BigRedX

It has 8 machine heads, because it's an 8-string bass. However the current owner has decided not to fit the octave strings which would be run from the holes in the headstock to the machine heads at the body end of the bass. Unfortunately because the bridge only has one saddle for each pair of strings it will be impossible to get this bass to play in tune above the 7th fret with both the main and octave strings fitted, which is probably why it's been strung as a standard 4-string bass. Some of the information in the listing is wrong. The scale length should be 30". All Kramer aluminium neck basses have the same length neck, but the fingerboards are slotted for either 20 frets (34" scale) or 24 frets (30" scale). Also the neck joint cover which includes the all-important serial number is missing.

Soapbars in the bass world are a bit of a misnomer since, unlike guitar soapbars that are nearly always P90 style fat single coil pickups, they tell you nothing about the actual pickup contained within the housing, just the size of the housing itself. Therefore depending on the size of the soapbar housing the pickup contained within can be anything from a J-style single coil to a MM style humbucker and any variation between that will fit. If you want a PJ type sound then buy soapbars that contain a P and J style pickup inside.

And that shows just how user unfriendly positioning the controls on the top is going to be.

Surely if the bass has been made properly the radius of the bridge will match the radius of the fingerboard, so not having each saddle individually adjustable for height is unnecessary?

120? That's pretty light gauge for a low B.

But unless it goes into shelving mode at very low frequencies it won't act in the same way as a HPF. If you have a look at the plot posted earlier on in this thread you'll see that for a typical parametric EQ, you get a dip in volume at the selected frequency, but then the volumes increase again a you get further away from this point in each direction, so although it will be cutting the low frequencies it won't be cutting all of them and lower you go from the selected frequency the louder the signal gets again. Compare this with a HPF which progressively cuts the low frequencies from the selected frequency - which is what you want to remove sub-audible bass. Having said that you might be able to achieve roughly what you want with the parametric EQ by setting the frequency considerably lower than you would a HPF and then applying a wide frequency range to that cut (Q control).

Have Blackstar told you what the sizes and weights are?

I think the OP wants to tune the bottom 4 strings of a 5-string set up to E A D G. However if he wasn't the B string of a standard 5-string set is quite a bit lower tension than the G. Generally, the highest tension string is the D with the other strings progressively dropping off in tension as you go higher and lower, although the drop off is usually greater as you go lower. Have a look at the string tension charts for those manufacturers that publish them.

TBH the lack of adjustability is one of the Thumpinator's greatest strengths. You simply plug it into your signal chain and let it get on with removing those frequencies that are making your amp and cabs work extra hard for minimal audible benefit (and could be potentially damaging the speakers). The fact that there are no adjustable controls means that you can't set it up so it's not being as effective as it could. Plus because you shouldn't be able to "hear" it working, there is little point in being able to adjust it.

Thanks for the info. Nearly all of my working experience with filters been variable designs in synthesisers, so I wasn't aware that by removing the variable aspect it would be easier to reduce the cut off frequency hump.

Some digital parametric EQs are intelligent enough to go into HPF/LPF mode as they approach the the lower and upper limits of their frequency range. The EQ on my Tascam digital desk certainly worked in that way.

Is this to replace an existing component? If so I'd get in touch with the manufacturer of the guitar in question and ask them where they got them from. I know you've said that you want a potentiometer specifically, but with 10 detents there's not going to be a lot of room for positioning the wiper between the detents, so how about a 10 way rotary switch with resisters of the appropriate value soldered to each position?

