BigRedX

[quote name='molan' timestamp='1474285633' post='3136762'] There's a reason people like Fender copies - still hard to get some gigs without something that looks like a Fender and many beginners want to start with something that's familiar. I realise BC can be very elitist at times though so maybe that's why they aren't as popular. . . [/quote] What I was trying to imply was there are already hundreds of copies of Fender basses available at all sorts of price points, so why yet another brand doing it and what do they hope will make them more special than all the others? Especially when the headstock logo is so eye-waveringly ugly! And if I was a beginner after a Fender-style bass I'd probably want be looking at one that actually said Fender on the headstock even if it was only a very small logo.

[quote name='blue' timestamp='1474290903' post='3136846'] I'll never understand why you guys mock and have very little appreciation for this incredible part of music history which is yours. Or is pride another culture difference? Blue [/quote] And that's exactly it. It is history. And while the majority of pop/rock musicians who have come in their wake have to a certain extent stood upon the shoulders of the Beatles to get where they are, as time goes on their influence becomes less and less relevant. Here in 2016 two of them are dead and the other two might as well be for all the impact they have had on popular music in the last 20 or so years. Even when I was getting into music at the age of 10 in 1971, to me the Beatles were already old hat. And as a band they were no longer playing together and therefore they weren't releasing any new material. I quite liked one of Ringo's singles and thought that Wings made a couple of decent albums, but when there plenty of bands coming out with new and exciting music, why bother with a band that isn't going to be releasing anything new? Made nostalgia is something you get more into as you get older?

I'll wait for it to be on the telly...

[quote name='molan' timestamp='1474279042' post='3136663'] Great value for money. Can't understand why there isn't more love for them here. [/quote] Because they are mostly Fender copies with a horrible looking logo on the headstock? How many more Fender copies does the world need?

[quote name='Dan Dare' timestamp='1474020155' post='3134961'] If the instrument's worth a bit, isn't a cheap gig bag a false economy? I went through a couple of cheapies before seeing the light and getting a Fusion. Wish I'd got one first off. [/quote] Having owned all sorts of cases from what was essentially a guitar-shaped plastic bag to full-flight cases you need to pick the right case for your situation. IME a £30 padded gig bag that is comfortable to wear is going to be fine. Unless you need maximum portability and maximum protection, I really can't see the point of these modern semi-rigid cases, and I'm saying that as Mono M80 owner.

[quote name='dood' timestamp='1473766316' post='3132886'] Long detailed answers very welcome! [/quote] So dood, care to enlighten us on the purpose of this poll?

The only thing to watch with the Ibanez Artcore guitars is if they have a Bigsby-style vibrato, check that it's happy with your playing style, as the break angle over the bridge is very shallow and anyone who plays even moderately hard will have the strings popping off their saddles.

No. I'll buy the one that I like the best, although I'd probably pass on both if the one I liked the best was the more expensive one and didn't look/play/sound significantly better than the cheaper one.

[quote name='stingrayPete1977' timestamp='1473935095' post='3134256'] Which we know and afaik no one disagrees with? Even two maple necks the same cut I the same cnc machine would have differences, changing necks totally would no doubt change things. The only way I could see this bring proven would be to rig up done kind of computer driven playing device with the bass clamped in ay a set nm torque then shave the neck without removing the neck or strings then retest it, maybe even shave the neck with the bass clamped in place. The results would be of no interest and totally pointless after so I'm struggling to think of a university or lab that would take the task on! [/quote] Even if you did this, the only thing it would show is how altering the thickness of that particular neck attached to that particular instrument at that moment in time alters the sound.

[quote name='chris_b' timestamp='1473931328' post='3134198'] Other than changing the neck does alter the sound of an instrument. [/quote] It could be that simply removing and replacing the same neck will change the sound of the instrument if you don't put it back on exactly how it was before.

[quote name='pete.young' timestamp='1473864504' post='3133670'] Mine too. A quick search indicates that this is not uncommon and occasionally leads to the stand failing! Time to find an alternative brand i think. [/quote] I can't afford to replace 4 stands and TBH I haven't found a better alternative to Hercules that is actually any good for holding basses with asymmetrical bodies. Maybe it's time to email Hercules and see what they say.

I have 5 of the standard Hercules GS414B stands and recently the rubber on the grip section used to alter the height has become sticky, but only on 4 of them. I can't use these at gigs any more, because every time I fold them down and set them back up, the grip leaves a nasty sticky residue all over may hands. Any idea why this has happened? And how can I get them back to their non-sticky condition?

[quote name='chris_b' timestamp='1473857361' post='3133598'] Minute differences can be heard in the best studios and by those with good ears. On a stage? Not so much. I would guess most of those differences wouldn't be relevant to any of us here. [/quote] But how can you tell that those differences are down to the thickness of the neck and not to the multitude of other variables that exit between two instruments (ignoring the fact that 2 instruments is a far too tiny sample to have any real relevance)? Even if you used a single instrument and a second neck, how do you know the differences aren't cause simply by the fact that you have removed the neck and then refitted the neck? Or that the strings haven't become aligned differently or damaged during the neck replacement process? You'd need to remove and replace the same neck a couple of hundred times first and see what effect that had on the sound of the instrument before looking at what effect the alternative neck had on the sound and even then because it is most likely made out of wood and EVERY PIECE OF WOOD IS DIFFERENT, you still won't know exactly what effect the thickness of the neck actually has.

