Wolverinebass

I used to own 2 Traveller cabs, the 2x10 and 1x15. There was lots to like and dislike about them. They were very light and well made and for the most part sounded good. However, I was then in a band where I was playing 12 string bass. That was the point where I realised the limitations of them. The piezo tweeter wasn't great and was completely uncontrollable for the top end especially when using distortion on the higher frequencies. It was kind of fine for a 4 string, just not for a 12. I couldn't get it to sit right. As I did more recording, I realised how much top end was being cut from the signal even when I was using a 4 string. That was the final straw. I flogged them and bought a Vamderkley 2x12 which is killer. As for the amps, I've tried a few and didn't like them. The low end seemed too spongy for me and the eq points were nonsensical. Does anyone boost a bass guitar at 10kHz? Not very much signal there. They're not rubbish, just they don't work for what I want to achieve.

I was outvoted by my band actually.

Ek is a carpetbagging tosser of the highest order. In 2013, Q magazine did an article about streaming and it showed that although (allegedly) Spotify was (possibly) not making a profit, it was however making $73 million a month from the adverts. A month. Now, here we have this guy who is making more from leeching off musicians in a year than Paul McCartney has made in his whole life (by being arguably the most successful songwriter in history) saying things like "if musicians want to be paid more, they should put out more music," "the cost of content is almost zero." Almost comically tone deaf. Now for the fun. This utter melt then brings in the 1000 streams threshold to basically hold on to our cash and get the interest on it, or just not pay you at all. Oh wait, there's more!! He's actively lobbying governments to reduce the payout rate for musicians, yet has 300 million quid to sponsor Barcalona's stadium in a bid to bail them out of their ludicrously over leveraged position that saw Messi have to leave the other year. Wait! There's even more! He's sacking almost 20% of the Spotify staff as a cost saving measure. He can dress it up any way he wants, but the simple facts are there. They're making more than a billion dollars a year and we're the ones who are being taken for chumps by this soulless, snivelling, jumped up, tone deaf tosser. The main problem is that I have no idea how we get rid of him and his ilk. All the artist advantages that people like Peter Grant (who managed Led Zeppelin) fought for in the 50s and 60s are gone after being eroded by massive companies like Live Nation. We're not being paid even remotely fairly and add that to venues taking merch cuts and soon the wheels are properly going to come off the whole industry.

To accommodate the wider string gauge.

Yeah, because they're great and you won't have to file the nut. That's the whole point of them. Wound at higher tension so you can downtune and not get enough flop to necessitate giving the strings viagra.

The action on my Rick is stupidly low. You won't have a problem with the DR'S.

I use DR DDT 105-45 on a Rick for C# standard tuning. They're great. String tension is same as E flat. At least to my feel.

Tell him to take a slightly bigger suitcase as he'll probably end up being "the mule." Ha!

That's a fair point actually, but I feel it's still way too pricey. If it had dual inputs (which it doesn't) I'd probably agree with you. For a pedal to have an almost 50% markup from US to UK pricing is obscene.

Sounds like they didn't have a tech guy at all. I'm glad I haven't had to deal with them. Still, somebody on here could be able to shed some light on buying stuff in the US and selling it here? It's non region specific thanks to the cute plugs with removable prongs, so does that mean if someone were to buy 30 of them and make a small profit selling to the basschat massive......?

They do. I recorded someone in my studio about a month ago who had one and it sounded great

See, I'd love to do that, but I bet we'd get sued as Rocky Road are the "exclusive" distributors in the UK. Or like Westside with Mesa some time ago, there would be a "non valid warranty of US items" policy just to choke it off. Am I wrong? Who was the guy on here that did the bulk preorder of the Dug pedals for folk?

Yeah. It's £335.

Now that the pricing is confirmed at £609, who's getting one? Ha! I put the comment on Tech 21's Facebook page about the preceived price gouging going on here by the distributor. No answer, though some of our American contemporaries were like "how much?!!" when I put it in dollars. It's costing almost 50% more. Frankly, for 600 quid, it'd better have dual inputs and every single button and dial function recallable via midi. Yet, it doesn't. For £680 you could get an HX Stomp new. The Darkglass Infinity/Photon/ADAM are £550 new. Just to put that in context. Until Tech 21 gets a decent distributor in the UK, they're dead to me and that's really saying something.

Well, I'll bring it along when the date gets arranged!

Many thanks for your help squire. It really is greatly appreciated.

Neck through. Sorry, I'll post a picture of the back.

