Dan Dare

That mellow, deep sound is traditionally the product of a lot of drivers, with plenty of surface area and in a decent sized cab' (or cabs) working well within their capabilities. It may be a poor analogy, but think a big V8 cruising effortlessly at 70 mph vs a turbo charged, highly stressed one litre engine propelling the same vehicle at the same speed. You've certainly got the amp for it, but one or two small lightweight cabs are not going to give you that sound, unless you spend serious money (Barefaced, Fearless et al). Not at any volume at any rate. If I was in your position, I'd take the amp to a decent shop and spend some time trying out the options. Someone is (or was) selling a Fearless 112 in the Market Place. It looks mint. If I wasn't happy with what I have, I'd have bought it.

Creased my self at these comments.

Oh look. Auction ended with no bids. Fancy that.

The combo may have 240w, but can the drivers translate that into movement of the air? I'm a PJB user, but I find I need to run 2 or 3 of their 4x5 cabs (I have 5) to make a realistic amount of noise in a band situation. I reckon those 5" drivers are good for around 50w apiece. Don't misunderstand me. I love the sound they make (wouldn't own them if I didn't), but two of those little drivers are not going to blow the windows out.

This. I don't believe through body stringing makes any difference to the sound, but if you use flats, as I do, they will likely fail sooner. Trough bride string changing easier, too.

Been there. Guitards should be banned from using anything other than open backed cabs, which have limited low frequency response. Imho, of course.

I'm pretty sure I remember Alligator operating out of a shop in Finsbury Park, just down the road from where I live. They used Volt drive units in their amps. They were pretty standard solid state combos with nice speakers that sounded quite good. Kent made excellent pickups and did great repairs. He fettled the pickups on my old J bass for very little money many moons ago.

Probably not if it still sounds OK at moderate levels. It's difficult to damage just the parasitic cone and not the whole thing. It's only a piece of shaped compressed paper pulp stuck to the centre of the main cone, after all. It has no separate motor to drive it, unlike, say, a Tannoy dual concentric unit, which has a complete tweeter mounted in the centre of the main cone that works independently of it. Parasitic cone drivers do have limitations as far as power handling and frequency range are concerned. The parasitic cone is part of and being moved by the main cone, which affects what it does.

A Big Baby has much higher power handling and much greater excursion. You're probably overdriving the Eden.

I've managed to straighten a bent Fender cloverleaf tuner with Mole grips. Clamp the shaft in a small vice, protect the face of the clover leaf with thin card, clamp on the Mole and gently bend it straight. Best to ignore the advice above that includes the word "hammer", imho.

There are probably many reasons why things sound different in isolation. I guess the main two to be aware of in a band context are doubling and masking. In an ensemble, each instrument has its place in the overall harmonic spectrum. There are often clashes between instruments. Typically for the bass its with keyboards, but also with guitars, especially if the guitar player(s) like a lot of low end in the eq settings they use (probably because they too spend most of their time playing at home on their own and don't appreciate the need to fit round or leave space for other instruments). The result is that either certain frequencies can be over-emphasised (doubling) or they cancel each other (masking). That lovely clean, hi-fi bass tone you like at home will often sound a bit limp in a band context and will need boosting in the upper bass/low mids to have the right presence in the mix. Imho, that's a big part of the reason a P bass works so well in so many settings. It has that tonal quality baked in. I agree with stewblack and Lozz. No point in getting hung up on "tone", unless, of course, you play solo bass gigs. No point in bleating to sound engineers that the bass sound isn't to your liking, either. He/she is trying to make it work in context of the overall sound.

And "custom" script on the headstock written with a Sharpie...

I know from experience how costly the big D can be, so good luck with getting back on track. The good thing about PJB stuff is that it can be had in very good shape used (it doesn't seem to get bought by hooligans, presumably because it's small and has a reputation for being liked by jazzers). Three of my cabs were bought used and none cost me more than £250. If you have a preamp out on the D4, you could think about adding a power amp and additional cab(s) when the time comes that you want to make more noise.

On eBay at the moment, there are two people selling what are described as TE preamps (search for bass preamps), which are actually heads (in the pic's both have speaker outs). Both have GP12 pre's, both are less than £200 and both look in nice nick. Not too heavy/bulky (by TE standards). May be worth a look.

Thanks. I have tried the Double 4. It's a great little combo and very clean as you say. I just take out one of my C4s and a head (usually the Carvin) for small jobs. Not much bigger and quite a bit more oomph.

I would suggest those with stout hearts and trim waistlines start using the stairs.

Oh, I'm a PJB fan (see pic for my gear), but I wouldn't try to gig with a Double Four, whatever Benny claims.

Good luck gigging with one of those, unless you play in wine bars with just an acoustic guitarist.

I suggest it's time to tell them that if they don't want to put any time into sorting things out, then they'll have to be content with what they get.

Me. People say I'm really crap, but I'm only mildly crap.

Yep. Christmas Is great when you're a kid and then when your kids are little, but apart from that, it's a massive PITA. And don't even mention bloody new year...

Is that the chain where you walk in and the sales assistant says "WHAT DO YOU WANT? CAN'T YOU SEE IT'S THE WROING TIME OF THE MONTH?"

Maybe put some clean, new screws into the holes?

This is what I did. I used hard white plastic to fill the slots, so I have a visual guide for intonation. It also helps in that the plastic won't compress as much as thin wood veneers (which helps to lessen the amount the neck will bow - the frets help keep it straight under tension and you don't want to run out of truss rod adjustment). It's very important to sand/smooth an accurate, even profile onto the fingerboard. You'll also need to file the nut slots as the action will be too high once the frets are removed.

They won't be making their own stuff. If the strings come from a half decent factory, they could be fine.