JPJ

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?

Just bought a Behringer DI from Greg. DI box was in A1 condition, still boxed in original box with instructions. Fast friendly comms, next day delivery, I’d say trade with Greg with confidence.

So I restrung her yesterday with the Aquila Reds I bought at the same time as the Uke. The Aquila’s are noticeably lighter gauge than the Harley Benton strings, but sound no different in use. Add bonus is they do not smell like smokey bacon crisps, and it’s possible to slide up and down the neck without killing the note. Access for the string change was incredibly tight with my not so large hand only just fitting through the sound hole. The D string was a particular P.I.T.A due to the proximity of the bridge hole to a longitudinal stiffener. I also had to shorten the E and A strings to reduce the number of winds on each machine head. Other than this, the Reds are a massive improvement over the stock strings 😎

I’m not sure what’s standard in terms of size. If it’s any help, it fits snugly in a half-sized acoustic guitar gig bag? The preamp is a fairly simple affair, treble and bass sliders, volume control on a knob and a built-in tuner. The tone controls are useable and plugged in it sounds just the same as a fretless bass. A little bit of req and it’s a passable dB sound.

So a little while ago, I decided I wanted to try a bass Ukulele for fun and the odd acoustic gig we do. Not wanting to throw away the type of money Kala want for a U Bass, and after a couple of false starts, I decided on giving the Harley Benton fretless bass ukulele a try and ordered one from Thomann. As usual, thanks to UKMail, my delivery arrived two days late, and as I work away from home all week, meant I didn’t get to play with it until last night. A year or so ago, I bought a Harley Benton five string acoustic bass for my weekday home in Holland, and once that was restrung with some decent flatwounds, it’s been an unbelievable bargain, so I hoped for the same with the bass ukulele. First impressions are that the quality far far exceeds the price. The woodwork is excellent, the finish is light and uniform, and the woods even look good quality. The headstock is scarf jointed, and the inside of the body is clean and well constructed. The stock strings look like Aquila Thunderguts, but I have bought some Thunder Reds to try when I get around to it. But the best bit is playing it. It is so much fun to play and I haven’t been able to put it down this morning, oh and it’s one of those things that just makes you smile every time you look at it. And all this for the princely sum of £127.

I’ve just posted a “NBD” thread about a little Harley Benton fretless bass Ukulele I’ve bought. Amazing little thing for the price.

The advantage for me is as all my main electric basses are 5’s and that I only use the EUB live occasionally and then only on a few tracks, the mental translation is easier. In all honesty, the B string isn’t as authoritative as the others, and you need to be much more precise with your right hand technique to get a low C or D to really bloom. Maybe as I progress as an upright player I might get more out of the low B, but for now it’s little more than a visual/tactile reference when moving from the electric bass. My only DB experience prior to the KK is a Stagg EUB, so I don’t really feel the extra width as the KK neck isn’t as chunky as the Stagg.

Hi Al, It’s a 5 string KK Baby bass. I’ve fitted it with a pair of J-Tone Reds and blend these with the stock under bridge magnetic pickup using a Headway EDB1 preamp. Im relatively new on DB, but having played fretless for too long to remember, I’ve found the transition easier than I expected.

Here’s my ham fisted contribution

Yes, the Kill (and their Alta Ego’s Bon Jovi Forever) are indeed a great band, but all the bands played out of their skins on Wednesday (even if I say so myself) and just over £3,000 was raised on a cold mid-week January night. Hats off to the rock loving music fans of the North East who came out and made this event a huge success.

Any basschatters in Newcastle this Wednesday night might like to pop along to the O2 Academy on Westgate Road for a multi band charity fundraiser in memory of a lovely lad and fine vocalist who was taken way too soon last October aged just 42. Monies raised are going to create a fund to provide bursaries to young musicians. 5 top bands for a tenner and all proceeds going to help young musicians chasing the dream just as Rod was right up until his untimely death. If you are around, please come along and support this gig. You can even heckle my hamfisted bassery at no extra charge 😎

Lovely bass, and all them holes are just mojo - you'd have to pay Nash or Limelight a small fortune to drill them for you I've always loved the 70's telecaster bass with the mudbucker at the neck. I almost bought one on my travels in Europe a while back with a view to adding a P pickup in the normal position but stupidly decided against it.

And the third and final one, my Ibanez Roadstar RS940TV from 1982

The second is a bitsa I put together using a ‘vintage’ relic’d body, an allparts unlined neck, Tonerider P & J pickups, and a Kigon stack knob harness giving volume and tone for each pickup

Here’s the first of my three: Overwater Perception 5 defret and refinish by DWilson Guitars.

Me too, and its on my virtual wish list too!

Buy with confidence! I’ve used mine on stages large and small over the last two years. It does have a bit of a ‘baked in’ Aguilar sound but it does have a powerful but simple EQ to play with. Only problem I’ve encountered is the LED’s for power on and mute failing but my local tech sorted both of those easily.

I must have been lucky then, because the upgrade certainly released something that wasn’t there before. Maybe a happy coincidence of a better spec’d driver that just happened to work in the same box?