Your research has missed some very important points. 1. No HPF will "cut off everything" below a certain frequency. What they do is progressively attenuate frequencies from the cut off point downwards according to the filter slope. Those frequencies will still be present but they are reduced in level more as you go further down from the cut off frequency. SFX have a frequency plot which shows the effect of the Thumpinator on their web site. 2. You have ignored everything else in the signal path including the human ear. While normal human hearing goes down to 20Hz, if you look at any frequency plots you will see that sensitivity drops off significantly from 160Hz downwards, so most of what you are hearing with your octaver on the open E string are the harmonics rather than the 20Hz fundamental - the brain is very good at filling in this missing frequency information for you. Also unless your rig includes PA style cabs specifically designed to reproduce signifiant levels of sub bass ( which case you should be using an active crossover and you won't need a HPF) your cabs will struggling to project these low frequencies at the same level as the higher ones. 3. Finally the design of the HPF itself is very important. IME a higher cut off frequency with a steeper slope (24dB/oct rather than 12dB/oct) is going to be far more effective at removing the potentially speaker damaging frequencies. Go too low with too gentle a slope and it won't be removing enough to be doing a worthwhile job of protecting your speakers. Also as has already been said many filter designs will as a by-product of the way they work add a slight peak to the signal at the cut off point - which is something you really want to avoid on one aimed at removing sub-audible frequencies. AFAIK only the Thumpinator is designed specifically to minimise this peak.

The fact that you've described two of your fellow band members as a "F**kwit guitarist" and an "egotistical keyboard player" in an open forum means to me that this isn't the band for you. Either you need to convince the rest of the band to get rid of them or you need to go.

I used to own and Atlansia Solitaire 1-string fretless bass, which I got second-hand from Ishibashi in Japan. IIRC with shipping and VAT/import duties it cost me about £400 roughly 10 years ago.

Probably the Thumpinator then. However as has also been said check that there isn't a device in your signal path already doing this first. I'm not sure about the Broughton pedal, you'd need to try it, but for me looking at the spec 12dB/oct isn't steep enough to be as effective as the Thumpinator.

What do you want it to do? Remove sub-audio frequencies or tame the audible lower end of your sound?

Eventually every design in existence will have been slagged off in this thread...

I helped out in my local music shop at the end of the 70s, when they were undergoing a transition from being a home organ shop that also sold some budget guitar brands like Columbus and Grant to being more aimed at rock bands, and to that end they had become main dealers for Aria, Ibanez and Fender. Aria and Ibanez had recently made a move away from copies to original designs for their export markets, and while most of the guitars still had obvious design roots from the classic US instruments, the basses - in particular the Aria Pro II SB range - were very different. They were streets ahead of everything indesign, construction and finish, with only the more conservative looking Ibanez basses coming close. By comparison the Fender instruments they were getting were little better than the Grant copies that had proceeded them, although you do have to remember that the late 70s was probably the lowest point for build and quality control at Fender. Incidentally, Nobuaki Hayashi who was responsible for most of those fantastic Aria Pro II instruments now makes guitars and basses under the Atlansia name.

There are HPFs and there are HPFs. The OP is asking about devices like the Thumpinator which are designed to remove sub-audible frequencies from your signal path which are below normal human hearing and therefore don't contribute in any way to the sound of the bass. These devices all have a fixed cut-off frequency (around 30Hz) and slope of at least 24dB/oct. You can't hear them working because you can't hear the frequencies they are removing, but your amp will have been wasting power trying to reproduce them, and they are potentially damaging to your speakers. This has nothing to do with corrective EQ for taming excessive audible low frequency boom.

You shouldn't be able to hear what a HPF is doing. The cut-off point should be set below the range of normal hearing and just filtering out those frequencies that are causing excessive cone movement but aren't actually producing any audible bass.

There are Arias and there are Arias. An SB from the late 70s, especially if it has "The Aria Pro II" on the headstock is a great bass and will be still be holding its value. Unfortunately there's also a lot of very ordinary and average instruments with the Aria name on them. The ones own the links you posted are examples of those.

15000 people with me in the audience at a gig? My worst nightmare. It's bad enough with 2500 at Rock City. I'm thankful that none of the bands I really like are popular enough to attract that size of audience.

None of the technical info published so far actually says much about the innards of these amps. If there were actually valves in there, I'm sure that Backstair would be making a big deal about the fact. Since they don't I can only assume that these are all solid state, with class D power amps for the higher power models. Weird considering the only real reason for having top mounted controls these days is that it can allow a more cost-effective and compact arrangement of the valves and speakers within a combo format.

Where no-one else looks at them either.