Hellzero

A pickup is supposed to be as accurately as possible transmitting the signal, which side by side humbucking (phase cancelling due to the two picking points) soapbars don't do and certainly not the Wal pickups with their 8 coils per pickup (for 4 strings basses). You might like the sound of it, for sure (as I do), but saying it's the best soapbar is some kind of heresy. Furthermore, the OP is looking for a P/J set in soapbar housing (EMG 35 or Bartolini BC)...

Just for fun, imperial measures are supposed to have been abandoned in 1875 in favour of the metric system ... worldwide. And England was one of the first to adopt it with France where it all started, but some seem really reluctant to use it : you know, old habits...

Traded my quite rare MTD/Bartolini NS3TMB-18 for Michael's Pope Flexcore. Everything went smooth and easy. Great communication and a pleasure to deal with. A+++++++ as they say elsewhere.

With this design, meaning split humbucking coils, you'll get a tone closer to the typical P-Bass sound, but you'll loose the punch of the single coil. And this is what you get. To me, if you accept to mix two "types" of pickups, you can put a Fat Stack in bridge position and a Big Split in neck position, so you'll get hum free P/J on steroids configuration and still the opportunity to have a real single coil sound when splitting the Fat Stack. If you can deal with the single coils hum, then give a try to the Big Blade or the Big Single of course (they are very close soundwise, the Big Blade being asier to fit as you don't have to care about strings spacing). In fact, I always prefer the single coil sound, but sometimes you need to cancel the noise, so humbuckers are mandatory (EMG's are all humbuckers except for some of the HZ series). The Nordstrand are terrific pickups and their single coils are awesome (my prefered pickups when it comes to single coil). There's another possibility, that's the dummy coil system, but apart from Alembic and Leduc, and at a time the Audere dummy self preamp, I know nobody using this and it's sad as you get the best of both worlds : a real single coil sound without the noise as it's a hum cancelling system...

Christoph Dolf from Bassculture in Germany can make you almost whatever you want. The EMG catalogue has every type of sound in that housing, but you'll have to like their linear sound. To date, the Nordstrand Fat Stack (FS4 in EMG 35 housing) is certainly what you're looking for : http://bassdirect.co.uk/bass_guitar_specialists/Nordstrand_Pickups_Signature.html Avoid side by side humbuckers as you will loose the clarity and punch you are looking for.

Agreed for Fad Gadget : underestimated is the word. Just listened to one track of few minutes ago on the radio (Belgian broadcast called "Generation 80"). I've seen SPK just after their massive hit "Metal Dance" and it was the beginning of the end. Still can't find my original 12 inches with this hit nor their first LP I bought called "Leichenschrei". A more than predictive title.

Saw SPK in the 80's, was a sort of unaudible heavy electro destroy trash metallic music with a cute yelling "singer" , but as I was young I liked it. Einstürzende Neubauten and even Laibach were way more musical but absolutely non communicating with the audience. Saw Fad Gadget during the same period, was a strange concert with Frank Tovey making crowd surfing all along the show. I feel strangely old yet...

Michel Petrucciani Trio at the Gaume Jazz Festival in Rossignol on the 16th of August 1992. The place is 15 kilometers from home, and I usually go and see every concert of the festival. That year, I decided not to go even if Michel Petrucciani was playing because the other bands playing didn't catch my attention at all. I heard an interview of Michel Petrucciani saying that his disease wasn't lethal, and thought I'd go elsewhere to hear him play. I waited so long that I never saw him as he died in 1999...

Because the briges are far too high. This "bass" was already for sale some time ago, but it's a total waste of money even for £55 GBP which should be the asking price. No one called a luthier could ever make such an instrument. Nothing is made the correct way.

Stradi offers some 2,100 years old oak for the top of their basses. I got one on my Symphony Bass, but don't know if it's really dry.

You read it totally wrong indeed, you are interpreting as I never wrote that there is "no reliable way of telling from tone alone what the finger-board is made from, nor the body, nor which strings are used", I just mentioned the "issue" with the body wood by MusicMan, but you are forgiven as you are a drummer. It's an endless debate, but there are clues in your post and others too : to most of the people a bass is a bass is a bass, period. A lot use tons of effects including distortion and compression. I'm not pedant or patronising, but I play my instrument without any other effects than my fingers through the most transparent system possible including the on-board preamp when there is one and amplifier (combo) : this is what I want to hear, the notes I'm playing the way I'm playing them without any artifice. I even made an asked "conference" about the main basses and their differences in term of sound. I also explained how to set an amplifier to hear how your instrument really sounds so you can reproduce the same tone everywhere and that's quite easy to do. But I think this CITES thread is going in the wrong direction and that it's another debate. IMO, CITES has opened some minds to endangered species and to a new approach for making instruments, even if the makers are not the one endangering the species.

But they'll both taste like bananas, certainly with some difference in the taste, but you will be able to tell what they are by looking at them and eating them or even smelling them. It's exactly the same with woods or anything organic : there are the basic specifications by which you can identify them and then there are the oddities by which you can have some classification within the same species...

Could be, there is something reminding. I made myself the same comment.

If you have a detachable lead for your amp(s), simply buy a EU one or as much as you need, that will also do the job or changing all the plugs on the leads could be the option.

I think you don't know Christophe Leduc work, otherwise you wouldn't have asked : he is absolutely meticulous and a real luthier who tunes his woods... They were identical basses made the same year (1990) with the same woods (except the fingerboard) coming from the exact same source and stocked for years in identical conditions. The pickups were exactly the same just like the strings, the lead, the theme played, the sitting position, the wire, the pots, the output jack, etc. : identical twins but the fretboard. For your MusicMan's, they don't tell the wood they use for the bodies, except hard or soft wood and they don't tell their supplier nor type of drying... And they are mass production basses which means the body could be in 5 glued parts ash when the other is a 1 part body poplar If you admit that there's a difference between the type of copper (which I hugely agree) and the number of windings (again fully agreed), why not with the woods ? If you have the time to watch this documentary, you'll learn a lot about lutherie, the real one, not these non sense mass products :

The beer is also stronger, be aware. Most people drinking it like they use to do were completely drunk after 5 glasses. No kidding.

The tension is exactly the same all over Europe (220~240 Volts). So all you'll need is a decent plug adaptor able to manage the amperage of your devices, so avoid the cheap ones. And by the way, UK is in Europe.

Sorry, but if you don't hear the difference between ebony, rosewood and maple, it's about time to make an ear test as there are huge differences in tone. I know that most the musicians are almost deaf and only hear harmonics, but stop this please : it's not only a cosmetical difference, it's a tone difference. At a time, for some personal reasons, I had two identical Leduc MP 6 strings fretless basses (neckthrough abd bubinga wings), but one had a pau ferro fingerboard and the other a Brazilian rosewood one : there was a BIG difference in tone between the two. Strangely I ended up keeping the pau ferro one that had more bite and high mids, which was what I was looking for at the time. In November, I bought another Leduc MP 6 strings fretless I was hunting for 10 years : quite similar in contruction but the wings (flamed maple top over ash with a mahogany veneer in between) and the fretboard which is Brazilian rosewood. Soundwise you get a more present fundamental, more low mids and less high mids, so a hugely growling and mwahing fretless. I know I'm a bit harsh on this subject, but I'm really fed up with these comments. It's like saying that a carrot tastes the same as a cabbage.

He tried the pizza thing, but was certainly out of tomato as he didn't finish what he'd started : "After the carving the body was burned (with fire)"...

A Peavey bass.

Must be something like that, around £250 GBP. If I wasn't more than over satisfied with my AER BassCube, I would have bought it.