operative451

Hi! So i did a shabby chic reverb on my east German P-bass and in the process set it up nicely, lubed the tuners, re-strung it etc. It now plays really nicely! It's plywood though although at at least 30 years old its probably thoroughly seasoned. Somewhat irritatingly i almost like it more than the shiny new bass i bought (Stagg Stingray-oid) earlier in the year! Which brings me to the pickup. Its nasty, it's not original as the original fell apart, it was about £5 on amazon... It sounds ok i guess. Sort of honky, not much in they way of low end. I'm thinking of replacing it with this DiMarzio DP122 Model P i found on gak. Is it worth spending the money? There are cheaper upgrade pickups but... They're black! The bass is off-white with a battered white pickguard and i want it to match... This one: [sharedmedia=core:attachments:228624]

I was wondering about this after seeing a meme on FB, which was obviously originally a guitar thing but got edited. I always thought volume was from the olden days for guitars where they wanted that clean 'shadows' sound. Having said that, i've got back into playing my ancient East German P-bass and my other basses have humbuckers, so turning them down a notch means i have to faff with pedals less as they're lots louder!

Ooh, i'm first!! Ok, i had this thing in my head, an alternate universe where Surf music had bass as the lead instrument. And i did this: https://soundcloud.com/operative451/surf

Thanks! I'm really pleased with how it came out.

Before and after.... Decided my Elderly East German Marlin might like to match the others... Seemed a bit odd to try and make her look new though, so i went for a 'relic' look... Before: [attachment=228622:IMG_20140310_213839.jpg] During: [attachment=228623:IMG_20160812_193154.jpg] Finished!! [attachment=228624:IMG_20160925_190051.jpg] Attacked the 'original' paint with an iron(!) to get the previous 30-od years of resprays off. When i got it, it was red, under red was silver, under that was the original black. Sanded some more, and then re-painted with a sample pot of off-white emulsion from Wilko! Sanded some more, clear coat, T-cut, and done!

You could mash it up with... [media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u8W1XSjFB6g[/media]

Nux PG2 and big round retro styee headphones from primark! Ok, its not going to win 'tone of the year' any time soon, but its surprisingly good for a total of about 40 quid... Also the Nux has an input, so you could run phone/mp3 player/reel to reel tape deck into it if you wanted..

Yo, fo shozzle this is funky! I am so too white too pull that off.. Good song though!!

Our very very grown-up song in which we take the mick out of a certain baby-handed wig wearer... [media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f3b7yMWQqGE[/media]

Apologies if this is a thread hijack, it just seems easier to jump in on an existing thread than start yet another 'is my kit ok?' thread... So, i have a small amp (Warwick Blue cab 15.1) i like the sound of. And my band's drummer is a laptop. If i turn up to do a gig with the little amp, will the sound engineer laugh at my titchy speaker or thank the gods of decibels that the bassist has no desire to rattle their stage to bits? So far its been fine as i've played either comedy nights, which doesn't need to get loud, or somewhere where they had backline anyway. And 'my sound' mostly comes from my pedalboard...

Hobbyist using noise and piss-taking as treatment for psychological disorders,i guess? Spent most of the 90s playing guitar in a goth band, sort of Evanescence mixed with the White Stripes, failed miserably for a number of reasons including an agrophobic singer/songwriter who wrote great 'doom and woe' songs but wouldn't actually go and play them at people! If the internet had been around then, we might have got away with that, but hey... I guess pro=most/all of your income from music, the hobbyist = most/all of your income [i]on [/i]music? Hell, i'm okay with that...

Cool, thanks! Ok, back to fiddling...

V'ger Board 2... Bigger and more! [attachment=225360:IMG_20160812_081135.jpg] The zoom is mostly being used for compression and modulation - i've set a bunch of presets for 'single' pedal usage, so its sort of a low-tech LIne6 M5!

