mcnach

Easy: guitarist wants to play the 1971 live BBC sessions version, while bass player is suggesting the dub reggae version by a cousin of Burning Spear. In the end, they both play Freebird as if made by the Stones with a reggae beat. Do keep up.

... and at the end of the discussion, we never find out which one is best for metal. Very disappointing read.

I suspect in reality it would be something cyclical, and/or involve a big shake-up and reshape of civilisation as we know it (through war or disease, most likely)... either way, the next few centuries look dire. Sometimes I wish we had some kind of alien invasion or something. It seems it's the only way humans would ever pull up together: find other beings to blame things on and turn into an enemy. Only half joking there...

That's a bunch of cajones.

Oh come on. There's a vast range of shades between white and black.

Same here. I don't see the problem. Bear in mind as well that we're talking... electric bass guitars, of all instruments. What do I mean by that? Several things: 1. We're not talking about basics like food and shelter. For the vast majority in this forum, electric basses are a bit of a luxury, something we could live without. For those who actually make a living out of playing electric bass... 2. Nobody needs to buy a $5000 electric bass. You could spend a tenth of that in a very decent quality instrument. If you push me, you could even spend £100 and a little effort to get a bass that will do the job nicely and allow you to earn money with it. If you had to. So nobody is forced to buy that $5000 if it'sbeyond their means. 3. Electric basses! Be glad you're not playing a tuba instead! There's no real "cheap but nice" tubas out there.

Or more!

Yes, no buckles and/or T-shirt over the front of the trousers... seems to work

This!!!!!! My dad a scary one at the swimming pool. Lucky, as he was seen quickly and they hay people ready to deal with situations like that, ambulance took 3 minutes and hospital was 10 minutes away. He's in great shape now. But not everyone would be in great shape. Your cardiologist will have all the info and is the one who can advise with regards to any physical activity. Please go ask those who have your data and know about your condition. Then come back to ask us if DB is good for metal.

Mine arrived while I was away and I finally had a chance to try it... Very nice! Decent padding, feels very comfortable and super flexible, so I don't think I'll need to take it off my bass (which is nice, as I use rubber washers that are very tight and I don't want to be removing them and putting them back on a lot)... Cheers for the heads up! It helps a lot with my monstrosity of EBMM SUB (monster sound, and monster weight)

Then I'd definitely stay away from 'destructive' techniques until you're absolutely certain that you identified the problem, as Musicman do tend to ensure the fretwork is perfect. Errors can happen, of course, which is why I don't want to say it can't be that... but I'd be cautious. Best option would be to find a local guitar tech who knows what they're doing. It's very difficult to diagnose these issues at a distance based only on a few responses.

If you're asking these questions, the answer is probably no. You need to identify the problem for sure before you start removing metal from frets.

If you can take a couple of pictures we could probably tell what they are.

Once, I barely touched a string and I was told "that's ok, now guitar stage left?". Seriously, I didn't even pluck properly. I found it so amusing that I just burst laughing with our drummer who was in tears, as he had had a long check and I had said to him "it looks like this guy will do a thorough job during sound check!"... So I just laughed, left my bass on the stand and went away until it was time to play (we were opening). It actually sounded pretty good onstage and FOH from what I was told. (shrug)

Oh, and that! Of course, the basic type of sound comes from where the pickup is placed, more than the kind of pickup. You can try a variety of pickups at the Precision sweet spot, and they can sound quite different, but retain a certain "precisiony" type of vibe. Same with a Stingray. I emptied much of the cavity under the pickguard of an old OLP MM2 (Stingray copy) to play with pickup positions and different types... it was remarkable. I wish I had recorded the various combinations!

