BigRedX

Well not quite - it's a Squier VM Bass VI, so not exactly a Fender and hardly a P or a J Bass. Anyway first off the most important bit for a forum - some photos: [IMG]http://i114.photobucket.com/albums/n249/BigRedX/Squier%20Bass%20VI/DSC01543_zpsjylepume.jpg[/IMG] [IMG]http://i114.photobucket.com/albums/n249/BigRedX/Squier%20Bass%20VI/DSC01545_zpsjeqowmmu.jpg[/IMG] It's Olympic White with a red/brown tort scratch plate. The neck is maple with a rosewood fingerboard, white binding and fake MoP block inlays. Scale length is exactly 30" the same as the original Fender Bass VI. String spacing is 35mm E-E at the nut and 11mm between string centres at the bridge. Three single coil pickup each with its own on/off switch. The other controls are master volume, master tone and the "strangle switch". There's the Jag-style bridge and vibrato. First impressions: It's a tight fit in the box, so it's a good thing that Musik Productiv double boxed this one for shipping as I doubt it would have arrived unscathed without the extra packaging. I like the colour - this version of Olympic White has just a hint of creaminess about it and isn't horribly yellow like some examples I've seen. With it being a poly finish it has a better chance of staying that way too. The dark red tort scratch plate goes well with it too. As you can probably set from the photos I haven't removed the plastic film from the scratch plate of the pickups yet. The fitted strings are horrible. The low E in particular is very floppy and set too low so it's rattling all over the place. Otherwise the basic set-up straight out of the box isn't too bad considering. All the octaves are in tune with the harmonics. There are problems with how it plays as supplied but none of these can be fixed without disassembling the instrument. There also seems to be a bit of confusion regarding the gauges of the strings fitted. According to the Fender website it comes with a set of .025 - .095, but from what I can see all the actual Bass VI sets made by Fender are .024 - .084. Certainly, comparing the fitted strings to the ones on my Burns short-scale bass (G-E .040 to .090) the E definitely feels lighter and more compliant. I've ordered a standard set of LaBella Steels for the Bass VI (.026 - .095), so I'll see if these compare. The other issue with the floppiness of the strings is the shallow break angle at the bridge and for the G to E strings at the nut. [IMG]http://i114.photobucket.com/albums/n249/BigRedX/Squier%20Bass%20VI/DSC01554_zpsnjjivcsw.jpg[/IMG] The strings have only between 1 and 2 turns around the machine head posts which for the lower strings isn't enough to get a sharp enough break angle. For a non-angled neck I would want at least 4 turns around these machine heads for each of the G, D, A and E strings to get them down far enough. Again this is something that can be sorted out when I fit the new strings. [IMG]http://i114.photobucket.com/albums/n249/BigRedX/Squier%20Bass%20VI/DSC01548_zpsulscu0vz.jpg[/IMG] Also the gear ratio on these machine heads seems a little bit low for the bass strings. I can live with it at the moment, but if I decide that I'm going to be using this a lot and especially if I gig with it then I'll be investigating some replacement machine heads with a higher get ratio. Overall the neck feels more like a long guitar neck rather than a short bass neck, although it's considerably deeper than all of my guitars and feels deeper than most of my basses. Despite also being a guitar player, I'm finding the string spacing a bit tight on the neck compared to my guitars which all have a wider nut (37mm minimum). I'd forgotten how narrow the necks on traditional Fender-style guitars can be. The white binding on the neck is a nice touch, but the side dot marker positioning is a bit strange as it's half on, half off the binding. I've never come across this before, all the other instruments I've owned that have fingerboard binding the dots are just in the binding. Some of the block markers don't appear to be centred on the fingerboard, but this might be an optical illusion cause by the relative thicknesses of the highest and lowest strings. I'll re-evaluate this when I get the strings off. The other problem area is the bridge, which has quite a bit of play in its position and can easily be rocked back and forth. This might be a useful feature on a guitar if you are playing MBV type stuff, but has no real place on a bass IMO. I'm going to shim the neck so that I can raise the bridge to get a better break angle. With the supplied strings there doesn't seem to be an issue with the intonation at the moment. I'll see what happens when I fit the supposedly heavier LaBellas and and raise the bridge. So, what does it sound like? Well my initial thoughts are that the sound has far more of a "guitar" character than a bass even though I'm playing in the same register as I would on a bass guitar. Because of the tight string spacing there is a tendency to want the play guitar chords, but this is generally a bad idea as the sound becomes mushy and the notes in the chord indistinct. Chords are best on 2 strings, and maybe 3 if I'm playing in a higher register. The centre pickup is reverse wound reverse magnetic polarity, so it is humbucking in combination with the neck or bridge pickups. All the pickup combinations give usefully different sounds. Right now my favourites are neck and middle and bridge and middle. I'm sure though, that I'll re-evaluate this when I actually use the bass in a band situation. The volume control is pretty smooth for a passive circuit, but the tone control does very little until the final part of it's travel at which point it applies a fairly extreme treble cut. That will need looking at in the long term. The sound between the strings is a little unbalanced at the moment. I like the A and D, but the low E is unsurprisingly flabby and the top three strings are currently sounding a bit to brittle and guitar-like. Hopefully this will be something that the replacement strings will help to sort out. The Strangle Switch is a strange control. At first I don't really like what it does to the sound, but playing with my Bass Pod settings and adding a bit more dirt than I would normally and boosting the upper-mids slightly and it suddenly makes sense. The extra drive compensates for the volume drop and the bass cut makes everything a bit more defined. For the sort of music I'm playing on this instrument it definitely benefits from a touch of chorus or flanger to give that post-punk feel - instant Joy Division or Cure. Also a brighter distortion sound than I would normally use on a bass sounds good. Finally the vibrato. TBH I don't really know what it's doing on this instrument. I like vibrato systems - all my guitars have one fitted, but on the Bass VI it's so subtle and unresponsive, that I can't see the point to it. Maybe when I change the strings and the bridge break angle it will start working better. Overall? It's been a while since I owned such a relatively cheap instrument. Apart from my HB Deko Baritone guitar, everything else I play on a regular basis costs considerably more than this bass. So I can't really expect it to be as well set up and playable straight out of the box. However IMO a lot of the problems are design related and considering that the Bass VI first appeared in 1961, and that manufacturing processes for budget guitars have improved considerably since then, it's more than a little disappointing to find that there are still issues with the instrument that could and should have been fixed by now, especially considering that the worst ones are directly related to the type of strings and how they are fitted. New strings should arrive any day now, so I'll shim the neck and raise the bridge when I fit them, and report back. Right now it's a potentially interesting bass let down by a few things that could easily be fixed in the construction and assembly stages.

