JPJ

So I live in Holland Monday to Friday, and all my bass gear stays home in the UK. I’ve got a Harley Benton acoustic bass out here for midweek noodling, but with a couple of big gigs coming up I decided to add an electric out here as well. Having read all the reviews and plaudits on here and spoken to a couple of local players who rate them really highly, I took the plunge on Monday and ordered a Sire V7 Alder 5 string in black. I tracked my parcel from Frankfurt and was waiting patiently for delivery on Wednesday at the shipyard where I work as being out all day makes this is the safest way to not miss a courier. So UPS duly delivered and the shipyard notified me of receipt precisely 15 minutes after the warehouse closed for the day 😤 So roll forward 24 hours and the bass is in my grubby hands. First impressions are very very good. The neck is arrow straight, and sits nicely in the hand. It’s neither as wide or as shallow as my Overwater but it’s still comfortable to play and the increased fretboard radius is hardly noticeable. I’ve always been a sucker for blocked and bound necks, especially rosewood with MOP blocks and this is nicely executed although the binding isn’t that deep suggesting only a thin rosewood board. Frets are quite thin but nicely crowned and dressed with no noticeable high spots or sharp ends. The tuners appear to be good quality and have a nice stiffness when turned, and brought the bass into tune easily. The only downside for me is that headstock shape. The body is finished in a very uniform high gloss black which has been well buffed and finished, again no noticeable defects. The bridge is a bit of a hybrid between the BBOT of old and more modern high mass bridges, and the black springs look good with the black body. The bass arrived strung through the body with D’Addario XL’s, almost in tune, and with a nice low action. Moving on to the electrics, there are a lot of knobs. My main Overwater is fitted with a J-Retro which effectively has six knobs in three stacks, but the Sire has seven knobs in five stacks, the difference being the addition of a passive or master tone. So far I’ve only been experimenting via iRig/AmpliTube on the iPad, but it all functions as it should and has a good range of useable tones, and there doesn’t appear to be a big difference in output between active and passive. Sure the black plastic knobs feel a bit sharp and therefore a bit cheap, and hover about 1/4” above the bell plate, but changing to other knobs shouldn’t be a drama, not that I intend to. The bass also shipped with two Allen keys (truss rod and bridge). Sounds-wise, it sounds like an active jazz bass. As my other five stringers are either 35” or 36” scale, the Sire low B feels a little flabby, but it sounds ok and balances nicely with the rest of the strings. To sum up, I can only repeat what many others have said before. It’s one hell of a lot of bass for the money (€444 or £389) and based on first impressions, I’d be more than happy to gig with it.

You are right, it is quite expensive especially compared to the BigShot I/O but space was premium for me on my little go to pedal board that fits neatly in the lid of my road case for leads etc. plus I already have one of Max's Microthumpinator's on that board. Given more real estate, I would have also gone with the Bigshot I/O.

I believe its something Danny made himself

I do this in the 'big band' and I have this at the front end of my little pedal board http://sfxsound.com/micromix/ The electric signal arrives from my wireless via a Boss tuner and TC Spectracomp and both signals departs via a Microthumpinator to my amp. The EUB runs via a Headway EDB-1 which has a built in mute switch which I use to mute the EUB when switching to electric.

A local bassist has what is basically like a cut down box shaped to the shape of his bass that the bass just 'stands' in vertically. Super stable and means the bass takes up no more room with angled stands etc. It made my Stagg stand look prehistoric

Fair point, and something I hadn’t considered. Maybe I just need to search for that other rare beast the Grand Prix preamp. I used to own one and stupidly sold it in a moment of financial weakness 😤

I like your thinking, and maybe add the SWR bass intensifier circuit as well, albeit in a large enclosure 😎

In a small form factor pedal would be perfect. Now I just need to find a pedal builder😎

There are circuit diagrams out there on the web but I wouldn't trust myself to even attempt to put one together, especially when I saw a voltage of 250v!

So I've been thinking....(dangerous I know). I own the rather splendid SWR SM-1500, and this for me is the ultimate bass amp, but she has one big downside - weight. She is so heavy that any gig with stairs or a long load in is a no no and to be fair she is a bit overkill for a gig down the Dog and Duck. I remain on a constant hunt for her smaller sibling the SM-900, but so far I have been unsuccessful. It got me thinking about what makes the SWR tone that I (and others such as John Paul Jones) like so much, and I've concluded its the magic sparkle behind the Aural Enhancer knob. As SWR are now sadly no longer with us, I was wondering how hard it would be to recreate the SWR Aural Enhancer circuit but in pedal form? Would this even be possible? Is there something similar out there already (I've tried the Aphex 1402 and its not even close). Any ideas?

If you want a full size bass and you are on a budget, I can wholly recommend the Harley Benton basses. If you fancy dabbling in the world of Ukulele bass, then Harley Benton also do a great Kala'esque fretless version. If you have a little more money to spend and staying full size, the rockbass Aliens from Warwick are very good value, as are the Takamine and Crafters.

