Sean

[quote name='AndyTravis' post='988105' date='Oct 14 2010, 02:58 PM']both discontinued now, to be replaced by ME25b and ME70b, which are pretty tough to come by as of yet. The 20 was a fun, easy to use unit and the 50 was a real giggers delight as simple as having seperate pedals, and you can get them cheap enough now second hand. The 25's seem to be laid out with presets in mind, tidier sounds and Usb out to record to computer etc, and the 70 has improved sounds and a few more effects. Great idea, especially if you're in a genre spanning covers band.[/quote] I've had/have both. I'd agree with Andy, the 20 is a great little unit if you don't demand long effects chains and use a strightforward collection of sounds. The sound quality is pretty good and it is very small; you don't really a good idea of the scale of it from the website but it surprised me when I saw it in the flesh. I bought my 20 from a basschatter - I intended to use it at small rehearsals and for taking to our drummer's house so I could emulate the sounds I use for the function band set without carting my full board around. I had the 50 a few years ago and I think the reason I ditched it was because it didn't have the bank switching capability without an outboard extra pedal and also because it didn't have some effects combinations. I can't quite remember. I'm selling my ME20b now. It's boxed and you can have it for £80 + P&P if you are interested.

Joni Mitchell's Both Sides Now album - it's a collection of twelve great songs that have been assembled to chart twelve stages of a relationship from meeting and falling in love through to breaking up and getting over the break up and realising there is life afterwards. It's a masterpiece that everyone I have introduced to it has fallen in love with. Crack open a bottle of red, put it on jump in, it's a very moving and soulful work with big lush productions. I also like anything by Tom McRae and REM's New Adventures in Hi-Fi for those more contemplative moments.

[quote name='alexclaber' post='986611' date='Oct 13 2010, 09:05 AM']Sounds good to me. I think maybe the best way to do this is with a multitracker and some parametric EQ twiddling on a mix - I'll see what I can knock up...[/quote] Would it be possible to include some EQ advice for rigs relating to room acoustics too?

I have a BB that you can see here [url="http://basschat.co.uk/index.php?showtopic=81828&hl=Yamaha+bb"]http://basschat.co.uk/index.php?showtopic=...mp;hl=Yamaha+bb[/url] and I have another two that you can find under the review forum. Great instruments and there's always room for another. I fancy a BB3000MA - great basses and they look so wrong with those totally stupid inlays.

Just like there are no people who regret learning theory or reading, I've never heard anyone regretting learning good technique. I'm a better musician as a result of my reasonably decent technique as I rarely have difficulty playing anything I need to. I see bassists around that play with that three finger (no pinky) approach and many of them seem to have to work harder to play the notes whereas someone with good technique will appear to be more economical and someone with great technique can make it look effortless. Bad technique generally makes doing anything harder and less accurate. Unfortunately having good technique means that you turn into a complete twat that no one wants to know or play with - it's a trade off but one that many of us take Last week I was watching bassist Josh Stopford of Yes Sir Boss, he seems like a very friendly chap who can groove with the best of them. He has great technique, very economical and an obvious thorough knowledge of the fretboard and it was as much a pleasure to watch and learn as it was to listen to. If anyone's interested, they're playing Motion in Bristol on Nov 5.

[quote name='4StringFortress' post='983324' date='Oct 10 2010, 01:36 PM']Yeh I own a BB414 (notice in my sig) Brand new they cost around £250-£300 but they are discontinued so you can only pick them up second hand. I bought mine from here for £140 which is a absolute steal! They are amazing basses pick ups are very hot build quality and finish you would expect from a top end bass. They will go forever and never fail on you, if you can find one on here or ebay I would highly recommend grabbing it. Its the kind of bass that you will never get rid of simply coz it will stand up to any future basses you buy. I would say best way to start learning get some lessons only as many as you need just to get the basics, then you can decide weather to carry on or start to teach yourself.[/quote] What he said! There a review of a Yamaha BB415 in the reviews section of this forum and other than the B-string stuff all the comments apply to the BB414s I've played too.

I use lots of different strings but lately have been using Ernie Ball Coated Slinkies. I tried a set of Legacy strings from stringsdirect and they are pretty good for £7.99 delivered. There was a Rotosound QA ticket in the box so I guess that's where they are made. Couldn't argue for the money. Try a set and see.

[quote name='JTUK' post='983230' date='Oct 10 2010, 12:06 PM']You need to be very careful unwinding and winding on as this can prolong the amount of times you can do this more than the cleansing.[/quote] Could you please elaborate?

