounding DI out which you can’t use because the DI level is controlled by the master volume.

Onboard preamp knobs with no markings and no centre-detent.

Basses that proudly come with a certain brand of string fitted from the factory, but the gauges they’ve used aren’t actually a set you can buy in a packet.

Anything that’s clearly been specified to be a number of rack units in height and sometimes even has the threaded holes on the corners but then the rack ears aren’t actually available.

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1 minute ago, ambient said:

D’Addario use different coloured ball ends identifying the gauge.

Always thought that was a good idea, maybe not so much on bass but for guitar definitely, especially to people like myself with middle aged eyesight.

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23 minutes ago, Steve Browning said:

Rack amps/pre-amps that don't have an input on the back. If I plug straight into the tuner then I need an extra rack space to get the cable to the front.
 

This ^^
How hard would it be to duplicate the front input jack on the back?

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10 hours ago, Jean-Luc Pickguard said:

7 - Silks on strings. Surely there must be a way to colour code the silks to make the strings immediately identifiable. eg: EB Cobalt flats come in different coloured packaging depending on the guage - why not make the silks the same colour as the packaging? Maybe a combination of colours to give a striped effect could be used to make each set unique?

I believe Rotosound do this, at least to some extent - the "standard" stainless steel RS66s have red silks, whereas the nickel ones have light blue. I've not heard about anybody varying the colour for the gauge of the set, but...

...D'Addario, and more recently Rotosound, put different-coloured ball ends on their strings so it's easier to keep track of which string is supposed to be 1st, 2nd, etc. I wonder if anybody's thought about extending the colour scheme to denote lighter/heavier gauges.

 

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3 hours ago, Si600 said:

Fair enough.

But then, and this is clearly only my opinion, but if I stand in front of the pedals then, being a righty, the lead from my bass is on my right hand side, if it were to then go into the left hand side of the pedal it has to cross my playing space from right to left at some point.

So pedals right to left makes more sense to me to keep the cable run logical and tidy.

May be I’m missing something ?

either way a cable has to come back from the pedal board to an amp? 

Get a longer lead to go an extra bit around the front of the pedal board , or go wireless :)

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4 hours ago, Ed_S said:

Amps with a really nice sounding DI out which you can’t use because the DI level is controlled by the master volume.

This one really does my head in. My Markbass Multiamp (pre 2015, don't know if they fixed it with the later one) does this, why would it ever be useful?

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15 hours ago, Jean-Luc Pickguard said:

10 - EMG don't make much noise about how their active bass pickups really need at least 18v to sound great. I'm sure people are put off using them when they don't sound particularly special with a single 9v battery. I use 24v from a pair of 12v A23 car plipper batteries in mine - which take up less room than a standard 9v.

I'm interested in your battery choice - specifically how do you mount them?  I had a quick look but can only find single battery boxes.  I am using EMGs and because I'm loathe to make even more holes in my Les Paul there only really is space in the control cavity for a single 9V battery.  At the moment I'm using a simple metal clip screwed to the side wall of the cavity to mount my single 9V battery with a regular connector clip and it just sits side on over the pots.

Edit - found a dual battery mount with a deeper search -- https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/2-Battery-Box-Holder-Case-2-x-23A-A23-23-A-Cell-Size-Type-24V-with-6-leads-/371759703917

Also, what's the life like on these batteries versus 9V ones?

Further edit - I personally don't have a problem with how EMGs sound at 9V and neither do either of my bands (in fact they tend to comment on how beefy the bass sounds) but I'm always keen to try new things (especially if there are side benefits like longer battery life and even beefier sound)

Cheers

Matt

Edited by neepheid
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14 hours ago, Jean-Luc Pickguard said:

What are the minor annoyances you have with gear?

I'll start:

1 - Hipshot only selling nickel plated extenders which look out of place on a headstock with chrome plated tuners. Also the nickel plated stuff used to be described as chrome plated, but the website has since been updated. 

3 - Epiphone - fitting generic wilkinson tuners to the thunderbird vintage pro - I've upgraded both of mine to gotoh GB640s which have match the vintage aesthetic much better.

4 - Reverse tuners - why not fit tuners which look like the period correct vintage ones but turn the same way as all other tuners? Only Gotoh GB640s get this right.

8 - Straps. Most straps don't have enough adjustment to go long enough which limits the choice of suitable straps. You can't rock out with a thunderbird at nipple level.

9 - Not much can be done about this one, but its always struck me as odd that pedalboards have to be set up with the pedals right to left instead of the more logical left to right due top the placement of the input & output sockets on pedals.

10 - EMG don't make much noise about how their active bass pickups really need at least 18v to sound great. I'm sure people are put off using them when they don't sound particularly special with a single 9v battery. I use 24v from a pair of 12v A23 car plipper batteries in mine - which take up less room than a standard 9v.

 

I think maybe you're more prone to annoyance than I am. Looking at your list, here's my tuppence on the ones I'm bothered about.

1. A quick look at the Hipshot site shows quite a few extenders in chrome - are you saying that Hipshot are misrepresenting their product on the website? If so, that's not good.

3. Epiphone will fit whatever parts they can get away with to sell instruments at a particular price point. Everyone will know that it's not an old Thunderbird anyway because it says Epiphone on the truss rod cover so I don't really get your point here.

4. If they fitted tuners that looked like "period correct" tuners but operated in the (now) normal direction, they wouldn't be reverse tuners! I happen to like reverse tuners on old Fenders and indeed installed a set on an old Aria jazz bass that I was rescuing a couple of years back. Long live the reverse tuner!

8. Mmmm… I've got a couple of leather straps which won't go *short enough*. Only buy straps which suit you.

9. With slightly longer interconnects you can put them in any order you want.

10. No, I wouldn't expect a company to market their products as not sounding great as supplied. I'm sure they don't do that because it's not true - I and many others - have been using EMGs since the early 80s on 9v systems and oddly enough they do sound great. (if you like EMGs that is) Again, maybe I'm just not as fussy as you about my sound, although I doubt that.

Isn't it great that we all like different things. 😉

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