Al Krow

To be or not to be, that has gotta be the question the OP intended, right?

I agree, it is high praise, and fully deserved from where I'm sitting. The Yamaha BB1025, which has been a goto bass for several years and will continue to be, is a truly fantastic 5 string passive PJ and hard to beat at its price point. My gigging experience is currently very limited with the Spector - Covid descended just as I was starting to use it in anger: I posted a review earlier in this thread: Spector fans!?! - Page 5 - Bass Guitars - Basschat The Spector Euro 5LX is a different, purely active animal, to the 1025 and, as I've posted elsewhere, has a lot more in common with another Yamaha the flagship BBNE2: The Yamaha BB mega-thread - Page 187 - Bass Guitars - Basschat I've set out in that comparison a number of features that I really like about both basses. Pulling out some of the stand-out features of the Spector, for me these are: tonal variety from single or dual coil for either pup on Spector and ability to mix and blend; meaty, fulsome tone from the EMG 40s plus TonePump preamp (dialled back!) which work really well together; sculpted comfortable body and laminated neck-through which looks and sounds great; playable, comfortable neck and easy to access 2 octave fretboard The fact that I, and much more importantly, MusicPlayers magazine are prepared to consider the Euro 5LX and the NE2 in the same breath is testament to the Spector's quality, not least given that it is significantly lower in price than the NE2.

I nearly ordered a pedal from Musique Shop in France who, with a 5% discount, were coming in just below £135 and seemed to be offering a free courier with UPS. But I fell off my chair at PayPal's crap forex rate which effectively adds another 4.5% (i.e. back up to £137). HSBC & Mastercard between then are not much better at 4% combined "non-sterling" fees. Then factor in possible loss-in-transit and difficulties with returning and paying just £1 more from DV247 (which is the UK branch of a German retailer, Music Store) was a no hassle, no brainer. Be great if Thomann took a similar step and set up a UK branch - dunno if their market share and holding onto a loyal customer base over here would warrant it?

Sorry John, can't help you on that one, but hopefully one of the others can. I do know that I was very pleasantly surprised when I got an older Legend Custom. Gave me the confidence to step up to a Euro 5LX, when Andertons had one in a sale, and which has blown me away - it's very possibly the best gigging bass I will ever have.

High praise indeed to compare a Yamaha (albeit top end) favourably with a Fodera costing several times as much! That's a very helpful comparison coming from someone who knows his way around high-end bases. It's made me feel a little more confident about my previous suggestion of putting my much loved Yamaha BB1025 into bat against your new Sadowsky and no live audience noticing a meaningful difference in the hands of the same player in a band mix.

Gotcha - and that's fair enough. I'm fortunate to still be fine with a shade over 10 lbs, but wouldn't want to go much heavier than this, although @Happy Jack has put me in touch with his double-strap maker from Brazil, which could lighten the load further still, but that one is very considerably above the £20 mark unfortunately.

On the age point, I'm actually not aware of anyone who is 😉 More seriously though, getting a better load bearing strap (in my case Minotaur 11cm / 4.3") has been a revelation and I'm really looking forward to gigging a couple of my heavier basses that I've previously hesitated to take out for 2 hour gigs.

I can't believe you've not discovered how good the B string is a thumb rest? Mutes it beautifully 😂

Hmmm...if it's definitely not aimed at bass players then why does the OC-3 go to the trouble of having a separate "bass" input?

No probs - I'll be able to check it out for myself now! Pedal has just arrived and I'm looking forward to giving it a spin tomorrow. A fellow BC'er said they had sold out on Amazon also now...

You make the case well in terms of some of the potential downsides such as extra weight and neck dive. But now I play 5ers I have zero need for a 4 string and there are few songs where a 5 string doesn't add something (eg positional ease, playing a song an octave lower etc) to what a 4 string offers. And the downsides of incremental extra weight and neck dive are very manageable. So why go to the hassle of taking 2 different ie 4 and 5 string basses to a gig, even if a 4 string should be perfectly good enough for most songs, if a 5er does everything a 4 does and can often add a little more? There may be similar arguments for using a 6 string, once you have mastered the instrument?

