Al Krow

Am thinking about upgrading the preamp on my BB2005, which is feeling a little tired on what is, otherwise, a great bass. Any of you swapped out the preamp on your active Yamahas and could recommend me something that worked well?

Interesting / helpful feedback - which Shure model did you have?

Already been said by Dan! ^^ Plus I had the pleasure of collecting the unit in person this morning and enjoying the company and hospitality of a true gent.

Nice review, thanks Greg! @Reggaebass - check out the ultra low at 4.10 - ooof!! Methinks that could be just up your street!

That does look lovely! Does it sound as good as it looks?!

To deal with low lighting, get a decent chip size if you can 1" , 4/3, or APS-C - that will help get much better low light pictures and videos, and reduce "noise". Get a model with a separate input for an external microphone - camera in-built microphones don't tend to be that good. Mirrorless should be just fine, you don't necessarily need to step up to the bulkier DSLR.

Exactly this!

Little confession time: I've been wanting to love my Spector Euro 5LX bass for a long while, because it's such a good bass - it's got such a meaty Spector EMG growl and punchy low end which immediately announces you're there to an audience and cuts through the mix effortlessly, but it's played second fiddle to my lighter Elrick for some while (also a great bass) and I've had it up for sale on and off for 6 months as it wasn't getting used. My particular issue has I've just not been able to find a way wear it comfortably - it's felt a bit too heavy and the fretboard extension was at a tiring angle for my left arm. Fortunately I managed to resist near offers and gave it another go with a wide padded Minotaur strap tonight combined with slightly shortening the strap length. Bingo!! 2 hour gig tonight it felt just fine, well actually more than fine. Singer commented on what a great looking bass it was (it is!) and drummer loved the tone. I'm not disagreeing with either of them 😊

Aha sorry - you're quoting Jon Willis, which actually makes it doubly poignant for me, given that his Stomp patches have a big fan-base amongst Stomp users.

@Bigwan this comment of yours really caught my eye: "As much fun as I’ve had with the Stomp over the years, it’s been lacklustre for me in a LIVE setting. The Ampeg SGTDI gave me everything I required with minimal tweaking." Could you elaborate for us a bit please on what the difference you're hearing between the two that makes the Stomp "lacklustre" whereas the SGTDI really hits the mark?

I seem to be collecting these, just now! Getting noise issues on my main gigging bass (Elrick) with both the Lekato and Nux, but not with the Boss WL-20s, but not on my Spector Euro 5LX. So am wondering whether this might be down to a shielding / earthing issue on the Elrick preamp - will investigate. Update June 2023: the issue with the Elrick was the barrel jack connection which has been replaced. All fine now

This is the other thread running in parallel 😊 Boss wireless alternative? - Accessories and Misc - Basschat

@Woodinblackwould it be worth merging this and the Alternatives to Boss wireless threads, as they are covering pretty identical ground simultaneously?

[Previous problem identified could be a shielding issue on the bass preamp - comment deleted].

I've had: (Crowded) 2.4 GHz space Smooth-hound - great piece of kit and Chris, the UK manufacturer, provided fantastic customer service e.g. replacing the plastic battery cover which has a tendency to easily break, without charge. Shure GLXD16 - didn't really find much, if any, benefit over the Smooth-hound and it's significantly bulkier / more expensive, so moved it on; Boss WL-20, super compact; frees up space on the pedal board and has generally been really good, but I've been experiencing drop outs (like the OP) recently since we've started using wireless IEMs in the same 2.4 GHz space; 5.8 GHz Tempted to go for the Shure GLXD16+, but £549 price tag - ouch! That's one expensive "cable" 😅 Lekato WS-50 (around £60)

These look good, but I guess I was hoping they might deliver a significant improvement in latency for the 2.5x price premium, but apparently not? Nux C-5RC 5.8GHz, Latency 5ms, Range 30M Lekato WS-50 5.8GHz, Latency 6ms, Range 100M (I'm guessing pinch of salt time for that) Correction - manual says 30M+ (unlike the larger figure on the website)

Cheers Lozz, They're actually Lekato WS-50 (5.8 GHz) - normally £60 but Amazon have them on currently for £48 so I thought I'd give them a punt. I've had pretty good experience with the Lekato kit I've had - really good vfm, so fingers crossed with this. I've got my Boss WL-20s (2.4 Ghz) as a fall back, but was getting a disappointing amount of drop out at a gig on Sat night to the extent I ended up firstly standing right next to the receiver and then swapping it out for a good old fashioned cable by the second set! The drop out maybe entirely related to us starting to use wireless IEMs as noted by Russ in his post above.

I mean it claims 100m range. I'd be content with 20m so there's some headroom there and 6ms latency, which I can live with and comparable to Smooth-hound, which were fine. So if the 5.8 Ghz means it drops out less and hopefully not at all, then that should be fine. I'm about to find out...

Well I've just ordered a pair of wireless bugs costing half the price the Xvive U2s that kept dropping out and, as they're 5.8 GHz, represent a truly poor man's version of the Shure GLXD16+. What could possibly go wrong? 😂

Must admit I'm very tempted to step up to the GLXD16+ because of its available 5.8GHz band which is going to be outside the crowded 2.4GHz space - I've found my WL-20s intermittently cutting-out / not really giving me much range recently at a couple of venues maybe coinciding with the band also starting to use wireless IEMs also operating at 2.4GHz. Baulking at the £549 price tag, though (as that's more than I've just spent on our mixing desk, which seems the wrong way around!) and I managed to pick up my WL-20s used for < £100 and really enjoyed using them for the past couple of years.

As another MB LM3 former user and currently with a AC 121 Lite, suggest checking out the Bugera Veyron 1001M which delivers around 800W, is very good value and very well featured.

PS @SumOne interested that you found the Boss GT 1000 Core to be the "best sounding", particularly given you've had quite a broad range of the popular models. Could you articulate for us what you were hearing with that multifx, that makes you give it such high praise?

Oh believe me, I love the 18 month sale or return (at full price) policy you seem to operate! 😅

Wow! It is a pretty harsh overall summary! "Combining obsolete hardware, awful sounds and baffling limitations, Zoom’s latest multi-effects pedals are overpriced, underpowered and completely outclassed by the competition." Not sure that I agree at all with the "awful sounds" and comment about "baffling" in relation to its limitations. But I've sympathy for rest of the statement, which is why I personally am not tempted to upgrade my B1-4 to the B2-4, but have jumped ship, entirely, to another more capable multifx. I still rate the B1-4 as being the best bang-per-buck multifx available and having been a Zoom fanboi, I'm disappointed with the missed opportunity that the B2-4 seems to represent.

Actually triple parallel paths so you can eg stream LF/MF/HF separately - I'm sure folk will be able to make use of that tri-band capability; plus a ridiculous 24 effects blocks, which should mean setting up whatever your favourite clean tone is and being able to use it on every patch if you want to, and then layer your fx on top. 250 patches should also allow a patch per song for most of us (I appreciate several BC folk will have an even larger repertoire than that) and then order the first 30 or so into a 2 hour set which can be easily scrolled through. Obviously there's a fair bit of work involved, but being able to copy and paste will certainly help and once the work is done presets are an absolute god-send for songflow. Just gonna need to see if I can persuade our guitarist to abandon his pedal board dance routine and go multifx now! I've loved my B1-4; it's provided a lot of what I've needed as a simple one stop shop mini-board. And for the money it's incredible value - less than the cost of many single dedicated effects pedals.