mcnach

I can't remember the last time I felt stressed about a gig. If I do it's more to do with bad logistics and "where is the singer???" -it's always the singer- Gigs are fun, for me, otherwise I really don't think I'd be doing them. Money is just a very welcome bonus which often gets reinvested in music related things.

So it's a matter of sound, then, which to some degree is subjective (there's basses that left me cold that others went "ooooh" about) and can be addressed by using different pickups/preamp (if it mattered enough). Funny what you say about "master of all trades"... One of the most versatile basses I've owned was a Warwick Corvette $$: two MM pickups with individual switches for parallel/series/single coil, 2-band preamp... you could spend all night trying different sounds, and it never seemed to grab me, but then I got a single pickup Stingray and I was at home. Versatility is a nice thing to have, but not necessary. Give me one good basic sound, and I'll be happy with that and minor tweaks. The reason I asked what made the Schecter so much nicer for you is that as far as I can tell, the Sandbergs are really nice, and if it's a matter of finding theright electronics for you on that bass, it may be worth experimenting a bit. I'm waiting on a VM4 I ordered a few months ago... To be honest, I didn't spend much time thinking about the pickups for it. Being an order, I can't just go and try it first, so I just went with whatever standard electronics use these days, and I'll modify to taste if I think it needs it.

It's "cojones". Cochones sounds too much like colchones, which is a lot softer (it means "mattresses" 😛 ) That Schecter is beautiful, I love that look! I'm not sure that another bass not being able to sound like it is a measurement of anything other than... well, it's a different bass with different pickups and electronics, so no surprise there. What makes the Schecter a much better bass than the Sandberg, for you? Is it just that it makes a sound that you prefer? Is it versatility? Is it built quality?

Really? Do you see evidence of that in this thread? Or did you just come here to shoot d... oh, I see.

still happy with it!

+1 I think it's more a case of sometimes being asked to use a specific bass like a Precision. Not because it's passive, but because it's been so widely used in the past 50 years that it is a sound a lot of people are familiar with and like. But passive/active... I don't think it has any relevance. They record all sorts of signals, I doubt they'll suddenly trip because a bass is active. In a typical recording situation (shortish cables etc) I doubt it would make much difference at all anyway.

To be fair, the bag is no worse than bags provided by many other manufacturers... *IF* they even provide one! It's a nice touch. Like buying a guitar and getting a gigbag with it. I can use it, but it's not designed for every kind of use. For my guitars I use either a Hiscox hardcase or a Fusion F1 hybrid depending on the level of protection I need. With amplifiers is the same. If I spend >£1000 on an amplifier, adding and extra £50 for a decent case is not much of a problem. The one I ended up using was actually around £30 and while I wouldn't want to run a car over it, it protects it against the kind of common hits you may get in a band bus, with enough padding inside to absorb the impact from any reasonable drop. The bag that came with my old TC RH450 started to come apart at the seams on the very FIRST time I took it out. At least the Mesa one looks a bit better made

I had the neckthrough one, active. Very very nice, but it was as heavy as a small planet. Sold it to a Dutch guy who came over for a weekend in Edinburgh to pick it up and was over the moon with it. They didn't go for as much money back then...

I never used the original bag, it doesn't look bad but it's thin and offers little protection as you found out. I bought a plastic tool case with precubed foam that you can cut easily to shape. Not expensive and works quite well

It happens with other brands too. It seems there's no standard as to what is 'long scale', or maybe you eed to ensure 'extra long scale' for body-through stringing. I guess you can still use them if you load them from the top rather than through the body. I had that option on several basses and I can't say it made any difference to the sound.

It can be a very useful thing to have if you use drop-D at times, or just require the occasional lower notes, but Idon't see it as a substitute for a 5 string: the intervals become larger and you don't have the ability to cover the wide range of notes at one single position across the strings as you do with a 5-string. I've been using them for years because I had to play songs originally in drop-D using a lot of the open D string, and it made life a lot easier. BUt beyond that I don't seem to use them much.

