mcnach

[quote name='LukeFRC' timestamp='1341059091' post='1713320'] where you get the board from? make it? [/quote] I got it from 'unclefluffy' over at TalkBass, for a couple of beer tokens. I think he still makes a few from time to time, so you just have to get in the thread there and PM me to let him know you are interested.

Yes, and I have the circuit board even... but not for this bass. In fact I'm starting to think that a mid-sweep control probably makes more sense than a full 2/3-band preamp in most basses.

I have a (n early?) 90s Korean Squier Jazz. The pickups were ok, but not very good. The bridge pickup is the same size as the neck pickup, so a standard set will not fit without widening the cavity. I put some alnico Gotoh pickups I already had in there, and widened the cavity a bit with a chisel and a lot of care. The body turned out to be plywood... so it could crumble if not careful. I managed and it doesn't look bad unless you are really close looking for defects. Much better sounding now. That's the negative part. The positive? Amazing neck. I love that neck. It just feels fantastic, and the whole bass feels and balances great. So, I love my plywood Squier Jazz, what can I say? And I paid considerably less than £150 for it.

So I'm liking this bass. But not so much in its current form because of the electronics. So this is what will happen to it: *pickups I already had a Seymour Duncan SMB4A, MM style, so that will go on the bridge. I just ordered a Seymour Duncan SJB-3 for the neck. I have that on the fretless jazz and I like it. next the preamp will go. It works, but it's not really doing it for me. I'll see whether with the new pickups I change my mind, but I'm thinking that I will simply have a pickup miniswitch (instead of the current "slap switch"), single passive volume and tone controls... and this leaves an unused knob... I might just put a rotary switch to select from various capacitors for the tone control, and keep it all passive. Or buy the mid-sweep module from John East and install that. we will see. The coil selector switch might stay as it is (single coil/series humbucker/another single coil) or turn it into (series/parallel/one of the single coils)

[quote name='Rayman' timestamp='1340904608' post='1711395'] I had one, and it was nowhere near as bad as some had said it would be. I pimped it with an EMG passive pickup, and re wired it, but even before that I gigged it along side an Overwater Progress 5 with no problem at all, it was a great little bass. The only reason I pimped it was because I'm a tart. I discovered that some of the folks who had slagged them off had never even actually seen one. Funny that. [/quote] It's called "the Behringer effect"

I read very mixed reviews. Then I heard some sounding pretty decent. The bad reviews were mostly about things that a set-up would take care of. If you need to spend £60 in having someone getting it to play nicely, maybe it's not a good idea to buy unseen. If, on the other hand, you are reasonably competent... it does not sound like a bad deal. I've bought guitars and basses that the sellers sold cheap because they just could not handle them and they wanted to upgrade and buy a better brand etc... and later that day I had teh same instruments playing quite nicely at home. So... YMMV.

Not the Modulus one, obviously. I just saw Thomann are selling the black one at £155, both the shortscale and the 34" scale versions. At >£300 they seemed a bit much, but at £155 they look just about right. I just thought I'd let you all know, just in case. Oh, and the pickguard is just held with double sided sticky tape, easily removed, and it looks sexy in all-black

[quote name='Big_Stu' timestamp='1340731886' post='1708845'] That's Loanhead for you! They still point at planes in Loanhead. [/quote]

[quote name='BassPimp66' timestamp='1340454642' post='1704632'] The quest for the perfect sound is endless... But, I feel marketing is sometimes a lot of b*******.What do you think of the below? - True Bypass = big switch that goes click, how difficult is that? - Oxygen Free Copper cable = overpriced cable with no proven benefit - Vintage Tone Circuit = could not be bothered to design something new, so I stole schematics from old Fender stuff - High Mass Bridge = a little thicker and less flimsy than average bridge - Phenolic Fingerboard = plasticky fingerboard - Made in USA = so what ???? - High excursion speakers = isn't it the speaker job to excursiate big time? etc... Feel free to add. [/quote] Generally agree, but: - phenolic fingerboard. I don't think they normally advertise it as being "better", and I do like them. - high excursion speakers: this is genuinely a good characteristic