So once you've "methylated" your strings, do they have the same lifespan as before and how long before they need doing again? How many times can they be done?

If anyone who is going has a Boogie 400+ I'd really appreciate it if they brought it along and let me put it through my Berg cabs. I've had gas for one for years and I need to be convinced either way, finally, once and for ever whether I want one. And if anyone's got a VBA400 it would be cool if that could be there too. Maybe a monster valve amp off on the day?

Pearl Jam!

I'm going! I'll be bringing: 1 x Yamaha BB2024x 1 x Yamaha BB2025x 1 x Spector NS5-XL 1 x Mesa Walkabout Scout 12" combo 1 x Mesa Carbine M6 2 x Bergantino AE210 Assorted FX Looking forward to catching up with those of you I've met before and saying hi to those I haven't met yet. See you all soon. Sean

Cheers for the heads up on that. What about those Muse sounds? Is it capable of doing a soundalike?

Looking around at multi-fx units and not really seeing anything I like, the Octavius Squeezer looks like a great Swiss Army knife for my needs. I use filters, octaves, fuzz, always love synth sounds and have recently been asked to do some muse songs; Starlight, Uprising and another I can't remember the name of at the moment. Anyone know who stocks them? - Google hasn't turned up anything. Anyone using one to do Muse stuff? Thanks Sean

Yam for me. I'm yet to play better than a BB.

There's a BB424 for sale [url="http://basschat.co.uk/index.php?showtopic=98388&hl=yamaha"]HERE[/url] at a very good price from one of our own forum members. The 424 necks will be much more resonant than the 414 ones and that thru-stringing will make a big difference on the 5-string versions.

[b]Manufacturer:[/b] Yamaha [b]Model:[/b] BB2025x “Super BB” [b]Colour:[/b] Vintage White [b]Price:[/b] £2300.00 (ish) [b]Introduction [/b] Back in February this year I decided that I'd had enough of my Markbass LMK amplifier and convinced myself that I had to follow my heart towards a Mesa Boogie as a more hefty replacement. I went to Bass Direct to try out some gear and was totally sold on the Carbine M6. Job done. While I was there I noticed a bass that I had first seen at Bass Day the previous November, the Yamaha BB2024x. I had seen them on the Yamaha stand but being the shy retiring type, I didn't check them out and at over two grand for a Yamaha hadn't someone in their marketing department got their maths wrong somewhere along the way? Anyway, Mark encouraged me to have a go, so I took it down, plugged it in and that was the end of that, really; never before has an instrument spoken to me like this. You know what it's like, it's like the bass is calling your name, you are like a sex starved sailor being beckoned toward the rocks by the seductive song of the mermaids only this time the mermaids aren't ugly seals they are beautiful young ladies! I loved it! I immediately asked Mark to order me a five string version and then I had to wait a few months until it arrived. It turned out to be a long wait but was it worth it...? [b]What is it? [/b] This is a five-string alder bodied bass guitar with a bolt-on maple and mahogany laminate neck, passive P and J pickups, volume and tone pots and a three-way selector switch. The instrument is made in Yamaha's custom workshop in Japan where they produce a few hundred instruments a year, including the high-end SG1820/SG1802 electric guitars and the high-end acoustics. This instrument is overflowing with technology and that leads me to be both excited and sceptical at the same time. Does the technology work or like bifidus digestivum and pentapeptides is a load of bunkum dreamt up by marketing types? The woods in this instrument are treated in an atmospheric chamber to age them so that they take on the properties of older pieces of nicely aged timber like extra resonance. Why not cut out the middle man and just use naturally aged timer, you may ask. Well, there's not a lot of it left and the stuff that is still around isn't very consistent, its resonant properties aren't homogeneous throughout the piece of timber. All the good old wood has gone. Another thing that Yamaha do to these basses is to vibrate them; once they have been built they are subjected to precise vibrations so that the stresses between components, paint, wood, metals are all hugely reduced and the instrument starts to take on the properties of a naturally aged instrument that has been played, dropped and transported for many years and all this without the relicing process. The bass is shipped with a high quality hard molded case with nice rubberised handles and clips that feels very military. All the usual case candy is included. [b]First Impressions[/b] Well, going back to my initial encounter with the BB2024x at Bass Direct my knee-jerk reaction was to order one so I was expecting first impressions of my BB2025x to be similar to what I had experienced with the four-string. This five-string, like many fives is just that little bit “more” than its four-string brother, I think the larger pickups and extra wood in the neck contribute to this a lot, it must be as these are the only differences between the two. The BB2025x is a very comfortable instrument to play as it's relatively light, hugs the body well and the first fret seems quite close as the bridge is positioned right back on the body. Scale length of this instrument is 34” and the low B is superb, it's about as good as any 34” scale low B I've played and gives a very "piano-like" tone. Yamaha have put a lot of thought into the forty-five degree string-through stringing system and it's paid off and proves that you really can have legendary low B strings on 34” scales. The vintage white finish is nicely applied as you might well expect and it's a very rich creamy colour that is set off well by the black pick guard. I'm a huge fan of the "Sid" colour scheme, it's easily one of my favourites along with Black/Black/Rosewood and I think the three available finishes of Black, White and TSB will be exactly what most people in the market for a bass like this will be after. One thing I'd like to see that doesn't seem to be in place at the moment is special orders; Yamaha made a maple fingerboard version of the BB2024x for James Lomenzo and also made his a P-P pick-up configuration but there doesn't seem to be a mechanism in place yet for Joe Public to have specials done. In my case this is probably for the best as it keeps me from living on the street [b]Quality[/b] The quality is faultless. The attention to detail is exactly what you would expect from a hand-crafted custom shop instrument. The fret job is outstandingly good, the rolled edges are just so and the satin neck finish makes playing effortless. The woods used in the neck are quartersawn and this apparently makes the neck more stable and stronger, the neck here seems to contribute hugely to the sound. The body shape is different to that of the factory-made BB basses, it's more sculpted and the top shoulder has been shaped very differently. [b]Sounds[/b] I initially tried this bass through my Mesa Boogie M6 Carbine with the EQ frowning and the gain at 1 O'clock to get a tiny bit of break up - nice and middy! The cabs are a pair of Bergantino AE210s with the horns in mid position setting. This bass was designed in collaboration with a lot of rock bassists; Marco Mendoza, Michael Anthony, Justin Meldal- Johnsen, Tony Kanal and others so you just know it's going to be a rocker's instrument from the off and it certainly delivers in spades. I don't understand what Yamaha have done in designing the all-new pickups for this bass but they have done everything right, it sounds epic. The best P/J sound I have ever heard. With the flick of a switch it can give you an enormous biblical Ben Hur of a P pickup sound. If that tw*t (you'll agree if you've seen him) on the Fender website describes the generic P pickup sound as a punch verses the J's karate chop then this P pickup is more like a truck driving through your chest. The tone and volume are very useable and give some nice variations that are very easy to use on the fly. Don't think of this bass just a rocker though, it's a very versatile instrument and suitable for pretty much anything but when played with a plectrum through a big hefty amplifier it takes on a huge personality that is very addictive. I find myself wanting to play Mike Mills lines from What's the Frequency and Living Well is the Best Revenge. I've had to go and order a dozen 1mm Tortex picks just for shits and giggles. The J pickup on this bass is fantastic, many people think that the J pickup on a P-type bass is a placebo and I have to agree, the Js are often of much lower output and serve to add very little except a bit of articulation to the P sound but this one lives on its own and is very well balanced in volume with the P. What strikes you most about this bass is how incredibly resonant it is. There are so many rich overtones coming from this and it is apparent that this must be from all that wizardry with the wood treatment. Just playing this instrument unplugged it sounds amazing and full of character and there has never been another bass I find so hard to put down. [b]Overall[/b] It's not a cheap bass by any stretch and doesn't have all the versatility and exotic sophistication of many active instruments in this price category but it is beautifully made, does what it's meant to do extremely well and sounds as good as anything I've played. It unapologetic, aggressive, punchy and absolutely adorable. Make sure you try one if you get the chance. Photos to follow as well as a good few edits and additions.

Ultra-comprehensive thread here [url="http://basschat.co.uk/index.php?showtopic=294"]http://basschat.co.uk/index.php?showtopic=294[/url]

[quote name='Beedster' post='950246' date='Sep 9 2010, 09:08 AM']Easy Sean (what is going on with you avatars by the way?)[/quote] Glynis Barber, Samantha Janus and Rita Simmonds? Not all my fantasies are about basses, man!

[quote name='Clarky' post='949828' date='Sep 8 2010, 08:23 PM']Any bass made in the Year of Clarky ('63) will sound superior. Fact[/quote] I'd like to believe this Clarky but I think the real reason is because we all have a guy-crush on Chris! :wub: