mcnach

Beautiful!!!

Last night I played a gig at a new venue in town, where the backline is provided. For bass they had a Bass Terror 500 head into a 410 (don't know the model). It sounded pretty good! Pretty pretty pretty good! I wish I had had the chance to properly try it, its range, etc... but it's now on my radar. However when looking for reviews etc, I got the feeling there is (or was?) a reliability issue with them. Or some of them. It looks like there's a lot of love for these amps. It didn't give me the impression that it was shy on volume, although clean volume might be another matter (I do like a bit of dirt, and I mean a bit, just a hair)... Has anybody had the chance to compare the 500 to the 1000? Are they similar tonally? And volume-wise, is there much between them?

[quote name='TimR' timestamp='1442600483' post='2868184'] Have you ever left the house dressed like that though? [/quote] The night is young...

[quote name='TimR' timestamp='1442388078' post='2866470'] Well it's your gig and your artistic choice. If that's the look you're going for and you want your backline and leads to be props that are part of the performance. [/quote] sometimes I go for this look...

[quote name='uncle psychosis' timestamp='1442563579' post='2867738'] Looks fantastic :-) ... Aren't you the guy who claimed not to like precisions? ;-) I'm waiting on my £8.80 (delivered) Harley Benton arriving. Would be interesting to compare them ;-) [/quote] I have said many many stupid things in my life, what made you think I had stopped? Yeah, who would have thought that I would become a fan of Precisions? But with this one I'm straying a little away from them, as I hope you can hear for yourself soon. Did you figure out the intonation issues on your G&L? Let's PM

[quote name='Andyjr1515' timestamp='1442562845' post='2867732'] Looks lovely....a real retro vibe to it. Looks beautifully made and finished too [/quote] Beautifully made and finished... that it is, for sure.

[quote name='LukeFRC' timestamp='1442558222' post='2867707'] Interestingly that pickup placement is pretty much bang on where a Warwick Streamer (stage 1) has it. Love the bass- and not wanting to distract you from playing it, but reading the thread and seeing what you're going for tonally - if you've not tried one add a G&L L1000 onto the GAS list... [/quote] A G&L L1000 has always been attractive. But... I have to say, those pickups are not really doing it for me. I have a love hate relationship with my L2000 (probably why I have butchered it beyond recognition! ) and I think it it's down to the pickups. One day I love it, the next I can't stand it. Fickle? Moi?

[quote name='BigRedX' timestamp='1442562802' post='2867731'] But how much of what we consider "classic tones" is based on familiarity and comfort? We are used to hearing guitars and basses sound a particular way with the equipment of the 60s and 70s and so that's what we like. I wonder how different those tones would be if transited technology had been cheap and abundant in the early 50s? To put it another way there's a lot of now "classic" Japanese synths that date from the early 80s and were all over the recordings of the time. However speak to anyone using those instruments back then and the only reason they had them was because they were affordable and the synths they really wanted were not. So they made do, and it's only familiarity of the sounds that were nothing like the musicians really wanted, that now makes them classic. [/quote] This. I think you are totally right. It's like when you listen to a song enough times over the years, only to find later that it's actually a version and then you listen to the original: the original is never better. I put it down simply to familiarity.

[quote name='Naetharu' timestamp='1442533698' post='2867683'] She's a stunner mate, congrats! Any chance of a sound sample? Btw, just checked out your band via your signature link and love them! Grabbed myself a copy of your album [/quote] Wow, thank you!!! We've got a new album coming out in two weeks I'm not really set up to record nicely at the moment... incredible, I know. I should figure something out. I only ever do very rough recordings on a Zoom H2 that I keep as a "notebook", to record ideas and work out basslines to new songs we come up with etc, but I've been meaning to sort out my recording situation, I'll get something done. Even if it's not great quality, at least I can compare it to a couple of Precisions, Stingrays and the other Jake, perhaps... I got home about 30min ago, after a 10-midnight gig at a new venue that opened today in Edinburgh called Stramash. It was a double whammy of awesomeness. First, the venue: really good! It's still a bar, but a hybrid between a typical dedicated music venue and a bar. The equipment provided (drumkit, two Orange guitar heads + 412 cabs, and an Orange Bass Terror 500 with a 410 cab) was nice enough, the stage was elevated about 5 feet, it was of a decent size, and with ample space behind for bands to hang out, leave cases, drink beer away from the mere mortals below Unheard of for a bar, in Edinburgh. Attendance was pretty good too. Second... I got to play my new bass. It's my new favourite bass without a doubt. It's very comfy, the neck is just right... I'm glad I got the dimensions/profile right and that they were able to achieve my specs to the millimetre. It's so light as well, in a good way. And sound-wise... *exactly* what I was aiming for. These strings are not my favourite, they are nickels and too new (I like steels after they lose their initial zing), but the bass sounded fantastic. That extra definition was there, without getting into bridge pickup territory (which my other Jake, a P/JJ, or my Stingray excel at), just modifying the Precision sound a touch. It sounded big, it sounded fat, but with definition... and I did slap a little bit. The pops were definitely Precision (on D and G strings), which is great as it's a sound I really like... but the slap sounded "chunkier" and less flabby than on a Precision. Maybe it can be improved, but this is a success, for me. I love the sound, I love the feel... This is definitely now my #1 bass. Oh, third awesomeness! There is this brother and sister, Polish, who have been coming to most of our local gigs for quite a while now. I have only spoken to them briefly before today. Today, the girl was gesturing at me "I'm watching you". She came to me during our break to hug me and tell me how much they love our band, but especially the bass. It turns out she's learning to play bass, and was learning the bassline to the song we played when she did the "I'm watching you" thing. Ah, now it made sense! She's learning to play, by learning my basslines! How cool is that??? She said the other day, her brother and her learnt one of our songs and recorded a version of it. Really humbling... To hear/see someone so into our music, it makes me feel a little self-conscious now, knowing that she's paying extra attention to what I play (she was saying she learnt the bassline from the album, but noticed I play something different live... which is the case for nearly everything we've recorded... Typically the recordings were made soon after writing the songs, with whatever bassline I had at the time in mind, and then it's changed over time sometimes a lot)... I feel selfconscious, but also quite chuffed. It makes a difference from the 50 year old drunk male spitting in my face about how his mate used to play bass, a proper bass, a real Fender (I got that once playing my Stingray, apparently my little bass sounded ok, but I should try a Fender one day). I love my red Maruszczyk. Picture taken a couple of hours ago:

That looks really nice. I have a Fender Jazz 75RI with a very ugly body compared to that! (I refinished in red because of it)... Looks like a fantastic platform to get a great working horse bass. £18 plus delivery??? wow!

On looks alone, I'm out. I think it looks hideous!!! But if you like the look, it's probably a decent bass judging from others they make, and a dual humbucker bass is going to offer a cool range of sounds.

[quote name='Twigman' timestamp='1442397796' post='2866584'] I've never played a fretless and quite fancy giving it a go, so I'm toying with the idea of picking up a cheap one to try it. Probably would prefer (for practicality) a lined fretless or I'm likely to get lost. I prefer narrower jazz width necks and I prefer also slim necks front to back. Is there such a bass at a budget price? What would you recommend to someone looking to buy his first fretless that might meet these neck specs? [/quote] The Squier VM series fretless is pretty cool. I'd get that.

My new Jake 4 custom arrived... [url="http://basschat.co.uk/topic/269295-nbd-maruszczyk-jake-4-custom/page__gopid__2867506#entry2867506"]http://basschat.co.uk/topic/269295-nbd-maruszczyk-jake-4-custom/page__gopid__2867506#entry2867506[/url] and it's veeeeeeeeeery nice This is right after unpacking it at work! Then, at home, a few painfully slow hours later:

[quote name='lowhand_mike' timestamp='1442510633' post='2867496'] very nice, i'm not a P bass person but the more i see them more not a not a p bass person i become, so simple, love the big black tuners, never seen that style i mat black before [/quote] well, then you might like this a bit, as it's very much a not much of a P bass despite it's appearance at first glance! I like simple, me.

3mm side dots, so that it's easy to see them on dark stages: The black knobs have small red dot markers... That was a nice touch! I did not specify that, I expected them to be all black The bridge is made my ETS, whom I did not know. It looks like a nice bridge. I chose it out of several options when talking to Adrian about it, because I wanted it to be black, to be top-loader, and 20mm spacing. This one looked good. It has a small Maruszczyk logo on it. The intonation is a little off, but I want to put some stainless strings on it so I did not b. other changing it. It's not as off as it looks, and I intend to play a gig tonight with it, I'm sure it'll be ok And to finish this... here's a picture during the welcome party, with some of its new friends, the basses I'm playing the most lately. I wanted to put the Mike Dirnt Precision in the picture as well, but there was no room... Left to right: Squier Matt Freeman Precision. With an Entwistle PBN-X pickup, the neodymium one. I love that pickup. Really powerful, yet balanced. This bass sounds fantastic with this pickup. Squier make some truly amazing instrument these days!!! Fender Classic 50 Precision. Wider neck, yet very comfy. Totally stock, I love it as it is. The pickup is not as powerful as others out there, but it's got that classic Precision sound. There are slightly better ones, but I am not in a hurry to change it. Maruszczyk Jake custom. You may have read about it before Similar neck to the Classic 50, just a tiny bit narrower. Maruszczyk Jake 4p. This bass is amazing. I wish I had specified a slightly wider string spacing and the vintage tint... I wasn't sure what to expect, I could not believe how good this bass was. The only thing... the P pickup, I did not like it. It's got a Seymour Duncan SPB-1 right now, but it's not fully fitted. The eagle-eyed among you may have noticed there's only a couple of screws on the pickguard and no knobs. The screws I was using to mount the new pickup (with narrower ears, so I drilled new holes for them and used a new pickguard too) were a strange steel alloy, containing a large proportion of butter. Horrible horrible screws. One snapped, and in the proces of removing the bit stuck into the wood, it snapped again. Patience and a small chisel allowed me to remove the remaining bit without causing much damage, but I need to fix the hole. I intend to use a paste made of PVA glue and sawdust, but I haven't managed to go and buy some glue. True story. This weekend! EBMM Stingray. My trusty 2002 Stingray, with a John East 3-band preamp. I had its neck lacquered glossy too. This used to be the bass I played 98% until I fell in love with the Precision. I think the P bass suits my band better... but what a bass. This one will never ever be sold. Ever. My red Maruszczyk is an attempt to take what I like about the P bass, and give it a bit of the definition and growl that I like on the Stingray. A bit. I think the hybridisation has been a successful experiment. But let's see how it works out live...

Black Hipshot ultralite tuners: You can see in the picture above the very glossy lacquer on the neck. If you like lacquered necks, you would love this. It feels great, and the tint is perfect. ON my other Jake I passed, thinking the Maruszczyk tint was a little too yellow for my liking... what a mistake!!! Afterwards I saw other examples and they looked great. It's a very nice tint. I got my band's logo on the headstock too: A bit vain, yes, so what? Hey, if it gets stolen it'd be very easy to prove it was mine!

