Roger2611

I've had quite a few, the Thunder 1a was one of the best starter basses available in the 80's, I did my first ever proper gig at High Hall in Birmingham in front of 2000 people playing a Thunder III fretless, sadly I find them a bit heavy nowadays so have progressed to lighter instruments, for some reason they always seemed to be seen as the poor cousin to the Aria Pro range of the same era although looking at some of the prices being asked for Westone's on eBay at the moment you would think they were rivalling the likes of Alembic and Wal!

I haven't played the Dimension bass nor have I played a 5 string sub, however, there seems to be quite a lot of comments out there in regard of poor electrics in the cheap sub basses, I have a lovely cheap sub in black / maple and once I had swapped out both the pre-amp and pickup I finally had a bass that sounded as good as it looked, if you do go for the sub, budget another £250.00 or so to swap out the stock electrics. I have struggled with 5 string basses over the years, I have never really got on with them, I currently have just 1 that I see as a keeper which is a Yamaha 735a it is a really well built, great sounding and great playing bass, and the black on black colour scheme looks awesome....if you can find a used one they are well worth the money, if you are ever up in the Northampton direction you are welcome to come and try mine

I think it's tough, certainly in recent years, to find a poor Fender Precision bass, my personal favourite is my Mexican built 50's classic, however, some won't like the baseball bat like dimensions of the neck, I have never played a bad Mexican Precision much as I have never played a bad Japanese Precision or a USA Precision Some of the 70's USA Precision's can be very heavy, however, they still tend to play really well, with current asking prices being where they are for these 70's basses you are very unlikely to find one in your price range anyway. Don't discount Squier basses just because they are cheaper, some of them are fantastic basses and easily rival the build quality of their more expensive Fender badged brothers and nearly everything is interchangeable on a Precision so, if you like a certain neck profile with a certain colour and a certain pickup sound then you can customise to suit. As others have suggested try and play as many as you can and get a feel for what you like neck wise and sound wise, if you are in the Northampton area I have a whole bunch you can play and see what appeals, just drop me a PM

Reminds me of our other eBay friends the Music Outlet Shop in Germany another purveyor of overpriced tat!

That looks like the work of a certain self acclaimed "Guitar Improver" who has been discussed at length on here!

Stiff Little Fingers album Now Then is a real divider of opinions, many fans hated it, many loved it, personally it is still my favourite of their albums, still punk in many ways just not as angry as the earlier albums with some beautifully written lyrics that showed Jake's development as a song writer

I seem to think my first Status bass came from Coda in Luton, I have been to the Stevenage shop a couple of times, I am glad to here it is still up and running

We supported Midge Ure a few years back, he went on stage with a Vintage (branded) Midge Ure signature Les Paul, a Vox VT80 transistor amp and a battered Marshall Bluesbreaker pedal, I suggested the guitars must be hand made for him by Vintage, he replied "No, off the production line into a box and I open the box and play the guitar !" He sounded utterly brilliant so I can confirm the sound / the talent is all in the fingers...his fingers and not mine clearly!

Absolute thundering sound and I was so impressed with the quality of the band! I had a chat with Oli (the sound man afterwards) he confirmed it was actually easier to get that sound because he wasn't focused on making sure the vocal was right up in the mix so more room to get the musicians sounding sweet!

We have a similar line up, we use Mackie Thump 15a speakers and a Studiomaster Club 16 XS mixer, all in under £1000.00 and a huge improvement over the old Peavey XR desk and Martin CX2 ultra heavy speakers plus even heavier sub bass we used to use!

Tough call, I upgraded a Spector Legend custom with Nordestrand big blades and a Glockenlang pre-amp, it totally transformed the bass, I put the same Glockenlang pre-amp into my Bass Collection SB801 as the original was dead, I kept the stock EMG's in the bass, way less of a transformation, so based off that rather unscientific experiment, the pickups appear to have more impact than the pre-amp! I have an ESP Horizon bass where the stock EMG electrics have been replaced with a full Bartolini set up and I absolutely hate it, it lacks any depth, any sparkle...to be honest it lacks everything, I seem to remember owning a Tune Woodbass many years ago which also had Bartolini pickups in, I was hugely underwhelmed with the sound of that as well.

So far it looks like it may be the flanger, I took pedals out in order until I got to the flanger, took that out and the problem went away.....put a battery in the flanger and put it back in the board (still connected to the power supply) and everything seems fine now, I have come across pedals before that want a battery in place even though they are hooked up to a power supply....I will see what happens over the coming days!

Hi all, before I start pulling stuff apart I thought I would sound you guys out, I have a PCB60 pedal board running a full line of Boss pedals, Tuner, Bass Overdrive, Compressor / sustainer, Chorus, Flanger and Digital delay, part way through my rehearsal today the sound started coming and going in approx 10 second loops, full volume decreasing to nothing and back around...all the pedals were off so it was not an effect that was causing it...my 1st thought was the batteries in the bass, swapped to a Precision, no change, 2nd though was power supply to the board...swapped to a spare, still the same issue, both leads into and out of the board swapped, output a/b both tried and direct into the amp confirmed the amp was functioning correctly..so the fault lies withing the board, I can't see it being a patch lead as they either work or they don't, I doubt it is a single power lead to a pedal, again they either work or they don't but I wouldn't have thought it would be a pedal as with everything switched off they should be bypassed? Any ideas before I start tearing the board apart again and testing pedals individually.....and finally to confirm, everything behaved as good as gold last time I used it! Cheers Rog

Yes, a 2019 S2 Works really well in the rock band I play in, however, I think it would be unappreciated in the punk band!!

Currently 4 bands! I have to run a strict practice regime and a very strict first come 1st served diary with pre-agreed maximum gig numbers for the covers band to allow the originals bands to get out and do some gigs Covers band (Anyone Out There) limited to 12 dates a year, this was pre agreed a few years ago as part of the agreement of me rejoining them when they reformed Punk band (Acme Sewage Company) doesn't do too much but the gigs tend to be miles away, they probably only do about 8 gigs a year Rock band (Saving Amy) doesn't do pub gigs only festivals, a few have clashed with already agreed covers bands dates but they are early enough in the day to play the festival and get to the evenings pub gig! Indie Band (Yodaclub) probably the band getting the most airplay worldwide at the moment, it is mainly a writing and recording project with just the one date in Leicester on November 4th this year. I am not sure how it would work if one of the bands took off but at the age of 55 I have a feeling my days of bands suddenly taking off are long gone!

Olympic White or Black for me but I have to admit I do like both Lake Placid Blue and Candy Apple Red

He was jesting you, I don't think Alarm have had a bass player on stage for a number of years and the bassist on stage for the Mission was Craig Adams who is the bands original bassist!

Heathen, I hear you shout, the rattling of pitchforks begins! I was lucky enough to have attended two gigs over the Easter weekend and both made me question our role within a band, Saturday evening saw me at The Alarm in Northampton, fantastic night, great band, great songs and no bass player! The band played to backing tracks which was basically the bass track and some percussion...I don't get it, The Alarm are a guitar based band, there was plenty of room on stage and the backing tracks were basically live recorded bass parts...nothing overly fancy but good solid audible bass parts...... Sunday night I was unfortunate enough to be at The Mission in Leeds, Craig Adams seemed to be enjoying playing a few bits further up the neck on his Rickenbacker...Craig, buddy, no point, we cannot hear a single note you are playing, the mix is the usual drum heavy bass mush laden sound that seems to be the go to sound for bass at larger venues....he would have been better using the Rick to swipe Mr Hussey around the head for being so drunk on stage that it was bordering a farce So which is better, a bass track that sounds OK but no bassist or a live bassist who really needs play nothing but root notes because the mix is too poor to hear anything else! Rant over

Yodaclub has a great keys player, we don't get in each others way at all, if I fancy doing a bit of Peter Hook dusty end stuff she will drop in and cover the bottom end and as I come back into the lower register she will move up, I think it works really well and has got us plenty of radio play from our last few singles

There was a nice looking original one on Facebook market place last week for £200.00, had I been in the market for one I would have bitten his arm off at that price!

It had more headroom than I could have possibly needed on stage so I didn't need to even start pushing it at all!

I was lucky enough to play through a 610 and SVT CL set up at a festival a couple of years ago, definitely one of the nicest bass sounds I have had on stage, for comparison I normally use a Markbass 1x12 combo with another 1x12 extension cab but I used to tour with a Mesa Boogie 1516e and a Trace Elliot twin valve head, whilst I love the weight and portability of the the Mark Bass set up the old hefty gear still sounds superior to my ears!

Yes, Thunderbird's and Rickenbacker's both look utterly wonderful yet I just can'y get comfortable with either so sell them on, I sold my last Tbird a couple of years back and my CMI Rick copy a few years before that.....guess what I am currently scanning the sales ads for.....stupid is what stupid does!

I would probably offer up a Status S2 or a Spector for the 80's

A shout out for Mark Burgess of the Chameleons and of course Bruce Foxton from the Jam