[quote name='RhysP' timestamp='1463675681' post='3053313'] If you are using it to set intonation get yourself a Peterson strobe tuner. [/quote] +1

[quote name='paul_5' timestamp='1463574727' post='3052439'] but it sounds like you just want to move the Logic app and its associated plugins and resources. Not sure how well that would pan out. [/quote] Which is why in my original post I suggested a fresh install of the OS and the music apps on the external drive. Boot from that drive when the OP needs to use the computer for recording and boot from the internal drive for everything else.

[quote name='ras52' timestamp='1463573988' post='3052432'] Not so... AU is just one of several plugin formats that your DAW may or may not support. E.g. I use Studio One and Pro Tools: Studio One will work with AU and VST, while Pro Tools works with AAX. [/quote] Not if you are using Logic like the OP. Plugins need to be in AU format.

[quote name='RockfordStone' timestamp='1463570015' post='3052383'] i don't know how it works on mac, but on windows it saves the VST file in a file called VST's. i just move these to which ever location i want, and then in the DAW just point it to search for VST's in that folder. only issue ive had with that is that sometimes the pc will reassign the external hdd a new ID (eg K drive instead of L drive) when i reconnect it. [/quote] The Mac works in a completely different way. All audio plug-ins where they are effects or instruments need to be in AU format and go in either Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/Components (the main Library folder) or ~Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/Components (the user Library folder). This makes them automatically available to any application that is capable of using them - not just DAWs. It might be possible to point some DAWs at alternative locations for the plug-ins but it is unlikely to be the case with Logic as being written by Apple is far more closely integrated with the system software than others. To the OP why do you want to keep your plug-ins off the main drive? I can understand having the recorded audio files on an separate drive (in fact this is the recommended procedure) but why do you want the plug-ins there too?

[quote name='Mykesbass' timestamp='1463512856' post='3052020'] 70's - Disco. Bloody wonderful [/quote] 70's - Disco. Bloody awful! ;-) However glam rock, punk and post-punk were fantastic!

