mcnach

Forgive me father, for I have sinned... No, after serious consideration, I didn't get one of those, tempting as they are. But in the process something else caught my attention and this happened: (runs away and closes door)

Oh cool! Thank you for the heads up, I'll update mine too.

Must... resist... don't... look... at... that... bass...

I have listened to some clips you posted earlier, I have to confess that you were partly what made me decide to try the Tone Capsule I normally go to John East for all my onboard preamp needs, and even got a Uni-Pre Deluxe (3-band, semiparametric mids and dedicated passive tone) but it just didn't fit in the control cavity. That's when I saw the Tone Capsule: I love that the bass control is set higher than most others (40 Hz is too low, for me. 70-80 Hz seems a better choice), and the dual mid frequencies are very well chosen too (for my liking, again)... Then I listened to your TM4 and bought one I've got all the different pots for it (I had to get a stacked dual 50K for the mids) and I just need a free weekend to sit down and do the deed.

You're describing my feelings about the VM4 for a few years. Only last month I was considering selling it! I'm doing a bit of a Spring cleaning selling stuff I don't use much, and it was tempting. I think if my Stingray hadn't failed me, it'd have been put up for sale by now. Glad I didn't now! It's always been a great bass to play, light, comfortable, the neck could have been a bit wider but it's fine... However, the sound was never really there. I got good results with DR Pure Blues strings, but still... By 'forcing' myself to use this bass I've managed to get the sounds I needed, 'though. It's still not where I want it to be, but it's very close. I hope the Tone Capsule will give me the extra amount of versatility that would allow me to use this bass in any setting. I will report back.

How did you manage? I'm doing all I can to hide all my pictures from you!!! Seriously, it's frustrating, I know some people have trouble seeing my pictures (which is not great especially on the Marketplace!) while others have no trouble. I haven't figured out why. It happens regardless of the picture size, and it's not like even 1 Mb is a lot in 2023... I'm hosting them on Dropbox, as I have done for about 10 years, but only recently I've become aware of an issue.

I tend to roll off treble a lot and leave the bass EQ flat, or add a TINY bit sometimes. Then for pickup selection, I either use the P alone, or blend in a bit of the bridge. I find a sweet spot around halfway between the centre detent (both fully on) and the neck pickup alone, and switch to only P for a more aggressive sound and blend in bridge slightly to give me a tiny bit of a mid scoop to soften things somewhat. That's where I've settled with it, which works very nicely for ska/funk/reggae. When I turn up the treble (up to 'flat', I never boost it) it gets a a more aggressive sound that turns out to sound better in a more 'rocky' setting. I do miss a passive tone control. I know in passive mode one half of the treble control works as a passive tone, but it doesn't go as deep as I'd like, plus I like to have a passive control for the treble even in active mode, so that's the main reason I'm replacing the electronics.

It may be too early to say, but... continuing on my love/hate relationship with my VM4, I think I may have found a new #1 pushing away my trusty Stingray 😲 I had to stop using my Stingray because I carelessly damaged the preamp. It still works fine and I could use it, but the mids module doesn't work well, and until I get a replacement I turned to my VM4 and I'm really liking this beast now. A little bit of a sponge did the trick! I still plan to put the Tone Capsule in this bass, plus a passive tone control always available, but I'm getting such a great sound from this bass now that I'm not in such a hurry. First, the neon DR strings mellowed out much faster than their otehr coated strings from what I remember, and that was nice although their low output bugs me sometimes. And then I had a gig with the UB40 tribute and I thought about cutting a bit of a sponge from Ikea (the one that's very soft on one side and coarse on the other, seems made for this bass )... what a sound! It's a completely different sound from my usual with the Stingray, and it's not quite Precision either... it's got a lot of low mids, and the low end is mellowed a bit with the sponge mute, less of the very low end, but still fat and retaining great definition. It's a sound that seems to trigger my synth pedal very nicely too. So I will definitely repair the Stingray very soon, but I'll be playing the VM4 primarily for a while... I love how light it is too, compared to the Stingray or the Ray35 that I tend to use.

Yeah, I like the idea of having one of those in my gig bag.

That's like permanent-drool-inducing beautiful, and by the sounds of it, it also makes very righteous noises! I have a Sandberg VM4 (in metallic orange!) which is pretty much the same configuration and I keep looking for a justification to get one of these too, as I've discovered how good some Harley Benton models can be... You're just feeding the fire... (fine, I'll say it!) mist.

If you already did it by taking the plate off and it came loose, the tool will allow you to tighten it without removing the plate but it'll come loose again. Best to address the loosening by using a locking washer, whichever method you use, and ensure it'll stay tight for the foreseeable.

Yeah, "back killers" maybe, but I didn't see anything Stingray Killer about the one I had (which was very nice, but a real boat anchor).

You can, but it doesn't mean you should. However, if you do, please do better than UB40 They started out so well, and they lost the plot after 3-4 albums...

I misread the board as saying "Skaturday" instead of Saturday...

I just got one of these (£41 on Amazon). I have been using a wired IEM system for a little while, simple but it works, although that thick combined instrument/phones cable is not the most comfy. I bought a U4 to give the wireless option a try but ended up selling it unused since, of course, most of my gigs at the moment seem to be those where I need an amplifier. But for £41, being stereo, I thought it could be useful at home, and that's what I got it for. It sounds good, no significant noise added (I thought for a minute that there was some hiss but turned out to be my drum machine, so very quiet overall), and the units are tiny and superlight. I'm waiting for a Backbeat (ordered in September, shipping this month, yay!), so with the MS-1 and the Backbeat I hope to have a nice home setup at least. I have not yet experimented with cummulative latencies, that's for the weekend. Used on its own (using a Zoom R16 as a mixer/recorder, where the drum track is recorded direct, and sent to my ears via the MS-1) it's just fine. I tried adding my ancient Line6 G30 wireless instrument unit to the mix. Not sure what's its latency, but I'm pretty sure it was around 4-5ms. Again, that worked well. But I'm not sure how it'll be once I start adding digital FX etc, this unit is not going to suit everybody but if you use no effects, or a few analog ones it'll probably be okay too. For a cheap home-use solution they seem quite useful as long as your personal chain does not take the latency to the point it gets noticeable.

It's a very nice pickup (I do prefer slightly the SMB-4A), but it's not trying to replicate the Stingray pickups. If you want to get as close as possible to a classic Stingray sound you'd be better off with the Nordstrand MM4.2 which sounds very much like the original in my Stingray, or the Aguilar (I forget the model) one. If you just want a great sounding pickup, the Seymour Duncan (both D and A versions) is a great option. It'll still sound unmistakeably Stingrayesque, no question about it, it's just that the Nordstrand/Aguilar ones are closer to the originals. I used to play an OLP with the SMB-4A and the Seymour Duncan preamp, as well as the Stingray. They sounded different but they were just different flavours of 'nice'

Chris bought my Broughton HPF pedal. Transaction as smooth like a baby's bum.

Nik bought my Mooer Radar. Very pleasant transaction/communications 👍

Thank you, Nik