mcnach

I've played ska and reggae on one for years... Go on!

I think you're just impatient. It takes time. Keep at it, regularly, and you'll get there much more quickly than you imagine, but it won't be overnight. I rarely use a pick, and even if I play guitar with a pick, I still find it a bit awkward except for the simplest songs/runs. Practice, that's all, really. Practice and the right pick. For bass, I found it much better to use more rigid thicker picks. Dunlop stubbies are the best I found, for my taste. 2mm or 3mm are very good, and their shape with a depression in the middle helps keeping them firmly in place even when you're hitting strings hard and fast. The 3mm ones are best when you don't necessarily want a very sharp attack, as their rounder edge makes them smoother, while the 2mm ones are more aggressive.

Agh! I measured from the 13th fret!!! It still works, since the fret you choose is arbitrary, just make sure you measure from the right one on yours!

that is soooooo true...

You're in the wrong forum, my friend. Basschat is the reason I had to move into a bigger house!

I had one for a while. It's definitely not a 'classic' Precision style pickup. In a way, the PBXN reminded me of it, only the PBXN is a lot higher output. I felt it was smoother and slightly highmid-scooped compared to a standard Precision pickup. Of course, the pickup is only part of the chain, so you can get a lot of different sounds out of any one pickup.

Yes, they're just steel screws, in contact with two little but powerful shiny neodymium magnets. I have no idea whether their size matters. I considered buying shorter screws when I went to install mine and see how it went, but after a brief search I was not sure I found the right ones, I gave up and took out my chisel. I'm impatient I wish I had thought of @kodiakblair's idea: so simple, neat.

I love that! Nice one

This.

That blue sparkle Stingray... ufffff... everytime I see it I feel my hand reaching out for the credit card, and I am not a fan of either sparkle or rosewood fingerboards, but that one is just stunning!

It's not my bass, it's on the thread I linked to on my first post, but the guy said it's just a volume control, no tone. The switch is to select between coils in parallel, series, or just the bridge-facing single coil. The Stingray classic bridge is a much heavier piece of metal than Fender's BBOT types. How much that affects anything is debatable, but I do prefer it, although I have no problems with those BBOT bridges. I like how the studs at each side keep the saddles from moving laterally on the older Stingray bridges. Some BBOT bridges have grooves to keep saddles in place, but not all. I also like the look of the Stingray bridge My personal impression is that a MM style pickup at the right place gives you most of the Stingray sound. The rest are yummy cherries on top. Remove the preamp, or change anything else... you can still hear THAT sound, but keep everything else and move the pickup elsewhere, or install another type of pickup, and you lose it. Although it really depends on the pickup. I tried several Precision pickups at the Stingray spot during my bored experimental days and while some pickups sounded nothing like a Stingray, there were a couple that weren't that far! Of course, do I remember which ones were they? I don't.

While every bit counts, whether it's pickup, position, some talk about preamps and hardware, I thought I'd just make it easy and put this here. Draw your own conclusions. This (Harley Benton Jazz bass, passive, with a $12 MM style pickup): sounds like this: hbmm_sample02.mp3 (1. parallel 2. series 3. single coil (bridge-facing one)) 😎

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.