Osiris

Sorry Skinnybabes, I'll stop flirting with you in public if it makes you squirm.

Mildred my dear, or may I call you Skinnybabes? Anyway, I see you've listed your Magellan (you'll regret that) and are now DI'ing into the PA. I'm going to suggest that you bin the idea of a 5 string altogether and get something like a Helix Stomp instead. Not only will you have a ton of amp and cab models for DI'ing straight into the PA but there's a number of options in there such as the Simple Pitch block that does a very convincing pitch shifting for lower (or upper if that's your thing) tunings. I was using a Stomp with the last band who were on IEM's and used the Simple Pitch for anything lower than an E, it worked a treat and nobody noticed that I was cheating, not even the keys player who was very picky about things sounding right. The Stomp will work out much cheaper than a decent 5 string, will allow you to continue to use your current basses and will also give you a tuner, compressor, HPF and a shed load of other toys in one box. More importantly it has lots of bright coloured LED's on it.

I've no doubt it's a sublime bass, perfectly made and a joy to behold but you've got to admit, with that colour scheme it does kind of look like the morning after

Please don't post a picture of it otherwise I'll report you to err... you, I guess?

Boring basses for me tonally tend to be expensive active basses. Yes they are very versatile with their on board pre-amps but most active basses sound sterile and a bit soulless to me, they often lack the character of a good passive instrument. I'll take one or 2 great sounds over a million mediocre ones. In terms of aesthetics, it's the drab and dreary sunburst monstrosities that bore me. And tort scratch plates, I don't understand why anyone thinks they look good, but each to their own. Needless to say for me, a turdburst and tort combination is about the least attractive finish on any bass whatever brand and regardless of cost.

I've just measured up from the strap pin on the top horn to the nut on my Mustang and it's 38 cm, so I reckon it should in the case if the neck support s 38 cm. But Mr @Thunderbird says he has one and he lives just down the road from me so I might just invite myself around when we're allowed to mix freely again to see if my Mustang will fit in his case

Has anyone tried one of these G4M cases (either the rectangular one or the shaped one) with a short scale bass? I'm looking for a cheap and cheerful hard foam case for my Mustang but my concern is that the central neck support channel could be too long for a shorter neck. Has anyone used one of these with a Mustang or other 30" scale bass? Did it fit?

And people who want a cab that looks like a filing cabinet.

Just received a wireless transmitter pouch thingy from Nick. Everything went well with the transaction and Nick is a good guy to deal with.

As has already been mentioned, you cannot go wrong with the Ibanez Mikro, it's 28 and a half inch scale makes it just slightly larger than a regular 6 string guitar. *Shameless sale plug*, but I have one for sale which I bought with the intention of teaching my son but unfortunately, he wasn't interested in playing. Drop me a line if you're tempted

I'm not sure which predates the other but someone has covered the others video while paying different songs.

The original 80's pop song Smalltown Boy by Bronski Beat And a superb cover and rework of the song by Paradise Lost, which puts its own stamp on the song while retaining much of the feel of the original. I much prefer this to the original; Then there's the post punkesque Diane by Husker Du, nothing special in itself IMO, Which was given a haunting rework and a superb cover by Therapy? There's no question as to which the more powerful version.

That answers that then 😃 Cheers.

Inspired by @dave_bass5 I'm starting to think of doing something similar, i.e. using a midi controller with my Stomp which would then live on top of the amp out of the way. Now, I know absolutely nothing about midi, but like Dave I like the look of the Tech 21 midi mongoose, but from what you're saying you don't think it would work as a block on/off switcher? It'd be a shame if it doesn't as that's all I'd want it to do, just 2 or 3 footswitches to kick things on and off. From the Stomp manual it says on page 48; Block Bypass via MIDI 1. Press PAGE and PAGE together to open the Menu. 2. Press Knob 1 (Bypass Assign). 3. Turn the Upper Knob to select the block whose bypass you want to assign to incoming MIDI. 4. Press PAGE and then Knob 3 (Learn). Send a MIDI CC message from your foot controller, keyboard, etc. The CC number appears above Knob 1 (MIDI In). Incoming CC values 0-63 turn the block off; values 64-127 turn the block on. Note that some MIDI CCs are reserved for global functions and cannot be selected (see "MIDI CC"). NOTE: To manually select a MIDI CC, instead of step 4 above, press PAGE and turn Knob 1 (MIDI In) to select the desired MIDI CC number. Am I right in thinking that you could use something like the midi mongoose to switch blocks on and off? As I understnd the blurb from the manual it looks like it should be possible (unless I've misunderstood it, as I said I know nothing about midi!) Ideally I'd also want the LED to indicate on and off but from what you're saying it wouldn't work like that. Any thoughts?

