NancyJohnson

This in a nutshell. I know there's people that want things 100% original, but it's pots and cap(s). As soon as you take them apart and repair/upgrade/change the innards you're losing originality. Pots are one small facet in the signal chain; apart from the immense sense of wellbeing you'll get, nobody else will care in the slightest. Trust me.

I suspect I'll pick up a Sansamp XB Driver at some point, although for the life of me I don't know why. Brother-in-law does frequent business trips to the US, so I'll get one shipped to a colleague of his in Houston and he'll bring it back. About half UK retail in America.

I've downsized considerably over the last few years. Cab-wise just running a pair of Darkglass 1x12s and I have a Barefaced Big One (a 15/6) which doesn't weigh much at all. I can run a single 1x12 or double it up. After 35+ years in this game, you realise with every passing year that it's absolutely unnecessary to have these huge cabinets any more. Also on the whole downsizing thing, wife got me a GSS Baby Sumo for my birthday,(today) which decreases the whole weight thing even more.

Wife got me a GSS Baby Sumo for my birthday. It's tiny! It's loud! Comes in a lovely little metal flight case. It's barely the size of two paperback books. Just gave it a brief test with my Hamer Cruisebass into a GED2112-DI. (We live in a detached house, neighbours away. Chortle!) Man alive, the clarity is incredible. I've jacked the Ged into a variety of amps and effects returns thereof over the years and it's never sounded like this... it's almost been a disappointment at times. It sounds like when I've just gone straight into a mixing desk. Lovely!

See the little amp below? Knob on the right labelled 'MASTER'? You can rotate that and the amp will go loud or quiet. Amazing bit of tech right there.

Interface to PC/Mac to headphones/active monitors is one way to go, yes. End of the day, while tech has evolved in the last decade, truth is it's probably not what most of us do. I'd wager most of us here have an amplifier of some sort set up 24/7 so they can noodle on that.

Back in the day, we were never about covers, but when we did throw in the odd one while jamming I recall Rush/Bastille Day, Police/Message In A Bottle and an instrumental I thought was based around Frank Zappa's Apostrophe' (never having listened to the original until a few minutes ago, it bears little resemblance to that, so god knows what it was). My first proper band were just original punky material; it was all very XTC, song titles included 'Woggle Your Bunkum', 'Let's Go Disco', 'Applecham' and 'Rosie'. Some 40+ years on, I could still play them note for note.

XTC - English Settlement and XTC - Nonsuch

I've been giving some thought about making something. I'm not doing anything today...reckon there has to be some kind of (robust) tripod stand - maybe a PA speaker stand - that'll be tall enough.

Just bought a frame strap system for my NS EUB, so I need a tall stand if some kind as my existing ones (Ultimate GS100) aren't high enough. Realistically I need a drop of more than 48" from the neck/headstock joint/volute. Any ideas?

Go and watch the video from the Bash. We had 15-20 basses that we put through my old rig, playing the same piece on each. Active, passive, flats, rounds, various makes. It was quite sobering given the - and I want to say nonsense, here (oops, I just did) - rhetoric that circulates here about tone, pickup selection, grunt, grind, ponk etc. I'm fairly certain that many Basschat members thought identifying basses would be as easy as shooting fish in a barrel. If nothing, this exercise really shaped my opinion on all this nonsense (damn!) about the perception of how certain basses are supposed to sound and what they actually sounded like. All this idiocy that just because a £120 bass looks like a Stingray, that it sounds like a Stingray. If we get a Bash in next year, I'd love to repeat this.

With my EUB, I bought some sheets of luminous stars. Amazon. They work fine.

@Shockwave Personally, I'd source a super cheap audio interface (ie a used Focusrite Scarlet 2i2 or anything that's listed on the for sale ads here), then jack that into your laptop by USB. It's the easiest way (and you'll be able to use it for recording/tracking in future, should the need arise); headphones into the interface or laptop. Sorted! While all these matchbox sized things will probably work, they'll struggle and frankly it's wasted £££.

Could you identify a J from a P in a blind test? Seriously, now. I hate to keep dredging up the shootout I conducted with @cetera at one of the SE Bass bashes four or five years back. Look on You Tube, video exists. It was quite apparent that attendees couldn't tell a Jazz from a Precision from a Rickenbacker (and anything else for that matter).

What kit do you have available? Head? Laptop/PC? Interface? There's a few ways to facilitate what you want to achieve, but it would be useful to know what you have.

Picked up a frame strap system for my NS NXT5 last week. Bass Centre is about ten minutes from me, so a walk up and catch up with Barry. As posted previously, I really didn't like the tripod stand one but and had been looking for an alternative solution; this works very well. Essentially two pieces of hardwood and a strap (see below); it just connects to the same hole as the tripod connector. It takes a little fettling, but works really well. There's three holes for a mechanical connection to the EUB (allowing for a bit of up/down adjustment) and the fixing between the two pieces allows for a fair amount of rotation to get the instrument in the optimum position and the strap can be shortened/lengthened. It's well made, robust. Visibility while playing is generally good, I think the only issue so far is the transition from tripod to strap and accuracy of fingering as the angles are all a bit different now. (Maybe if I'd had the strap three years ago it would have been better.) All in all, very pleased. I just need to find a taller than normal stand for it to go on.

I saw this whole concept come through on Facebook earlier today and watched a short video from a European guy who'd done the wiring to an Epiphone SG and showed the process on a Strat of some kind. The SG (w/humbuckers) did sound quite mushy, but the Strat just sounded like it was being played hard through a clean amp (giving some clipping, which the user was able to control but rolling the pot on and off). Naturally I wondered whether the wiring/process would convert to a bass.

I don't have a bass available to try this but has anyone experimented with onboard passive distortion circuitry? In theory, it should be as simply as wiring a couple of diodes into a potentiometer, as shown by Josi's post below.

I like the simplicity of passive circuitry, but a few years back I bought a Spector Euro LT that had a Darkglass circuit and the thing was alive compared to my passive kit, so I went to active route on everything else. Updated John East/Darkglass circuits on all but two of my basses, the Spector Euro-X has (I think) an EMG circuit. I just feel that a cut/boost active circuit just gives you more control over what hits the preamp; lows, mids, highs, bright and therefore an almost infinite level of control combinations. This obviously is all subjective; this isn't to say that great tone doesn't exist from a VVT potted bass, because it does. Ultimately, use active circuits sparingly. It's not all about just having everything full on.

I know this is an oldish thread but given the title, I just figured the curios below may be of interest to the casual reader. This just popped up on my Facebook timeline - SB conversions. 8 string (EADG), odd six string (uncertain whether this is B-B or E-E) and a 9-string! Blimey.

I'm kind of of the belief that we're drawn to shapes and shiny things; while my preference is for a Thunderbird-esque body design, in reality if it's loaded with P/J pickups and passive VVT pots, it wouldn't/shouldn't sound significantly different to anything differently shaped with the same guts. (Please don't get me started on, cough, tonewoods.) The Jaguar. I played one a few years back. It was very pretty and shiny and was nice set up etc etc. The owner said that the switching options towards the upper horn were nice, 'but [I] normally leave them set like this (points at the switches) and play with everything fully open'. So he'd found his desired tone and didn't shift from that. In closing, Jaguar basses look nice, they're (IMO) more eye-turning than a Jazz or Precision and in part there's more appeal to me because not many people play them.

Nearly ten years on, it still makes me chuckle that the OP pitched this 'club' thread nonsense and disappeared a month later. I'm still uncertain whether the guy was just moist about a purchase, if he was actually a dealer from Turkey or in the employ of Adrian Maruszczyk. We're at 132 pages now.