mcnach

I have the blue one (edit: I mean the blue SC ), I can't imagine the battery life (edit: on the red SC ) would be any different. I can't say how long batteries last as I haven't really used mine (edit: my SC )in anger... but they seem to last long enough or I would have noticed. Probably similar to my Zoom H2 recorder (around 6-8 hours?), but I can't say for sure and I never found online any indications as to how long it's supposed to last. edit: they're great these SC units, eh? (edited just for @Al Krow 😛 )

You can't rely on the wire colours, as you've found.

You wired it out of phase at first, which results in a very thin sound with little to no low end. But you fixed it

Hmmm. not sure about that diagram. According to that, the Vintage 62 has a 70s spacing...

1. Yes, my strap broke once and I had nothing to fix it in a hurry, so I finished the set sitting on the amplifier. 2. I gigged on guitar before I tried bass and got hooked. 3. No, but close. There's this cool trombone player who was in a famous band in the 80s and I was lucky to play with him, and he always wanted to be close to my amp onstage so I got to hear/see him play very closely. 4. not that I know of!!! But many had our stickers. 5. actually I have signed autographs... embarrasing 6. I never cried onstage, but I've wanted to drop my bass and murder someone. Ok, not murder but inflict severe bodily harm. Never did 'though. Once I did jump out and threatened someone. Another time in a small bar I hit someone (not hard) with my headstock to get his attention (his back towards me, while he argued with someone) and then I called security who dealt with him. 7. many times, many hats 8. no, I always met them at least once 9. no relationships within the band, no 10. Yes, quite a few times. Two bands frequently, sometimes three. Typically at festivals. Two of my bands used to play the same type of events and we actually shared 1-3 members. In the end it was just me in common. Once the sound guy was politely telling me I should unplug and move to let the other band's bass player set up... I told him it was me. Then the next band, Bombskare, was on, and I knew them well so a couple of them were chatting to me onstage and the sound guy thought I was playing with them too (my wearing a Bombskare t-shirt could explain his confusion) 11. a soft toy, balloons, confetti from a confetti cannon... only stuff like that. Never used underwear 😛 12. Never crashed, but had breakdowns. Always made it 'though. 13. Never. But most of my bands were largely originals. I've left bands because of volume management (lack of), control-freak 'leaders', unreliable members, but never because of the music. 14. Yes, I have slept at venues to save money on hotels, especially if the gigs were far away and/or lower fees than we'd have liked. Not a great experience most times, they're always filthy. Brushing my teeth in the toilets that had not been cleaned yet and stank of pee was not a great experience. 15. I've been supported by bands that I fell in love with. Better than us? I wouldn't say so. We've supported bands that were definitely better than us. Very educational and sobering. 16. I've played many gigs while sick, but nothing major. 17. Funny, no, I can't think of any. I tend to get along better with drummers and horns. But just because they weren't my favourite it doesn't mean I didn't like them. I don't stay in bands where I don't like members, unless the pay is good enough to make me overlook that... and even then, it's just not worth it for me. But then, I don't depend on the music related income to pay my bills. 18. Nope, never. But I played in the grounds of a castle, does that count? 19. Injured myself onstage? Hurt my hand a few times, hurt my knee... but nothing serious. 20. Yes! Not a common thing but I've been asked to turn up quite a few times. I've also been asked to turn down. Sometimes both on the same gig. Yes. I don't know either.

Not really. Two pickups when blended together seem to enhance/cancel some harmonics, which gives them their characteristic sound. You can give one pickup priority over the other with the blend control, but how they interact seems to depend on the distance between them. The wider apart they are, the more pronounced the mid-scoop, for example.

I had three japanese reissues... two had 70s spacing and one 60s spacing (shrug). Nice basses but you can't assume what spacing they have until you check, indeed.

It's also too easy to get carried away by 'good deals'. Often, if you stop to think you realise you don't need them...

Yes, but I'd put batteries in first if you want to hear anything It comes with a little cable you can use to plug in your mobile phone or whatever if you want to play along to some music on your phone.

Indeed, I didn't think of that use! Battery life seems pretty good 'though.

I didn't know about Matumbi. Thank you! They have some great tunes.

If you buy 2 it's only 3.35 postage edit: the actual point I wanted to make I am not sure what else you use for this purpose, but indeed, it's really easy to mix and control the volume for your instrument and the aux input. At £30-40 or whatever it was that I paid I thought it was worth it. At £16... no question. But of course it depends on your needs/circumstances.

I have one of the blue ones. To be honest, I'd be happy with one of these red ones, especially at the price, as I don't really need the additional functionality. Nice little unit, it sounds pretty good. I may not use it very often but it has its uses. I would have loved to have this a couple of years ago. I was in a 50/50 originals/covers ska and reggae band, and we travelled all over the place in a minibus. I joined just before a long string of gigs/festivals and I would have loved to be able to go through some of the songs while travelling. This little box would have fitted in my case with no fuss.

Why not? Or do all, it could be cool to hear multiple variations of the same type of sound. I might do one too, once I re-install Reaper on my laptop... but right now I can't do many of those 'classic' options. I have one Precision only. The other 'precisiony' basses are a Schecter Model T (PJ, active EMGs and the P is a bit closer to the bridge than normal), a Maruszczyk with a reverse Precision pickup but also a bit closer to the bridge than normal (and it's currently in bits as I was installing a MMSR preamp and then life happened... but it'll take me all of 15 minutes to finish), and a Sandberg VM4 (reverse P pickup). Oh and my girlfriend's Squier PJ, of course, but it's got Labella White Nylons on, so too distinctive a sound to fool anyone Still... it could be fun. Then add the Stingray, the double MM Tele bass, the JJ (two J pickups close to the bridge)...

We're going to Hell, aren't we?

Received today, I only had a quick play with it but it seems to do the job very well

I wonder what he's doing now that the Tickled Trout is closed.

Tempting. I still have my Sue Ryder. It's fretless now, with a Model P pickup. The fretless that survived the cull 4 years ago. Where is @JTUK?

wow! that is beautiful!!!

That sounds like a great idea

velcro! Is it light?

If you feel like doing another challenge, how about addressing the whole P vs PJ vs Jazz deal? There are clear differences, but in the large scheme of things, they aren't HUGE differences, yet sometimes you see some heated exchanges (mostly at TalkBass , a bit more belligerent over there) about how a PJ can never sound like a P, and how a PJ with both pickups on sounds NOTHING like a Jazz with both pickups on, etc... How about... (and this is only a suggestion, please, don't take it like I am 'ordering' you to do anything ) recording multiple clips of a few combinations, and see what people think? You can even create a poll (it's one of the options when you start a new topic) so that people can vote and the results will be there in graphic form for all to see until the end of days I would do, say... three clips (all play the same riff, but three different tone control positions) of: 1) Precision alone (your Westbury?) 2) PJ with the P only. 3) PJ wit both pickups on full 4) Jazz with both pickups on full 5) Jazz with only neck on The Jazz neck vs Precision should be easy, especially with that Model P which is pretty distinct and meaty. The PJ vs Jazz with both pickups on should be interesting. They both have the same kind of character. The sound depends a lot, in my experience, on the actual pickups and how their relative heights are set etc... but yours seem good examples in that they are similar enough but there's still that little "no-se-que" [1] that differentiates them. The PJ vs Model P will not be the best comparison as they're quite different pickups, but they both will sound like a Precision of some kind, so it'd be good to see the spread in votes too. [2] [1] I don't know how to spell it in French, so I'll use Spanish instead [2] My girlfriend has one of those PJ special basses. Really good! I actually bought it for her, but she chose it. She plays bass a little (that's how we met [3]) but she's very shy to play in front of others. One day she told me during one of her walks at lunch time she saw this bass at a local second hand store, and went in, and asked to try it... and she loved it, it was light, comfortable, the neck was perfect, it sounded great... and she was thinking of buying it after payday (two weeks away). I really wanted her to have a bass she liked, because she was using the first one she got and as it's often the case, once you become a bit more experienced and you know what you like, you realise your first bass was not the best choice. I looked at the picture she took, nodded, and feigned disinterest... but she was really in love with that bass, next morning she kept talking about it. I nodded politely, yes it's a beautiful bass and you should get it if you like it so much. Of course, what I did was go explore the area near her work place until I found it, and I bought it. I hid it for a month (waiting for her birthday), during that time she was kicking herself for not having bought it while she had the chance... I loved it too. I actually borrowed it a few times to play gigs with it when she was in the audience (she likes to tell people "that's MY bass" ). Completely stock. Very nice. [3] She was a fan of my main band and I had seen her coming to a lot of our local shows for several months. We had talked a bit, but just hello and little else. One night during the break she comes to me to ask me about something I was playing. It turns out she had our first album and was learning to play one of the songs but when she sees me play it it didn't seem right. I told her that's because I changed the bassline compared to the recording Anyway, we got talking and... 5 years later we're still talking about basses, only now we live together so we don't need to wait for gig nights

Ah! I thought you had a more difficult trick up your sleeve. I'm glad my ears still work

I don't have a lot of experience with clip-on tuners, but I found them very sensitive to anything that would reduce the neck vibrations. The first time I tried one I thought it was broken... because I had the habit of holding onto the tuning peg, and that was enough to make it not work very well at all. I have one, as a backup, and I was going to test it right now... but instead of the tuner I found a webcam in the drawer (???) I swear I was not using a webcam to try to tune my bass before, THAT was not the issue

I get it. I didn't get it years ago when I would put preamps even on my socks if I had the chance. But for a while now I've been changing my mind about the on-board controls on a bass. I like active basses' ability to sound the same whatever the volume is set to, and in general how its response is not altered much (any?) by the cable I am using, but I don't like the coloration many preamps impart. My ideal bass would have a transparent buffer (the active part), with a semiparametric mids module (like the John East), and a low pass filter (a passive tone control works just fine for me, maybe something like a Tonestyler if I want to be a little more sophisticated, an active LPF would work too, if I'm already using batteries). Then, I would probably go to my all passive Precision and decide that all that was unnecessary to start with