I play in a band that does psychobilly gigs. If there is a crowd it is almost guaranteed to be rowdy.

Are you going to be playing that in a rockabilly band? The scene can be quite conservative and your bandmates and other bands may turn up their noses at anything that doesn't say "Gretch" on the headstock. On a slightly more serious note, I wouldn't consider anything that doesn't have a vibrato unit, so that rules out the guitar in your first link. Our guitarist used to have an similar model Ibanez Artcore. The thing to watch is that the vibrato unit doesn't have the bar at the front to hold the strings down. The advantage of this is that it is less like to go out of tune as quickly with enthusiastic vibrato arm use, however the downside is that the break angle of the strings over the bridge is very shallow and if you are a reasonably aggressive player the strings will be forever popping out of their saddles. Ultimately you really need to try these guitars for yourself. IME the things that make a good rockabilly guitar - big hollow bodies and Bigsby style vibrato units don't always suit heavier styles of music. You'll need to decide which is the best compromise for everything you want to do. IMO the Artcore looks the part and sounds pretty good although I'd prefer P90 style pickups, the Epiphone might be more versatile.

[quote name='Manton Customs' timestamp='1463524715' post='3052113'] It'll be the string binding in the nut slot. It's too tight, so get a tech to file it. [/quote] Or at the string retainer. I had exactly this problem with a Squier VMJ - the string windings would catch against the edge of the string retainer which meant that it was impossible to get the G string in tune since it would click into the next position either slightly flat or slightly sharp.

[quote name='SisterAbdullahX' timestamp='1463520544' post='3052085'] Four turns, DR Nickel Low Riders, so not cheapies! [/quote] Unfortunately price is no indication of how good a string is. You are stretching your strings out when you fit them?

Getting the audio files to go onto an external hard drive is easy simply save the Logic session file onto the hard drive and ensure that the recording path is set to the same folder. Getting the plugins and VST instruments on an external drive only is more complicated as their default location is in the Library folder of your system drive. It might be possible to move them using aliases, but it will be doubtful if its ever 100% reliable especially with anything that has copy protection. If you really have to have all your music stuff on the external drive it might be better to create a full system install on that drive just for music and boot from there when you need to do any recording.

IME the most important part of the sound of an SVT and 810 is that the sheer size of the cab gets some of the speakers reasonably close to my ears.

The nature of the worm gear used on tuners is that they can only be rotated by the tuning button and not by the string post. If the tuner was slipping it would be either because the gears were worn or because the brackets holding the gears in place were allowing too much play in the gears causing them to un-mesh. In either case the result would be very obvious to see and feel. It could be that both G strings are faulty. I would suggest that the string isn't properly anchored in the tuning post and slipping out, causing it to go flat. How many turns of the string do you have around the post?

Allow an extra £15 for the customs handling charge on top of the above figure.

[quote name='Hobbayne' timestamp='1463504884' post='3051898'] Like the look of this, but will I get clobbered by UK customs charges? [url="http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Fender-Japan-70s-Reissue-Precision-Bass-PB70-OWH-CIJ-Bass-Guitar-R-Serial-/111999886897?hash=item1a13b6a631:g:lvcAAOSwKfVXJQVM"]http://www.ebay.co.u...vcAAOSwKfVXJQVM[/url] [/quote] You will pay VAT and import duty on the cost of the bass plus the cost of the shipping, plus of course a handling fee. Add 25% to the overall cost and you won't have any unpleasant surprises. For the bass in the link the total price will be around £500.

Nothing wrong with a oil-can guitar. If I could find one I'd snap up an Afri-can model in a heartbeat.

The 60s. I was born. Didn't have much interest in any kind of music. Built a lot of things with Lego and Meccano. The 70s. Discovered pop music, learnt to play the guitar, formed a band and recorded some songs I had written, made an electric guitar in woodwork lessons at school, went to university. The 80s. Bought my first bass guitar, joined another band and nearly got signed except the record company decided that two lads from Bushey were a better bet, dropped out of university and went on the dole, joined another band and learnt all about synths and MIDI. The 90s. got a job, bought a house, joined another band, spent most of my money on synths and recording equipment. The 00s. Joined another band, discovered bass forums and eBay. Bought a lot of guitars and basses. The 10s. Joined my current band, did more gigs in this decade than all the previous ones put together, went self-employed and feel a lot better now I can pick and chose my hours and type of work, sold a lot of my guitars and recording equipment, am currently having more fun than any time since the mid 80s.

