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I’m a bit of an Aria fan, especially the MIJ & MIK stuff…. love my Integra 5. So I just picked this (tired and dirty) Korean PEB65…. just before starting the work on it, I’ve discovered it’s what appears to be Medium scale… 32.5 nut to saddles? Odd measurement? Anyway, beautiful arched top, flame maple I think, trans blue with binding. Nicely carved and ergonomic, and a nice weight. Active too…. Which I wasn’t expecting. Watch this space

That looks nuts, I love it! One of my students has a bass like that, but it's from Gear4Music and I don't think it's intentional...

“Why don’t we have this conversation somewhere else, only I think the band are using this doorway to move equipment through.”

That's a common misunderstanding of how the master volume control works. Your amp is divided into a pre amp section and the amplifier proper that drives the speaker. The master volume sits between those two controlling the voltage that goes into the amplifier. Voltage gain is important and will be done in stages in the pre-amp. Your guitar puts out a few thousandths of a volt and the amplifier needs around a volt to drive it to full power so the pre amp has a gain of just over 1,000. Not all basses have the same output and any pedals may have quite a lot of gain already but this is trimmed by your input gain. Inside the pre amp there are usually at least two gain stages The voltage is typically given a gain of about x100 to bring it up to a few 1/10ths of a volt and that is where the tone controls and any built in effects are done. After this a further stage adds more gain to bring that up to the voltage level the power amp needs. Now crucially all pre amps need to be able to give enough gain that even a weak signal will drive the amp to full power. The manufacturer doesn't know what bass and which pedals you will use so you have spare gain, usually lots of it. You could probably drive 3x the voltage needed into your power amp if you turned the master up to 11 (OK six o'clock ) You may well be driving your amp into distortion at 1 o'clock as you have no idea of the voltage gain in the last stage of your pre amp. I'll let you into a little secret here, extra gain costs nothing and a few manufacturers cheat a little and add pre amp gain, that makes their amp louder at 1 o'clock than everyone else's when you try them out in the shop, only when you get on the stage after you've bought do you find your amp overloads and you can't use anything past halfway on the output dial. Sound familiar? The wire in your speaker coil is thinner than a top E on a guitar and handles all the power, any speaker cable will be thicker than that. Bass speaker leads are short so don't need to be as thick as PA speaker cables which can be 10m+. Either would be fine One thing occurs to me, you play Reggae? You are probably boosting bass and cutting some of the mids and treble? Boosting the bass will boost the voltage in your amp and cutting the mids will make it difficult to hear yourself on stage. You could be loud enough for the band and the audience but just struggling to hear. Have you been out into the audience to listen there? The second effect of boosting the bass is that it makes the speakers move further and most speaker distortion is due to over excursion. Because what you are doing is specialised you may well be over-driving your speakers and they will eventually fail if that is the case. Adding the extra cab will reduce the excursion demands you are making by quite a lot but don't boost the bass so much if the speakers are overloading, that could be expensive. If the audience are getting a good deal and you are the only one not able to hear enough try boosting the mids on-stage and cutting them by the same amount on the PA if you can.

https://www.torzalguitars.com/natural-twist Its bonkers...but cured my GAS! for now...highest quality construction, design & body fit ...sounds fab 35 degree twist (25* neck & 10* body) After 10 min playing & not looking down ...you cant see the top of the neck...I feel ready to do a gig tomorrow...what could go wrong ...ha

Ok, so this is a NBD post but there's a bit of a story to go with it. I've had the bass a couple of months but I wanted to make sure I was keeping it before posting about it. Anyways, I'll do my best to keep it brief. For as long as I can remember I've known that I'm a bit different, life has been a constant struggle & to be honest, just down right cruel at times but this is not about seeking sympathy or anything. My favourite saying had become "I can't wait for this planet to stop spinning so I can get off". With that said, my one true constant love has always been music & even on the darkest of days music has been there, a steadfast companion as loyal as they come. After spending almost a decade trying to figure myself out with no help from the NHS the answers finally came from my employers occupational health dept. They steered me in the right direction & along with the diagnoses came the discovery of my own spirituality (ok, I know most will leave this post now so thank you for reading this far). It was a relief & I binned off all the self help books but as an avid reader this left a hole in my spare time. So digging around my bookshelf for something to get stuck into I found my copy of "the music lesson". I had read Victor's book years ago & to be honest I thought it was pants. But with fresh eyes I had another go at it & began to think about my place in music as a musician. I discovered a few things, firstly, I had become a collector of basses, nothing at all wrong with that but it was never my intention & secondly, I didn't know what my "sound/style" was. I had gotten very good at imitating other people but there was no individuality in my playing. I wasn't "moving" myself so how could I possibly be "moving" the audience with my playing. I just wasn't grooving man! So after much thought I decided to sell on my beautiful basses because as gorgeous as they are & as lucky as I was to have them none of them were "the one". Off they went to members here & on a total whim in the early hours one morning I stumbled across this wonderful 90s Tobias & brought it. I know it's a Gibson model & purists might turn up their noses but it's actually a fine instrument, or at least it will be. When it came it needed a good set up & the dual truss rods gave me some grief but I stuck with it & got the neck nice & straight only to discover this particular bass also came with plenty of high frets. Awesome. Off it went to the shop I use to have them leveled & I asked my mate Rob to give it a nice low action as I wanted to force myself to play with a lighter touch. I've kept a Lakland 5 string because it was a gift from my wife & it's always useful to have a 5 but for the last two months or so this is the only bass I've played, or even wanted to play. I'm more inspired to play bass now than I've ever been & this bass really draws me up the dusty end. I'm not in a band at the minute so all my time is spent improvising & playing what's in my head with little thought & it feels liberating. It's like I've cut out there middle man & I'm really starting to discover my own sound. The only thing left to do is fit the East bass/treble stack eq that I have because I think the active contour it has standard really limits the Bartolini pickups. So, long story short, the last few years & challenges that they brought have led me to this bass & the musical self discovery I'm experiencing now. I'm a "one bass kinda guy" now & I really like it. If you read this far thank you! I'm sure you deserve to see a picture of my awesome bass 😁

I don’t deny what you’re saying, Blue, but I object to being described as old😂

(Chow ) Main Street - Bob Seger Band

I'd not spend anymore money until you've tracked down what's going on with your current rig.

I have had the Keeley Bassist for about 7-8 years. I honestly don't think about it too much. I think I use it 'wrong' but I generally work from left to right on the pedal: - first I set the compression level (i.e. how much do I want to compress the signal?) - then I set the threshold (i.e. when do I want the compression to kick in?). The LED will change when the compression kicks in so it is easy to tell when the compression is working; - then I set the gain (i.e. how loud the output signal is). So I kinda use the gain control as a master volume for the pedal as per the specs it is not an input gain but an output gain. https://robertkeeley.com/product/bassist-compressor/ If you turn the compression completely off you can use the pedal as volume boost by pushing the gain control. Since people associate 'gain' with input gain it probably would have been better if the 'gain' control on the pedal was called 'volume'. In the whole time I have had the pedal I don't think that the gain control has been lower than 11 o'clock or higher than 1 o'clock.

I find it easy to play guitar and sing, but bass and singing is more difficult as the rhythm of the guitar part often fits the vocal but the bass part often doesn’t. The best tip I ever got was to hum the vocal line while playing. It seems to lower the brain load as you are just making noises in time rather than remembering words as well. Then when that is right, add the odd word in the right place, then a few more and build it up u til you complete the line. Definitely works for me. I’d suggest picking some really simple songs for home practice to learn the skill before jumping into the stuff you might actually perform.

And if finding its still not working, unless the bass-line is an intrinsic part of the song dumb it down a tad.

No probs, someone will no doubt be along to correct me but that's how it's always worked in my head! As for your amp, it's kind of the same - gain up until you feel it reacts best, whether that's slight saturation or the best signal/noise ratio, then output vol to taste. Usually the best place is so that the gain clip light flashes when you play your hardest, which is basically doing the same as an indicator on a compressor would do, except on an amp it overdrives the preamp, on a comp it starts to compress or limit.

Learn the bass part separately. Learn to sing the vocal separately. Fit both parts together and practice practice practice.

This popped up on FB this morning and for some reason amused me far more than such an obvious joke should 😅

If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.

I certainly do & just for today it's on sale at a special discounted price of......... 😂 In all seriousness Matt, I stopped trying, became open to everything & made friends with the intuition that I'd been doing my best to ignore for a lifetime. Discovering my spiritually (which had always been there) & accepting it (I really didn't want it) helped too. I'm different & some people don't like different, my autistic traits scare people I think but hiding & trying to fit into a world that doesn't understand was exhausting & hurting me. I have to be vigilant & know when to leave a situation but for now at least life is colourful.

...it doesn't even have to say Squier. Haven't played this one in over a year. Only P bass I own. Stored away with some other gear...I have eight other basses...I took it for a spin yesterday and it was like driving a classic car, no nonsense, it simply gets the job done. Passive, pure and potent. It won't be going back in its case for quite some time!

Oooo! That's really light! Mmmmm.... where is my wallet?

Very nice! Arch top + gut cut fixes my complaints about the standard LP shape. Possibly, or it might just be how it's intonated -- the nominal scale length would be the distance from the nut to the 12th fret x2.

These are always described as "Very rare", as if rarity was some kind of virtue. What they don't seem to realise is, they are rare because nobody else wanted one.

Definite case for buying a new bass. 😜 Of course, this one isn't worth much in it's current state, so you'd best keep it as a backup...

For the OP I think this is the key point.

I shall make a point of shouting that as loudly as I can this evening 😊 Bruce and the band probably won't hear me as they'll be 60 yards away at the other end of Villa Park

Personally I find that a lot nicer looking than the Gibson version of a Les Paul bass.

I can play bass, and I can sing badly. I find it extremely difficult to do both at the same time.

I use my Dovecage straight into the power section of my Glockenklang - haven't used it with my valve amps as the Glock adequately delivers the 'Monique' tone I need. Not sure a valve power amp would add much, IMHO.

It's why metering is useful on compressors like the MXR, but you can tell by setting your desired ratio and backing off the gain until it does what sounds best, probably upping the output to match. I'm not familiar with the Keeley but they mostly act in the same way. More gain in = more immediate crossing of the threshold into the ratio you set. Time to play!

Tele plate for me too, but please don't put any scratchplate on that beautiful flamed maple.

We played a 6-9 three peice acoustic show. It was freezing outside, 50 degrees by the lake. It was also damp and we were struggling to keep our guitars in tune. Very engaged crowd. Blue

With the Geddy/Rickenbacker thing, I'm sure that while the public persona of the guy was all 4001/4003 through an Ampeg some of the bass playing ilk were horrified when he was pictured with the Jazz bass onMoving Pictures (I think). I've been doing the bass stuff for over 35 years, if nothing I think that - string numbers aside - I've just become a bit jaded at the lack of real innovation with how everything sounds more or less the same and that nothing really stands head and shoulders over anything else. This prompted a blind sound test with 15 basses at one of the Bass Bashes a few years ago (video below). I don't think anyone recognised more than two or three basses, lots of people didn't even recognise their own basses!

@Lozz196 thanking anyone at all from the stage. But he's a lovely chap who profusely thanks the soundman, lighting crew, roadies and event security after his gigs and pays them straight away.

This entirely. 👍

When I read this I thought to myself "you've just answered your own question". Crack on

I own an Alembic Stanley Clarke Deluxe. I had absolutely no concerns that my playing would start to emulate that of Stanley, and it genuinely hasn't.

My Lionel got the pickup change I wanted to do. Aguilar AG 4P-60. 1960s recreation. The stock pickup was closer to a SD QP to my ears - too much bass and treble and not enough mids for a P. This solves that for me. Also installed a @KiOgon solderless loom to go with it to complete the vintage tone package. Sounds more pleasing to my ears now. There was nothing at all wrong with the stock pickup, it was just not the sound I was looking for. Aguilars are a bit spendy, but I've got one in another bass and I really like it, so I didn't want to end up buying something else and then still wanting the Aggy and end up spending more. I have a rehearsal on Saturday to give it a proper run.

So I’ve somehow ended up with 5 short scales but they are great basses for travel. All of mine fit in guitar bags. Getting this Friday

FFS can we please just get back to generic moaning about not being able to afford shiny things whenever we want?

Agree with the comments above. Added to that, some (not all) prices for 2nd-hand gear are ridiculous. I realise that the 'market and demand' create these inflated prices, but those of 70's Fender Jazz basses and Wals, to my mind are crazy. Obviously, many will not agree with me, but how many basses do dentists need? 😉

Literally his post is about trying to get into a band