Al Krow

I'm clearly part of a minority then in being comfortable with being told how much folks' basses weigh in lbs and also clearly deluded in thinking that our speed limits are still stated in mph, despite it apparently being an imperial measure which is not in "wide use in the UK" 😁

Well I've been sorely tempted to dip my toe and try out a HB for a while, as they seem to get consistent reviews as being fantastic value for money e.g. Harley Benton Enhanced MP-5EB which costs a fraction of a Sandberg VM5 and is one of the few other basses with a reverse-P set up on a 5 string bass. Weight has been the key deal breaker for me - the HB basses are on the heavy side (e.g. the 5EB in the clip is around 11lbs!) although I have managed to get hold of a decent wide strap this year which has made my heavier basses much more comfortable to play for longer periods but, personally, I'd still prefer basses ideally no heavier than 10 lbs. Thomann are pretty reluctant to confirm the weight of their basses for some reason - I did think about messaging them today, but rather than hang around and get another "sorry we can't confirm that for you" response, I thought it might be time to come off the fence and find out for myself! They had a B stock Marquess available for £233 (including VAT and shipping) and a 30 day return policy. I've spent that much (and more) on a single effects pedal but also on a used Yamaha BB 425, which is actually quite a high bar as basses go. I'll report back in a couple of weeks to allow time for delivery and when I've had a chance to put it through its paces.

Ah yes - that explains why the Marquess is such a good looker. I'm guessing that HB are actually paying tribute / acknowledging the Marleaux design heritage of their bass by using the same syllabic prefix to the name i.e. Mar-quess vs Mar-leaux? Or am I over thinking this? 😁

35" scale improved (silent according to the review) 2 band preamp 24 frets laminated 5 piece neck head turning design! Here's a review of the 5 string from their new Marquess model. HB are clearly heading further up-market with their basses and methinks they are going to continue winning new converts as they do so.

Shame they've not spotted the gap in the market like these guys, for £295 new, shipped:

Thanks both! Am I correct that there was no 5 string version of that bass - in fact there's never been a 5 string reverse-P Yamaha BB?

Couldn't help notice they were using a Yammy BB (latest series - guessing a P34) on the set of "A Star is Born":

Andy - what is that body of the bass? It has a reverse-P rather than the usual config.

Cool. There are some big DP-3X fans elsewhere on BC (and on Talkbass). Let's hear some recordings of it with your Yamaha BB!

Yup. Harley Benton PowerPlant ISO-2 Pro – Thomann UK

HB Iso Pro series from Thomann, will cover everything you're after. I have the 5 and the 12 under my boards. I've previously had Ciocks and OneSpot (which are very good), but the HB series are even more compact and hard to beat for value.

I read that NZ is currently going into a 3 day national lockdown over just ONE case?!! Is that correct?

Ah yes, sorry I missed that in your OP. The MXR M288 has a decent fan base on BC - mine was ridiculously noisy which seems to be a feature of about half of the older units, which meant it didn't last on my board; but if you're in the "good half" then that's at least good news. For me if it's trade off between very minor potential comb filtering risk and pretty obvious glitching, I will try to avoid the latter every time. So I personally would still get the excellent OC-5 and put it in parallel in poly mode, if I was starting from scratch. But it sounds to me that you're getting there with low-enough tracking on your MXR from your comment above, so I guess see if that works and if it does, you're good to go!

+1^^ I think the comb-filter phase effect is only really going to be discernible if you have digital effects in a parallel loop (and even then may not be particularly noticeable). As Doddy states, in a standard series layout, phasing from a digital pedal shouldn't be a concern at all - loads of us are using digital pedals all the time.

Nux Loop Core Deluxe would fit into your price bracket. It was #2 on my shortlist, but I decided to fork out the extra and get a Boss RC-5 (which is the refresh of the older RC-3 model as SumOne mentions above). The other approach is to go with something decent but budget e.g. Lekato Loop Station plus a separate drum source e.g. from Zoom B1-4 - I've found that works really well too, and would come within budget. You obviously then get a ton more on top from your B1-4 as a multifx / headphone amp / tuner etc.

That's 'cos they didn't. But their sexagesimal based system (e.g. 6x10 mins in the hour) has taken the world be storm. Actually it was originally thought to be the bright idea of the Sumerians who passed it on to the Babylonians. Why was it such a good system? Its mathematical advantages for writing and calculating fractions.

Just correcting your correction 😁

1kg = 2.2lbs 1" = 2.54cm 1 mile = 1.61km Oh and the Babylonians also invented a great system based on 6 rather than 10...check your watch some time. 12 hours in a waking day and the same again for night, a bit like 12" in a foot? Now why would anyone divide something by 12 instead of 10? As for 7 days in a week and months being a random 28 to 31 days in length...and, God forbid, that you might wander into your local and ask for a "pint"?! That's what I am speaking of. 😄

Phil some excellent observations (as usual!). I do wonder whether in a band max the MB instead of sounding as though it had a "fuller bass" it would have felt like the cab had "a blanket over it" and was much less articulate than Fearless/BF/Berg/VK etc.

Fridges still live on: now that's surely food for thought! 😁

I agree with @Doddy that glitching at the low end of the scale is a feature of many octave pedals. Apologies if this is off topic - but if you want excellent low tracking with minimal latency, great value, a pedal which totally nails the OC-2 sound as well as offering a decent octave up, then look no further than the Boss OC-5. The OP mentions polyphonic mode and the tracking is particularly tight with the OC-5 set to poly mode.

Cheers Andy - thanks for the offer of holding on to it for me. Appreciated! That could be a really good workaround if he's willing to drop it off; and the Walshy man with van is also another decent option. I'll probably "live" with the chrome machinehead before replacing the lot with some ultralites. I know that's sacrilege - but it will shave the best part of 1lb in weight I suspect, and I could get maybe the head refi'd at the same time to sort out that unsightly chip. I'm also trying to track down a decent local London luthier who won't charge the earth...

What work needs doing, Andy? He wants a quick sale, hence his pricing and not keen to hold onto it for me. We've agreed to speak next month if it hasn't shifted.

Cheers Andy, a PJ neck-through 5er with 24 frets at sub £700. Yup!! I've messaged him - just need to work out how to collect the thing! Bit of a trek up to Liverpool from the Old Smoke. My daughter is up at Manchester uni, but term is not starting for a little while but I could potentially coordinate with a trip up to see her in the autumn if he's prepared to hold on to it for me.

Another +1 for Barefaced. I was very pleasantly gobsmacked how much better the lateral dispersion from my BF SC was compared to the very decent MB 112 I had been using beforehand.