The single best bass I've ever played was a '68 jazz, full of mojo, and just had that Jazz bass tone. She was for sale in a local guitar shop around 1990 - 1992 and whilst I could have afforded her, there were rumours that the owner of the shop could be a little economical with the truth and that all that glitters might indeed not have been gold or even from 1968. The second best bass was an Overwater J series five string, but that doesn't count on this thread as I bought it, and its been my main gigging bass now for the last ten years.

I’ve been looking for a ‘live in’ flightcase for my venerable old SWR Goliath cab for a while and after advertising on Facebook for a used one, Stephen Bullock of ARB Custom flightcases contacted me. I sent Stephen a sketch of the dimension of my cab, and the position of the back panel, and three weeks later, he delivered this. Already been gigged and has been nicknamed ‘the fridge’ by my band mates, I’m one happy bassist. 😎 If you are in the market for flightcases, I recommend you give Stephen a shout. https://m.facebook.com/ARB-Custom-Flightcases-833556419995113/

I fitted some of those Luminlay dots to my EUB for darker stages (the KK already had side dots). Mine are without the black outer ring and they are subtle but effective.

You can relax! Came home last night, restrung the Alien, tidied up the fret ends, lemon oiled the fingerboard and left it overnight to settle. Picked it up this morning and it’s like a different bass. Definitely louder acoustically without all the finger noise from my poor technique. Amazed how authorative the B string is, it sits really well against the rest of the strings. You can definitely ‘feel’ the low tension part, the strings feel played in already. Thanks for the recommendation!

Thanks for this, I’ve taken your advice and ordered a set. I’ll report back at the weekend once they are fitted and I’ve had a good few hours playing time.

I’m a huge fan of John East’s work. I have a J-Retro in my main gigging bass, a U retro in my fretless, and an original Overwater filter pre in my original series, which I understand John was behind the design and building of. I also have his treble & bass, and mid boost units in my homemade P5. id say hover no more and hit that buy-it-now button. 😎

So I recently scored a very nice Warwick Rockbass Alien 5 string acoustic bass. She arrived wearing a nice new set of Warwick acoustic bass strings (phosphor-bronze I think). Now on my Harley Benton 5 string acoustic I keep at work in Holland, I fitted a set of Fender 90505 flats and she came alive but alas it appears Fender don’t make these anymore. So I’m looking for recommendations for 5 string flatwounds. I’m considering the La Bella Deep Talkin Bass strings as they are a medium’ish gauge with a .128 low B. Any other recommendations before I take the plunge?

What he said!

Like a lot of folk on here, I too started with the Stagg, but couldn’t get the ‘sound in my head’ out of it so moved it on. i currently use a five string KK Baby Bass which on its own gets pretty close to the sound of an amplified DB, but has come alive since I added some bridge mounted piezo pickups. I blend the piezo with the underbridge magnetic pickup using a Headway preamp and I can get the sound I want. Quality wise it’s also a huge leap up in class and I can play it for hours without fatigue unlike the Stagg that was always spinning around in my hand (possibly as a result of my bad left hand technique). Having a reasonable sized body means you can lean the bass on your leg and use arm weight to depress the strings which again helps to lower fatigue. Interestingly, Emmylou Harris’s bassist used an Eminence on a couple of tracks at last weekends Country to Country gig. Sadly, the sound wasn’t the best and as a result it just sounded dark and boomy. id say try before you buy, I bought my KK secondhand blind based on other folks recommendations, but on reflection I was lucky.

So after years of playing active five strings, and after watching Nick Fyffe ripping it up with the Temperance Movement, I have serious gas to add a nice original looking precision to the stable. I don’t want to pay the ridiculous F prices, so I’m thinking Squier. VM’s look nice but most seem to have the added J pickup? Classic vibes look better but in my opinion blocks and bound just looks wrong on a P bass. My question is, what are the other sub £500 options for a good standard P bass with a rosewood ‘board?

I’m not a Barefaced hater, and I’ve always liked the look of the 2x12 and 2x15 variants for a single cab solution, but the price and lightweight construction has always put me off. When Alex started, his mantra was to be different from the main stream box shifters, and he talked a lot about three-way crossovers and separate mid-range drivers, but the current range appears to be lacking these ideas?

If it’s for home cinema, then you’d probably get a better effect from a single centre speaker directly below or behind the centreline of your screen. The longitudinal centre speakers in 7:1 really need to be at ear level when you are sitting in the ‘sweet spot’ of the room to be effective. For 7:1 to work effectively you need the right shaped room finished with the right materials. I have customers who spend literally hundreds of thousands on cinema setups and if the room is the wrong shape (which we tell them at the outset) then no amount of speakers makes a difference, even from high-end brands such as James and CAT.

Am I right in thinking KK are no longer in business? Since receiving my secondhand KK five string I’ve tried to contact them on more than one occasion without success, and now all pages (with the exception of the home page) of babybass.com are blank?