mcnach

The first few days were the worst, the first week even. After a week or so, I still retune it everytime before I use it but it's now just a very small adjustment and typically only on the D and G strings. Of course, now that it is stable enough... I just received the Aquila Thunderbrown strings, so the whole process will repeat The Ashbory with silicone strings took a lot longer to settle, but it was a cool bass. I wish I had kept it, it would sound a lot better with the strings available today.

Looking at their username, I bet they forgot.

The tuners are not great, it's true. The ones on my girlfriend's PB-20 SBK were equally bad. One chewed itself out the first time the bass was restrung. The tuners on the MB-5 SBK look exactly the same. Mine are doing ok so far, and I've used the bass a lot (gigged with it over the summer too), but they won't last long. At least it's a cheap bass. I've seen the same on £1300 SBMM Ray35 basses, which is insane.

Not exactly NBD as I've had it for just over a week... and that's nearly as long as it took for the strings to stop stretching and the tuning to stay relatively stable. Which was great, as I was starting to think that I would never ever be able to play this thing in tune! I've been curious about these things for a while. I owned one of those Ashbory basses with silicon strings years ago. It was ok but never really gelled with it. However I have listened to a few of these 'uke' basses and they often had a 'doublebassiness' vibe that was missing on the Ashbory. I recenly came across these "Batking" basses (made by a company called Musoo, you sometimes find them under the Musoo label and others) and for £135 delivered... I had to bite. There's a channel on Youtube where you can see this (and others) in action. The woman does talk a lot but there's good info in her videos... It's great fun, it's got a basic 3-band EQ and tuner built-in, standard 1/4" output socket and an XLR... and sounds pretty good once the strings settle in. There's a fretted version too, and a solid body one as well. The solid body may actually be a good thing if you're planning to use it live. I took mine to band practice last week and it worked great but there were a few times when I got terrible feedback... you need to be careful the amp is not pointing at the bass, easy to avoid, but a solid body would probably make life easier in general. That's the very bass, with the strings it came with: and this is the same bass with some rather tasty Aquila Thunderbrown strings:

It's not hoarding if you remember their names and their favourite strings.

Narrow, 16.5mm.

I see no problem with people not wanting to post, when they clearly state so. EBay gives you more exposure, even locally, than Gumtree etc, purely because more people use eBay. Regardless, it's the seller's choice. People have different priorities/preferences, there's little to understand.

It seems likea lot of effort when a simple no would suffice :shrug:

My story is a little similar but with different outcome. I've tried 5-string basses on and off over the years. Didn't gel with any. The MB-5 was cheap enough and I like the Stingray type of sound... but I never like 5-string basses, do I? I hesitated and my girlfriend bought it for me. I loved it. It was well balanced, reasonably light, and I loved that neck. Of course, it had to sound good, and it did. I considered putting a preamp in there to make it more like a 5-string version of my main bass... but I enjoyed the passive controls. So much, that I just kept playing it and I finally 'clicked' with the 5-string and now I am "ambidextrous" 😝 The MB-5 led to a couple more Harley Benton 5-stringers, a JJ and a PJ (JJ55OP and JP55OP), and more recently a Ray35, so I get the versatility of the preamp for when I want that stuff, and the MB-5 for others. Aaanyway, I sound like grandpa and his stories... To answer the OP, I've kept mine stock. I'm not shy when it comes to mod instruments, most of my guitars aren't stock. But sometimes an instrument just fills a niche as it is and I don't want to change a thing. The MB-5 is one of them. The one thing I'm tempted to change is the bridge. Not that there's anything too wrong with the existing one, I just would like a slightly wider spacing and the fingerboard is wide enough to allow that... but I'm not in a hurry. Oh, I lied! It's not stock... I didn't like he tortoise-shell effect type pickguard and had a matt black one made:

Can't really pick one... ufff... Some of my favourites are Walkabout, from One Hot Minute... an album that doesn't get much love but I think it's got a lot of great stuff. Hard To Concentrate, from Stadium Arcadium Suck My Kiss, from BSSM (I could have picked any of another 6-8 from that album) ...

I tend to put it first, followed by an HPF/LPF pedal (actually a Broughton RFE, so it's LPF+HPF with adjustable resonance peak and EQ for mids (semiparametric)). Essentially I place it where I would place an overdrive, regardless what else I add.

That's disappointing, as I want good isolation (I've had issues wih my right ear and I need to keep the volume down on that one or I get really bad tinnitus). Do you think it's the material or the fit? Could you need a different size? I haven't managed to try mine yet, I have the Sonicfoam tips to test as well.

I wouldn't call it a 'benefit'. It's just another flavour. The white ones can sound a lot like a roundwound that's just lost its zing, or closer to a flatwound if you turn tone down. They're smooth, so no finger noise, and very very flexible. I've never tried the Labella blacks, only black tapes from other brands so I can't compare.

This might just be the thing. https://www.fxpedalplanet.co.uk/product/jptr-fx-jive-pre-amp-effects-pedal I have one, I really like it.

No, it's one of the few that will stay, precisely because it can do so many different types of sound. I still want to keep a couple of dirt pedals, especially ones that I like on guitar, a compressor, octave... "just in case". The Aftershock is too good

Indeed, mine were waiting at home.

I just checked my tracking... it says delivered at 12.30 today. Only there's nobody at home today... hopefully with a neighbour!

Finaly I got to spend some time with the B6. TL;DR: why didn't I do this sooner? There's a lot of pedals that are going to go to the marketplace in the following weeks. First, this thing is very intuitive. I did have a quick look at the "quick tour" leaflet, but it wasn't needed. I suppose for some functions like setting up an expression pedal will require I check the manual first, but most functions are very easy to perform. I really like the different 'play modes'. When I read about them on the guide I wasn't sure, but in use it made a lot of sense. I was a little concerned that the processor wasn't powerful enough, as it seems easy to fill up the 'allowance' with certain hungry effects... but in practice it doesn't seem an issue, and it's easy to set alternative presets next to each other to get around that to some extent. The other thing that stood out to me was the overdrive/distortions. I have never really liked any of Zoom's dirt models, ever since my first multiFX, a Zoom 2020. Last one I had before the B6 was a MS-60B. I confess I didn't experiment a lot with it but what I did I didn't love. I don't know what the B3n sounds like... but I like the B6. Lots. Many of my dirt pedals are going to be let go, the B6 is nice enough for my needs. The touch screen is a great thing to have. It makes navigating the unit so easy. Tonight I'll try it with guitar.

Same here, but in my case that had a lot to do with growing up liking music largely sung in English, which I barely understood until I was in my late teens and didn't get much better until I was around 20. So the vocals are firstly just another part of the music, and lyrics really just a separate layer that I often ignore. But for the same reason, there were bands/songs I stopped listening to once I could understand the lyrics. Mostly 80s 'rawk'... A lot of cringeworthy lyrics in that scene. There was another band I really liked but turned out to be a "Christian Rock" band. I have nothing against people with religious beliefs, but it is not something I like listening to :shrug:

I just checked and mine says 'out for delivery' as well, but I hadn't checked until today since the expected date was 29th of December. It'll be nice to get them sooner. We'll see. My experience with AliExpress is that things arrive when they do. Often much sooner, but the tracking is pretty useless.

I never tried to 'emulate' any other pedal. When I have a kind of 'dirt' in mind, the Aftershock has always given me the result I wanted. It's so incredibly 'tweakable'.