Osiris

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

Obviously it would mean more of an outlay but if you each have your own wireless systems you have a degree more control over what you are hearing, for example, I run two identical outputs from my pre-amp (we're amp-less on stage) one of which goes to the desk and to the FoH, the other goes into the back of my LD transmitter. That allows me to have more bass in my personal mix without affecting what anyone else hears. You can adjust the volume of the individual channels from the LD receiver so I can have the bass sitting nicely over the top of the rest of the band. If you're singing as well you might want an additional mini mixer to help if you wanted to have the vocals and bass louder, but I don't (can't ) sing so it's not an issue for me.

That I don't know, I'm afraid, it's only me and the guitarist who are on wireless IEM's and we each have our own transmitter and receiver systems. Have a look to see what it says in the manual, I've tried to attach it here but I don't know if it'll work as it's a pdf. Can't see why not but I don't think I've seen anyone else attach one on BC before! If it doesn't work, pull a copy off the web from the LD website, they're freely available. LD Wireless IEM's MEI 1000 G2.pdf

@Les for cheap and cheerful wireless in ears I can highly recommend the LD MEI1000 G2 system, I use mine with the mandatory KZ ZS10's and have no issues with sound quality. The lows are deep and powerful without being bloated and the highs are clear, they can get a little sharp if you really push them but nothing a touch of high end cut on the monitor mix can't resolve. To my ear there a bit of a dip in the upper mids which I suspect is down to the ZS10's, but this is no bad thing as it helps ease any ear fatigue by the end of the night. My ZS10's were from Amazon too! Likewise @EBS_freak has warned me away from the cheaper wireless systems but after having a try out with our guitarists LD MEI 100 G2 (the 1000 is stereo whereas the 100 is dual mono, I think?) I was really impressed. I was expecting something that was probably going to be of a similar quality to FM radio but to my ears the quality is much better, maybe not quite CD quality but probably not far off. And once you're in the moment on the gig and are not focusing on the quality of the sound so much as listening to what's going on then you'll find you can hear everything clearly anyway, which is surely the whole point! I picked my LD system up new for less that £200 in the black Friday sales last year, but the going rate seems to be around £250 new, which is still a great price, IMO. I can't comment on how they compare to the more expensive systems as I've not tried them but for me and the gigs I do (weekend warrior with a mix of pub and function gigs) they're more than good enough. I suspect to get any significant improvement you're going to have to spunk around 10 times as much on a system, but for under £300 including the ZS10's, I think it's a no brainer. The LD also comes with a rack mount kit too.

What about the Aerodyne Jazz bass? Obviously it has a jazz bass body shape but it has a Precision split coil in the right position and it has a jazz neck profile, at least the one I had about 10-12 years ago did. Great lightweight basses although the bound edge on the body will eventually erode your forearm down to the bone.

@martthebass I have acute Mustang envy 😎

I'm hoping to blag the other one if I can shift my Sandberg in time!

Cheers Nick, The board has already done a couple of gigs, it's perfect for what I was looking for

Having owned a Stomp for a couple of months now I find that editing on the unit itself is a doddle, I can see that having the editing software could be useful but I prefer to know my way around the pedal interface so I can make changes on the gig without having to think about what I'm doing. The limited controls have been implemented in a simple and intuitive way making edits on the fly quick and easy.

I find the pickup balance to be fine on mine although admittedly I don't use the J pickup on its own as that sound isn't for me. But the stock pickups on mine sound great and complement one another really well. I play varying the blend (I had the 3 way switch changed for a blend pot, that's the only mod on mine) between P only, both pickups 50:50 and my favourite setting of P on full with the J at about 30-40%. I've had a play with an American performer in PMT in Northampton, it was a good bass but I struggled to see where the extra money was going in comparison to my Mexican P/J version.

I've also found a couple of black Mustangs with maple fretboards on Reverb which look great too, although I just wish they didn't have tort scratch plates, nasty things that they are 🤮 😀 I can't find any other information about them online and the seller's are in Europe. Make of that what you will. https://reverb.com/item/23255553-fender-fender-mustang-bass-special-edition-pj-maple-neck-black