mcnach

When you loosen the truss rod (anti-clockwise indeed) you don't need to loosen the strings, although if it feels too tight it won't hurt. I only loosen them when I go the other way.

This

If the bass played well before, it is probably just that you have a smaller relief due to the lower tension strings, so all you need to do is loosen up the truss rod a little. Don't touch anything else for now. Most times that's all you need.

Yeah, that bass is capable of a much better tone than that. Rounds would work just fine, but reducing the treble (clank) and mid-scoop would sound a lot better. As somebody who plays a Stingray for 3/4 of my gigs, I find it surprising/frustrating that a lot of multi-bass demos just seem to go for that kind of sound. I'd have never bought one if that's the sound I'd get. The Precisions sounded best, for me. In particular the first one, the red Pino signature Precision. Beautiful.

Tortoiseshell. Ugh.

There's the Broughton one, of course, but they're not shipping to the UK right now. Is there anything else out there that's not packed within a large pedal? I can't seem to find something that's not bundled with a lot of additional functions (and price tag to suit)

Beast!!!!

Cool, thank you! That's the guy from O'funkillo. I don't like everything they do, but they have some nice stuff

You can't easily EQ the complex cancellations that are going one when you use both pickups on. I've had both types. Mostly 60s, but I was curious about the 70s, so I ended up with a couple. Yes, there is a difference but it's not huge. I prefer the 60s one, but the difference wouldn't bother me if I found a 70s spacing Jazz that felt better.

I posted this on the 'now listening' thread... but I'm enjoying it so much that I thought I had to post it here too

Cool! Check the rest of the range out, Joyo & Harley Benton seem to produce the same units under slightly different model names, and Boss have a few too. There are some pretty sophisticated units that include MIDI and all kinds of other things, as well and many more channels, and some pretty basic but still good if all you need is a handful of presets.

I don't have GAS... but if I did...

Oh THAT is a really sexy looking bass! I thought that Sandberg simply made good basses, but after being forced by circumstances to try a few (honestly, I didn't want to! ) and eventually buy a VM4, I'm saying that these basses are pretty special. The build is superb. I was not in love with the preamp in mine (I didn't specify anything and went with the stock one to start), maybe I'm a little picky, but it is a fabulous bass regardless. If the 'basics' are good, and they are VERY good, then it's very simple to modify any bits you'd like different. It's just hard to say what to change when you order a bass, as you can't try it before you buy. In case it sounds like the bass wasn't that good... I've pretty much gigged with it exclusively (a few gigs with the Stingray, but >90% were with the Sandberg) since I bought it without any modification. It's still in my to-do list to remove the preamp and have it set fully passive (I like passive tone controls) and probably use a Tonestyler in it. The forced lockdown might just be the time I needed for it, however with one of my bands we're doing a lot of "remote song writing" recording etc and I keep using it... It's just soooo nice to play.

and as others have said... great customer service.

Not sure about that... there's a lot more to a bass than the type of pickups and their location. But it's probably a very decent bass. I used to own a Vantage (double MM on a Ric/Jazz hybrid type of body) that was pretty cool.

Ouch, a SBMM Ray34 costs £1076 these days???? They do have a few interesting instruments, 'though. Decent price on some Sandbergs indeed.

I travel to Madrid often, how is it possible I didn't know about them???

Do you mean something like this?

I love this one. Not exactly traditional reggae or anything, but it's a great tune and I love that bass...

+1

I use double sided sticky tape. Rests stay firmly attached but they can be removed cleanly.

They're nice (I owned one for a while) but they're often quite heavy and it doesn't do the Stingray thing very well... although I do like what it does.

Some bars, now closed, may allow you to use them for practice or more. Worth asking. One of the main music bars in town contacted me earlier today asking if we'd like to do some live-stream 'gigs'. We've got a new album out and we cancelled the album launch party. This could be a cool way to bring our new music out, while helping the bar a little.

I'll just add that my ideal 'reggae tone' is not what many assume it is, all low end etc. For me it's the low mids. I go for definition, without zing but without a lot of deep bass. For funk, the zing often comes back. The active treble control just boosts a region that is not pleasant, to my ears, and it's too narrow to work well when cutting it. It works better for me, on this bass, to let the passive sound be the brightest, and cut down from the top as required. I only ever used the bass tone control to balance the treble and get the mids where I wanted them. Lots of people like setups like this. Just not for me.