jamesf

Wow, I love the explorer shape, reminds me of the guitar I built in high-school engineering class - went horribly wrong and ended up being a fretless with the worst intonation ever due to some idiot messing up the only job I subcontracted! Is it matte or shiny? I have a serious addiction to matte finishes, but usually only if it's something purple...

Let me be the first to say: welcome to the forum! Great to have you around. J

I'm not sure about gig bags, but you could get a lightweight hard case made by [url="http://www.caltoncases.co.uk/custom.htm"]http://www.caltoncases.co.uk/custom.htm[/url] Although, I'm sure any decent upholstery company could make you a leather one pretty reasonably and would be up for the challenge. I ended up making my own leather gig bag for my Hohner B2A Pro because it was ridiculously expensive to get a proper one.

I've been playing with a Boss Micro BR this morning, and I have to say I'm very impressed. It does everything you requested in your first post and lots more, takes standard SD cards, is right on budget (£150 but seen cheaper) and most of all, sounds superb for something that's smaller than your average tuner. It has an in-built mic that's good enough for scratch tracks, has line ins, guitar ins, can play, record and export in a variety of formats, has USB connection, and obviously you can use a card reader with the SDs. You can record up to 4 tracks on it, and it has an in-built drum machine which isn't half bad for idea-generation sessions. Check them out, for the size and the money, I think it'd be perfect for your application. J

[quote name='Kaiu' post='223587' date='Jun 21 2008, 01:53 PM']Thanks for the info, much appreciated! Keep it coming I think I am going to give the ipod one a miss until I find some proper info on it from people who have tried and tested it. I don't need anything fancy as our guitarist has a large Pro-tools setup at his studio, so if I want anything recording properly I just go there. This is more for developing bass lines, ideas etc like a note pad but for music! ed[/quote] No problem. If you're just using it as notepad, do you really need eight tracks? If you go for a four-track digital recorder, you can get one quite cheaply that will be much smaller and you can carry with you everywhere in your gig bag and will run on batteries. The newer ones use flash memory formats such as SD cards, so if you got a cheapo card-reader for your computer, transfer couldn't be easier. If you have, for example, a stereo mix of a song you're working on using two tracks, then you still have two more tracks to record bass parts on. Just a thought, but if it's strictly for 'note-taking', I think this could be a good alternative that won't take up a load of room and have features you don't need, if, as you say, you have access to a decent pro-tools rig. Hope this hasn't confused the matter further!

[quote name='charic' post='223458' date='Jun 21 2008, 10:33 AM']Hmm for the price range im unsure. But I dont like the look of those Ipod things either. Personally I have a korg D888 [/quote] good call; for the money, Korg make great little portable units which would be great for simple tracking (and more!). Have a scout around Ebay but make sure they're in good condition and the hard drives are working ok. All-in-one Multitrackers don't usually have a very high residual value so you can sometimes pick up a real bargain on a used one. As for transfer to computer, modern ones have USB facilities, but it isn't a standard feature on most, and in my experience, can be fiddly to use. Quite a lot of them have CD burners in though, or can be retrofitted with one very very cheaply, so you could burn off the mixes and then rip them to .aiff to work on the computer with them, or look for one with a digital out, run it into a digital in on your soundcard and you have real-time transfer with no loss of quality. I don't like the look of those ipod things either, for the record. Hope this helps, good luck finding a bargain

[quote name='cheddatom' post='223061' date='Jun 20 2008, 04:22 PM']What's the deal with the fanned frets? Are they weird to play?[/quote] The fanned frets were my only reservation about the dingwall as I thought I'd never figure it out. They look much scarier from the front than they do from the playing position, so shouldn't be too hard to adapt to - the string tension is very even and every string sounds very 'in-tune' - I guess I won't have any excuses if I buy one then!! That Sei Jazz looks gorgeous as well!!

[quote name='thedarxide' post='222982' date='Jun 20 2008, 03:01 PM']oooh it's round the corner My missus will hate you....[/quote]

Check out this Tune Bass Maniac, it's a bit of a wreck but should clean up nicely for anyone living in Bedford - I can't justify driving all the way there for it though, and I'm supposed to be getting rid of gear, not accumulating it!! They seem to have a good but cult rep, akin to the bass collection basses. [url="http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/BASS-GUITAR_W0QQitemZ330245128390QQihZ014QQcategoryZ4713QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem"]http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/BASS-GUITAR_W0QQitem...1QQcmdZViewItem[/url] J

I would recommend trying a Dingwall Afterburner if you can, the B string is 37" scale and the best I've played - I'm 90% sure that a 5-string Afterburner will be my next bass, but check them out and see what you think - I'm sure everybody else here will give you loads of great suggestions as well!!

Welcome to the forum!

I used an LA15 last year briefly, and whilst I was able to dial up some surprisingly funky tones, It was really quiet for a 100 watt amp, so, as BB414 said, if you're looking for something which you can gig with, I'd go higher power. It's a really nice compact little box BTW, a lot smaller than it looks in photos. Some harmony central reviews said the reliability was indeed a bit hit-and-miss with them though, but it's best to try one out for yourself if you can get to a music shop which has one in so you can pick it up, feel the weight, check for rattles etc.

