mcnach

The real reason is not that, but to ensure certain Mr. H. doesn't hassle the people in charge of the forum.

Indeed!

Good point about the amp... The OP may just not be getting *the sound* using his practice amp at home. I'd wait until you use your 424 with the band, at high volumes with a beefy amp and see how it feels. It would be nothing like you're experiencing with the practice amp. As for the 'Orange Sound' not being ska-friendly... I don't know... a local music venue provides an Orange Bass Terror and 410, and it works very very well.

It looks like you just want a new bass That's a P/J like your 424! (nothing wrong with wanting more basses, by the way... ha!)

I don't know, a 424 looks like it should be just fine... I would recommend a Precision, so a P/J like the 424 is in the right territory. If it's too bright, I'd be looking at strings... as long as you do like the bass and have no other reason to look into getting a new instrument. I play a lot of ska and reggae in the main bands I'm in, and mostly use a Stingray. It works. You can make pretty much any bass work, and if you look at what people use in the genre you'll see that the variety is large, but the Precision figures there heavily... just because it's everywhere, I suppose! I'd say try different strings. I do like roundwounds, stainless steel... but they are very bright to start with and it takes a while until I'm happy 100%. My favourite ones are DR Fat Beams. When using a passive bass, having the right electronics helps a lot. Using 250K pots as opposed to 500K gets you a slightly darker tone that to me fits better, especially on a Precision. But also the right capacitor is the difference between having a tone control that gives you 2 sounds, or multiple useful ones. The good news is caps are cheap: it's worth buying a handful (pennies) and try them until you hit the right one for your taste. My Classic 50s Precision is just right, and you go from very bright to a thumpy mid-rich, fat sound that works beautifully for ska. With 2 year old Fat Beams I love Labella White Nylons too. Not cheap, but... they feel great (low tension), smooth, and have a beautiful sound: gets you very defined bass, yet fat, and no undesirable 'zing'... That's the kind of thing I'd try. I think a P/J bass is a great bass for ska. edit: after reading more and seeing what you're playing through... I'd say stick to what you have, don't change a thing, and wait until you play at band volume with the band, with a larger amplifier, and see how the 424 behaves. Chances are that all you need to do is roll off the tone control a tiny bit.

I still have a Sue Ryder one, fretless It survived several other fretless basses. And they said we'd burn them within a year! (well, JTUK did ;)) Merry Christmas, Tom! (and everybody else!)

Yup, just Phaser and away you go. I get very very close with an EHX Small Stone, the Phase 90 on the Zoom would be ideal.

I agree with the issue about the pictures. Using somebody else's pictures without permission is not cool. But it's a pretty minor offence if it represents the very same item. Once I found a guy using the pictures of my bass to sell a similar one... a similar one that turned out to have a completely different control layout (his had 3 knobs, passive, mine 5, active...) so I contacted him and gently told him off. Turns out he wasn't a crook, just a lazy seller... and he posted his own bass' pictures straight away. But the price... look, the 'reasonable price' was there for one person only. You missed out. What does it matter if the new owner sells it on, plays it, puts it on display untouched, or burns it when he's cold? If you were the one grabbing the bass at lower than you'd expect to fetch, would you contact the seller with "here's £100 because I think your bass is worth more than it fetched at auction"? Didn't think so.

It doesn't set a precedent: an instrument sells for whatever other person things it's worth. If the price is truly ridiculous, then chances are it won't sell: it would be the seller's problem and nobody else's. Asking price is one thing, whether it ever sells at that price is another matter. Frankly, I don't understand why you'd have to contact the original seller or the new seller with a £350 offer, adding "that's what you bought it for". To me, THAT is pretty bad taste. It sounds like you missed on a good deal. I sympathise... I know how it stings, and it does sting more when the buyer just wanted to make a profit out of it... but ultimately nobody did anything wrong and it's not your business to call anybody a 'crook', in fact it's just wrong.

The better bass is the one that you like the feel/sound of best. Both are probably decent instruments at least, so it comes to personal preference in the end.

I don't see a reason to use or avoid that works for everybody. I generally avoid, because I prefer the sound of their fretted equivalent, especially the higher in pitch you go, as the fretted counterpart sounds fatter. I also prefer the feel of fretted notes... However, sometimes open strings are just either very convenient or they sound just right. In other words: whatever works best in each situation.

That sounds great!

apart from the 'sander relic', I like it! I like the double J pickups at the bridge especially. It looks like a big burly biker of a bass

Youtube only gives you a very very very rough idea of the sound a bass can make. It's unfortunate, as sometimes you just can't get to hear a given instrument in person... There are lots of terrible reviews on youtube.

While that's true to some extent, Cort makes instruments at all quality levels: they're able to make fantastic instruments, or very basic entry ones, essentially they build to order whatever a company asks for and with a budget in mind. Just because two basses look similar and were both made by Cort it doesn't mean they're similar. Having said that, Cort doesn't really make bad instruments, just like Yamaha. They're pretty safe. Although Cort's choice of electronics can be a big let down on the lower range of instruments.