This thread is not super-recent, but it's interesting... so here goes: I don't entirely agree with some of your matters/matters not, although I generally agree. THINGS THAT MATTER TO YOU: I do agree about the neck... it's probably the one single factor that can make or break an instrument for me. It can sound amazing, but if it doesn't feel right it's never going to be a favourite. However, if the neck is just right for me and it's overall nice, but lacks a bit sound-wise, I may be keen to try changing pickups or something to see if I can improve it. Strings: very important. They can affect the feel and the sound greatly. Not long ago I bought a Schecter Model T, unseen, unplayed... complete impulse buy based on looks, my idea of what it might be like (PJ with active EMG pickups and preamp), and a few videos by a guy who plays that bass. It was a disappointment at first. The neck was just the kind of neck I like, not far off my Stingray's, nice weight and balance, but the sound... was not right. Because it felt so nice, I didn't return it straight away and I tried one of my favourite strings (DR Sunbeams)... and it transformed it. I not only kept it, but I probably played 80% of my gigs over the following 9 months with it. Tuners: I can't say I've encountered bad tuners except for the lowest of the low instruments, and even then, most were still functional. I can't stand instruments that go out of tune easily. But I just haven't found many problematic tuners. Badly cut nuts that stick? That's much more common, and lead to tuning stability issues for sure. Amp head... yes, it matters. It matters a great deal, but not as much as cabs. Pickups: I agree with you there... the trouble is finding which pickups work best with a given bass. There are some pickups I generally like, and they're a good starting point, but they can sound quite different when installed in different instruments. It's quite remarkable. THINGS THAT DON'T MATTER SO MUCH TO YOU: Cabs: To me they matter a lot. I can generally get a decent sound out of any amplifier if paired with a good set of cabs. The reverse is harder, in my opinion. Of course, the importance is not that big when I'm DI'd and my amplifier becomes merely a glorified stage monitor. Still... having a nice controllable sound onstage makes for a better playing experience, and in turn it affects the way I play. But hey, I once played an outdoor festival where my bass was plugged into a tiny 30W Gorilla practice amp, from whose Line Out socket a cable was fed into the desk. I could hear nothing onstage... just the vaguest of rumbles that made it to my ears from their main amplification... it still worked Cabs are very important to me, for those gigs without PA support, and so that I get a good onstage sound for monitoring purposes when I do have PA support. The amplifier head is next in importance. Circuit: It matters a lot to me. On passive basses, the choice of pots/capacitor changes a lot the sounds I can get from them. I use the tone control a lot on passive basses. On active basses... same, since I do use the EQ on them. Passive tone controls are very nice, for me, and I love active semiparametric mids too... Ideally I'd have a passive tone control (to remove treble when required) and a mids control with a wide range of frequencies to choose from, just to accentuate or tame a bit certain frequencies. Bridge? Totally agree with you. I only care for function. I can't say I've noticed a significant effect that I can attribute to having changed the bridge, and I've changed a few. (edit: I have noticed a change sometimes, but I had also changed the setup somewhat -saddle heights, pickup heights-, and sometimes removed/reattached the neck... so I could not say what I thought I heard was because of the bridge. Also, the change was not necessarily a good one, when moving to chunkier bridges) Wood? Same. Different instruments sound a little different. No question. But is it because of maple vs rosewood fingerboards? Or the ash body? One of the best sounding Jazz basses I ever had (and still have, for that reason) was a cheap Squier with a body made of low quality laminate chipboard type of of thing... I needed to slightly enlarge the bridge pickup route to install a new pickup and that thing crumbled under my chisel... It sounds great now, 'though! Four Fenders (three 75RI and a RoadWorn) and several others from different makes were all sold while the Squier with the hideous body material stayed. On the whole, the instrument matters most to me. While a meh bass can still sound good on a good amplifier, and the best of basses will never sound good on a mediocre amplifier... I 'bond' more with the instrument, and I need it to be special: the neck profile, dimension, balance, the way it plays unplugged, the sound and how it responds to the onboard controls... that's where I spend time trying to get it right. The amplifier and cabs are also important, but I can happily play through a variety of amplifiers, while the bass seems more 'personal' somehow.

If that were the only sound samples I had... I don't think I'd have been ever interested in a Stingray. The Precision was also far from what I consider a great Precision sound. Yet, those are my favourite basses, ahead of any Jazz, Thunderbird etc etc... It's the problem with these comparisons, it would take too long to expand on the tonal palette of each. Still... very cool video. The Thunderbird wasn't bad at all. I've recently heard some clips of a Thunderbird on mostly the neck pickup and I was surprised at how good it could sound. I say surprised, because I'm more used to hearing one with both pickups on and it just gets lost in the mix too easily: all low end rumble and no definition. But the neck pickup... can be very sweet. Cool looking bass too. What surprised me more was the Rick. Judging by how far the Precision and the Stingray were from the sounds I make with those basses... I think that I would probably enjoy a Rickenbacker like that one, soundwise (not so much in other ways).

Glad I'm not the only one... It's especially bad if the next song starts with bass and drums alone

They do need to be set up nicely and kept greased, then they're accurate and work very well. If not, you can experience issues like that, as I found when using my first one. All it needed was some lubrication.

No. I am the sound guy! And so is my wife!

Stewart Ward, from Award-Session amps, makes really good cables under the name Cleartone. They're not particularly expensive either, but they use quality plugs and cable and workmanship is of course great. I still use regularly some cables he made for me back in 2001. https://www.award-session.com/cleartone_cables.html Alternatively, OBMM from this forum makes very good cables too, and very nice he is too. Design-a-cable are very good too, and offer a wide variety of colours, which may come handy. I think Cleartone also offer some kind of colour labelling too. edit: I see you already went with OBMM, good choice, but these other choices here may be useful for someone else searching in the future.

Nothing lacking in basswood instruments at all, certainly. And if there's anything lacking, it's not because of the wood. Basswood, poplar, even pine... can sound great if they're build well.

When there's PA to take care of the bass, my amplifier becomes my monitor really. As such, I want to be able to tweak EQ to help me onstage without worrying that I'm damaging the mix FOH. For that reason, I always give them PRE. I like the flexibility I get that way onstage, and the sound engineer already gets *my* sound, since I tend to get the sound I want between the bass and any pedals I may be using, I do not rely on the amp for that.

Some random bassline made up on the spot, ensuring I get very low as well as high notes, some slap if I'm going to use it, running through any FX that might be a bit extreme... envelope filters/octavers... Then for band soundcheck, we just play a song or bits of songs that contain all elements needed.