This is the beast: Then angle of the picture makes it look a bit elongated... that's just an artifact. Here's the pickguard of the other Jake, superimposed, so that you see the different position of the pickup:

IT ARRIVED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Cruel... it arrived in the morning and I could not escape until 4.30pm today... I opened it at work as soon as it arrived. It comes with a nice gigbag (and a very nice wide comfy leather strap!), so I just got rid off all the packaging while at work. I mean, it's not like I'm sending it back or anything First impression... I don't quite like it. I LOVE IT. The shade of red is *exactly* what I wanted. It never shows just right in my pictures, and it's hard to describe... it's just "live" enough with the right amount of orange in it rather than pink... very "Ferrari" Lovely. Then I picked it up, and the neck felt great (it should, I very carefully chose its dimensions) and it was surprisingly light too. I can't measure it accurately, but it feels similar to my Cort GB74, my lightest bass, which is just under 8 lbs, So this must be perhaps a bit more, but in the ballpark of 8 lbs. I wonder if asking for the Hipshot Ultralite tuners meant they chose a light wood, as it's noticeably lighter than my other Jake (also ash/maple) where I did not specify that. However, despite the light weight, it feels very solid, and well balanced, no neck dive whatsoever (which would have been a serious issue for me, I can't stand neck dive). I've been playing it for a little while already... Nice pickup! I had never tried that Delano alnico one but it's a good choice, definitely. The DG coil is unmistakeably Precision, but the EA is a little different, less deep, more defined, with more bark to it... Just like on my other Jake, I felt the pickup was a little too close to the strings, so I brought it down a little, and managed to get a good balance between strings and a better sound over all where the E string was not so "in your face". It's definitely NOT a Precision (so mission accomplished) and it doesn't sound quite the way I remember in my old pickup position tests (with other pickups), but it's got that character I was after. Perhaps I would try moving the pickup a LITTLE bit closer to the bridge, maybe another cm, or 1.5cm... but I didn't want the "Stingray with a P pickup" vibe so it's fine as is. It sounds really good! It's a shame I cannot take nice pictures, because the bass is delicious to look at too. It may be basic, but it's soooo lickable!

[quote name='TimR' timestamp='1442328788' post='2866076'] I think it's a theatre thing. In theatre everything that's not a prop that is backstage is black. Crew wear black. Just depends if you're putting on a show or just playing music. Back line and leads are all black. Instruments and performers are colourful. (Unless you're in a metal band) [/quote] I use a 4-way and it's white, yup. It's rarely visible as it goes behind the backline, but it can occasionally be seen. I think it goes well with my red cabs (when I'm not using the orange/black one), and my instrument leads, an orange one from the bass to the pedalboard and the lead coming back to the amp would be, depending on the day and what shoes I'm wearing, pink, red or white. What I really want is an electric blue fluorescent 4-way. Oh yes. My bass? Natural ash/maple, of course.

[quote name='The Admiral' timestamp='1442318021' post='2865978'] MJ went through a period of being vilified, but seems to be enjoying a mild resurgence, as people concentrate on his music, rather than his personal life. That said, I was talking to a DJ at a wedding venue recently, and he was telling me that at a recent wedding, he put on some MJ as a request, and a big lad came up within seconds and told him to take it off, "Or else". His point of view was that there were kids at the wedding and he shouldn't be playing anything "by that f**king paedo". [/quote] what a f**king numbnuts knuckledragger moron

[quote name='ubit' timestamp='1442301440' post='2865787'] Will this ever end ? [/quote] Never. I'll make sure of it.

Like it! Album ordered. Thanks for the heads up!

I always reply, unless it's york5stringer. When I joined BassChat, the memo I received said not to reply to his PMs. Didn't you all get the same?

[quote name='JTUK' timestamp='1442219285' post='2865138'] And the problem is...will that gig suffer an 'idiot' failure..?? It it will...then not a real problem...if it wont, you probably wouldn't get asked again.. etc etc [/quote] +1 it really boils down to this. if I play at a local music bar and break a string, my bandmates start a jam improvising lyrics about my broken G-string (true story! in a RHCP tribute band) if I am playing a "serious" gig... I would like to have a backup if possible. The thing is that I don' think a Squier Jazz is more likely to fail than a Fender Jazz, for example, provided you treat them equally well and maintain them. Amplifiers are another matter.