The Affinity can be ok, but I find the electronics lacking in general, while every VM series I've played was a bass that I'd be happy to play *as is*. I'd go with the VM, especially if you buy online as you stand a better chance to get a decent instrument, in my opinion. Don't dismiss the amp as just a box to make the bass loud: a meh amp will make your bass terribly uninspiring. The good news is that you don't need to spend much to get a small amp that sounds good... but I'd definitely go around trying amps until I find one that I really like.

Judging amps/cabs at rehearsal studios may not give you an accurate idea of what they're like. At least where I am, most amps are pretty much battered to within an inch of their death and they rarely sound great. I got my "ugh Trace Elliot" face from those experiences, but then I tried Trace Elliot rigs owned by people who looked after their gear and I've liked a lot of them...

I was a bit of an OLP MM2 fanboi not that long ago... I bought one as I wanted something looking like a Stingray but wasn't prepared to pay for a MusicMan (I thought these basses were hideous :lol:) and loved it. Ended up putting a Seymour Dundan pickup on it and a 3-band preamp and it became my main bass for a while. At one point I think I owned up to 5 of the things! I made one fretless... Some of those OLPs were dogs, but most were at least decent and a proportion of them were very very nice. I regret selling my black/maple one. The seller wanted £120 and I was ready to pay him when he said "well, the strings are pretty old and action high so just give me £100"... who was I to argue? 30 minutes later I was at home, put a new set of strings, tweaked the truss rod and saddles a bit... and it was a beast.

Indeed... it got me very confused on my first one, someone less cautious than me might have created some damage!

Nice watch, thanks for the heads up. A little too focused on a specific handful of guys/girls that I didn't relate much to particularly (except one or two), but it was still a very interesting and entertaining documentary.

They were initially branded as "Retro series", but that was dropped quickly. Because of that "Retro" name, I stayed away from them and tried other cabs, and spent quite a bit on other brands (I already had a couple of BF BB2 cabs that I was looking to replace). Eventually I tried a Two10, and I realised that the Retro name was doing the cabs a disservice. It is true that they don't have the very bright high treble some other cabs may have (usually with tweeters/horns). However, they cover a very wide range, in practice. They're able to reproduce a bright clanky Precision + pick type of sound, a great Jazz slap tone, or a fat and big classic 70s rock tone if your amp produces those tones... and many other sounds. The difference I found with the BB2, for example, was that with the BB2 I was playing with my EQ a lot more to get the sound I wanted, and I would have to be careful to avoid harsh treble, or overpowering nasal mids, or boomy low end: those things are beasts, and in the hands of someone with the time and inclination they can sound superbly. Me? I want to get a good sound quickly. I often don't have time for extended soundchecks and I need to work fast. I play various things in various bands, funk, ska/reggae and I'm even in a Rage Against The Machine tribute band with a lot of effects and overdrive etc [1]... and despite the variety of sounds required, I always get something very good very quickly, whether I use a Stingray or a Precision (or rarely a Jazz). Obviously, this is in great part because the sound I'm after is a sound these speakers can do very well, so your personal taste may differ... but the sounds in my head are pretty standard classic bass sounds, and with either a Mesa D800+ or a MarkBass LM3 (quite different heads) I get the right sound easily. [1] TimC appears to be using 10-series BF cabs these days, but I didn't choose mine based on that. It was just an interesting case of convergent evolution

It was the same for me regarding the 12" and their 'retro' 10" series. I actually owned a 2nd gen Compact first (15") and then two BB2. I liked them but I was never really crazy about them. They were great in that they were light, compact, and loud, and they sounded ok... but sound was where I didn't love them. I tried a Two10 and that changed everything. I now have two Two10, and a Mesa D800+ (I tried a D800 for a bit but the 'bright' switch on the D800+ and the HPF especially were worth the upgrade for me). The 'baked in' tone of the Two10 cabs (and I assume the OneTen and the others) is very nice to my ears. There's tons of treble if you want it, but it is hard to get it to sound brittle and ugly, and the bottom end is big and strong but tight and it doesn't get boomy easily. They're great for lazy people like me who wants to find a good sound quickly without much fuss. I've used the Mesa + Two10 combination (one or two cabs, depending) quite a bit by now, and they've never made me doubt my choice.

That's dirty? I won't show you mine then

I've used the Elacin ones, another similar ones by a brand I forget, I've got custom moulded ACS ones... but the ones I use 99% of the times are the Flare Isolates. On paper they were not convincing to me but my guitarist liked them and decided to have a go. They work best for me, especially in very loud environments.

I'm confused... my comments were based on my experience of a D800 I borrowed and a D800+ that I own: I already own a D800+! edit: I see, the comment wasn't for me! As you were...