Thanks. Yes, the way the jacks are wired is like a Rickenbacker. So if you use a mono cable, the circuit won't output through the stereo jack. Vice versa also works the same way. The precise wiring is beyond me in terms of what wiring does what, though I do understand the concepts of how it works. Incidentally, both ways are "single lead." It's not wired like a Billy Sheehan Yamaha Attitude. Jack nearest the bridge is stereo, the one below is mono.

So, yesterday, this arrived. Before we get to the photo, if anyone doesn't like pointy things, leave. There is nothing here for you but pain. I ordered this in 2021. How has it taken so long you ask? There was a thing called covid if I recall. Also, there were also hilarious parts problems on backorder for ages. Enough of that nonsense. What is it and where is it made then? Grainger basses and guitars are up near Peterborough, and around the time of one of the lockdowns they posted a bass in this shape that had a mad blue acrylic top. The cogs started turning. So, my idea was to have this wired like an Alembic Series 1 bass and it is. After chatting to Nuno at Lusithand about it I bought some filters off him (his stuff is great by the way - check out his site) with the caveat that it might not work. Undeterred, I sought the advice of the basschat massive and many thanks to @Hellzero who provided the Jack wiring diagram. Basically, the bass can be used stereo or mono with different jacks (like a Rickenbacker), but it's active with a filter and volume for each pickup also a pickup selector. So there's 2 jack outputs. I also got Darren and Gavin to make the bass modelling the neck on my own Alembics. They've done that amazingly precisely. Top and back is flame maple, body is walnut with headstock facings and neck strings. There is a touch of neck dive, but I've not used a wide strap yet. The bass is quite light as the upper wing is chambered. Naturally, I've got a hipshot on it for drop D and there's a brass Warwick Just a Nut too. Bridge is Babicz mono rails to accommodate the narrower spacing. Inlays are mother of pearl. Pickups are Nordstrand Zen Blades wired in parallel to keep as much top end as possible. The reason being is that Lusithand Filters go to 4kHz give or take, whereas Alembics go to 6.6kHz. So, does it sound like an Alembic? In a word, yes. If you want that John Entwistle 1982 Who bass sound, you'll get it. Or if you want a great clean sound it'll do that too. Darren, Gavin and Nuno were fantastic throughout this especially when there were wiring issues we had to resolve. If you're looking for a custom bass made by a British company (or anyone actually), then Grainger do really exceptional work. Also, Nuno at Lusithand makes really good preamps and pedals which are well worth checking out.

I made a joke about this a long time ago. Mainly all the people who might say, "I'll come to the next one." I postulated that if we were playing a gig in their front room, they'd say they had something important to do in the kitchen. That was at a time when I was in bands that played probably more accessible material ironically.

I think it's when you get into stuff that's quite niche that you have problems. He says in 2 progressive metal bands. When you're in a wide genre, great. If you kind of skirt round it a bit more or are a small percentage of it, not so much.

It wasn't the pickups themselves. It was the ears where you'd put the screws through the pickups into the body. What it meant was that even discounting the difference in depth, they didn't fit without being filed down. I just thought it was weird that it wasn't on their website as there was no way they'd properly fit a Stingray route without some filing.

An interesting thing about the Herrick pickups is something a bit odd. Now, Martin advertises them as obviously needing routing for the depth. That's fine of course. What he didn't say was that the ears where the screws go in aren't straight and slope outwards towards the bottom. So, I had to get a tech to file half the casing back by 3mm up to halfway up the pickup. Now when I said this, Martin told me he'd had feedback about this issue with standard MM cavities which I thought was peculiar he didn't say that or list it on his website. Alas, I've not yet got the neck for the bitsa thr pickups are in, so I can't tell anyone how it compares to a Wal.

I'd be very interested to hear the difference if any. Certainly, the samples of the Alex Venturella bass on the Status website that are semi isolated I could tell the difference right away between the wood and graphite neck. However, it's worth saying that in a mix you'd probably never really be able to tell unless there was more higher notes played with a bit more percussive type sound. Obviously Slipknot is rather downtuned. I've been toying with getting one as I missed out on getting a Stealth by a week when Rob stopped taking orders. Still kicking myself over that as the options I wanted haven't been used on any other stealth made.

This is brilliant. This thread reminds me of the famous James Coburn quote from Cross of Iron. Please feel free to substitute the names in it for bass players you hate (cough - sorry, "don't get"). "Do you think that just because you and Colonel Brandt are more enlightened than most officers that I hate you any less? I hate all officers, all the Stranskys, all the Triebigs, all the Iron Cross scavengers in the whole German army."