[quote name='Norris' timestamp='1340712192' post='1708380'] Back in the days when there were Working Mens' Clubs (yes, I know there still are a handful left) I decided to take along my old 70's practice amp for a wheeze. It had a tiny little 8" speaker that could barely fart, and the amp looked like it was made out of cardboard. This I set up in front of the curtain on a chair. Behind the curtain was my 2 x 15" Traynor beastie, daisy-chained from the practice amp input. As is usual at these type of places, the majority of the audience didn't even notice (most left after the bingo) - but all credit to the handful that did [/quote] brilliant, I must do soemthing like this!

[quote name='neepheid' timestamp='1340647624' post='1707581'] Not quite as impressive a feat, but I got by with an 80W amp (Trace Elliot BLX-80) yesterday, on a lorry trailer. DI-ed into the PA. Thankfully it wasn't the full band - I was up against keys, vocals, guitar, 2 djembes, a violin and a flute so it wasn't too bad on stage. The amp was cranked right up, of course [/quote] It was probably cleaner too, the stage I mean. I only took a bass in a gigbag. I tuned backstage, and just used a single cable. I took it out today... caked in mud whatever part of it was on the floor. Blergh. To think I almost brought a couple of pedals!

[quote name='ian' timestamp='1340579895' post='1706665'] thanks but my computer wont let me do it that way for some reason does he have another link thanks tho [/quote] in those situations, try right click and "copy" over the address link. Then just paste on your usual email client.

[quote name='stingrayPete1977' timestamp='1340560694' post='1706258'] John gave him some of those guitars as they are mates, if you looked closer you would see he actually used all the John guitars for old songs but always his own black strat for anything he has been a co creator of almost as if to prove a point and make his own style IMO [/quote] I was not convinced by Josh in the album... then I saw them live in Glasgow last November and I changed my mind. I think he has his own style, which is good to see. New album... meh... but live they were great.

[quote name='davidlovellbass' timestamp='1340618308' post='1706930'] He was from Spain, new member on here and he deleted the message so i can't report him. I've asked him to take pictures of the amp with his email written on a piece of paper in clear view next to or on the amp. If he responds with this then i'll keep his email address private, if not then i'll post it on here [/quote] Avoid. If it smells... don't step on it. It happens from time to time. I actually fell for something like that once, buying a cheap squier jazz bass. Something made me wonder and I looked online and discovered an ad at some other site where the pics had been lifted from. I oepened a trhead about it and found two others who had fallen for it (different items). Fortunately the guy was an idiot and it was easy to get our money back. Paypal refunded me and another guy, but would not refund a third person who had paid using the "gift" option. However we managed to pressure the scammer into paying him (under veiled threats, I guess we sounded convincing enough and he paid up). You can't stop them, they will be around, always. Just keep an eye on things. If someone is new, he is probably genuine, but it's worth doing a couple of extra checks. Google images is surprisingly effective as scammers tend to be lazy and do not go far beyond the first few hits. Check the activity of the would be seller. Does he post at all? Check who browsed his profile... is he only checked by people with "wanted" ads? If so, tread carefully.

[quote name='Beer of the Bass' timestamp='1340556705' post='1706158'] Sounds like an interesting one! I bet I'd have recognised a few faces there. I've played events with a similar crowd a few times, and it's always a hassle in terms of organisation but a fun audience once you're actually playing. [/quote] Totally! We felt a bit out of place at first. We are not hippies, we are certainly not punks... one of the organising guys invited us after seeing us play elsewhere... and we thought "how on Earth do we fit here?". But it was an enthusiastic crowd at the very least. You just have to make sure you didn´t hold eye contact too long with certain colourful characters, or you´d not get rid off them Organisation: 10 points for ideas, 2 points for having a clue (or not having a clur, rather) Audience: 10 for enthusiasm. Pity about the ending, because even with the less than impressive monitoring situation and general lack of microphones for vocals (we use three vocal microphones and one for trumpet... we had to do with a single one), it was a LOT of fun.

