Ed_S

I don't take my slightly more expensive couple of basses out because whilst they greatly enhance my enjoyment of practicing and recording, they'd absolutely ruin my enjoyment of rehearsing and gigging. I don't want to spend my time preoccupied with thoughts of theft, loss and damage.. I want to put my gear in a storeroom and head out for food after soundcheck, load offstage into the dressing room and drink irresponsibly to the other bands that are on after us, and maybe let somebody else in the band take my stuff back with them if they're driving. So I take a pair of less expensive basses that are perfectly solid and reliable, and I enjoy playing them, and they look great on live photos.. but they don't cause me any stress and I believe I play better for it.

Got another dep outing yesterday, helping to open proceedings at the Sheffield M2TM competition final at Corporation. To say that the doors opened at 13:30 and we were on at 13:40, there was actually a decent crowd pretty much straight from the start. I think some of that was possibly initially helped by there being 4 other guest bands and 5 competition bands on the premises at the time, but a crowd's a crowd and there were definitely increasing numbers of paying public there, too. Played well, enjoyed the gig, got positive feedback from people who'd seen us, and a box of lager from the band as a thanks for jumping in last-minute. Played my Rockbass Streamer LX 5 (which I bought as b-stock, fettled, gutted and re-wired passive) through a couple of new bits of kit which I bought as an aid to travelling light; a Fender Telepath wireless system and a Tech21 Bass Fly Rig v2. Went straight into the PA from the Fly Rig, and also into my Markbass Nano 2 on top of the house Blackstar 115 cab - pretty unnecessary if I'm honest, given the foldback on the main stage. The Fender wireless seems to be decent - perhaps functionally no more decent than any of the much cheaper 5.8GHz alternatives, but it feels solid and it performed flawlessly so I'm happy with it. The Fly Rig v2 sounds much better to me than the original version I had a few years back ever did - definitely keeping this one for when the full pedalboard isn't practical. Same black boots as usual.

That's fair, I can see how that'd work from an engineering standpoint. I guess 'inferior' is a poor choice of word without a good deal more qualification, isn't it. Better to simply say I personally don't like them for a number of reasons, both practical and aesthetic, and much prefer my cabs to have metal corners and rubber feet. Is your preference for the plastic all-in-ones such that you'd actively avoid metal/rubber?

It was kinda squinty - I wanted them close enough to the edges to be stable and far enough away from them to still be well under, so I matched them up (by eye) with the centre of the first large ridge or channel. Very scientific. Can only speak for myself, of course, but I think plastic stacking corners will always be a massively inferior solution to metal corners that don't break and rubber feet that give significant ground clearance. I used to have the NY121 cabinet to put under the CMD121p and even then I had rubber feet on both; even if you never use the combo on its own, at some point you have to put the combo down on the ground, so if its carpet then collects guff it'll just be transferred onto the top of the extension cab. I'll take misaligned over soiled. I suppose if the stacking corners were redesigned so that the ridges had undercuts in them (kinda mushroom shaped in profile, if you get what I mean) and there was an optional corner-piece with a rubber foot mounted on it, that was moulded to interlock with the new shape, slide diagonally into the corner and lock in place somehow, that would give you the option of both. But it'd still be made of plastic.

Where carpeted cabs only have stacking corners, I'd always fit rubber feet to avoid them soaking up the usual cocktail of beer, fruit juice and other less wholesome substances that ends up all over most venue floors and car parks by the end of a night. I totally get the warranty concerns about driving screws into the bottom of a new cab, but I consider the alternative a much worse situation so I've attached rubber feet to all my Markbass cabs and combos before taking them out. Never had any problems with either the feet or the carpet covering, so my vote is definitely to feet. My CMD 121p for example - still nice and clean:

£40 or less should get you a Peavey Micro Bass in decent condition. They're built tough and sound alright.

Sorry, was just revisiting the topic as it resurfaced and realised that I never responded. Of course you're absolutely right on both counts, and in the case of Steve Harris I'd say he manages even more impressively than most, his preference being for fresh sets of Rotosounds. I personally found them uncommonly harsh and inflexible when I tried them, so I'm guessing he has a very different touch to me and/or much hardier fingers after years at it! In any case, my own most recent foray into flat territory with the Ernie Ball stainless 'group' set has just ended and I think that's probably me finally done with the concept. If I absolutely needed flats in future (unsure how that would ever come about) they'd have to be the Cobalt Slinky variety, and at that point I might as well spend the same amount on a set of my usual rounds and an EQ pedal.

Our lead singer tried the SE V7 at rehearsal last night and I thought it behaved very well in a loud room. It sounded good with no EQ or DSP - just straight into a QSC K8.2 set flat. Needed a bit more gain to achieve the maximum output level before feedback that we've previously been getting with the e838 on a stand, but then allowed me to go on and almost max-out the dial on the QSC with no feedback even whilst being hand-held. We'll give it a first proper run out at a gig on Friday, but on current evidence I'm hopeful it'll work well for her.

