mcnach

This, this, and a thousand times this. I can't think of anything more soul destroying for a beginner than having to fight a poor instrument, on top of the inherent difficulties of the learning process. And yes, sure, cheap does not mean bad, but when you look at those starter packages and in general guitars aimed at beginners, you're not usually getting something nice to play straight from the box and very few beginners understand about setups.

yup... it doesn't look like we're rehearsing anytime soon. We're actually considering going to a park or another suitable and allowed outdoors place to get together and practice there. We've got the equipment, just need the weather (rainy and miserable today).

that one looks very nice

It looks like my 9-piece band will have to move in together then

and a whammy bar! oh yes That's beautiful!

Not really, unless Vintage have made EST96 basses with different shapes. The body of the SX is very close to the real thing, while the Vintage ones have a slightly narrower waist and the top horn is a little funky in the way it comes off (I have a way with words today, don't I? ). The Vintage body also looks a little longer perhaps? I remember there was a clear gap between the pickguard and the bridge on the Vintage, but it's very small -almost nothing- on the SX, or even on the SBMM clones that use the same kind of bridge. It's that slightly odd departure of the body shape which prevented me from buying one, years ago, and ended up with OLP. The Vintage I played (only one, in a shop) was actually nicer to play than the OLP I bought, but I just could not get on with that shape. Hey, I never claimed to be normal. But the hardware, pickguard, etc do look very similar. I guess all these budget brands get it from the same places.

I guess Prog Rock may just become very popular then...

I can't remember the original price they sold (or didn't, rather, it seems) initially at, but when SR decided to sell a lot of their stock, they sold at £60. That's when they became 'a thing' here in the forum

nice! I was actually looking at those SX Stingray clones years ago. I could only find them at Rondo in the US at the time... and before I was able to find one over here, they were discontinued. One thing I really liked about the ones I was seeing was that they lacquered the neck glossy. The John East preamp is really nice, but it's pricey. Personally I'd wait, save, and buy one. They appear for sale, used, from time to time, at around £100. Well worth it, in my opinion.

They're not the same, but they are of similar quality. Actually I rate SX a little higher if anything. Good low priced instruments.

Is this your experience, or what someone who knows someone who played one said I played one quite a lot for about a year and I can't say there was any sign of fretwear, and no, I don't mean the fretless one

Please let us know.

I'd disagree with that assessment. They compared positively to Squier Affinities and the like in my experience (had three examples in my hands). I do think that too many people who didn't need another Precision bought one, and eventually they let them go. That was certainly my case I bought three! I know I know. The first one was to see what it was about and because I fancied a cheap substrate for modification. It was white/rosewood. I liked it. I was very impressed. It actually was the first time I enjoyed playing a Precision style bass. I put a Wizard Thumper on it and used it as it was for a while. I bought a blue and another white one. The blue one had a maple fingerboard, so I swapped necks and turned the white/maple into the fretless I posted above. The blue one was stripped and became a project to turn it into a MM/P type bass. I only have the fretless now. I sold the white fretted one because at one point I had something like 5 Precisions (Squier CV, Fender Classic 50s, and a few others) so I only kept the Fender because I loved the wide fretboard on that one and it was maple. I never finished the project one and sold it as parts. The fretless remains.

For a £60 bass it was pretty decent, although I found the pickup a bit microphonic which is a shame as it sounded good. I still have one. I turned it to fretless and put a Model P pickup on it. I sold three other fretless basses and kept this one. It just works and makes all the right noises, so I'm pretty happy with it.

Nothing here yet, and not many places have big rooms which will be very much on demand. I play in a couple of 8+ member bands. It's not going to be easy.

I have no idea, and I find it uncomfortable to think in terms of 'tolerable' death rates, especially when you have a few people in your family that would be at high risk of severe illness or death if they catch it. A lot of it will be down to us, as individuals. We do not need to be 100% effective at avoiding being infected, but if we're mindful enough we may just reduce the transmission of Covid and other common viruses enough that things don't get out of hand. Hopefully there will be noticeably fewer people coughing and sneezing openly in the (near?) future. I once kicked someone out of our shared office at work because he kept coming to sit and ask people questions while constantly sneezing and often not even attempting to cover his mouth. I was the 'bad guy' for a day but I don't care even if it was 'just a cold'... and this is in a biology laboratory that works with viruses so it wasn't a simple matter of lack of knowledge. I can't imagine that situation will arise anytime soon at work again because now it's very much not accepted, socially, which is not a bad thing.

My first non-cancelled gig is on the first weekend in September, with an 8-piece band. I'm not entirely sure it'll happen.

I think that approach is just another way of saying "I give up, I don't have a solution". It may actually come down to that, largely, at least for this first winter. 😕

I don't think there's evidence of any long term immunity, so I'm pretty certain all those early speeches about herd immunity are irrelevant right now. It looks like Covid-19 is here to stay. Vaccines, when available, may have only limited effects and would need to be renewed. So much uncertainly. This winter is going to be interesting... will we have a massive surge? or maybe just a minor increase of deaths over the usual winter levels?

wow, that sounds nasty, very painful! 😲 I heard about some people having a reaction to nickel in strings but I always assumed it was a much milder effect.

So sad. He made really nice cabs It's not looking good with regards the survival of the company, is it? @Contrebasse I hope you get this sorted soon, it's a very poor show.

A Nordstrand MM4.2 by any chance?

No, they don't. The EQ is part of the preamp and it's bypassed entirely. The bypass switch (pull on the volume knob) is only really there as an emergency button in case I forget to replace the battery or something. There is no room to add a passive tone control without reorganising the whole preamp, otherwise I'd have added one. If I was going to remove the whole preamp, then I'd put a passive tone control for sure. In fact, maybe I'd try a Tonestyler control with an additional pot to control the 'depth' of the Tonestyler. They're really cool alternatives to standard passive tone controls.

It's a common misconception that the MM pickup is low output. It isn't. The preamp, when set flattish, does not really increase the output level in any significant form. Of course, you *can* boost it... a lot! But not everyone wants or needs that. Anyway, yeah, that passive pickup is comparable in output to any other passive pickups. The built-in EQ on that preamp just allows you get get to a number of 'classic' Stingray tones easily, while on passive form you get access to a different set of sounds. I wish the Stingray came by default with a passive tone control in addition to the active EQ.

I can't listen to the clip right now, but as a fellow bypass-switch-installed Stingray owner, I agree that a passive Stingray sounds pretty damn good. In my case, it sounds much like the active one... it seems that I normally set the controls to pretty much flat normally, perhaps cutting down treble a bit. That onboard EQ sees very little action on my bass