Ed_S

[quote name='Evil Undead' post='1240606' date='May 22 2011, 06:12 PM']I've heard that the latest Squiers (CV and VM series) are just as good as the MIM Fenders... don't know how true that is? The black one is great, but I've had my heart set on the vintage white one since I first saw it... looks just like a mid-70's. Mmmmm What's your take on the latest Squiers? Would you be willing to gig them without a backup?[/quote] Oh, don't get me wrong.. I like the white one too I'm not sure about the VM being 'just as good as' a MIM.. I have two 2009 MIMs that are my main gigging basses, and as much as I like the VM, they do just feel like a slightly higher quality product. The good news is that it's not by that long a stretch; the MIM has a more carefully finished neck, but that aside, the VM just feels a touch lighter and a little more "rough and ready", as opposed to feeling "fragile" like they used to back in the chipboard days! The resonance of the actual block of wood and the quality of the amplified tone isn't far off the MIM at all. As for gigging the VM without a backup, yeah, I'd fly her solo without worrying unduly. Granted, my VM being tuned C,F,Bb,Eb means that it has a very specific role and consequently doesn't get anywhere near as much play as the MIMs, but all the same, nothing about it gives me huge cause for concern. The worst I can say is that the tuning machines on mine feel a bit cheap compared... but they seem to turn fine and hold perfect tuning thus far, and wouldn't really cost that much to replace if they did eventually start to give up. As long as you aren't planning on sharpening one end and digging the garden with it between gigs, I'm sure you'd be fine

Partial to a bit of "Colour My XTC" by Talisman, myself.. classic bit of Marcel!

I say do it! Then again, I would; I play Fender P's exclusively these days But that Freeman looks ace for the money... I'd pick the black one personally, but both look good and Squier's come a long way quality-wise in the last 10 years or so. I was amazed when I got my VM Precision last year; I expected it to be good enough to try out BEAD tuning for a while but then end up needing replacing with another MIM when I was sure I liked it, but it's turned out to be an absolutely great little bass, and totally gig-worthy.

[quote name='chris_b' post='1238922' date='May 21 2011, 03:07 AM']and Dreja's P bass wasn't working[/quote] Did you check other stuff like gravity and daylight.. make sure it wasn't a complete outage?

One of our guitarists often tells the tale of his old band whose bassist mistakenly borrowed a bass tuned to drop-D and only passed comment after playing the entire gig that he thought it sounded 'a bit odd'

Very nice.. rosewood aside it kinda reminds me of the recent American Special, but yours has a better bridge!

I originally moved from super long scale, black, pointy, active, physically heavy 5/6 string basses because I discovered that as much as I loved the image and they were great instruments, my neck was what's medically referred to as 'dodgy', and I was constantly in worsening pain after playing for any length of time. I won't lie, I got my first Precision (a just-released 2009 MIM in white/maple) because it looked absolutely iconic and just called to me across the shop. However, I soon realised that not only had I become a good enough player to deal creatively with going back to 4 strings, but more vitally the weight, scale length, body contour and just the way the P hung on a good wide strap meant that I could play for 3+ hours without being in crippling pain. Add to that a tone that could cut cleanly through just about any mix and near bomb-proof reliability, and you'll understand why all I have left of the pointy basses is a few photos, and in their stead own a little squad of Precisions that do everything I need and don't hurt like hell to play. =)

I've heard quite a few reports of the MB's going down, whereas a local venue I play quite a bit has one of the Rumbles as their house bass amp, it gets thrashed literally every night, and it just keeps going.

I actually bought a Squier VM Precision about a year ago with the sole intention of trying this out. Let's face it, is not the most prestigious of instruments when it comes to construction and certainly doesn't ship with a graphite neck, but it's been absolutely fine to gig with. It's actually tuned up a step to C (to match the guitarists who are tuned down accordingly) so is under even more tension than it would be as a normal BEAD, though I guess it helps that I like 'em fairly light, so it's strung 60, 75, 95, 125 which will help to keep the tension down. The nut was dead easy to sort; just used an old set of the same gauge strings as 'files' to get the slots to the perfect width at the same depth as before. The neck stayed put; all that was needed was to tweak the saddles and intonation.

[quote name='TRBboy' post='1188474' date='Apr 4 2011, 10:58 PM']Have you ever used the Prosteels? It looks like they're brighter but I've never tried them.[/quote] I use ProSteels and really like them - they are indeed brighter than the nickel plated sets, and to my ears they seem to keep their new-sounding 'zing' longer than Rotosound plain steels (the other brand I use) but the downside is that when they do start to go dead they suddenly sound pretty bad, whereas the Rotosounds just become gradually less articulate. That's just in my experience, though.. if you don't play fairly speedy melodic metal on a p-bass using a pick about the thickness of an old 50p coin, I guess your mileage could vary considerably

Yeah, I wondered about that after the fact, but it was brand new straight out of the box so wasn't my first thought at the time. Plus it wasn't malfunctioning in any other way - it sounded fine tone-wise and the gain character seemed 'normal', it just wouldn't get that loud on the master. But yeah, I realise that I'm in a bit of a minority... And of course my guitarists are too loud. . . they're guitarists

I had a pair of MAG compact 115s that I used quite happily for a while with my SWR Workingman's 4004, but upgraded to an ABM compact 115 and 410 mainly for road-worthiness (better wood, beer resistant covering, metal corners etc.) and was sufficiently impressed with the improvement A/B-ing the 115s alone that I went back and took a punt on the ABM 500 evo3 head to complete the rig. Proudly took the matching set to our next rehearsal and duly got completely drowned out; I was expecting some guts given what I'd heard in the shop, but the thing had absolutely no power at all and there was nothing I could do with the EQ to even make it cut through. Tried it at our next gig just to be sure, and I've never been so glad to have my Sansamp to put through the PA. In short, I got rid of the head very quickly but still have both ABM cabs and use the 410 every week at the rehearsal studio, along with my trusty old Hartke HA2000 which on paper is only running about 180W into 8ohms, yet I never have to take above 4 on the master.

Cheers for the welcome! I wasn't gonna try any shameless plugging too early on, but since I've been asked... my band is called Soul Shredder. If ya wanna take a look at the sort of thing we do, have a gander on YouTube! [url="http://www.youtube.com/playlist?p=AE64AED026FD8FCA"]http://www.youtube.com/playlist?p=AE64AED026FD8FCA[/url]

Hi there! My name's Ed and I'm from Sheffield. I'm a classic-rocker at heart, but play everything up to melodic / epic metal. My current band is on the heavier metal side, but I've got an 80s rock side-project and am the occasional accompanist for my acoustic singer-songwriter friend's coffee-house gigs. I've been a bassist for about 14 years now, and my weapon of choice is a good ol' 4 string Fender P-bass. I have a couple of nice MIAs that I record with, a couple of MIMs that I gig with, a Squier VM that I bought to put in BEAD tuning and my Kingman acoustic. If I can get away without backline I'm not afraid to just put my Sansamp RBI through the desk (and, for that matter, the fx-return of any other bass-amp I find when I arrive), but when it's necessary to take some power I use a MarkBass LMII or Orange Terror Bass 500 through a 1x15 neo cab. Of course, I didn't just arrive at 'grown-up'.. it's taken years of buying everything from the sublime to the ridiculous, finding out it was lovely to behold but impossible to play / carry / tame for small venues etc. and then moving it on to the next guy entering the same phase before trying something new. I've always liked to read opinions on gear forums, but it's only now that I feel I might have put in enough miles to offer something worthwhile back... ultimately I'll let you be the judge of that ;-)