Hi! So, i'm mucking about with old kit. I'm actually getting some not-bad sounds out of my elderly Zoom 506 and as it pre-dates the POD et al, i came to wondering how it works. it's got some alleged 'Amp tones' where the drive section would be in a 505, but what actually are they? How did manufacturers do 'not modelled' amp tones? Is it like, a bit of drive, EQ and compression or something else? The clean sounds are ok, the drive is nasty though and the fuzz... Actually sounds kind of like a 'bitcrusher' type of effect! I've been mainly fiddling with it in a 'do i need a proper compressor' sort of way. and the tuner is handy...

Thanks for these! I will be checking back on the website to see when the logo bit starts working... Also i need to work out what to actually put on the grille..!

So, i'm totally doing work and everything, with my 'Later - Louder' DVD on in the background, and my attention was caught by the jolly chaps of the Jesus and Mary Chain, and also the Metallicas, who had stuff stencilled on their speaker cabs, for instance [url="http://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/564x/b7/c8/6d/b7c86d0f7221f9f65542c2431ba1547d.jpg"]this one[/url], and also [url="http://i.ytimg.com/vi/jcf9-W8wFx4/hqdefault.jpg"]this one[/url]. Has anyone done similar, and if so, how? One way i thought of would be to spray the whole grille white, then to get some big stick on letters, stick them on, and spray it black again. Although i would need several 8x10s to fit 'Intermittent Explosive Disorder' on, but hey...

Funk Rocket Ajax and Ivana Funkanova looking like they're up to something.... [attachment=224652:13775442_916350548493204_8606977240003129223_n.jpg]

I can't stop.. I tried putting everything on a big board, but it just felt wrong! I'm using cheap pedals so at least faffing isn't costing me a fortune! But yeah.. The tremolo stays on, because its my favourite. I like Envelope filter but getting the right sound out of my BSW is a faff so it goes off and goes on and goes off. Amp sim and EQ stay, fuzz stays. Right now i have Fuzz -> Zoom 506 -> Tremolo -> Joyo California -> EQ and out. Mainly because the 506 has actually a nice compressor and if i feel a sudden need for Env, Phaser or Chorus its right there! It will get faffed with again when i get home tonight. I suspect my neighbours would be happy that i have headphones..!

I dunno but i want that fwonk!

After a hiatus and a move of home, i finally got time to get it finished! And here it is!! [attachment=223727:IMG_20160717_181553.jpg] What i'm really amazed about is that with my dodgy soldering, it worked first time! First sound impressions: Much better - less twang krung, more fatness... I need to let it all settle and give it a proper go though...

Its saturday, i was bored. I call this the V'ger board. Subtitled the 'stop being such a snob it sounds just as good' board... [attachment=223121:IMG_20160709_173736.jpg]

I'd be in it, sounds like fun! There was definitely thing in metal a while back for doing 80s electro covers in a noisy stylee: [media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f9XiD_2K7-Q[/media] I guess also an issue is, its pretty easy to find midis of all this stuff and your average laptop can do a very passable human league impersonation...

My digitech BSW. It 'wahs' too 'soon' but i like the blend control opposed to a foot operated wah. Since i found out about putting fuzz in front of it, its now fun for being Muse and winding off some post-(that thing we're not talking about anymore) anger. I don't use the synth sounds because they're like 'yay flash gordon/80s dr who soundtrack!' which is sort of pointless but fun. I could probably sell it on ebay for twice what i paid for it, but i'm learning to play 'Hysteria'. Although i can get a 'good enough for the living room' version of that sound out of my elderly Zooms... Although it does do it better...

Latest variant. New flat, bigger board! [attachment=222261:IMG_20160625_105636.jpg]

[quote name='Rich' timestamp='1465337532' post='3067415'] Oh good call Here's a nice pic of a relic P bass and a Fodera [/quote] I saw that video on youtube! Ok, i blipped through it but i was hoping they would race...