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Hey Guys! Just stumbled over this thread and thought I'd chime in a bit about what is unique about my JHB signature bass. After the Warwick 35 years celebration in September 2017, Warwick asked me what would it take for me to come onboard as an endorser. My answer was simple, "You have to make me a bass that I'll want to play forever!" I was imediately flown out to Germany to the Custom Shop and spent 4-days with their head designer going through all the details of what had to be in this model. It has to be said that the Warwick JHB is totally different to any other Warwick bass I have seen and/or played, and when I was at the factory, I played everything they had. The Fortress body shape was chosen for two reasons. Firstly, Warwick did not want to design a completely new body shape, they wanted it to be representative of one of their basses- that was the only restriction. I chose the Fortress because at 24 frets, it was the only body shape they do that balanced properly. The shape was cutomised slightly in that it had a deeper angled curved where the forearm goes across and deep scoops on the inside of both the upper and lower horns. One of the most radical changes made, was the use of a different bridge. Historically, Warwick has always used a 2-peice bridge which is highly adjustable, but I never liked the sound of those 2-peice bridges- too clickly and hi-fi sounding. Instead we used an All Parts 'Omega' bridge which is a copy of the Badass II bridge. Badass went out of business sometime ago and All Parts waited until their patent expired and have done an exact copy- IMO the best sounding bridge ever. This single customisation makes this bass sing head over heels compared to any other Warwick bass I've heard. I love the sound of the Aguilar Super Doubles. I had those in my Fodera, but that was something I switched out as the Fodera came with Seymor Ducans. I also wanted the EM Bass Mute, which is a switchable bass muting system which emulates the palm muting technique. The circuit was designed by me and Warwick did a terrific job in manufacturing that exactly to my personal specs. The body wood is swamp ash which is considerably lighter than the American Ash on the Fodera and has a much more agressive and responsive sound. There's an ultra-thin AAA Flame Maple top. This was crucial as a lot of basses are made with top woods that are too thick which messes with the sound. The neck is also completely different from the garden variety Warwick bass. For starters, it has 19mm spacing which was the first bass they've produced with this spacing. In addition the depth of the neck is super thin and instead of a "C" shape, it's more of an assymetrical shape much like a teardrop, where there's a little more weight at the low strings and less weight at the higher strings. While I was at the Custom Shop, I played the Lee Sklar model. Although I diddn't really like that bass, they used small madolin fretwire which was incredible, so we added that as well to the JHB. The neck is made from Flame Maple, with a Bird's Eye Maple fretboard. This was finished off with a graphite nut. The playabitlity is amazing and all in all Warwick has done a fabulous job in reproducing all of my original ideas about this wonderful instrument. So many people were shocked when they heard I had gone to Warwick, but when I posted the original sound samples people were amazed at how good this bass sounded. Many stating that it was a lot punchier than the Fodera. I did like the Fodera bass, but my JHB bass is so much better. This is the bass I use now. You'll see a lot of guys who have endorsements who will never play the basss they endorse unless they're at a trade show. Not me. From the very outset with Warwick, I said that the only way that I will work with you is that you knock this out of the park and build me something that I'll play forever! They in turn came up with the goods! Bavo Warwick!

Well, there are a number of us female bass players on here - one of them is even a mod, and she can reply to locked threads! While we are all very, very pretty indeed, most of us are not exactly 'young', so our reaction tends to be a weary shrug of our shoulders, before moving on to another thread or back to practising on our basses.

Here's my old one: And here's my current one: And the two of them together cost less than he wants for the one in that listing!

The thing is though, the OP is claiming that's not what he meant, which I find disingenuous at best. If you want to make a leery, boorish nudge- nudge type comment about a girl on a publicly visible forum (which I think is the real point here), at least have the balls to admit it. Or possibly just keep it in your head where it belongs.

