Al Krow

I recently posted this on another bass thread... ...and got light-hearted quip that I should get signed up by Spector's marketing dept. My thoughts (following @cetera's format): a) absolutely love to if they pay me; b) I really ought to do more vids for fun; c) the Euro 5LX is a fantastic bass and he'd know exactly what I was talking about if he had one; d) I did once do a Showreel in my 'family' front room... 😊

A little taken aback by your reference to your bandmates of 2 years as "these people" - not sure you meant that to come across as harsh as it sounds? My bandmates, current line up has been together 5 years now, are exactly what it says on the tin i.e. "mates" I'm in a band with. All of whom happen to be more talented musicians than me. We've been through ups and downs and had our squabbles for sure, but, at end of the day, I treasure the journey that I've been on with them.

My BB2005 has the stock pre-amp set up as follows: Following on from the v interesting / useful chat above, I'm thinking that the following mod might work well: 1. Pup/Blend --> Pup/Blend + push-pull Parallel (down) & Series (up) 2. Vol (unchanged) 3. B --> T 4. T --> M 5. NE mid cut --> B 6. NE by-pass --> active/passive What do you reckon? Oh and maybe swapping the chrome knobs --> black knobs to match the pups, but jury still out on that one, given the bridge and tuners are chrome.

I think this "Rioli mod" could really catch on! I don't have your bass tech skills, Maude, but I know an excellent chap who does, so it's gonna cost me a bit more than for you to sort. But be a great mod to see if I can get expertly done to both my BB2005 and BB1025, which are both keepers, and maybe swap out the NE mid cut on 2005 at the same time, which I'm not using at all, for a full 3 band EQ. Potentially make two awesome basses, awesomer...going on my 2022 wish list!

That was quick!! But are 3Ps an unholy trinity? I always thought the trinity = P + J + MM?

Always super impressed by any bass player who can double up on vocals - IME soooo much trickier running the bass and melody lines, than strumming chords and singing! Those chaps Geddy/Sting/Lemmy and not forgetting McCartney/Lynott/Quatro are all awesome.

Lot of wisdom in that, Stew, thanks for sharing.

That's very positive news to hear. What sort of music genre will you guys be playing? It's sometimes really refreshing having a break from a particular bass, which you know deep down is a treasure but may have become a little aurally stale from being constantly played. When you come back to it, you get that "oh yeah, that's why I fell in love with that bass!" Had that with my Spector recently - set it on bridge pup and started playing notes on the low E and B strings. My initial thoughts were that there must be something up with the amp as it was not coming through perfectly clean. And then it twigged, there was no problem with anything. Just that delicious Spector growl!

Great stuff - and I'm sure deservedly so! I think most audiences rarely notice nuances of bass tone that we BC'ers endlessly angst over, but they have no difficulty in recognising a great sounding band and tight rhythm section when they hear one.

Small world...my mother in law grew up in Witney and the "grandparents" continued to live there for many years after while they were alive.

Any feedback from the gig - how did it go with a guitarist covering on bass? Part of me thinks it wasn't a bad thing that they did: rather than have to cancel the gig, they got someone in last minute who was familiar with the set. I can understand that. I don't think that's saying you're unimportant? And surely a bigger "threat" would have been if they had brought in another bass player who turned out to be (in keeping with the thread's garden theme!) the bee's knees? PS hope you make a full and swift recovery from C-19.

Makes sense. I guess RCF are still setting the bar in terms of quality then?

Sounds like spending the extra on RCF quality for our sub and tops may have been no bad thing? Although the better value Alto, QSC, Headrush and Thomann gear all seem to be getting a good reception on here.

In relation in to my second question a few days back... I've spotted that Phil had already provided an answer to this a couple of years back, in his excellent post, at the start of this thread:

If you fit a series / parallel option to your 424X, together with the reverse-P J set up you've already put on it, and it then ends up sounding as kick-ass as we're thinking it might, why on earth would you want to move it on anyway? Instead, I'd give Yamaha a call and tell them (and or PH) you've come up with a masterbuilt option that they might want to check out...

That was quite enlightening! I'd say the duo sounded "wetter" solo, but would more likely get lost in a band mix and vice versa for the single which would cut through better in the mix. Nicely done Q - already had comments from fellow BC'ers that they can never seem to get their filters sounding as good as you've just managed!

Well it was a great suggestion! Only took us 315 pages to get there... 😄

You going for a push / pull pot set-uo to keep both series and parallel options available like the Doc ordered for his?

But it's giving Peter a different tonal colour, which is what's it's all about here, believe me. Famous audience be damned! 😁

Sounds like a tasty additional option! Wonder why it's not made more widely available? Turn your Yamaha into a Spector, when the context justifies. I mean what's not to like about having that at your finger tips?! Just need to get @Maude to do this as his next mod to his souped-up BB424...

Very cool - and something I suspect a "proverbial" audience would very much warm to! 😉 How does that differ from the same lick played through just one MXR BEF?

Interesting! What difference did you find having them in series? Nice touch being able to switch between parallel and series, as we, with the push / pull pot - more tonal choice from the same bass is always nice to have in terms of versatility.

Yeah fair enough - we've all been there. Not everything is going to pan out perfectly for everyone all the time - otherwise we'd probably all end up playing a Fender P with flats just to keep sound engineers happy! Hope you manage to get it away for a good price.

Yup, that does look good! And great value too (half the price of my RCF)!

Just for my education: is it mainly the body shape / "sharp" edge that's the issue? Are you otherwise liking the core Ric tone?