I had the 2816 set (2814 with a 130 B string added) on a Fender Jazz V not too long ago and my personal experience was... They aren't silky smooth (Galli Jazz Flats would be my benchmark for that) but they're also not rough; they're just kinda finely textured and uniformly grippy. If it makes any sense, they have the kind of texture than makes them 'sing' when you run your hands across them. I found the tension to be similar to other comparable-gauge flats I've had (Fender, Chromes, EB Group) which I guess is to say they feel like playing the next-gauge-up set of rounds. They do sound brighter and more like rounds than all other flats I've tried, and I personally liked the grippy feel of them so I'd happily get another set at some point in the future. I think the feel is what might put some other people off, though.

That's something I've been pondering just recently. I provide a mic for our lead singer who is an operatic soprano and therefore not used to needing a mic, but now fronting a metal band. Whilst the Sennheiser e838 (cardioid) she's been using sounds great for her voice and was very forgiving while she was developing her mic technique, I've noticed that some sound guys seem to have a hard time working with it. I was considering just getting her an SM58 for all the reasons given, but then couple of months ago I played alongside another metal soprano who was using an SE V7 (super-cardioid) and it both sounded great for the style and didn't seem to cause undue headache at the desk, so I've actually got one of those arriving tomorrow to try out at rehearsal next week.

I owned multiple Ashdown cabs back in the day, but that was because I was experimenting with different speaker sizes before I knew better. It wasn't brand loyalty - it was just all you could buy in local shops. These days I own multiple Barefaced cabs based on the progression... Super 12 - Bought because everybody said it was the one cab to do pretty much any gig. It was. It still is. G2 Midget - Bought because it's half a Super 12 and sometimes that's all you need. Also vertical 3x12 potential. One10 #1 - Received as a birthday gift. One10 #2 - Bought to make a pair with the first one so it was any use to me. Two10 - Bought to give me the same sound as the pair of One10s in a one-hand-carry format. Also vertical 4x10 potential. I don't know whether it's brand loyalty as such - more just that they engineer light cabs that perform well and look acceptable in a utilitarian kind of way, and if something goes wrong they sort it out.

I believe it was pau ferro - nice looking board, too. I had the issue with ebony once before on a Jim Root sig Telecaster but this was the first time with any other wood.

I like the idea of Sandberg as a brand, and enough of the ones that aren't factory-damaged appeal visually, but having had four of them I can't see me getting another. Three were original cedar body superlight 4s (two TMs and a TT) which were great for my back problems but the recessed and un-filled fret slot ends felt weird, they all sounded somewhat lifeless in the same way, and the matt finish was stupidly easy to damage. My Maruszczyk Jake L4P+ wasn't far off the same weight, sounded lively, was finished in good strong gloss poly and had smooth fretboard edges, so it ended up winning. The last one was a Central 5, which ended up with the finish peeling off the edge of the fretboard so had to go back to be refinished. They did it perfectly well, but I'd not had it long enough before the issue appeared to really bond with it in any way, and by the time it came back from refinishing I'd kinda lost interest; played a couple of gigs with it and just couldn't get excited about it so moved it on.

Yeah, I guess if somebody was making a big thing of the fact that they'd had their bass fettled by a recognised luthier, could prove that to be the case, and the work done was exactly what I would be having done myself... maybe I'd offer or accept paying a few quid extra for that, provided I was totally confident that it was worth it to me. But to my mind, the thing about having the work done yourself is that at least you've seen the instrument in its original state, know who's done what and (perhaps most importantly) why, and you can have some input into the process, so I think I might still be more inclined to get a cheaper deal on one that's been left alone and take it to my own choice of professional.

If it's still possible to go out and get a new one that you'd expect to be perfect and not need the work, or if it's no longer available new but you'd expect the vast majority of second hand ones never to have needed the work, then no, I'd say that's on the seller for electing to keep and fix a b-stock, rather than swap out for a different one. Nothing against anyone who does that, btw.. as long as they realise that it's rarely an investment. I've done it myself - for example keeping an unusually light example of a bass with really attractive wood grain patterns but a knackered preamp because a swap could easily turn up as a boring-looking boat-anchor of an instrument, but with a functional preamp. I knew the money for a new preamp was never going to be recouped, and I was fine with that. I broadly agree with the 'what it owes me' comments, though I do use the phrase when talking generally about what a project has cost in total. If I ever use it when it's time to sell, I switch to a different version which involves completely writing-off the initial purchase price of anything I buy as a modding platform or fixer-upper, and then not spending any more on parts than I'm confident I can sell the whole thing for once completed, unless I'm willing to lose the additional outlay. That's perhaps just a me-thing, though!