I had the pleasure of playing that Bacchus this morning, that's a serious preamp that J-Retro!! Gorgeous bass, made me have a sudden disabling GAS attack...

[quote name='CHRISDABASS' post='217116' date='Jun 11 2008, 07:05 PM']hi here's a pic of my mesa bigblock 750 head with my aguilar DB410 cab........and my lovely frankenstein jazz hope you like it sorry about the pic quality.......dam phone cameras!! [/quote] that mesa looks beautiful - i don't think my back could take the strain of the aggie though!! bet it sounds fearsome.

[quote name='ste_m3' post='217331' date='Jun 12 2008, 01:34 AM']Ahh James! Where's my commision for turning you onto bfm gear eh! And I believe I showed you this place! Good too see ya [/quote] commission? we'll sort that out tomorrow morning It'll mean i'll have lop-sided HT though... (yes, the BFM's sound clean enough to me to use as home theatre mains). can't wait to have a go at your markbass, it looks tiny!

[quote name='OldGit' post='217087' date='Jun 11 2008, 06:20 PM'][/quote] point taken. and yes, unless you're in an LTP (Low Temperature Physics) lab, it is literally impossible - and i'd say that puts a crimp on the practicality of it too!!

[quote name='david_l_perry' post='213646' date='Jun 6 2008, 09:06 AM']The only thing that was initially hard to source was the 'PL glue', but screwfix has it and other sources too (check Bills forum 'hints and tips section' for uk sources of parts)[/quote] I got my PU adhesive from B&Q - it came in a caulking-gun cartridge, and one tube did an omni 10 and two omni 10.5's. It's called Evostik Resin - Polyurethane Wood Adhesive and is phenomenal stuff which expands in the gaps, and dries fully in 24 hours. I spent several days sand-papering it off my hands after the first session with it, it's seriously good stuff!! only about £9 as well.

[quote name='steve-soar' post='216486' date='Jun 10 2008, 11:02 PM']Brilliant! I really like the versatility you have got there with the different cabs and a PJB Bass Buddy, saweeeeet. What amp are you using? Nice Tingray.[/quote] Thanks! i'm using a samson servo 550 to power it, just because it's the only amp i had lying around and it sounds good. I need to get one which will accept a 2 ohm load though to run the whole rig from the 'buddy - i have to use it in stereo to utilise the whole rig at the moment. My stingray is lovely, i agree - i think the matching headstocks look great!

Ultimately, copper wire is copper wire, no matter how much you pay for it; it still facilitates the 'flow' of electrons in the same fashion - any marketing gimmicks trying to persuade you otherwise are going to be BS about 80% of the time. Of course, capacitance and resistance vary, and differences in material such as using silver cable affect this to some degree - ideally we want a cable which has no electrical resistance, but that just isn't possible. What you pay for in decent (note: not necessarily most expensive) cables, is the quality of the connectors, which directly affects the reliability and therefore the lifespan of the cable, and secondly, you're paying for the amount of shielding on the cable. Hum is usually caused by insufficient shielding on the cable, both the jacketing and the shield conductor. I've had this conversation/argument many times with physicists and recording engineers, and it all usually comes down to the same thing: buy van damme cable and neutrik connectors, it won't cost a fortune and they'll last years. Sure you can pay a million pounds a metre for Mogami, but any precieved difference (placebo effect?) can be replicated simply by cutting down your cable runs to the minimum you need; by which I mean 'need with medical urgency'. just my 2p, don't mean to offend anyone who buys Mogami!!

Here's some photos of my recently completed rig. The cabs are BFM design, built them myself, 1 x omni 10, 2 x omni 10.5, all loaded with Eminence Deltalite II 2510's, no expense spared in getting all top-quality parts for them. Tweeters are wired series/parallel on the O10, and parallel in the 10.5's. Dual locking neutrik jacks on the 10.5's for daisy-chaining, up to the maximum power of 1000 watts at 2 Ohms. I only intended to make an omni 10, but then I wanted to compare it to a 10.5... after which it seemed such a shame to just leave half a sheet of plywood just sitting there when it could so easily be made into a monstrous bass rig... you know how it goes. Sitting on top of them is the Phil Jones Bass Buddy, and i got the speaker grille to match the silver of the 'Jones - i think it looks rather good. Off camera there's the power amp used to power the whole thing, but it's shared between this and my studio monitors at the moment. To the left of the rig is my Bass Collection SB300 in matte pearlescent purplish type colour, and to the right, my 2001 black sparkle stingray 3EQ. The whole rig is ridiculously loud (just one of the little cabs is fine for most applications), it's got a flattish frequency response across the board, and it doesn't weight that much either. The only problems i'm having are that it's TOO clean! I'm currently looking for some mojo-inducing grot-boxes to liven things up a bit, albeit painfully aware that i;m stretching the boundaries of the talent:gear ratio just a little far as it is...

I almost didn't buy my Bass Collection SB300 because it doesn't have front markers and I thought I'd never get used to it and get lost all the time. Half an hour later I'd completely forgotten what a front marker looked like. Buy it; plain fretboards look slick!