Leaderboard

So, I acquired a lovely year 2000 US Fender Jazz recently. Took it to a gig with my Stingray and realised that whilst it was a beautiful instrument I am geared up for active basses and found it limp in comparison with my rock covers band. I put it up for sale initially but then did some research on onboard pre-amps and came to the conclusion that the new J-Tone by John East was the way to go. I have had John's kit before and it is beautifully designed and put together. It took minutes too install and has totally transformed the instrument. It is a straight drop in, no routing and no soldering. It has a push/pull pot which switches neatly between passive and active and the pot is also the passive tone control too, simple, clean and effective. The next pot is double stacked bass and treble in active mode and the remaining double stacked pot is volume and blend (this is also available with Vol/Vol too). It is still definitely a jazz and has all the right characteristics but it is now very much enhanced without losing any of the classic tones. This unit has made this instrument eminently usable for me and I will be gigging it tomorrow night with a big smile on my face!

Mine.. march 1991

When I read this about the old headless Hohners beeing kind of rare, I come to think of my own headless bass. It's a Cort Space B2 (I think it's called) With active/passive Electronics. I'm not shure how rare this is, but The Cort webpage states that these where manufactured alongside the Hohners in the Korean Cort factory in the 80's, and share much of the same hardware and Electronics. I do think that the active ones are a litte more difficult to find than the passive ones. Well herre are some pics.

All I want for christmas is the cancellation of brexit

The usual really. World peace. The end of poverty and inequality. For all humanity to be immune to every disease. Just kidding, I want a p bass with flats.

The Millennium Falcon, in the condition it was in when Lando had it. My tinnitus to go away To look like Helena Christensen People to shut up about the beatles.

Plays as good as it looks, first Ibby tried a few cheaper ones in past and they felt a bit lightweight and a bit like, for want of a better word toys, tried the natural coloured one in Gear4 in york and thought having this, but had to be the Mojito which looks a bit like a chocolate lime sweet. Been playing on it since i got home.

Hello people, Probably about time I made a post. I am a young player in my early 20's. Been playing Bass for a little while now, I picked it up on a whim as I needed to record a part and I found out that the low end is where I belong. Music is a big big part of my life, I grew up listening to my Dad's records. He unfortunately passed away just over a month ago. I intend to focus on my musical vision to honour him, it's what he would have wanted and I know it would make him proud. Music and Bass are my way to express and deal with emotions and difficult times, I'm glad I have them as a part of my life. I play prog-rock and metal mostly, but I don't try to emulate the big bands in those genres, I'm trying to create something unique and compelling. My two biggest influences from a song writing point of view are Steven Wilson (Porcupine Tree primarily) and Mariusz Duda (Riverside and his solo stuff from Lunatic Soul), their approach to melody is something that I find very compelling. In terms of technique and general bass playing I'm more influenced by modern players, Amos Williams from Tesseract always inspires me to be creative and mix up my techniques and voicing and Jon Stockman from Karnivool inspires me to be creative when it comes to rhythm, counter-melody and using effects with Bass. John Frusciante is also a huge influence of mine, even though he is a guitar player, he is so expressive with his playing and you can really feel that his instrument is a true extension of himself. I've also played guitar since I was young as I dreamed of being on a stage and I wanted to 'play music' and that seemed like the only option at the time because guitar was where it was at at the time, but honestly as much as I love guitar, bass is just too fun that I never touch my guitars anymore. I would say my biggest musical skill is singing though, I have a huge range and good control but I prefer to sit back in the pocket and play bass. I'm looking to get more competent at singing and playing bass, I can sing pretty effortlessly but I play in a very complex genre that requires so much concentration to play in that it just seems impossible.

here to primarily sell and buy equipment. love a bit of banter also. thx

Some people will do anything to avoid playing in hull...

His gear has been found.

Thanks Charlie! This is very much the same process that we use when designing amplifiers, developing the combination of load profile, driving signal and thermal conditions, integrating these factors over time. This was even more the case when designing linear amps when we had to worry (a lot) more about SOA (safe operating area). Class D amps are more forgiving in this area than linear amps due to cut-off/saturation operation. While this is correct for voltage, it is NOT correct for power as you would be ignoring the squared factor in the power equation (P=V^^2/R) When RMS is used in describing power, all it means is that the voltage and current are based on RMS units, not that the power itself is in RMS units. It's a short-hand notation that's understood by most professionals in the industry and has been used for years.

Oh it is. And yes we do. I still remember when "All Day Breakfast" supported "All You Can Eat For £3.50". There was nearly a riot of hungry pensioners. That's a good band name actually - "Riot of Hungry Pensioners" 👍

There - fixed dum diddle um diddle um diddle um diddle um diddle um diddle um diddle um.

If I was to do a demo of an amp I would use a looper. Play a phrase and let that go round and round with the camera pointed at the controls of the amp. Fiddle with all the buttons and knobs. Then go around the amp and get up and close to the outputs and inputs etc. I don’t care for what the bass player is doing. I don’t need to see that. I need to see the amp. I’d mic it up and do a DI comparison etc but that’s a lot of work and a good enough reason not to make YouTube video demos.

Fun gig with the seven piece "little big band" yesterday at an elementary school. We played a few songs including some Christmas music and then got to sit in with the school band and play along with about twenty-five kids aged 13 and 14. The best part was watching the kindergarten kids(age 5) up on the stage as they sang through Rudolph, Jingle Bells and We Wish You A Merry Christmas complete with actions.Brought a tear to my eye as I recalled seeing my son and his classmates doing the same thing some thirty-five years ago, quite a magic moment and the little concert put me in a better mood for the Christmas season.

Interesting, I'd only just seen this thread. I'm a long time user and fan of Boss/Roland stuff - GT-10b, GR-55, VB-99, GT-6b, ME-8b, BE-5b, zillions of Boss compacts. I would have also highly recommended the GT-1b for your needs and budget. Its basically a stripped down GT-10b and I think it actually has a few advantages sound wise over its bigger brother. Where it does fall down is the menu/GUI navigation which can be a bit confusing. I get around this by using the Boss Tone Studio software, which makes editing easy. Its also a little awkward to jump up and down multiple patches on the fly. I get round this by grouping patches together or adding a default patch either side of any more radical ones. To comment on your summary above. 1/ It did take me some considerable tweaking to finally settle on a transparent default patch at something close to unity gain. The pre loaded patches all seemed very hot and so I started from scratch constantly bypassing the GT-1b to check. Once this was done I designed all my patches using the default patch as starting point and again bypassing and checking levels etc. repeatedly. 2/ The Chorus has a Low and High pass filter built in. If you set the The 'Lowcut' to anything above 125Hz you should retain all the low end as It'll be unprocessed. I actually find the Chorus in the GT-1b more extreme than either my CE-2b or CEB-3. I mostly use it for a subtle wash though rather than full on sea-sick wobbliness. I'd strongly advise to to spend some serious time getting to know the sound and capabilities of the unit before you dismiss it. Every multi effects I've ever used has its own idiosyncratic nature. There are usually some things that each multi does well its just a matter of learning how to use the unit and find the sweet spots. The GT-1b is a great multi and is a very powerful bit of kit, I've programmed (and use regularly) Everything form Face melting Fuzz patches, through gentle grind, some rudimentary synth patches, It has a brilliant OC-2 emulation, the T-wah is one of my faves (including boutique stuff and my Mu-Tron III), I've even managed Royal Blood type splits and crazy Hammond organ patches. Stick with it , I'm sure it'll be accompanying you on a gig soon.

Not sure if this counts but, I took the kids to see the musical Matilda (eldest daughter is called Matilda, unless you actually try and call her that. She only answers to Tilly) in Cardiff last night. I have to say, despite it not being my sort of thing I was impressed.

Well done, trooper, for not 'bottling' it. 'What doesn't kill you makes you stronger' and all that..?

The update. Just got back from the "mime" gig. I had previously said, "what could possibly go wrong?" Four days ago, I think I broke my left little finger. Still bloody painful. So, I took a back up normal fretless. Got to the sax player's house, to find he'd now taken the bass off of the tracks, suggesting that I can now "play along" with the numbers!! Great, a random 15 numbers from a list of 30 numbers I didn't know. Fabulous venue and food, corporate gig for 70 high-flyers. I get told that I can share the guitarist's real book charts. Fab, a busted finger, an upright bass I've had for 5 weeks and songs I don't know and now, have to take my eyes off the fingerboard😂 Lasted five numbers on the upright and changed to normal fretless. Less painful and at least I knew where the notes were. Got through it, but stressful, got paid and the unexpected key changes in a couple of numbers were a bit of a car crash. All experience though I guess.

on my list? for people to say, "lets call it quits, I won't get you a present and you don't get me one", it's the present buying/giving I don't like about Christmas, it's nearly as bad trying to think of things for people to buy me as trying to think of things to buy other people, bah Humbug.

Any retirement package that looks better than "Death in Service"...

Paid not to play:

Hi, Just joined and a small intro. Early 50s bass player now gaining a healthy interest in bass building. Been playin since I was 14 on and off. Thanks Shaun..

Serious question, would a looped signal (basically a recording) interact with the amp in exactly the same way as the live signal?

Shocking!! never mind "get the fire brigade!" call the police.

I think both can work. If your researching a particular product it's definitely more constructive to watch several shortish reviews and demos than a couple of long ones. At the other scale there's the hugely popular Andertons TV reviews which can often be 40 minutes +, although I tend to think of Andertons as the 'Top Gear' of guitars in that I watch it more for general entertainment than because I'm actually interested in whatever products they are showcasing.

Personally, long 10 minutes ones for me.

I'm off to VHB / UH tomorrow night. Fingers crossed for a decent mix, VHB deserve sound techs to do their job as they always seem to give 100% with their performances. Not seen UH for about 15 years!

Iain bought my fab Fender 1971 sunburst P bass from me this week. What an absolute gent! Great comms, paid instantly and bass arrived safely today. Hope you have many happy years playing her mate, its a killer bass! Thanks again for a super easy deal, an absolute credit to Basschat. Cheers Paul

2015: an Aerodyne Jazz costing 55,000 JPY would have cost £282 pre shipping & tax. Today it would cost £392... something must have affected the exchange rate.

With regard to my comment of import duty, it is being removed from 1st February 2019 following anEU agreement. Probably need to get in quick before we leave the EU on 29th March2019, assuming that we still do.

-

It is - you just need an invite. They're pretty easy to come by. I've got some if anybody wants to go. 😉

This is my rig for 2019!

Why would Mesa not consider everything? They were clever enough to build the Walkabout in the first place so if they are lining up the WD800 as a replacement I'd expect it to perform. There are a few who will be dissatisfied no matter what, but as Mesa know much more about their amps than we do, I'd wait to see what the WD800 sounds like before jumping to conclusions.

Yes - kinda - but read the manual - they describe it properly

Surely a preamp pedal can’t control the damping factor of a power amp?

As long as you are following "orders"? Nothing. Stuff may not be what it seems, but context is everything. As long as you sound good or look the part and the guy who is paying you is happy then it is all good. I've never been replaced by a session player on a gig or record, but I've been in bands who have initially done that with a drummer and brass section. The guys were cool. They got paid, got the glory and did the rest of the work once they were up to speed. I have mimed to tracks on TV and on a live show, where we only did 2 numbers, because they didn't have the facilities for a live sound or the engineers to mix what we were playing. I'd rather be miming to a well played record than sounding terrible at the hands of a guy who doesn't know about how the band should sound. Stuff happens. Learn from the bad, remember the good and variety is always fun.

Back in the late nineties I tried to put together an Eighties tribute act. I couldn't find a guitarist that would play the Pop stuff needed to get decent gigs. At one rehearsal I discovered that the keyboard player had an amazing voice....long story short... I purchased backing tracks, he sang and I mimed the keyboards. At first I took my bass gear along and played live on some songs because I felt guilty ( the agent and the venues always knew that I was miming) but eventually we realised that nobody cared and I stopped lugging it around. In two years of gigging two or three times a week only one person came up to me and said " You're not playing those keys are you?" when I answered" no" he replied " you do a good job of making it look like you are though!" Go and enjoy the gig ….the punters will just be out to enjoy themselves.

You say that as if what an amp sounds like doesn't matter! The loudest noise and most condemnation came from people who had never seen or heard a TC amp. Sadly, what TC didn't say was their amp was equivalent to a 500 watt amp etc. If they'd done that then there wouldn't have been a problem. The assumption most of the people who joined in to the Talkbass thread made was that a 246 watt amp couldn't possibly be as loud as any one else's 500 watt amp. If these people had used their ears rather than what ever else they were using they would have heard 250 watts sounding as loud as 500 watts. The mature response should have been, how are they doing that? Unfortunately the subject quickly descended into abuse and got nowhere. It's still getting nowhere.

Given a level playing field - same price, item you want is in stock and polite and helpful staff - I think most of us would like to support out local shops. For many of us this hasn't been the case so we vote (shop) using the power of the wallet. If you want my money, have what I want when I want it - and don't talk to me like I'm an idiot.

In fairness, Graham, most of the pro-Ishibashi posts on this thread were made before the UK voted for economic suicide and destroyed the value of the UK£.

The Vintage Hofner site is an excellent place to do your research, but don't expect anyone to offer a valuation! You might (maybe) get a bite at Hofner Hounds, but you'll need to supply way more information than you have here and - above all - lots of good quality photographs. As to it being "the right time to sell" ... erm ... no it isn't. The market peaked over two years ago and is currently in the toilet. If you need the dosh then sell, but if you can afford to wait, then give it at least another couple of years. If it's a genuine, all-original 1963 in excellent condition then it could easily appreciate by over 50% in that time - [b]IF[/b] the market recovers from its current very depressed state. If it's a beat-up piece of poo with after-market tuners and knobs and a dodgy neck re-set, then it's not worth anything like as much as you might think. It's only buyers of vintage Fenders who like their basses pre-ruined. I won't offer any further comments until I know a lot more about this bass.