Osiris

There's also the Jackson Minion bass which is another 28 and half inch ish scale length, I've had a play on one and it seems a very capable little bass and it has that classic Jackson styling which takes those of us of a certain age back to the 80's with our long hair, skin tight jeans with Peace Sells But Who's Buying blaring out of the cassette deck* *Well it did for me anyway!

Another vote for the Ibanez Mikro, they're 28 and half inch ish scale length, light, very well made with the super skinny neck that Ibanez use on their SR series of basses which are perfect for young hands. They sound great too. They're simply great basses, and not just for the money, they're great basses full stop. I picked up a used one a few months ago for £50 and it's a brilliant little bass, I'd have no qualms gigging it as it is without having to mod it in any way - and until recently I was gigging a couple of Sandbergs before moving over exclusively to playing short scales!

You can run a single amp and cab block (you can mix and match the amps and cabs, you don't have to stick with the default cabs when you change amp, the only thing you can't do is mix and match guitar amps and cabs with bass amps and cabs within the single block) or you can use separate amp, cab or just pre-amp blocks. That will allow you to run a guitar amp into a bass cab, for example. Splitting your signal using a parallel path or a crossover does not eat into your block count, you can insert a parallel route (and mix the signals back together) at any point in the block chain. I use the Stomp and for my needs 6 blocks is more than enough, I have a core sound using 2 blocks; amp & cab in one and a compressor in another, then I use the other blocks for things like drive and the awesome Simple Pitch for detuning. Unless you're running crazy sounds or using loads of effects 6 blocks is plenty for most situations. For HPF you can always use the global EQ and set a low frequency cut off on the cab model. Both will save you having to add one on a dedicated block, although you can do still that if you want to. As for switching options you can use the Snapshot feature (it's worth reading up on this as it's very clever and such a simple idea) and you can also assign multiple blocks to a single foot-switch so you could switch several things on and off at once (or some on and some off) from a single tap. Again, it's all clever stuff! Likewise, I'm ampless on stage too, I use a couple of TRS to XLR cables to run both outputs, one to the desk and another to my wireless IEM transmitter. I picked up a used board for not much money and a Vein Tap double soft touch foot-switch for £25, so you don't need to add too much to the cost of the stomp if you decide to go down that route. Hope this helps

This looks interesting. The Classic Vibe range has a great reputation so hopefully that will carry over into the new Mustang. At that price it's very tempting https://www.kennysmusic.co.uk/squier-classic-vibe-60s-mustangr-bass-laurel-fingerboard-sea-foam-green

He doesn't look terribly happy about it, does he! Maybe it's the yellow drivers clashing with his bling hardware?

Realistically it's more like 20 seconds on Google if you're using sensible search terms But as someone pointed out earlier there are those who won't - or can't be bothered - to look, they're the ones that annoy me, especially if I've already gone to the trouble of putting that information into my ad that they haven't bothered to read. I have actually backed out of a couple of sales like that over the years as I won't - or can't be bothered - to deal with people like that. How long is it before you get a snotty message back saying something along the lines of "it's got a chip in the paint" to which you're obliged to point out that that was clearly started in the ad had they taken a few seconds to read it. I'd rather lose the sale than my sanity.

I'm the same as you in that I do my homework, as you say most of the technical information is available online so not exactly difficult to come by. When listing something for sale I try to put in as much useful detail as I can to try and pre-empt any obvious questions - but that, of course, only works on the assumption that the people actually read the description, and judging by some of the questions I've had over the years many people clearly don't. I usually try to politely say that the answer to their question is in the description. And you can guarantee that is someone asks for the weight of something it will be too heavy regardless. In much the same way that the nut width will never be what they're looking for!

@Clarky The TC MojoMojo has loads of low end available, there's certainly no loss of the bass frequencies with it. It doesn't need a clean blend, they only really come in to their own when you're into the realms of distortion. For a subtle Motown-esque drive you're unlikely to need it.

I do keep looking at those especially now it looks like they're remaking the silver version which looks great, IMO, it makes a change from the endless procession of dreary turdburst finishes . Trouble is I'm a fat, bald middle aged man so I think it's look utterly ridiculous on me.

