Doctor J

I've got a few but if I really had to settle on just one it would be my old ESP Jazz bass. If you can't do everything you need on a good Jazz bass, the bass ain't the problem.

Yet there he is playing his simple root note on stages in front of thousands regularly and you're at home with a more complicated bassline watching a dvd. Perhaps it's not a boring bassline, just the right bassline?

The EMG stuff is for active only, the pots are not really rated to make passive pickups sound good. In fact, they say it's for EMG pickups only. Bartolini make some fine preamps, I've got a couple of basses with them in and they're rather nice indeed, I'd have no second thoughts about recommending them. Send them a mail, they should probably be able to recommend something which will really suit your pickups well.

I wouldn't really call that coming back, it seems further and further away from the originals as is possible.

If you google "really bad ideas which will end in disaster" there is a link to this thread on the first page. Please don't cut up your bass, mister.

Try Christoph Dolf at bassculture.de. He's not the cheapest but he is very good at what he does. I had him make a pair of rosewood covered humbuckers for a 6 string bass with a non-standard size. They were bang on, based on the sound I told him I wanted. Alternatively, I just got a set of J pickups from Jess Loureiro in Spain - see recent threads in this forum. I'm not sure if he does custom sizes yet but his prices are good and there's no harm in asking him.

I'll second the Bartolini concern. I used to have a SR3006 which had American Barts in it, not the MkI's and the output of those was also pretty feeble - the Ibanez spec Barts seem to be very low output pickups by design. Swapping them out made a world of difference. Consider raising the pickups closer to the strings to give yourself a bit more oomph and if your amp has a passive/active option, use the passive input. I can't see batteries making it any louder in any big way, other than swapping old for new. A 9v is going to put out 9v. Have a look at your preamp and see if there are trim pots on it, there could be a volume control in there. The specs of your pre should be easy enough to find on the Ibanez website.

Slivadiv by Back Door featuring the wonderful Colin Hodgkinson. I can't find it on youtube so here's Human Bed in it's place [media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cf5BPZTdtV4[/media]

Superb collection. You've a thing for Streamers then?

Nice!

Delighted for you, good work, fella!

No. Got a set of webstrings on King Billy and they're horrible. Can't wait to get a set of Elixirs on there and hear what the new pickups are capable of becuase cheap strings suck balls.

Just roll the ship out of there and be done with it. Who's going to win in a fight, your ship or some Belgian red-taper waving a piece of paper at you? This is serious business, go get your bass.

I think it's proportional to the level of interest you have in the band and music. If you're enthusiatic and like the music, you'll find it a lot easier to learn and remember. By contrast, if your heart's not in it, it goes in one ear and out the other. I had a similar experience to above, where I was subbing for a friend and had to learn a whole cover set of tunes I had never really heard before in an afternoon. I told him I'd do it so I was determined to get it right. With a couple of cheat sheets I got through the whole thing without any howlers and, at the following gig, was giving the drummer nods where the changes were. At the moment I'm recording an album of tunes I wrote almost twenty years ago but never got to record properly at the time, my brain is well capable of dredging up these riffs I haven't played in so many years. With some interest and focus your brain can do amazing things, it's when you're just going through the motions that you'll find it hard to learn and remember. An example - in my last band I became quite disillusioned with the nonsense going on and had decided to leave once a run of gig commitments had been fulfilled. We were playing the final of a competition where the prize was a spot at the Wacken festival. Anyway, during one of the tunes I could not for the life of me remember the next riff so I took a guess when the time arrived and f***ed it up spectacularly. That had never happened my before but I had lost interest in the band at that point and I think my brain was just flushing the information down the bog. The worst part was that I wrote the bloody song in the first place

Peavey stuff is usually decent, cheap and reliable. Maybe Norfolk folk are too

That guitarist really does give love a bad name. Meh, our singer walked out mid-song once. You don't stop the tune though, it's unprofessional.

Ahhh drummers There's nothing more awkward than playing with a reactive drummer, the guy who doesn't lead cos he doesn't know the songs and instead follows bits of whatever instrument he can hear at that point and makes unexpected changes accordingly. I spent many years in and out of a mate's blues band, subbing whenever their latest bassist quit until they got a new one. Drummer was unenthusiatic and entirely reactive as a result and it really was an eye opener because not only was the bass keeping the tempo in check and leading the songs, you also had to be on your toes to react when he'd lash off into a different section late or end the song early, fun stuff like that. It never bothered the guitarist, funnily enough

[size=3][font=arial,helvetica,sans-serif]http://www.jlguitars.com/[/font][/size] [size=3][font=arial,helvetica,sans-serif]Came across this guy a few weeks ago and, since I was looking for something to replace the DiMarzio Ultra Jazz set in my home made J bass. I decided to take a gamble and see what he could do as his prices are very decent. Just a quick look at the coils lets you know they're very definitely handwound. I installed them today, first impressions; I like them a lot, a lot closer to what I think a J bass should sound like than the DiMarzio's, which I found a bit too flat... maybe anonymous sounding. The Loureiro pickups have a very smooth high end, nice open sound to them, big fat low end and decent growly mid. The best thing I can say about them is that the bass sounds great with no EQ, which is the true test, whereas I always had to tweak the EQ to get to a nice place with the Ultra Jazz (and never really got to a sound I was truly happy with).[/font][/size] [size=3]He desicrbed them as "first era" jazz bass sounding[/size] [size=3][font=arial,helvetica,sans-serif]Specs were:[/font][/size] [size=3][font=arial,helvetica,sans-serif]Output 9k (bridge) and 8k (neck)[/font][/size] [size=3][font=arial,helvetica,sans-serif]Wire: 42 AWG Heavy Formvar[/font][/size] [size=3][font=arial,helvetica,sans-serif]Magnets: "Calibrated" Alinco 5[/font][/size] [size=3][font=arial,helvetica,sans-serif]Thumbs up from me, definitley worth checking out if you're on the lookout for a replacement pickup.[/font][/size]

I like it but it ain't that big a deal either way. Please don't dislike me.

Guitarist has to go, first. Been in this position in my last band, when you've got a guy who just isn't learning the songs or bothering his hole it just sucks the fun out of it. No matter how talented he might be, if he's not making and effort, he's not worth the trouble. Second, are you guys covers or originals? If originals I'd say stick to the three piece and use the singer's idiosyncracies on guitar as part of your sound. You do the rest. If covers, you've got to make an effort to replicate the original so if he can't play and sing at the same time to to a sufficient standard you're looking at another guitarist.

Alanbass1's white BB2024x. I've lusted after one of these since they came out and I'm still no closer to owning one. Jaysus.

Dammit. I need to buy more.

A scratchplate and any blade type of pickup (Bartolini, EMG, for example, tend to use blade magnets instead of poles) should sort it out. With a blade setup you can use any string spacing or number of strings provided the total width of the strings doesn't exceed the width of the blade. Check their websites for models and sizes.

On topic, then, I think the crappy amp is factored into the price he's looking for and, when you see higher end models aren't priced too high above £260, I'd bide my time and wait for something else.