Time to address a couple of common ideas often spoken around these parts. The first was brought up in a recent thread and I see the second one a lot, too. Interested to hear your thoughts. 1. "Whatever bass you play, you'll sound like you'' / ''It's all in the fingers'' I suppose to a degree it's right - someone will recognise the style of playing of an individual regardless of what bass they play. A good example would be Victor Wooten playing that Sire jazz bass recently posted here. It sounds like him. BUT - I don't think it's even remotely true to say it doesn't matter what bass you buy, it's all in the fingers. Nobody can make a Precision bass sound like a Musicman just by the way they play. It's impossible. Maybe in front of an audience with poor monitoring and a poor bass sound it would be immaterial - we've all been there - but recorded, or properly monitored, it's obvious to me that basses sound completely different. Otherwise why would we even discuss them? 2. "It doesn't matter what you play (gear wise), the audience won't be able to tell the difference" Maybe not. My mum can't even identify what sound is the bass. But is that a reason not to buy XYZ? Do we do it slavishly for the audience, or do we enjoy knowing our own sound works, and the nuances, even if known only to the player, are worth the journey? Would you be happy playing a really horrible - but adequate - sound as a bass player?

It would take less time asking every member of the audience than it would asking every member of the band in some of the places I've played in!

Lads I already feel bad for regurgitating it all over again. We can all just get along. The new bc rules should be no political chat, no religious chat, no compression chat!

Maybe try reading the thread next time...even the title would have been a start😉

I find it quite disturbing that a Belgian has a better English vocabulary than I do 😁

The audience can hear the difference, they just don't know they do

It is yellow....very yellow! And I like it!

Thought this was cool - Martin Kemp from Spandau Ballet's GK rig, as used with a pair of Wals

Time for a story, sorry Many years ago lighting was expensive and I was broke. For our band I kibbled some lighting together, ahem health and what? Anyway I had two kitchen spotlight units with three different coloured halogen spots in each, a strobe attached to each and a smoke machine. It was all wired through a homemade footswitch to turn it all on and off. The smoke machine was tucked behind my massively over the top bass rig consisting of a bi-amped pair of 15's and a pair of 12's, aiming behind the drummer. When we did Motorheads Overkill I would stomp on the switch turning off the coloured lights and turning the smoke and strobes on when it got to all the false endings, if you know the song you'll know when I mean. At one gig I stomped enthusiastically on the switch at the correct moment which immediately fell to pieces leaving the smoke machine and strobe permanently on only able to be turned off at the wall. The drummer slowly disappeared from sight, then the guitarist and I and it stayed on for the remainder of the song until the stage area and crowd were completely lost in the fog and blinded by massive white strobes bouncing off the cloud. Oh how we all laughed, well apart from the drummer who was having some sort of epileptic asthma attack

Think we've got very similar if not the same ones Les. They're ok for a colour wash but I wouldn't use them on their own. I've got a couple of more expensive brighter ones that I use for main lighting. You're welcome to pop by to check them out if we're in your neck of the woods - we're at the bowling green in Dec. I use an O clamp with some speaker pole mounted to the ceiling mount screw holes on the top of our PA tops. Then I can just hang the par cans off them.

I've gigged and rehearsed with about ten different basses in my current band over hundreds of gigs/sessions. Not one band member or punter has ever noticed the difference 😞😞