You play "native" Yamaha BB bass and do great recordings just on your phone, which more than makes up for it! There is no more universal language, we can share, than music!

At the end of the day, if it sounds good that's all that matters! 😊👍

Very good! The odd digression, with the odd oblique reference to a BB (like how does a Yamaha BB bass sound like with a D class or class A/B amp when played through a YYZ pedal?), after 6,000 posts is a good thing to keep us all entertained. After all, how many times can we remind each other that a 1024 is more refined than a 424? And those of us who prefer a fine red to more plentiful plonk will prefer one over the other 😁

Well my own experience ties in with yours: my Mesa M6 is in a class up from any of the D class heads I've had or tried. However a mate of mine owns and gigged both an M6 and a Berg B|Amp and he rates the B|Amp just as highly. That's a pretty good A/B comparison. I've heard clips of him playing his Berg rig with his band and he sounds great!

Hmmm...maybe. But I think owners of the Berg B|Amp would differ with that conclusion!

Nah, not muddy at all sounds really good in fact, although I understand why that might be something to be concerned about "on paper". If the EQ centre points had been lower, then for sure you wouldn't want to be boosting. But I would like a bit more low end punch as featured on gobasserk's clip. I think some circuits just suck low end more than others eg RAT drives are notorious. I think the VTDI has certain rodent tendencies!

I guess the key point is that further clean blend via an LS2 is not going to particularly add much, which is probably fair. I have it set on low EQ boost (125 Hz on VTDI) plus a touch of low end boost on the DG amp (80 Hz) to address plus a fair bit of clean blend. But the core tone on the YYZ seems fuller.

Yes it does have a blend knob.

Can you take a pic of the settings you had your YYZ pedal on too? That would be interesting to see.

Working for me now, thanks. @gobasserk - enjoyed that! Combination of the bass with the YYZ works well. What's particularly good is that you're not losing much, if any, low end with the YYZ (given me a little bit of pedal GAS!). I think I'm getting more low end loss with the VTDI and maybe blending in some clean with a Boss LS2 might be a plan. What pup setting / combination did you have it on? Be good to hear it without the YYZ also; as we all know, drive pedals can completely mask the "natural" bass tone.

Hah I knew the bass is not for sale, I actually meant the clip 😁 it is coming up as "unavailable".

Is it still available? I really enjoy your clips - the sound quality is always far better than it should be on a phone recording!

I don't think most bass players think it's a bad thing, more that they don't hear any real benefit from having one on their pedal boards when playing live. It seems to me that there are at least as many bassists who are perfectly happy without a pedal board comp as their counterparts who swear by them. Besides, if you are making extensive use of dirt pedals as part of "your sound" you're already getting some compression in your signal, and some amps have compression built in also... ...although I note you regard the TC Spectracomp on the TC amp to be "pants" because it acts like a limiter. Nothing wrong with a limiter though. It's a valid alternative which many bassists are very happy with. It allows your natural sound and playing technique to come through / "breathe" for the most part whilst eliminating unwanted volume spikes. It makes complete sense to use bass compression in a recording studio where the compression can be adjusted to suit the style of music and done expertly by a sound engineer (see comment on attack / release below). And if you're playing at a venue with a decent sound engineer who is going to be compressing your signal anyway - so I completely get where @jrixn1 is coming from with his post above. A lot of bass players use their compressors to get more even volume across their strings as an alternative to adjusting the height of one side of their pups e.g. closer to the top D and G strings, but also to prevent unwanted volume spikes more generally. Dunno if that is what you are referring to as "fixing bad technique?" Agreed. It seems to me that the much of the "magic" of a compressor is in the attack and release settings, which actually should be adjusted for each track to suit the style of playing. Something that a trained sound engineer will do in a recording studio. It also seems to be a facet of compression that is discussed very little and perhaps not widely understood (I certainly don't claim to be an expert!) Again this level of refinement / adjustment makes total sense in the hands of an expert sound engineer in the studio, but less so for a bassist doing DIY compression in the Dog 'n' Duck pub? Just my 2 cents FWIW! 😊