[quote name='stingrayPete1977' timestamp='1340551655' post='1706039'] If I ever make it big I will get a Gorilla amp then just have my monitoring put through the wedge in front but not until I have bought dozens of old gorilla amps off ebay ready to sell to the punters in the FS section [/quote] I would love to do this

[quote name='stingrayPete1977' timestamp='1340551655' post='1706039'] A punch in the face would of been my suggestion, have you learnt nothing living up there? it's a sign of affection Im told. [/quote] No, that´s Glasgow, I hear. I´m in Edinburgh (runs for cover)

So, last night Sea Bass Kid was to play at this outdoor gig. It was an interesting one, at Bilston Glen, the protest site with the tree houses etc, protecting a bit of forest from some planned roadworks. 10th anniversary party last night. Hippy/punk crowd. It was... interesting, like I said. They had a pretty amazing setup, to be honest, a wooden stage, covered, a mixing desk in front... right inside the forest. I loved the site. They said they would prvide nearly eevrything. A bass amp was there "it´s a bit sh*t" I was told. I said I don´t care, I was not going to drag my gear through the mud there to play just for fun. I get there, and I could hear bass. Loud. Not bad sounding at all. From where I was I could not see the amp. When I go onstage... I see a tiny tiny tiny 30W Gorilla practice amp It was DI´d at the back... and all I had to monitor onstage was that amp. I propped it upon some boxes, tilted it towards me so I could hear anything, something. Once the band was playing, I could barely hear anything. If I leaned towards it, I could sort of hear a bit. If I went to the front I could feel a lot of bass out there, although no pitch information for me, however it sounded good out there I was told, and I heard it myself before with another band. so no, it´s not exactly ideal... but at a push, it worked. It sounded really big at the front, it was just too funny to see what it was actually generating the sound. It was a fun gig, at least until 5min before I walked out The police showed up. Not sure exactly why, we were too far away from any houses to create any significant disturbance. The people organising it asked us to stop a bit. We did. Then to carry on. Then some guy that was never introduced to us just came onstage from the front, and came to me *ordering* me to "turn this amp down". I said "what?". He insisted. I stopped playing, told him that was not my amp, that it belonged to that guitarist in front of me, and that if volume is an issue he should talk to his own people at the mixing desk, as we were all in through microphones/DI and the amps onstage were not producing the volume he heard at the front. He had none of it, but didn´t touch the amp, instead he asked the singer. So we had stopped midsong for that. We were all a bit confused. We turned down a bit, to make it like we were collaborating. We had played for about 40min at that stage and I said to the guys "let´s play one more and leave". Singer and one guitarist insist "no, come on, we can play these 4 more songs and itll be ok". I said "fine, but if someone else comes up with a rude attitude while we play, I walk out". Sure enough, second song in this guy comes up... and this one at least is not rude, but he walks up to *me* to tell me that we should turn down a bit, to appease the police. I tell him that he is at the wrong place, that he should get the mixing desk guys to turn us all down to whatever level they wanted. He said "the bass is very loud". Part of me laughed. Part of me screamed. "I´m playing through THAT", believe me, what you hear out there is not controlled by me, volume wise, but by your own guys at the mixing desk. He gave me a look like I was just talking crap. So I just unplugged. Meanwhile the band had played for a few bars without bass. Now the unmistakeable sound of a bass being unplugged without muting first was produced, and I proceeded to get my case. The rest of the band stopped. Singer said thank you (they were an enthusiastic audience) and good night. And we left. Pity. For 40min it was a lot of fun despite a number of technical inconveniences, we managed to sound ok and we sincerely had a great time while these punks and hippies were dancing a lot in the mud. But I get very annoyed if I am going to the trouble of doing a gig for no money whatsoever in a not very convenient location, so, just for fun... and someone is being rude to us while not grasping the most basic concept of their own set up. I don´t go on saturday nights to muddy fields to be treated like an annoyance. Still, it was an experience ;-)