fretmeister

I love my MB head and Energy 210 but I’m thinking of moving to that combo just so it’s a 1 thing carry. I’m not gigging at the mo and I doubt I will for a while so something more convenient for the odd jam appeals to me.

Mr Wailer bought my Mark Bass Vintage Preamp. Very quick payment and let me know the minute it arrived safely - that's always welcome with the too-often terrible service we get from couriers and so on these days. Hope you enjoy it!

I have never regretted buying one. My biggest problem with it is that I like flats and rounds on it and I can't afford to get another one so I don't have to keep changing strings!

Yes - either a Sandberg Lionel PJ or a Jim Deacon P. I play them a lot more than my long scale basses at the moment.

Balls. Prices back up. Wish I'd spotted this earlier.

I had a P bass from that series and it was a very nice instrument. The bodies are a little thinner than on a full USA one, but that means a slightly lower weight and I really like that. The necks on the Precision version were also a little thinner front to back. I only sold mine because at the time I was almost always playing a J type so it was gathering dust. The only think I'd upgrade on them would be the tuning heads - they are the same as a MIM and although serviceable, improvements are available. I put Hipshot Ultralites on mine and got the weight down further in the process.

Just checking - is your bass active and have you swapped the battery? What else is in your signal chain?

Mark Bass Vintage Preamp is lovely.

Mine are all shorties! Two just P, and one PJ. One P and the PJ have flats, and the other has rounds.

If you want one then yes. If you don't then no. I find a J more versatile overall but sometimes, for my ears, only a P will do. I doubt the audience cares though!

There is something called "Feet Finder" but I'm not sure shoes are involved much!

If I buy something it is mine and I can do what I like with it and that includes selling it for double or burning it in the garden for BBQ fuel - but I am not a hypocrite so that must be the other way as well: if I sell a thing and the next person manages to sell it for double - that is their good fortune and I am pleased for them. I'm an adult and I did a deal I was happy with at the time. Hindsight is a waste of energy. Once I've sold a thing I no longer care about it. Perhaps the next owner will sell it for a loss, or maybe for a profit. Either way it is not mine anymore and it leaves my mind. It's not an "anti-community" stance, it's a really "Why on earth should I get a say when it's not mine?" Stance. What next? Should I be upset if the 3rd owner after me makes a profit? Or only if it's the next owner? Advertising something at a higher price does not mean it will sell, and if it does, good luck to them. There are many reasons for a bass selling for more and for less. Perhaps the market improved / got worse. Perhaps there was a bidding war by people who only just discovered the item was available. Perhaps the model has somehow been associated with a recently exposed nonce and now nobody wants them so the value tanked. Perhaps the original seller really needed money and had made the decision to sell undervalue for a quick sale. Irrespective of the reasons why the buyer bought it they assisted the seller. They cannot be expected to offer a higher sum "just because" and they shouldn't be expected to sell at an undervalue themselves. Even if they bought it with the intention to sell at normal market value (or higher) they still did a deal with another adult who made the decision to sell in a way that suited them at the time. Slagging someone for later selling at a higher price is no more or less silly than slagging the original seller for selling at an undervalue and making others of the same model harder to shift at market value. Inflation and depreciation and simple desirability can change quickly. Several years ago I sold / part-x a very nice bass on here and the person buying it gigged it extensively and then decided to get a new one built with slightly different specs so he put "my" one up for sale. Another member of this "community" sent me multiple messages demanding to know exactly what I had sold it for (with the part-x value etc) and seemed to be demanding that I feel outraged that it was for sale at a price that might have been higher than I got. I pretty much got a lecture that me not caring about something that I no longer owned was a problem and that my refusal to tell him the details of a private transaction was against the community. It was a level of pathetic entitlement unworthy of anything claiming to be a community. Most amusingly that member has advertised many items way above market value / used sales on here and ebay etc. This happened again when I sold a pair of Mark Bass cabs donkeys ago and a different member actually had the balls to ask me for a breakdown including the shipping as I had sent them to mainland europe. He wanted to work out the cab price from the postage included price. I promise: if you buy a £100 pedal from me and manage to sell it for £300 I will be thrilled for you. Me being happy with the sale at £100 will not be affected by you managing to sell for £300.

That thud is technique and because the fingers are coming to rest on the B string the thud is lower pitched. Many B strings tend to be a bit floppy and that means they move more when a finger comes to rest on them. More movement = more signal. A tighter B string may well help but avoiding coming to rest on a string at all is a good thing to practice. It will be there on your 4 strings too - but probably at a frequency and volume you are not noticing at the moment.

Nige bought my Strat neck - all good, quick payment.

I love paulownia - I have 2 basses with that, and I have all the parts to put together a paulownia body telecaster too - when I get round to it!

https://www.cortguitars.com/dp/gb-short-scale/ Could be fun!

I find it much easier on guitar than on bass. Probably because the guitar parts tend to follow the rhythmic structure of the vocal more closely than the bass does. And for many things, being a bit more avant-garde on guitar is fine and doesn't ruin the pulse of the tune. I started singing and playing at pretty much the same time - when I was introduced to James Hetfield in 1986/7 when a mate shared some TDK cassettes! I wanted to do that. So very frustratingly I can play fast metal on guitar and sing at the same time and have great trouble playing simple bass and singing at the same time! But generally, it's all about spotting things that line up with strums and vocal beats and using them as anchor points with flexibility in between.

@Silky999 how much would I be looking at for a paulownia Strat body - usual Fender dimensions, neck pocket and so on?

Some older vids suggest that he's actually used MIDI/AI to lift the melodies. Others suggest that he's recording them at a very low speed and then speeding up. As Beato noticed - he's not good enough to be on RB's channel. The stupid thing is - if he put this much effort into learning the skills to rip people off for so long (and that's not including the guitars he was lent that he sold / given to advertise and then just sold without keeping his end up) then he could have put that effort into actually learning to play.