No, it's not just you, I'm the same. Although I use online resources I still like having a book to refer to but I've found that many of the ones I've bought over the years have explained relatively simple ideas in needlessly difficult ways so that if and wen the penny drops I end up thinking "is that it"? Modes are a prefect example, I'd spent ages trying to get my head around them and once it clicked I couldn't understand how anyone could have made such a simple concept into such a complex subject. The book that made the penny drop on modes and a few other things was actually Bass guitar from Dummies, someone bought it for me as a novelty Christmas present years ago (I'd already been playing for 20 or more years by that point) and it's perfect for my style of learning. It's just simple, straight forward paragraphs that make no effort to blind you with science, there's music and tab plus a CD to play along to too. You have to ignore the Americanisms in it and the bland humour but otherwise I highly recommend it. It's the theory book for people who don't like theory books. I've got about 3/4 of the way through it but still reference some of the earlier stuff from time to time.

It's not something I've tried or needed to do as I don't find that the controls are in the way for the way I play. But I can't see any reason why it couldn't be done if you wanted to move them, although you'd probably be restricted as to where the routes are under the scratch plate unless you're thinking of doing some additional routing. Obviously you'd only be able to move the 2 on the scratch plate itself as the third control is on the metal strat style input thingy. Out of interest, why are you thinking of moving the controls?

I've had my Talman for 2 or 3 years now so I'm well and truly over the honeymoon period you get with a new toy. But for me the Talman is still very much my go to bass. As you said, they're great, and not just for the money. I've gigged mine dozens of times and it has always been comfortable, easy to play and sounded good*. It's a little overweight for a short scale but not to the point that it's a problem. *I bought it off a mate who'd changed the original pickups so I can't comment on what the stock pickups sound like. For the past couple of years I had a set of PJ pickups fitted from, I think, a non DE Scorpio Peavey Zodiac. These sounded very good, but I recently picked up a PJ set of Entwistle neodymium pickups from a guy on the forum and now it's a beast, what a huge, clear and punchy tone! I've only played it in the house, but I'm itching to try it with a band once we're able to. These really are superb little basses and a couple of inexpensive upgrades can make them compete with instruments that cost several times the price.

This is mine, (apologies for the crap camera phone pic), with replacement chrome knobs... Plus a replacement £10 eBay high mass bridge and a set of Entwistle neodymium PJ pickups. The end result, one of the most comfortable, biggest sounding basses I've ever played in more than 35 years of playing bass.

@Frank Blank, do you still have your Helix Stomp? I think I'm right in saying that you can use that as an interface, although it's not something that I've done myself.

You didn't used to be able to, but I think (don't quote me on this just yet, I need to double check on my Moby) on the newest version of the Tone Print app there's a pencil icon in each Tone Print, and if you click on that you can then see the behind the scenes parameters and edit them to create your own patch, which you can save and beam to the pedal through your pickups. Having said that, I found it a really difficult to dial in the settings on a phone screen, especially when trying to add the parameters of the sweep of the control knobs as the knob position (ooh err) icons are tiny. But it can be done with a bit of patience.

The tone prints are a load of pre-set settings that you can't easily edit unless you go out of your way, you can edit them either via the phone app or by hooking up to a PC. But most of the tone prints are a great starting point and can give you a taste of the variety of compression types you can get from the pedal. But if you're in the editing software, that's a whole new world of pain if you don't know what you're doing 😀. Saying that I used the editing software to craft my own multiband patch for my HyperGravity as there's no off the shelf pedal that delivers what I want it to do.

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.