Weird isn't it how the Fender bass is supposed to be the staple of guitar bands and that all other brands are unplayable and sound bad. Certainly when I was getting into music as an impressionable teenager in the 70s that wasn't what I saw in the bands that I liked. If you were to divide up bass guitars into Fender, Gibson, Rickenbacker and All Others, in the bands I liked at the time Gibson Basses were by far the most popular followed by Rickenbacker and then All Others. Fender were by far the least common. Of course it might have been that Thunderbirds, EB3s and Ric 4001s were distinctive and easily identifiable, whereas in the band using a Fender Bass to the young, untrained eye it was difficult to tell it apart from the guitars. ;-)

[quote name='Ashborygirl' timestamp='1473782035' post='3133075'] Is it just me or do Gibson have a nasty habit of buying emerging bass companies & running them into the ground? I can think of Tobias, Trace Elliot & Steinberger all being bought up by the big G only to either disappear completely or become far-eastern budget instruments. [/quote] Fender are equally guilty: SWR, Genz Benz, Guild, etc...

I voted "Don't Know" However the answer is most likely yes, but the effect is almost impossible to quantify and therefore irrelevant. I have owned lots of basses with different neck thicknesses and they all sounded different. However they were all made out of different types of wood of different ages and some weren't even made out of wood. Construction was different from one bass to the next, pickups and electronics were different hardware was different - even the strings used on the various basses were different! Give this multitude of variables it's unsurprising that they all sounded different. However with only a couple of exceptions when I played them I could get a decent sound out of all of them that worked equally well in a band context. Therefore for me the only concern with the neck thickness is comfort and playability. Until someone manages to find the time and funds to do a proper scientific study into all the different effects of materials and construction and how they effect the sound of a solid electric instrument, I'll declared the anecdotal "evidence" being trotted out in this threads and others like it as irrelevant bullshit. In the meantime I'll continue to enjoy playing the instruments that I find aesthetically pleasing, comfortable to play and that in my hands can make the sounds I want when I play with my band, and not worry about details that have yet to be quantified in any meaningful manner.

[quote name='leftybassman392' timestamp='1473762497' post='3132823'] That would be my solution if volume is the issue. IME the sound of output valves being made to work for a living is very hard to simulate. I used to use a Marshall Powerbreak with a 50W Dual Reverb for pub gigs. Don't know if you can still get them though (there's bound to be other technologies out there - didn't Palmer make this kind of kit as well?). [/quote] As is speaker break up. Unfortunately there doesn't seem to be any way to reproduce this at low volumes over than software modelling. I think the OP needs to identify what parts of the valve sound are important to him (pre-amp valves, power amp valves, speaker break up) and work from there.

[quote name='Bass_Guardian' timestamp='1473750608' post='3132688'] So valve amps out the question? Are the valvetronix amps any good? [/quote] No not at all. Valve Amp > Power Soak > Speaker.

Whatever amp you want or can afford and a power soak if it's too loud when you get the right sound. Unless speaker breakup is part of your sound in which case I'm afraid you are stuffed.

Do you NEED to change your tuning to match what the rest of the band uses? On the two occasions when I've played with guitarists who down-tune or use non-standard tunings I've kept my bass tuned as normal and haven't had a problem. In fact IMO it generally leads to more interesting bass lines and overall arrangements since I can't always do the same as the guitars but an octave lower.

The Vaccaro design was then either bought out or licensed to Hartke for their XL and XK basses.

If possible try before you buy. I had a Schaller neck-mounted pickup on my acoustic which because of it's (lack of) width was always down in volume on the E strings. Low E wasn't too bad, but high E was thin and weedy sounding compared to the B string. I also had a piezo pickup on the bridge and TBH I could get just as good an electric guitar sound out of it as I could the magnetic pickup, just because I was running it into a guitar amp.

Yum! Needs an ebony fingerboard and a hot pink neck to match the body, to be completely delicious though!

[quote name='Marc S' timestamp='1473338371' post='3129258'] I didn't "get away" with anything, the value of the item was printed on the postal label, and I paid the charge I was asked to at the time... If it was incorrect, that would have surely been the fault of whoever worked the amount out? The only person to "get away" with anything is the idiot who thinks he can deal with the public in any manner he sees fit..... [/quote] If you only paid £6-7 as you said in your OP - did that item also get delivered by Royal Mail or Parcel Force, or did it come by some other delivery service? It was Royal Mail or Parcel Force, then someone made a mistake and you were lucky and benefitted from it. I've never seen a handling charge of less than £8.00 (on top of VAT and import duty as applicable) in the last 10 years of buying things from outside of the EU. And while the reported attitude of the employee you dealt with leaves a lot to be desired, there has been plenty of information posted here on a regular basis about import and handling charges so there shouldn't have been any surprise on your part in the first instance.

Using an external image host is a much better idea since you not only free up resources on the Basschat server, but also AFAICS using the Basschat image upload places a maximum size on the photos which means that most of the time they come out tiny, not at all what you want when you are trying the show off an item you have for sale.