Osiris

I don't really listen to funk but I can appreciate most of the bass playing and players that do it. But what I really don't like is the pulled octave sound, it's an awful, abrasive sound to my ears and when there's load of them in quick succession it sounds like a tumble dryer full of cutlery. Combined with the excessive use of ghost notes, the guys who play that machine gun slap style leave me cold and I can't listen to it for more than a few seconds before moving on. But as has been said, used in moderation and done tastefully it can sound great. And is it just me who thinks it all sounds the same when you're watching a YoutTube clip of a new piece of gear that you're interested in? The guy or girl slapping the bass to death makes it sound like every other slapper, it may well just be me but I can't hear any differences or nuances when gear is demo'd like that.

Can one also assume that self deception (with an optional side salad of ego) also works the other way too? I.e. "I spent a considerable amount of money on this bass ergo it's conclusively better than anything of lesser value". Apologies if this is not what you're saying but having read your last 2 posts it does very much seem to be the implication. At the risk of making this post all about me and deliberately evading the OP's question, in my own personal experience I have played and owned dozens of basses over the years at many different price points, there have been good and bad (for my personal tastes) examples of each regardless of cost. For example, one that stands out as being laughable in its build quality was a Fender USA custom shop jazz bass. It was up for just shy of £3000 but the pricing was clearly out by 2, arguably 3, decimal places. There was a gap in the neck pocket of 2-3mm, the transfer on the head stock was wonky, and from the right angle under the bright lights in the shop you could see where the paint work on the body was streaky. Needless to say I didn't even pick it up let alone plug it in. In contrast to this, my current favourite bass that I own cost £150. New. Admittedly it's had a few hardware upgrades, New bridge, machine heads and pickups, but that's still no more than another £80 or so on top. But the neck is perfect for my tastes, it just feels right. The bass resonates as well as one costing many times more. It plays brilliantly and sounds fantastic. And it has none of the quality issues that the custom shop jazz had despite being built to a budget of some 5% of the former. The only gripe is that it's a touch heavy, not prohibitively so but if it was around a kilo lighter it would help. Admittedly, I've only been playing for around 35 years so I'm still at that stage where I can comfortably delude myself that this is the right bass for me, that this bass is somehow the best. What is also unhelpful is nebulous terms like "the best" which usually seem to go unqualified for some reason, what metrics are being used to measure bestness? Ultimately, in my own personal experience - which may well be the absolute antithesis of yours - the "best" bass is the one that's right for you, the one that puts a grin on your face every time you play it. It doesn't matter whether it costs £50 or 5000, in my experience price has only ever been indicative of cost, a higher price not always giving the guarantee of improved quality. And while we're talking about me and my ego the size of a planet, Basschat is almost exclusively a friendly, helpful, relaxed and fun place to hang out. With a couple of your first posts suggesting that some of the members may be delusional and egotistical may not necessarily be "the best" way of being welcomed by other members.

Cheers, Stub, I'll see if I can find some suitably sized neodymium magnets.

By this, do you mean use the neodymium magnets as an extension of the pole pieces? I.e. with the originals pushed further into (or out of the bottom of) the pickup, with the neos pushed up against them and acting as new pole pieces? Or push them down and place a neodymium magnet over the top of the (now flat) pickup? Or something else? The reason I'm asking is that I've just received an Entwistle PJ set and they're so good that I'm looking to turbo charge one of my other basses.

That colour looks more Asda than Woolworths to me.

I just couldn't get a sound out of the BDDI that I liked. I've heard others use it and it sounded great but no matter what I did with it I couldn't get the sound that I wanted. Ditto the Dark Glass B7K, it sounds great when I hear others using it but I can't get a sound out of it that I like or works for me. That's not to say it's bad, just not for me.

It goes up to 12.

Cheers, Davie, it's been an absolute pleasure.

I contacted Davie in response to a wanted ad for a short scale neck, which he didn't buy but in the course of our ramblings I ended up buying a set of pickups from him 😀 As has been said above he's a great guy to deal with, friendly and funny, and he was honest and humble enough to refund me some money when I inadvertently overpaid. He did that of his own accord, highlighting that I'd paid too much. That makes him an absolute gentlemen in my book. Cheers, Davie, you're a Basschat legend.

Me too. And the VT Bass. I desperately wanted to like both but couldn't get on with either. But the dUg Pinnick pedal was awesome.

I was doing something similar where I was running the same signal to FOH and my IEM's, a dual mono output as I don't use any stereo effects. There was a subtle additional EQ curve added at the desk but otherwise the signals were effectively the same and this worked really well for me. I think there might be a way to route the signal how you want, however have a read through the Stomp manual first to be sure, you can download it from the Line 6 website and it's very clearly written. If I understand what you're trying to do correctly, you might be able to build a single signal path and then split the signal into 2 (one for each output) at the end, and maybe put an additional EQ block on one of them.

I've got one of the older (2015 I think?) black ones with what looks like a rosewood fretboard, it's been modded a little; new bridge, pickups, pots, jack, some metal silver knobs, stick on mother of pearl block markers and some lighter weight machine heads. But that was probably less than £50 worth of upgrades. And as everyone is saying, these are ridiculously great basses. The neck is sublime, more on the chunky side than some other shorties but far from cumbersome. It's one of my favourite neck profiles and in more than 30 years of playing it's one of my favourite basses that I've ever played. Mine is also what I'd call medium weight, heavier than my Mustang but not so heavy that it's a problem. I've gigged it many times and not had any shoulder or back ache from it.

Exactly, I probably only only use 5% of what my Stomp is capable of, including amp and cab modelling as well as EQ's mimicking speaker profiles. There's a ton of stuff in there that I don't use but it's good to know it's there should I ever want it.

As has already been mentioned, the TC Electronic Spectracomp is ostensibly as simple as they come. And it's a fraction of the cost of the ones you've listed in your original post too! But it's not a one trick pony either, if you use the free TC Tone Print app, you have access to a load of different compression types so you can reconfigure the pedal in quite literally a couple of seconds. There's also the option of some PC editing to craft your own compression tone print but with some 50 or so parameters to configure it can be a bit daunting! I was so impressed with the Spectracomp that I ended up getting the Hyper Gravity which is essentially the same pedal but with 4 control knobs instead of 1. You can assign any parameter (or up to 3 at once) to a control knob so that the pedal works exactly how you want it to. For example I've set mine up to work as a 3 band combined compressor and EQ with what's effectively an adjustable high pass filter. But you don't have to do anything like that, the tone prints give you more than enough choice. From the ones you mentioned, the Cali is great, do believe the hype on that one. Personally I found the Aguilar TLC utterly insipid, one to avoid if you're looking for any sort of tonal enhancement. Another simple but excellent compressor pedal is the Boss bass limiter, which is a compressor and limiter in one. The cork sniffers might not approve as it's a Boss but they're simple to use and sound great. Just keep the Enhance dial very low or even off! If you're considering just a boost pedal, you can't go wrong with the TC Electronic Spark Booster, either the small one, another small pedal with a single control knob that gives a transparent boost. There's also the bigger one with has a 2 band EQ plus some low gain drive if you want it.

If true, clearly Line 6 aren't in total agreement with their own marketing https://line6.com/hx-effects/ 😝😝😝

Wise words. I do the same so I know what to do when I need to tweak things on the fly. And it's not difficult either, a very simple and intuitive interface on the Stomp, the only difficulty being knowing how to get the best out of it but that comes with sinking the time in and experimenting with different options.

Assuming the HXFX has the same various EQ choices as the rest of the range, you have the option to round off your drive tone with one of those and/or an IR. As has already been mentioned there's a number of EQ settings online that mimic speaker profiles.

But isn't the idea of the HXFX that it's an effects unit (there might be a clue in the name somewhere 😉) for people who are using it through a traditional rig? In that regard it makes perfect sense as well as keeping costs down for those who don't want or need the amp & cab models.

Same here, I've been A/B'ing the new compressor on my patches and am probably going to swap it out on 3 of my 4 gigging patches. I just need to hear it at volume with the band before committing, but that could be a while! I'll likely stick with the essential 3 band comp model for one of my basses where I use it more like a combined comp and EQ as it seems to flatter the tone of that particular bass. The Xenomorph is also a lot of fun, someone mentioned earlier about using that as the basis for a DIY synth patch and I can see that working a treat. I need to play with the Red Llama a bit more, it sounded a big boxy when I briefly tried it but I suspect that its inherent mid bump didn't play too well with the slightly mid biased IR that I'm currently using.

I've fitted a set of 4-in-a-line tuners to a 2+2 headstock before and I had no trouble with it. The ones being replaced were the big elephant ear style and I fitted a set of smaller, lighter weight ones. The only issue, if you can call it that, as @fleabag said, is that the heads on the D and G strings turned the opposite way to those on my other 2+2 bass but that doesn't bother me in the slightest.

Maybe, but let's be honest, we'll all be buying them for the artwork alone.

Good shout, I'm a bit ham fisted though so somewhat reluctant to start gouging holes in the bass, but I might give it a go if I'm feeling brave 😃

Thank you, I really appreciate it.

There's been mention that the PBXN is a deep pickup, if yours isn't currently installed in a bass would you mind taking a quick depth measurement, including any protruding magnets, please? I'm thinking of sticking a PJ set in my cheap and cheerful bass.

You can use any latching foot switch with the Magellan 800, I've used 2 or 3 different ones with mine and never had any problems.