LukeFRC

I watched that last night too... it's very good.

[quote name='mart' timestamp='1372619522' post='2127799'] The pickups look narrower than standard MEC M-style pups; the coils look closer together. That may account for the larger gap between the two pups. But the body looks contoured more than a standard Corvette, on the front upper edge. Almost like a Streamette or Infinette. [/quote] her face also is squashed. the video is squashed

bannermans. whistle binkies. ...

Well I changed my mind at the last moment and took my Precison to play today. wish I had taken the warwick. Admittedly this proves nothing except telling me which bass I would prob. sell on next!

shop names that come up lots in convo on here... Specialist: Bass Direct, Bass Gear, Bass Gallery Camden, Manchester Bass Lounge Non specialist: GAK, Guitar Guitar, strings direct, stringbusters German mega internet sellers: Thomann me..... Strings from Alpher, gear from Basschat or gumtree several years ago...

[quote name='Mornats' timestamp='1372532790' post='2126987'] Were they the P/J passive pups or the active soapbars? I've got both across my two Tanglewaters and the active soapbars are impressive sounding. I do love the sound of the P/J but have also played a bass with some Wizard pickups in and loved the sound of those. Hmm, gotta think now! [/quote] the passive ones- they were amazing sounding on the bass I played and very balanced with each other. I think that Pup heights are very critical with a PJ setup and balancing them.

only just seen this thread. The tanglewood/overwater I tried in the shop was, IMO a midling made bass with some of the best pups I had heard in a long time- I even emailed overwater to see if they sold them separately!

[quote name='stingrayPete1977' timestamp='1372505054' post='2126527'] Yes and no The black SR5 is really easy to get in the mix and if that fails you can switch into series or single coil mode and beleive me if you cant get it to cut through with the 3 band EQ and in series mode no other bass is going to anyway, the overall sound is not as big as my old pre EB either. On the other hand it looks ace and the neck is lovely and it has that early Stingray sound mucj more like a proper 2 EQ Ray of 70's and 80's era, a bit more trumpety I always think as a way to describe it, think Chic or early Rage Against The Machine. I will see how I get on with it and maybe put a John east pre into it to see if that boosts it up a bit, everyone else that has done that has been pretty happy with the results saying it has completed the pre EB makeover. It is the nicest EBMM bass I have ever seen though and the fit and finish is up there with the best of anything I have ever tried up to £4k. [/quote] something I found last month.... slightly more trumpty, less balls... lower the pup a mm or two....

[quote name='stingrayPete1977' timestamp='1372373121' post='2125142'] Just got in, its nice. Can be trickier than a 3 eq to settle in the band mix but once you do its got the proper sound a Stingray should have, really nasty or super funky. As soon as you play anything like chic on a 2 eq Ray they come alive, maybe its the sonic room given to the overall mix because the guitars are not grinding away? This bass in particular has less poke than a pre eb ray and generally more trebly overall, the action was very low before though so I might raise the pickup a bit yet and see how that sounds, playability is great and the neck is very well finished with vintage frets and a laquered fingerboard like a proper 70's bass. I was thinking that although they are expensive new for what they are (£2200?) Because of the fact they never made a pre eb 5 string there has been loads of work and machine tooling to create this range, Body-obviously never been a 5 string slab as far as I know so new cnc tooling. Neck-same profile as a Ray 5 but only 21 frets like an SR4 not 22 as a regular Ray 5 so new tooling there. Frets-vintage frets and no getting away with a quick gunstock oiling. Bridge-totally new tooling to create a 5 string pre eb bridge even for the spring plate as they are all connected behind the bridge. Pickup-cover is neither like the new or the old SR5 as far as I can tell? Scratchplate-bespoke to the classic5. Top grade wood for the neck (birdseye or flame) with extra finishing for the classic range and the body is one big slab with a nice grain which is getting more difficult to do, overall that's quite a bit of effort for a fairly niche model compared to the quantity of regular SR4 and 5 basses they must sell. It certainly is a pretty bass in the flesh and right on the verge of flashy for a Ray imo, makes me think of something someone might have made as a custom order by shuker or someone as a sort of super stingray 5. [/quote] A friend of mine got one (they moved to Hong Kong and were saying how cheap they were there! And thought it was great. Prefer it to the SR5?

pickup loading is also important. Ignore the cap for now. Imagine the pickup is a reseviour, each pot is a pipe out of the dam into the river below. If the pipe is wider more water can flow through, smaller less water. The cap IMO isn't going to make as much effect as the resistance of the pots. Mind you, your cable and the input stage of your amp are also active components in the tone of a passive bass.....