I’d totally try out a the HL comp and if it works ‘ better’ than my Cali I’d consider the possibility of swapping. If a product is noticeably better or adds something to the whole then it makes sense to consider the options especially if it’s important to you to have the latest version of a pedal. I enjoy what my Cali does I like the sound so not actively in the market but if anyone wants to A/B one in Edinburgh with my Cali just let me know 😀 @Al Krow most audiences aren’t going to consciously notice a lot of what you list over and above the singer and the songs. I believe that unless actively out to scrutinise a band rather than just have a few drinks and a dance folks aren’t that bothered. I know we’ll disagree over that but playing a bum note or screwing up a passage might not even get noticed by many let alone some of the other stuff listed. I’ve hit the occasional bum note and no one on the dance floor stopped dead and eyeballed me with contempt for killing their groove... Ok maybe the drummer 😀 Recently doing our Ska ‘7 Nation army’ cover I didn’t bother with the heavy drive on one chorus but did in another and again there wasn’t any noticeable different in the crowds response to the song as they kept on singing along. Generally folks were more interested in their immediate friends and surroundings than my choice of note, technique or effect be it in their face or beyond the realms of their perception. Ive said it before I’m not apathetic to the audience, I love gigging and a bit of banter with folk when playing. I understand that while many of us do understand where and how important a bass works in a mix a lot of the drunken hen parties we see don’t and would be bored to death if we tried to tell them. I’m happy that they remain as oblivious to my gear if it means they kee dancing and singing.

+1 The pleasure of the chase, and acquisition [rpt]. A couple of times I have bought The One, only to sell and buy again, because I can't bear the thought of the chase ending.

Can you Photoshop my belly to make it smaller please.

perfect. I've ordered one of the other ones you posted, to see what they're like. Thanks for your help folks

I recently started to do live looping and wanted to avoid a computer so I bought an Akai xr-20 used for dirt cheap to act as the master clock for my Pigtronix Infinity looper. Sure, if you want to record it, you need a computer, but for playing live, this setup would not require a computer. In some ways it feels very liberating. Here´s how my setup sounds:

I always thought ‘all in the fingers’ was nonsense. I get the thinking behind it but people who say that are confusing chops / playing style with choice of equipment. A really good example is Jaco playing Jerry Jemmott’s bass on the Electric Bass video. Jaco is playing in the way he plays, and it’s great, but it sounds completely different to the rest of the video where he plays the Fender. They’re Jaco’s chops, but with a different tone.

Nail on head. Hubba hubba indeed. FFS.

Later Without Jools Holland.

I don't want to out myself as a Snowflake SJW but I can't help wondering what I'd think if I was a young female bass player reading this thread.

And she’s hot i do have a liking for the work of Michael Steele of the bangles

Saturday featured a planned trip to BassDirect following the tedious and late completion of my house sale. Many months of chasing and hassle had to have some type of reward I decided. I set myself a budget and took my good lady along who was oddly keen to help me in my latest GAS relapse (it'd been a whole 4 months since getting my Dingwall NG3) There were a couple of basses i'd eyed up in the 2nd hand section to try out, but upon entry a gleaming apparition appeared before me. A glorious sunburst MM Jazz, beckoning me. It had just come in on p/x and was about to be posted online. I think not. I'd wanted a Miller since I first started playing in 2004, and this was not to be a missed opportunity, having missed out on not one, but three MM's in that time. Plugged in, it did all the right things. I knew it was meant to be. I did however try out a few others just to say I compared it (Dingwall ABZ4, Combustion 4) but it was a one horse race.

For many years I was the lighter for a ska/rock/punk band, here in France (Kiemsa...); your anecdote brings back many memories of similar (and worse..!) situations. Thanks for posting.

Good thing that you play better than you spell...the grammar Nazis are going to love your contribution. 😏😏 Something that I picked up on... Quality!!

Yes, I’ve run more “voiced ” preamps into it (Sansamp VT, Sadowsky) but I assume it would overload with a line level input unless you were able to keep it very low.

the ethical situation doesn't end there though with how its all glued together!!! i was vegan for about 5 years and thought about this but i cant see any substitute glue being available either?

Just a few things more and I'm done (and I know exactly what those FOUR bass things are) and then I'm going to see if I can follow your lead and get back on @Sibob's gear abstinence wagon and see it through 2019 too. Oh how they all laughed! Update: managed to get three of the four today and that just leaves a STOMP box (by Helix) which will be due out later in the year just in time for birthday or Xmas. So Sibob's gear abstinence wagon here I come...

And with good reason… Surely everything in the chain from you striking a note to it reaching the listener’s ears has an effect on the end sound / tone / whatever. This can range from a tiny effect (like what lead you use) to a massive one (roundwound or flatwound strings). The biggest impact on the sound is how you strike the string i.e. your fingers (both left and right hand of course). This is because: a) the inherent tonal quality of your fingers is unique to you and; b) this is the first stage of generating the note and therefore impacts on everything further down the chain. I would have thought that most people, if they really tried, could tell the difference between a Stingray and a Jazz. But if I play a Stingray or a Jazz, it certainly sounds noticeably different, but it still sounds like me playing a Stingray or a Jazz. Similarly, if you were to get up and sit in with my band and play through my gear with the same settings, you won’t sound like me, but like you playing through my rig. I think that the main reason that people can’t seem to be able to tell the difference is that they simply don’t care. A Stingray and a Jazz may well sound a bit different, but the chances are that you will be able to get a tone from either of them that will work with virtually all types of music that use an electric bass guitar. There are hundreds of good bass sounds available (and even more bad ones) and as long as the bass sounds good I don’t think that anyone who isn’t on Basschat, the odd recording producer or an overly fussy band leader really cares. This is very different to an instrument like a guitar, which works in a register that people hear more clearly and really defines the sound of the music the band are playing. Van Halen and SRV each have / had great, iconic rock guitar sounds, but Eddie’s ‘brown’ sound would not have worked on SRV’s albums any more than Stevie’s would have worked on Running With The Devil…!

Another vote for Crown amps, you can pick up a XLS1500 for £300 on eBay, less if you're luck. Bomb proof, light and powerful. Used to run mine with a BF Big Twin, sounded great.

There was a play on? I'm sure I saw Jools between 10.00-10.30?

There's some corking mistakes in that: 1. Markbass amp and cab.. 2. 5 string bass 3. Too many notes 4. Too many slides 5. Too much smiling - no pouty constipated "bass face" 6. Although seated, too much moving about - not enough "rigid bass player scared stiff" pose 7. Too much groove pushing and pulling - needs far more rigidity and lack of expression 8. Vertical blinds - in 2018?? 9. Should have oiled that fretboard 10. Not enough clank/mwah/thump/bounce/slap/twang* *delete as appropriate

And I thought naively that British people had a great sense of humour. What to me is really misogynistic (this is the right word) is the term "female". That really hurts my senses. The girl is playing the tune very well, with the accents very precisely put, she has a wonderful smile, and furthermore she is having great fun. What else would you ask ?

If there's any rebooting to be done with Later they should boot Jools off it.

I suspect that a fingering a blind audience would result in more questions than answers, probably conducted under caution in the local police station!

Yup. Reset for me too. I made the mistake of "browsing" online after a few beers last night. The upshot, a Squire Jag winging it's way to me as we speak. The internet should come with a breathalyser.

There's already a pre-amp built into your bass amplifier. If it's not doing it for you then you probably have the wrong amplifier.

The way I see it, the only way to properly try an amp out is to play a gig with it. It's highly unlikely that I'd get a chance to try out all the stuff I'd like to so the only way is to buy them, try them out and then keep or sell. I've got lovely stuff but still peruse the F/S section for stuff I have absolutely no need for. It's my only real vice though since I don't drink much or smoke or go on holidays.

Someone was advertising an eden metro combo on here. It was in your price range and it is a fabulous amp, although a bit heavy.

I'm down to one bass. It will probably go to the grave with me. It's a Sei J 5 and it suprised me every time I play it. It's just superb.There is no competition. I will add the East pre brings out the best from it.

Getting there .... The plate still has film on it I need to connect pup to pot need tug bar fitted i still need to get concentric knobs from somewhere BEFORE any one points it out 1. I know the first position block is slightly wonky 2. I know stack knobs didn’t have blocks and so are not strictly accurate

Not bass gear, but at least this has strings. Acquired on Monday: