NancyJohnson

Thanks mate! 14087 & 15433 it is then!

I suspect that the way to go here is an extra long nickel Elixir Nanoweb 4-string set (.45-105, SKU# 14087) and a tapered single (.130, SKU# 15433).

Anyone using Nanowebs on their 5-strings? My Lull has a 35.5" scale, two part bridge, ball-end is about 2" behind the B-string saddle, so I need strings with at least a 37.5" pre-taper length. I just need an accurate measurement for where the taper starts if anyone can help (the more the merrier) - I don't trust the Strings Direct one-size-fits-all method of measuring. Elixir do Extra-Long sets and low-B singles, so it maybe be a case of buying a four string set and an extra-long B. Cheers

Pulled the trigger on a second Tourtech ABS case. These are wonderful things for the price. For the first time ever, I'm hardcased up. If I get a minute I might pull my Hamer FBIV out storage and see whether it fits as well...if so, I may get another one next month and sell on the Epiphone HSC it currently lives in.

My first car only cost £650.00. It likely made me feel as happy as that Cost of credit fee would make the purchaser sad!

My two Lulls are well detailed elsewhere, certainly Bass Direct (who handled the sale this side) took a cut, but to be honest I could have done it all myself and gone direct should that opportunity have been made available to me at the time (it wasn't), but I suppose I can dine out answering questions such as, 'You paid how much??' for a while yet. Otherwise, go vintage.

I keep trying to put something together to support prices US vs VS, but am struggling to keep it clear. Let's initially agree that street prices for the Snowy Night StingRay are effectively double here against the US (Andertons; £3,000 against Guitar Center; $2,300/£1,750). We have no idea what price Ernie Ball sells to Guitar Center for, nor do we know what they sell into Strings & Things for before they sell into Andertons. Truth be known, every business these basses go through will be adding a charge that ultimately gets passed onto the end customer, so in the US the distribution chain is likely to be short, Ernie Ball > Guitar Center, whereas over here it's more likely to be Ernie Ball > Strings & Things > Andertons; plus you'll need to factor in shipping, tax duties, $/£ exchange rates, to land these instruments here, so things will fluctuate. I worked in retail finance (wristwatches) for ten years, one of the biggest watch companies on the planet, and was staggered at the levels of markup, the manufactturing/parts cost for a watch costing £800 street may only account for 15% of the selling price, so it's feasible that a $2.3k bass may only cost $300 to manufacturer. The key thing here though is we don't know what ErnieBall sell into Guitar Center for, any more than we know the landed price to Strings and Things and what their selling price to Andertons is, but be sure that they won't be selling on for a £10 profit per bass.

Me too. A 5HH. Sold it to cover the cost of a Thunderbird. Well, of course I did. It was a ridiculous instrument, the pre-amp was uncontrollable tonally (long story), but the design, playability, comfort and looks made it just weird enough to make it special. I wouldn't mind mind another one at some point. It would have to be a matt black/stealth one. 5HH.

I understand duties and tax ramping prices up, I'm also cognizant of dealer mark ups as well, but pricewise consider Andertons currently have 53 Musicman guitars and basses on sale for £2K+; these aren't boutique guitars, produced in small numbers, these are production line instruments. Why anyone would want to aspire to owning a fairly commonplace instrument and paying that sort of money for it is beyond me. A quick scan on eBay shows you can pick up a fairly minty vintage Stingray (20+ year old instrument) for half the new UK retail price - I just saw a paid listing for a 1991 Stingray - which had seen some action and looked better for it - that sold for under £800.00. Don't get me wrong, I owned about a dozen Gibson Thunderbirds at one time, so I know what it's like to be in love with an instrument, but only one of them was brand new (I didn't bond with it). I've moved on. Small luthiers (Lull) and discontinued luthiers (Hamer) are the way to go for me; the closest I have to a production line bass is a Czech Spector. I'd concur that we are a fickle bunch that in general find change (or anything new) laughable or abhorrent. All the manuafacturers have tried to do new stuff and met with disdain and discontinuation. The big money sadly isn't in Fender Dimension basses, or Gibson EB4s or Musicman Bongos (and so on); it's in the core models, Stingray, Thunderbird, Jazz/Precision, Streamers, NS model Spectors. These are the models that keep the new bass marketplace active.

They just look like Stingrays to me. All these companies, Fender, Gibson etc. there's nothing new to see really, no innovation. It's just about putting sparkly finishes on 45 year old designs.

Without hesitation I'd say my forte is in arranging, I've never been big on repetition for the sake of it and I do like material to carry interesting/unexpected key/time-signature changes within the confines of the songs to keep it interesting. Yes, I have been called a pain in the donkey because of this and I don't doubt this to be the case, but I'd counter by saying the material has always benefitted from excising chunks and mixing it up a bit. This though, is something different. This is all about (to my ears at least) having some tweak mixes down and then having someone master (never met him, don't know him), who clearly needs his ears syringed. Despite my age, my ears are still working pretty well. While subjective, and within the bounds of our musical genre, I'd like to think I know what sounds like it has some shizzle and what sounds like it's been mastered by someone who clearly doesn't have a clue. It's all a bit soul destroying to be honest.

The second one is up. I'm not making this up, to garner plays (or sympathy) but this sounds even worse. I can just hear the levels going up an down during the songs. You put in so much effort and, well, umm, it just sounds sh*t. https://open.spotify.com/album/6V6syE387dIu2ELc2XUYy8?si=qnUkgglBQAiGZIJLEvE5ew&utm_source=copy-link

Individual Cheese Portions.

Initially, I just de-soldered everything, then popped out the unit and battery box. I found a wiring schematic online and just re-did the wiring. When I installed the John East, I went with a Uni Pre-4 unit (https://www.east-uk.com/product/uni-pre-4-knob/).

In answer to this, as a previous owner of one of these, I'm not of the opinion that there's anything specifically wrong with the stock pickups, but (IMO) the pairing of these with the Tonepump Jr was/is a disaster; it added nothing but mush to the output tone and the stocks were considerably more responsive/dynamic once the pre-amp was out of the circuit.

Yeah, it's definitely louder. It just shizzles. Luckily, I have all the stuff from before they got dicked about with and will likely just listen to those as and when.

I've attached a copy of the 3rd track...it's short. Just do the comparison of this compared to the Spotify version from the perspective of dynamics, just how exciting it sounds. soul.mp3

I'm happy enough with the arrangements (understandably!), but the end result is just a bit tepid and radio friendly, it's like all the life has been sucked out of them.

Afternoon chaps I'm a bit conflicted here, but the first of three releases by my band Lizard Sweets went up on Spotify yesterday. I've posted a link below. To be honest, I'm really disappointed with the end result. There, I've said it. I tracked the bass (remotely) over a three month period (we recorded 40+ songs) and thankfully had considerable input insofar as the arrangements go (originally too much repetition/dead wood; why make a song four minutes when it says everything it needs to in under two?), but beyond that, zero. The original mixes were pretty strong; loud and aggressive with wonderful dynamics; while there was some clipping in places, rather than fix within the original multitracks, the guitarist/producer decided to just reduce everything by 6db, then an additional 3db, so the end results were very quiet before they toodled off for mastering (which has just resulted, rather depressingly, in a rather woolly, saturated, scooped-mids set of songs). The guy who mastered is a friend of a friend of the singer. The Spotify process has lifted things a bit but not much...I feel a bit meh about it, to me it's just sounds mushy and dull. As a body of work it's consistent; I'm sure after the initial shock as to how awful these sound fades I'll just accept them as they are, but for now, I feel really p*ssed off. A couple of mates have listened and said it sounds fine, my opinion is that it could been put sounding so much better. For the record, I used my Mike Lull basses on this (most of the time the five string) and supplied clean and dUg-effected recordings, any chorus etc. was added without my opinion being considered, thankfully it's minimal. If you're interested, go here. I'd be interested in knowing what you reckon. http://open.spotify.com/album/5fTPhuq92RTdiOsVeRZInJ?si=Wv1wXfNjREi07oy3uEi4wA

I had one of these, bought it stupid cheap off eBay; speculative bid that nobody bettered. Detested the Tonepump Jnr, muddy/just horrific. Pulled that out a few days after I got it and went passive for a bit, then put a John East unit in it, afterwhich it came alive. Used it for some recording and then it just sat gathering dust. Sold it on a couple of months ago.

I owned one of these, bought it from Wapping Bass Centre. I did one studio session with it where the producer remarked about it's 'Incredible rich piano-like tone', that's as maybe, but in hindsight, well, umm, no.

Just an addendum here, I think it's glorious when bands stick with cheaper gear...the guitarists from My Chemical Romance continued to use Epiphone stuff while they were filling stadiums and doing festivals. Credit to them.