Another vote for the TC Electronics MojoMojo, despite most of the YouTube videos focusing on running at higher gain settings it does a great, smooth, creamy low gain tone that will give you that Motown/valve amp just breaking up vibe. It doesn't get too gnarly or fizzy like some bass overdrive pedals. It has a 2 band EQ and isn't inherently voiced to have all the useful and useable mids scooped out like some of the offerings from DarkGlass and Tech 21. It easily holds its own against pedals costing many times as much. The full sized TC Spark Booster is also worth a look, despite the name it does also have some low gain drive built in although it doesn't go as far as full on overdrive, but you're not looking for that anyway! Put the voice switch into the mid bump position, dial in bass and treble to taste and job done.

How about a readily available short scale Precision, Jazz or P/J with traditional-ish body shape? I know there have been a few different models over the years like the Fender modern player short scale, and that Polish company that begins with M (that I can't spell or even pronounce) make some but they're very thin on the ground. There's very little choice in the £1000~ish short scale category other than a couple of variations of the Mustang so I think if someone was to fill that gap with a regular production traditional styled model they would sell loads.

@CameronJ I fully agree with that. I'm one of the ones who has had an issue with my stomp but I don't think that that automatically means that they're all ticking time bombs. I've been around the block a few times and realise that these things happen, it's a PITA but in the grand scheme of things it's not the end of the world. I seem to remember reading somewhere (it could have been an unsubstantiated claim online) that the electronics industry considers a failure rate of 5% to be acceptable, if that's true, the people making our consumer electronics expect to have a failure rate of up to 1 in 20 units. But I suspect that in reality the failure rate is lower than that. It happens, unfortunately.

Steve Harris is my favourite Rotosound endorsee, his big and punchy Precision sound with his trade mark clank is what drew the teenage me to the bass in the mid 80's and his tone still ranks as one of my favourite bass sounds to this day. He plays flats and I prefer round wounds but that's still the sound I try to emulate today, it just works with many forms of music, not just old school metal.

Cheers guys, If the new one starts doing the same I'll give both of these options a go and report back. Although I did reboot mine mid gig a couple of times to no avail. I'll also be getting a refund too if I'm that unlucky! For the record, mine was running warm but not hot, I wouldn't like to put a figure on the actual temperature but probably no more than 10 degrees above ambient in a warm pub.

Mine started dropping volume for a few seconds on a gig, but only once it had been on for a couple of hours. This makes me think it's probably a hardware issue. After resetting the global settings (I couldn't find anything in the manual about a factory reset, if anyone knows if and how this can be done please post the details here) I gigged it again the following week. The drop outs got longer and longer, up to a few minutes at a time which is obviously unacceptable on a gig so I used my Zoom MS-60B to finish the gig (and for the following gig). Anyway, it was all under warranty so it went back to PMT who will be replacing it once they have some more in stock.

I'll be getting a replacement Stomp any day now, it was covered under warranty so no issues in that regard. As for a DI out, that's not a problem. The MS-60B doesn't have an XLR out, that's true, I just use a regular guitar cable to the the combi inputs on our desk. Seeing as most gigs I do I'm rarely more than a few meters from the desk it's not essential to have a balanced signal. If anything the signal from the Zoom was hotter than the one from my Stomp, but that could simply be down to setting up a rough and ready patch on the fly. No issues with noise from an unbalanced signal either.

I had a spot of bother with my Helix Stomp recently, I ended up doing a couple of gigs using my Zoom MS-60B. I'm also ampless too. It's not Helix quality sound wise but it's certainly capable enough in its own right. I don't use a million sounds or effects, just a solid one size fits all bass sound. Once the band fired up the bass sounded fine and sat well in the mix, a sound similar to the one you use on your CD 😀 The cheap Zoom has a number of different amp and cab models which you can mix and match, there's even a decent Sansamp model plus various other pre-amps, EQ' s and a couple of really good compressors too and the essential tuner. The unit is metal cased and the size of a single stomp box so not obtrusive to carry around. They go for around £40-50 used. If you're looking for a back up unit I cannot recommend this enough.

That's a beauty, I want one

Interesting observation, I can't remember what the receiver is like for the 100. The one with the 1000 is plastic but feels reassuringly sturdy to me, I've not had any issues with mine in the 8 months or so that I've been gigging with it.

This has just popped up in the for sale section, it's just the transmitter only but then again it's only £30. This is the model our guitarist has and he's really pleased with it, if that's any mind of glowing endorsement