[quote name='iconic' timestamp='1372493977' post='2126334'] that site could explain why when I changed the cap' on a P bass this week that runs 500k pots from .047uf to .1uf (big step change in percentage terms) it didn't really change the sound too much, next week the p will be getting the 250k pots as well. edit....reading that again it seems the cap' make more of an impact?...confused I am? [/quote] depends where you have the tone control, the cap will affect where and how the tone will roll off - but with it open it will have no effect. The resistance of the pots however have a massive effect on the loading of the pickups and therefore the tone. Pickup loading is more important that people seem to realise, even active basses- how the signal is treated before the pickup makes a difference - I like the cleverness of the stingray preamp where the pickup feeds at full volume into the preamp and the volume is after the preamp.

ACG EQ01. Though.... a serious consideration.... It costs a lot. Ask ACG to make a (lower end) bass for you with it in it... and it's not much more.... I bought one for my warwick. It's alternatively great or a pain in the arse depending on the day and how I'm getting on with it. (lots of knobs, quite complex to learn, I'm getting there).

Oh... and incase anyone is interested, the tweeter control on my cab seems to affects the crossover point between speaker and tweeter - changing that cleaned up the tone of my cab no end.

[quote name='hamfist' timestamp='1372485824' post='2126261'] Me too. [/quote] I get the urge to either... go get a great PA type amp thing and preamp. or an ampeg SVT or something full of valves, and go the other way!

[quote name='peteb' timestamp='1372407563' post='2125285'] I may actually get a sunburst P bass at some poin if I can find a reasonably light one at the right price! ! Of course, it will have a Bartolini, new bridge and an active circuit within a month! Not my ideal bass, but if it helps me get better gigs... [/quote] cool... but why the need to mod? (honest question, I've had my main bass and modded quite a few things on it, but why buy a bass knowing you're going to mod it? why not just buy a different bass?

well. This has been an interesting thread for me Kinda making me rethink how I amp my bass up!

if you know how to set up a graphics file correctly Print24.co.uk are hard to beat on price. Good german company I've used them loads

the thing I find odd about this thread.... (apart from I'm sure we did this one a week or two ago) Fender got it right first time... well yeah, I can understand that point of view - a good P or J will be a good bass and have a recognisable tone. But the OP is talking about his 5 string active Fender with a fancy pickup.... which isn't, well it's a variation and copy of a set of ideas made by Leo that just happen to have his brand on them..... but anyway - you get good basses of all makes and bad ones. I've found a lot of bad fenders and a few knockout fenders, I'm glad the OP has a good one. I was more interested in the comments the OP regarding how we quickly get into the realms of "this being better than this" and wood tops, fancy pickups and preamps - and what this does for our view of our instrument.

there are a few on the sale forum on here that I think could be better bargains....

I'm going to show this thread to the wife if I ever get a 4th bass

[quote name='LawrenceH' timestamp='1372104310' post='2121737'] Well it is -3dB at 80Hz, -10dB at 60 Hz, that's the big compromise. Try selling that to bass players as high-end! What it illustrates very nicely is how little genuine low bass you need to get the perception of a full tone on stage. It also demonstrates what you can achieve with active filtering and limiting, as a conventional reflex cab like that would be farting out like crazy at high volume thanks to the unloading below tuning causing the woofer to flap around. The high degree of integration possible in this type of design means they can wring out the absolute maximum in terms of performance from the components. To an extent perhaps you could get it flatter but sadly I doubt you can match the clarity in the mid/treble region - having looked inside a Tecamp combo I owned briefly I can say fairly confidently the components just aren't as good as the HK stuff, you will have more inherent distortion. [/quote] thanks for the reply btw. I forgot to say, but it was so comprehensive that I had no reply! I think... it is eye opening. I played through it again on monday, and again it sounded great - What would be the closest bass specific thing to it? I'm guessing it's all about clever designed cabs and then using the electronics to get the most - the similarity is the way the TC electronic RH450 manages to put out a lot of sound while using not much wattage - the difference being that amp is very very coloured tonally

[quote name='stingrayPete1977' timestamp='1372352961' post='2124767'] I'm off to practice with it shortly, if its 75% as good as my pre eb but with a B string hopefully it won't be going anywhere [/quote] oooh the suspense.....

ebay, gumtree, preloved.... etc.... why not just use basschat?