BigRedX

IME the benefits of boiling strings is outweighed by the additional stress you put them under by taking them off the bass and putting them back on. You'll get a week or so before they are back to sounding as crap as they did before you boiled them, and each boiling cycle increases the chances of a string breaking. Personally unless your strings are completely and utterly dead in which case boiling is going to be of little use, I'd stick with them until you are happy to order some new ones.

I think everyone has to make their own decisions as to what they think is the best. However as a buyer, if I can't come and collect I expect the seller to organise shipping and if they are not prepared to do that then I'm not interested in buying. As a seller, I organise the shipping using the most appropriate method for the item being sent along with full insurance to cover the cost of the item plus the any additional costs. The cost of shipping, insurance, and any specialised packaging materials I might need are included in the price of the item. If the buyer doesn't like this they are welcome to come and collect, otherwise they should look else where to buy. Over 10 years buying and selling in excess of £50k worth of musical equipment I have had 3 shipping problems - 2 where parcels were "lost" and one where it was damaged in transit. In all three cases because I had packaged the items properly and had bought the correct insurance, the claims were settled promptly and in full, and I was able to refund the buyer without any issues.

Learn some more instruments.

Useful information on compliance here.

Truss rod?

There are many different factors at play here. It's not just about tension but also about the compliance of the string which is dependent upon the string construction as well as what happens to the non-speaking length of the string - things like break angles over the nut and bridge saddles. You'll notice that string manufacturers don't talk about "equal" tension but "balanced" tension. This is where the compliance factors in with the tension to hopefully make the strings feel roughly the same stiffness. In a normal bass guitar string set the D string is by far the highest tension, and then the tensions reduce as you go higher and lower, with the difference in tension being more pronounced the thicker the string is. So for a standard 4 string set the order of tensions from highest to lowest is D, G, A, E. Remember that an increase in string thickness of 20 thousands of an inch isn't much when you consider that under normal tuning each string is 5 semi-tones apart from its neighbours. Also it seems odd that string length to pitch is a logarithmic function (the frets get closer together as you get higher in pitch) but manufacturers still produce strings with equal differences in thicknesses (linear). Ideally the difference in string thickness should increase from the G string to the E. However, strings generally get less compliant as they get thicker, so the increase in compliance will tend to compensate for the decrease in tension. However this doesn't take into account the other factors that affect compliance such as the break angles which are out of string manufacturers control, so standard "balanced" tension strings sets are only really balanced on a Fender-style bass without through body stringing and a 4-in-line head arrangement with variable break angles over the nut for the E and A strings and for the D and G strings. If your bass doesn't follow this construction you make need to play with the gauges to achieve a "balanced" feel - usually by increasing the gauge of the E string and maybe the A as well depending on how picky you are.

Don’t use eBay’s global shipping service for large items like bass guitars as they are too big for the service. Check all the small print details first before agreeing to use it.

If that really did have a Tokai logo on before, then putting a Fender logo on has probably devalued the bass.

I thought Reaper was always free?

No reason why it should. The power-on circuit could be buffered in the same way that many amp manufacturers do with a "soft" power up and shut down. Also battery life very much depends on when the pre-amp was made. My 1985 Overwater needed new batteries roughly every 3 months, and if left plugged in would drain the battery over night. More modern pre-amps are much more energy efficient and can last well over a year with normal use.

My understanding is that Orvilles are essentially Gibsons made in Japan. So the equivalent of the MIJ/CIJ Fender as opposed to a Squier.

To me that doesn't imply that the treble controls on the amp are actually on maximum. Besides as I said it might actually be upper mids rather than treble that the OP needs to achieve the sound he is after. Back to the original problem. While removing the tone control completely from you bass guitar's electrics will have an effect, unless there was something wrong with them before, the difference is IME minimal. If you have already maxed out the treble everywhere else in the signal path then I would suggest that your choice of bass and/or amp & speakers is wrong for the sound that you are after.

Where? I've just re-read the thread and apart mentioning treble boost the OP doesn't say that the treble on the amp is maxed out so he could always turn it up some more. Besides he may find that the missing frequencies are actually in the upper mids than in the treble.

How many plys are there in a 1/64" plywood sheet?

Why not simply turn up the upper mids and treble on your amp?

Last time I played at the Hairy Dog the bass rig was an old Trace Elliot rig with either a 6x10 or 8x10 cab. Since as I said previously the FoH sound is provided by the PA it hardly matters anyway.

IME if you are using a venue provided backline for the bass it is there for on-stage monitoring only as you will also be going through the PA, so for FoH it doesn't matter.

Are there any EB0 or EB3 copies that don't have a bolt-on neck? IMO the set-neck construction of the Gibson versions is an important feature.

If the battery is powering the active electronics is switched on by plugging in the bass, it makes zero difference whether or not they are connected to the output of the bass. Switching between active and passive only changes the signal path, the pre-amp is still on whether or not the signal is passing through it. In theory it would be possible to also make the active/passive switch also turn off the battery, but I don't know of any manufacturers that implement this.

Well Bandcamp seems rather slow this morning so hopefully that's a sign of people going on the listen and buy.

Being a massive fan of D'Addario strings for the guitar I bought a set when I went back to playing mostly bass, and was completely underwhelmed by them. These days I use Warwick Black label, which for me are a good compromise between longevity and price.

Exactly, and while a single 24 hour period isn't going to eat into their profits it could well help artists - especially as now gigging isn't possible. So lets get some links up so we can be checking out who we'd like to buy some new music from tomorrow. Here are mine: Díck Venom & The Terrortones Hurtsfall and the currently appropriately named In Isolation Looking forward to hearing some new music from the rest of you.

If you want to support your favourite artists on Bandcamp during the current situation, consider buying something from them on Friday 20th when Bandcamp will be giving 100% of the sales revenue to the artists and not taking their usual share. This runs from midnight to midnight Pacific Time (that's from 7.00am Friday 20th to 7.00am Saturday 21st GMT). Any Basschatters with music on Bandcamp please post your links here.

One of our big gigs for later this year has been put on hold.

Saturday's gig has been cancelled. Being a semi-private party there was a possibility that it would still go ahead, but really it was inevitable that it would gat cancelled. I have some fairly high-profile gigs later in the year. It will be interesting to see if they happen.