[quote name='neilp' timestamp='1463480528' post='3051620'] I have to say this is something I've never understood. My basses don't go, and have never gone, outside the door unless in a hard case. They're too precious to me. [/quote] It's the case of having the right case for the job. A good hard case is essential if your bass is going in the band van or needs to be stacked with other gear in your car. However it's not going to be very convenient if you've got to carry it several miles to the venue or rehearsal room. I've done it a couple of times with a Hiscox which is probably the lightest hard case and it's not much fun. That's why I have both gig bags and hard cases and use the one that is going to be the most appropriate for my mode of transport.

[quote name='casapete' timestamp='1463476815' post='3051575'] That was my point. With road crew you can presumably have [i]anything[/i] you want, big and heavy OR smaller and lightweight. A lot of people in this situation elect to choose the former. Whether this is for purely sonic reasons or aesthetics is another matter of course, but I would like to think how the rig sounds would be the main factor. [/quote] I would imagine it's a mixture of familiarity, ignorance and inertia. If your Ampeg SVT and fridge goes wrong you'll be able to hire an exact replacement in most parts of the world. Once you step away from in front of your rig on anything but the smallest of stages you are dependent upon the monitoring system to hear your bass and only those in the audience who are right at the front in the "line of fire" are going to hear anything that hasn't come through the PA. Is it any wonder that players stick with what they know that looks the part and is easy to get hold of?

[quote name='operative451' timestamp='1463491396' post='3051756'] 80s? Still a bit crap but improved. Technology was starting to work, people were actually getting the idea that racism and sexism were a bad idea, and the Young Ones was on the telly. The tascam 4 track was invented. [/quote] There were Tascam 4-tracks in the 70s. Even the Portastudio. [quote name='operative451' timestamp='1463491396' post='3051756'] 2016? Tech is now so cheap you can get a mobile phone for £3.50. Same with clothes as primark exists. There is a permanent space habitat with a UK astronaut who goes on instagram. Planet's pretty knackered though and nobody seems to care. [/quote] The planet's fine. It's just the human infestation that needs sorting out.

Well my Bass VI has arrived. I'll be posting some thoughts when I've had a bit of time to play with it.

[quote name='bassist_lewis' timestamp='1463483283' post='3051655'] I have a Callowhill MPB short scale 5 string and, to my ears, it's the best low B I've played. its one of the few Bs IME that's useable beyond the 4th fret. There's nothing special about the neck construction (one piece maple, maybe quartersawn?), the luthier said it was to do with angles at the bridge and nut. The only thing I've done is test a few gauges of low B (125, 130, 135) and, not surprisingly, the 135 was the best. [/quote] That's hardly surprising. If you look at the figures for those manufacturers that publish them, the low B string in a standard 5-string set is very low tension compared with the others and I'd go so far as to suggest that the E string could do with being a bit heavier too. Break angle tricks to decrease to compliance of the string help, but nothing beats actually increasing the unit mass.

The problem with the Mono M80 and nearly all of the other new breed of semi-rigid gig bags is that they are all about the same size and weight as a Hiscox LiteFlite hard case. They have IME two advantages. 1. You can carry them on your back if you find them comfortable. I don't. My M80 is awkward and bangs against the back of my legs as i walk so it's not much good for me on anything but very short journeys. 2. There's a bit of give in the case, so if you're trying to fit it into a very full car it may squash into a space where a hard case won't go. They're not even cost effective. For the same money you could by a Hiscox and a decent £30 gig bag that is comfortable on your back.

[quote name='casapete' timestamp='1463270111' post='3050126'] Also, ever noticed that an awful lot of pro players with road crew still favour heavy valve/ big cab rigs? Just sayin.... [/quote] If you've got a road crew it really doesn't matter how heavy your rig is. It is someone else's job the carry it. Also the sound of the bass rig becomes less important the larger the stage is as the bass will most likely be DI'd before the amp and most of the on-stage sound will be delivered through the monitors, and the FoH will come almost entirely from the PA.

[quote name='Dom in Somerset' timestamp='1463464796' post='3051463'] It now has a 1/4" jack, what did it have before? [/quote] IIRC a TV ariel type connection.