BigRedX

Of course you need to. Otherwise there would be no point in buying pickups of the supposedly the same design from different manufacturers. Also how do you know that the pickups are the same? And if they are what are the manufacturing tolerances in terms of number of windings and strength of the magnets?

You're no scientist either. A sample size of one of each is statistically irrelevant. For this test to have any real meaning it has also to consistently show that supposedly identical basses always sound the same. That means take 10 (at minimum - ideally 50+) basses with EXACTLY the same spec and show that the tonal variation between is insignificant. Besides what are we hearing as the difference? Is it the wood species or the wood density? Is it unconscious player bias?

IME the easiest way to get flat-wound strings in the 70s (at least from the mid 70s onwards) was to buy a bass with them already fitted. I seem to recall that my local musical instrument shop had a couple of sets from either Picato or Rotosound lurking at the bottom of the miscellaneous string drawer, and that was it. If you wanted a set that wasn't at least 5 years old you'd have to order them specially.

IME the string needs to feel "tight" to feel and sound good. That can be just tension or by being less compliant either through the construction of the string or by increasing the break angles over the saddles and nut. I've also found that having a taper wound string where the tapered section ends immediately the speaking side of the saddle helps a lot.

IIRC from the one I used to own, the two screws immediately behind the bridge in the photo above were used to adjust the string height.

No it's not exactly thin, but if you look at tension specs for those manufacturers that publish them, you'll find that in almost every case the D string is the highest tension and then the tensions decrease in turn as the strings get higher and lower, which means that the A sting will be lower tension than the D, the E string will be lower tension than the A and the B string will be lower tension still. To get a B string to approach the same tension as the E it has to be a lot thicker than 130.

You don't need permission to record anything that has already been released by another artist. The only way it can be prevented is if the writer objects to the version on the grounds that it is "derogatory", but that can be quite hard to prove. Most writers are perfectly happy to take the performance royalties on cover versions.

By being able to increase the height of the saddles you have changed the break angle of the strings and therefore made them less compliant which has helped with the feel. OoI what gauge is your B string? As I said in my last post, IMO most B strings are far to light and therefore too low in tension when compared to the rest of the strings in the set. For a typical 40, 60, 80, 100 set the B string really needs to be 130 at a minimum and ideally 135 so that it starts approaching the same tension and feel as the E.

The problem with most of the national music radio stations is that they are great for a couple of weeks, and then you start to realise that you are hearing the same songs over and over again, and you have to have a break from whichever station you have been listening to until the playlist has been (slightly) refreshed.

Which "rights" exactly are being talked about here? Just the publishing? Or the mechanicals as well?

IMO there's way too much talking on nearly all radio. However I believe that this is tied to the conditions of the PRS licences which are priced according to the amount of music played, and therefore more talk equals less music and hence a cheaper licence fee.

If tuning a semitone up to C gives you a better feeling and sounding string, why not just pick a heavier string for B? IMO most B strings in standard 5-string sets are too light to feel or sound right, and I've found that 130 is the minimum acceptable to me and ideally 135 is the way to go for a 40-100 G-E selection. Having said that changing the tuning can also work and sometimes makes you come up with more interesting bass parts. I play Bass VI (6-string short scale bass tuned an octave lower than a guitar) but have it tuned EADGCE rather than the standard EADGBE, because we do quite a few songs in C and it allows me to use the high C as a drone string.

Also it works as a replacement for both the guitar and bass rigs. And in one of the bands I'm playing with, I'm using a Bass VI for alternate "bass" and "guitar" parts. If I was still using traditional amplification, I'd need to have the bass modified to have two separate outputs and have both bass and guitar amplification on stage. With the Helix I just select a different patch when I go from a bass part to a guitar part. Finally selling all my previous amplification and effects more than covered the cost of the Helix and FRFR.

New Complexity make guitars with pickups between the bridge and the tail-piece and the ability to "tune" the strings behind the bridge. This one just has the bridge fitted in the wrong place. It should be sat on the "end" of the tail-piece.

I've owned two Washburn basses both dating from the 1980s. The first was a B105 Force ABT which was my first 5-string and a reasonable instrument, but not a patch on the Overwater that replaced it less than a year later. Interestingly before I got the Overwater I "upgraded" the pickups with a set a quite expensive active EMGs that made absolutely zero difference to the sound. It was sold to someone on here who was specifically looking for this model, at which point I was surprised to see just how battered the red finish was considering that it has spent most of it's life unused as my backup bass. The second was a B20-8 which I bought second hand in rather poor condition with the intent on doing it up. However stripping the finish off the neck revealed a rather serious break and repair that had been hidden behind a darker stain. In the end the project turned out to be too complex for my skills and available time and the parts were sold on eBay who then managed to loose the bass in their Global Shipping programme.

No. I think it's more that pop music made today has far more in common with music made 40 years ago, than it did in the late 70s and early 80s.

Surely Radio 2 has always existed to accommodate those left behind by Radio 1?

As I have said before in similar threads, I ditched my all my rigs (2 bass and guitar one) in favour of a Helix Floor (full version) and an RCF745 FRFR at a combined new cost of around £2k. That might sound like a lot, but one of the bass rigs that it replaced had cost me quite a bit more than that, and most of it had been bought second hand and 10 years earlier, so in real terms the new set up was a complete bargain.

I play live standing up. Therefore I practice at home standing up too.

And to answer the OP's question, if you read any of the interviews with bass players in IM in the 70s, nearly all of them would detail how they would swap out whatever strings their new basses came with for Rotosounds as well as removing the pickup and bridge covers, as soon as the bass was in their hands. There were two people who owned a bass in my year at school in the mid 70s. One was a home-made job which looked as though the constructor had seen a photo of a P-Bass once and then created this bass from memory. That was strung with Rotosounds because they were the only strings you could buy from the local musical instrument store. The other was Mosrite-influenced Kay(?) which was strung with flats - presumably these were what the bass came with and having shelled out almost £30 for the instrument they certainly couldn't afford to buy new strings for it!

Back in the 70s, if you bought International Musician magazine there was a card attached to the pages near the back which you could tear out and fill in for more details on any of the instruments advertised in the mag. About a month or so after sending it off (by which time you had forgotten all about it), the brochures of the instruments would appear over the course of the next few weeks. The ones I definitely remember getting were the Bell's catalogue, John Birch and Yamaha. There certainly wasn't a Fender catalogue amongst them, and TBH I don't even recall there being a Fender ad in the magazine in the first place.

Sitting down? They are designed to be played in rock bands standing up, preferably with one foot up on the monitors whilst punching the air when you don't have to fret any of the strings. Buy a boring P-Bass if you want to play sitting down.

It's the same with 12-string guitars. That's why the best ones have low-output single coil pick-ups.

Add to the fact that for a two-piece body made of equally sized pieces of wood, there are 8 different ways that those two pieces of wood can be glued together, which may or may not have a different outcome to the sound of the resulting instrument. Edit to correct the number of ways the 2 pieces can be glued together from 6 to 8

I always find it hilarious that some of our "American Friends" think that Liberal means some radical, far left, neo-communist revolutionary dedicated to bringing down the good old capitalist establishment, whereas in the UK in stands for wishy-washy, dull, ineffectual middle of the roadism...