fretmeister

this is my 50th birthday present from my wife really. It’s the first (and last apparently) bass she has bought me so I suspect I will have to keep it even if my arms fall off! Not risking that argument!

Seems quite task specific and unlikely to sell massively, but quite interesting nonetheless.

The wood choices and the hardware. The tuners are now lighter than Hipshot Ultralites, the bridge is lightweight. The neck is Norwegian maple as that is a much lighter wood than Canadian maple, and the body is the very lightweight Paulownia wood. No chambering.

One of the reasons for a control on the tweeter/compression driver is to be able to remove that ultra high frequency hiss without really affecting your tone. The cab cannot generate hiss, it can only let it through. The Ampeg is a noisy beast. Use the control on the cab to tame it. There's nothing actually wrong with any of your kit. But as others have said, other amp designs will have less hiss but some will actually have more!

Sandberg VS4 (their P bass) often comes in at 7.5lb (Classic & Cool have a white one at the moment at that weight), but Sandberg will build any of their basses with Superlight specs as a special order. My low weight obsession is because of injury / surgery so I fully understand.

I will be doing a video or two with different strings for my own amusement / testing in a mix. I'll post them as I do them.

[/Orders a lot of Slimfast]

I wonder if this was supposed to go live on Saturday

My bass rack is next to my desk and I'm having real trouble getting any work done now!

After 11 months almost to the day my special order bass is here in plenty of time for my birthday. After trying a much cheaper shortscale and really enjoying it, particularly when playing with a plectrum I decided to get something from my favourite bass brand. The Lionels are often quite lightweight anyway but they do sometimes get up to a massive 8.5lb... So I asked if a Superlight version was possible and it was, for only a modest extra fee of about £140 over the usual price. I also went for a rosewood board with abalone dots. I am informed that this is the first Superlight Lionel that has been built. It arrived this morning and I've had a 20 minute play. From previous experience I often find Sandbergs to be quite bright sounding basses and I was halfway expecting to swap the pickup or the pots or both. As it happens this bass is not excessively bright, in fact the top end is pleasingly mellow. I think I'll be keeping the electronics as is, at least for now. As expected the stock strings are not to my taste at all. I've got a couple of used sets of strings to try to see what suits it best - Ti Flats and EB Group flats (not cobalt ones) and I'll give each set a proper go before deciding on what new set to get. Now the big question. The weight... It's just under 2.6kg / 5.7lb !!!😲 It balances perfectly too. Massive thanks to Mark at Classic and Cool Guitars for the excellent service throughout the process - he's been top notch keeping me fully informed and replying to questions really quickly.

I bought a used John Deacon shortie P bass on here for a little over £100. It's a great little bass - they come up between £80 and £120 ish from time to time. Worth having a look for one.

In the house I almost always play using a pair of Yamaha HS7 monitors. I'm using them with a Helix but any modeller type unit at any price would work well. I have been really impressed with them. If you are not worried about stereo, or using them as PC speakers as well then a single one would do. Even before my Helix I used them with my PC and a cheap Focusrite interface. I use them for everything now, not just playing and recording - Netflix / Zoom calls etc etc.

Blimey - Thomastik TI Flats shortscale strings have gone up a bit! Cheapest I found was £62 delivered.

About a month early. I suspect I’ll be allowed to check it over and then have to wait until the day. 🥲

It has arrived with Sandberg UK! With a bit of luck it will get into my hands before the weekend! Cannot wait! Just need to buy some good strings for it.

If it's on a board with a power supply, why does it need to be passive?

If you take the damaged one of and measure the hole you'll have more info needed to decide if something else will fit.

Just get them both!

I have one of those too. It's a great pedal. The Jackhammer has an equally bass friendly EQ as well.

You are not helping my GAS!

that does depend on the orientation though. Having 1 cone LPF’d helps massively with horizontal dispersion when the cab is used Landscape/horizontal. Doesnt really matter at all when the cab is used portrait/vertical. That’s why all cones on one side of the Four10/Six10/Eight10 are LPF’d - to stop them cancelling out frequencies from the other side cones. If it was eg 6 cones vertical in a single column then the LPF wouldn’t be needed. So using two One10 next to each other, horizontally has a disadvantage against a Two10 in landscape mode, but the pair of One10 stacked should be better for dispersion than the Two10 in portrait/vertical. EDIT Cabs that are not designed to be used in both orientations - like the BF Super Twin - do not have the LPF on one of the cones because it's not needed in a vertical array like that.

@elfrasho @Elfrasho Those were perfect. I used a craft knife to make them a bit shorter and then hot glued them on. Thanks!

Other than EMG I'm not sure there are any completely solderless options - mainly because of the need for a stereo jack socket. Some do have little screw connector boxes for connecting the pickups to the preamp, but I'm not aware of that approach for the socket. John East is quite accommodating though - if you decide on one of his, then he might be able to supply the preamp and socket with push on spade connectors instead. Call him rather than email though!

Your stage amp has a volume control

Are the basses the same model?