Al Krow

Oooh, you really are getting some fancy Yamaha basses aren't you? First a PH and now an Attitude! What's given you this sudden high-end bug?

Wouldn't surprise me. It seems to be a regular secret mistress of a few of us Yammy lovers! (Oh and I'd best start doing some marketing 101 courses, apparently, so I can get hired by them...but I'd have thought the fact that a fellow BC'er has literally over 30 Spectors would be 'nuff said about how good they are?)

Jeez...it took literally 15 seconds to confirm and, I didn't have anything more pressing to do with those 15 seconds. Besides, it was a useful check to make sure it was the battery and not some other fault.

Nope! Have an AO drive on my DG AO 900 with comp and EQ all on tap...ok it lacks the presets that TC have been offering on their RH450 and RH750 for the past decade and the Berg BiAmp has been doing for a few years, and that this pedal is now also offering. But I'll probs be able to muddle along for a while yet. Be interesting to see if they integrate the presets tech into their next series of amps. And, nope, I won't be upgrading then either! 😉

I'm due to win the lottery soon, then! I've just had to change the battery on one of my active basses a couple of days ago. Measured the voltage on it and it was as dead as a dodo...I'd best pop out and buy a ticket 🙂

Hey matey, I went for the more budget option of a Glock 3 band EQ, partly based on the recommendations of another Carvin BB owner who had trodden the same path before me and really liked the upgrade. Very glad I did: it's made a massive positive difference replacing a very tired stock Carvin preamp with the Glock - the bass has really come alive. And having found a superb lovely tech, relatively local to me (our very own @gary mac, whom I'm really happy to give a plug to as he is too modest to do so himself), I'm much more open to thinking about similar improvements to basses I know that will be keepers. Appreciate that you can spend £150 to £200 on parts and labour on this stuff, which you may well not recoup on a resale - fortunately the Carvin upgrade was actually "pre-paid" in the sense that the seller recognised the sorry state of the existing preamp and adjusted his price down to take account of it. But if you're going to be holding onto the bass for a while, then that changes the cost / benefit perspective entirely.

Haha - very true and mostly correct! And yup, I know that's my line / stuck record / petard! 😁 However... Currently I have the NE mid-cut set on by-pass so it's pretty much pointless being on there - be nice to have a full 3 band EQ like the NE2 had and, being able to give the mids a boost occasionally can be quite a useful feature to have on tap, live. Would essentially mean replacing the pre-amp, but again not necessarily a bad thing in 17 y/o bass - the electronics are not entirely immune to w&t and folk do speak very highly of John East's preamps. If I'm getting that done, then may as well think about changing the NE switch to an active / passive one - always nice to have the "emergency" option of switching to passive if the battery cuts out mid-set; in which case I may as well, at the same time, look into changing the volume pot (as per DocJ's suggestion above) to a push / pull parallel / series set-up for the pups. The latter two would be "nice to haves" that my NE2 didn't feature. The BB2005 is already one of my all time favourite basses, despite having cost me a lot less than many others. In addition to its sound and build quality, I particularly love the way it's beautifully balanced with zero neck dive which makes it so comfortable to wear. With these electronic upgrades / tweaks, I may just end up with something I actually like more than my old NE2, but for less than half the used price.

Just had a little catch up with Max and he's pointed out that he's had the spec for the Thumpinator up for the past 12 months or so: Cut-off frequency: ~25Hz Slope: 36 dB/oct Good to finally put the record straight on that. That's pretty steep and explains why it's such an effective tool for eliminating low end crud! He also confirmed that the only the layout had changed between the Mk1 and Mk2 versions i.e. the slope and cut/off remained the same. He was also interested to hear about this little offering from Zorg, which he'd not come across previously.

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... 😄