I don't have a backup bass that was bought as such. Every bass I own was bought because I liked it for some reason. Then, Unless I require a specific bass for a specific look/sound, I just gravitate towards one or two naturally, and they kind of become the #1 and the backup... I lie. The MM SUB was bought because I wanted to make sure I always had a Stingray I could use, no matter what. But that's the only one.

They're nice, but generally on the heavy side.

Indeed. My old DHA VT-1 (I think it was the VT-1) ran ok at 9V provided the mA rating was taken into account. It was slightly (very slightly) noisier and the overdrive didn't seem as full as it was at 12V, but it was very useable and worked well.

It's small indeed. And John is super helpful once you get his attention. Very nice guy. I'm sure he'll help you get your bass up and running.

Hi Hugh, The video is informative and it's a good start, although it contains a few innacuracies that I hear being perpetuated, and a couple of points that I personally disagree about (but that's just my own view, of course), so I would have loved a slightly different take which covered those points... But of course, it's your video The first thing I would change is the active = higher output equation. You hear that everywhere and it's simply not true. Some active basses are high output, most are not, some are quieter than most passive basses. It depends on the preamp design and sometimes there's even a trim pot internally to adjust the output. Of course, if the active bass also has active EQ, and you boost it, you'll end up with one loud bass, which may explain this view of active=high output, but I think it's important to realise that it's not true. For the same reason, I hate seeing active/passive labels on amplifier inputs. In most cases, the passive input (non attenuated) works best for any given bass, but a guy with a Stingray would just plug into the active input without thinking... and on some amplifiers the attenuation circuit is pretty crude and not great sounding. The main thing with active basses is the low impedance output, as @itu pointed out. This allows you to be somewhat resistant (no pun intended ) to losses experienced when using long cables and passive instruments. However, your signal may become low impedance pretty early after leaving the bass if you use any number of pedals that would convert the signal. So it's not necessary to have an active bass to benefit from that, in principle. Some people talk about passive basses as being 'pure' but then the signal goes through pedals, often, through preamps and amplifying circuits... (shrug) I also see the equation active/passive as related to tone controls. It's true that most active basses have active EQ, but they're two different things. An active bass simply produces low impedance output. This can be achieved with or without active EQ. You may have EMG pickups (active) and passive tone controls (or no tone controls), or passive pickups and active EQ (most active basses), or an active preamp with separate tone controls, which could be passive, like on a G&L L2000. I think this is an important distinction to make. There's also the issue with passive = noisy. I just don't think that's correct. Most active basses are essentially passive basses with an additional active preamp with EQ capabilities. If anything, the chances of noise are higher on those because often the preamp designs are not terribly good, and they're limited to working with the voltage provided by one or two 9V batteries. A good preamp is very quiet, 'though. With regards to the use of batteries, the expense and chances of them dying mid-gig... I think that while not untrue, these factors are exaggerated. Expense: batteries are not that expensive, even if you buy singles at Sainsbury's, and they last a LONG time. I'd imagine most people spend far more on strings than on batteries. Just cut back one pint every few months and you'll be ok Dying mid-gig? Yes, it's a possibility... and it's happened to me. Once. On my Stingray. And boy, was I happy that I had a bypass switch installed on that bass (Stingrays don't have the active/passive option stock), as within a few seconds I was able to switch the bypass on, and carried on -albeit with a different tone- until we had a break and then changed the battery. However, it's very easy to avoid. Not fool-proof, as illustrated above (I'm a pretty good fool 😛 ) but it's simple: replace the battery at regular intervals,don't wait until it dies. Some preamps continue working fine until the battery reaches a threshold and just dies rapidly... others give you plenty of time with the signal degrading progressively. The best course is just to replace the battery before it happens. Most preamps would last a year if not a lot longer on a single Duracell battery (don't cheap out, cheap batteries almost invariable end up not being cheap at all). It depends on usage. My main bass, a Stingray, gets a lot of use and lasts well over a year. I replace it once a year (choose a date, stick to it, so you remember it easily). If I think I've been very busy and it was my only bass, I might change it twice a year. Other basses may last longer/shorter... whatever, choose a frequency whoch will be several months at the very least, and you will have no trouble. Of course, you may forget one time, like I did, and be on a specially busy period, like it was for me, and that battery died onstage after nearly 2 years. So having a bypass switch is never a bad idea. Another thing I'd add, which is related to the battery life, is to point out that the preamp is switched on by the act of inserting a cable into the socket. Some people leave basses plugged in constantly: that's using up the battery even if you don't play it. Switching it to 'passive' doesn't stop that, the preamp is still on. So always unplug. In fact, I'd say always unplug even on passive basses: saves someone tripping on a cable and pulling your bass down with it... But that's just me.

This. It's essentially a one man operation, so if in a hurry the phone is your best friend.

Good saving... but I never understood the love for that pedal. I had one for a while and it was ok, but I find there are several reasonable alternatives for a lot less. Even at £130 it seems far too expensive.

Valve pedals tend to have much higher requirements than usual 9V Boss type analog pedals. I'm not sure you can damage it but it's likely it will not be very good. I have had several valve pedals that I tried at different voltages. With some, I lost headroom. With others, they just didn't work, giving me faint noises. Also, it's not just the voltage, the current rating is important, probably more so than voltage alone. If your pedal required at least 120mA, and you're daisy chaining several... chances are it will not work very well. You could fit a 2-way into your pedalboard so you can power the valve pedal separately, but still using a single plug off the board.

A couple of Barefaced Two10, vertically. Really full sound.

Last night I played a gig using one of those heads and an Orange 410 cab at a local music bar. I've played there many times using an Orange Terror head they used to have, but it seems it broke down and got this one instead. It's old, I guess 90s. It's ugly. It's big. It's only 100W. But I liked it. I enjoyed it more than the Orange Terror Bass, it was easier to get a nice sound, it felt powerful, it just worked beautifully and it certainly was no lacking in volume either... unless all the power is achieved within the first third of the master knob. Does anybody know anything about these heads? It looks like when they show up for sale, they don't go for more than £100-140, which is a great deal for an amplifier like this. I've been a fan of Laney for a long time. I used to have a VC50 in my guitar days... Heavy beast, but it sounded great and it was one of the loudest amplifiers I've ever tried (aside from a Fender Twin) whilst sounding good. It's big and silly, the PL-100 Bass, but I'd buy one as backup in a heartbeat.

Hey! Stay away, those are mine!!! (almost)

I only used it at home so far... and I keep switching between fat and mid mode. I think fat is the one for me... but often, mixed with the band, I find that I need a bit more on the mids than I think I need at home... so I don't know what it'll be like 'in real life'. Unfortunately my 'rocky' band won't meet for a while now

What bass do you have? The 2EQ preamp post-EB may have changed slightly a couple of times, but not enough to make the bass sound substantially different. Pickup? Same thing. If you have a 2EQ Stingray, you already have the tools. If you have a 3EQ, it's different but you can still get that kind of sound. If you have any of the multiple 'copies' of the Stingray, some get you much closer than others, but you can always get in the ballpark of THAT sound with the right combination of strings/technique/settings. Even the old OLP basses I used to have could get that vibe even if they weren't exactly the same sound. On those, sometimes a new pickup helps. The Nordstrand MM4.2 is probably the closest I've tried to an original Stingray pickup. The Seymour Duncan SMB4A is a favourite of mine, but it has a different kind of sound, a bit more... 'airy' and powerful. I love it, but it's not exactly the 'classic' sound. There are lots of Stingray 2EQ preamp clones out there that even if they don't work exactly the same, they'll allow you to tweak the basic sound well enough. A Stingray with the preamp bypassed already has an unmistakeable Stingray sound. The preamp is just the cherry on top to give you access easily to other "Stingray sounds". What bass are you using right now?