lemmywinks

Ours are the RCF 725-A sorry, not the 735. Make sure you look for the mkII version (or a factory fixed mki with receipts) as they originally had a known fault with the poweramp.

We picked up a pair of RCF 735 cabs with quality covers for not much more than the price of a single new one, definitely up your budget a bit and look at the used market if you want to put kick and bass through, you won't regret it.

Fair point! This one doesn't seem to have the flame on the neck so no hamburglar either! I'd think the Japanese Fenders would have proper routing (seen some shockers on USA stuff), would be nice to see what this one looks like naked so to speak. Always fancied one of these, by all accounts they're super basses as well as being lookers.

I have the B5 OPM and the C5P, very well put together basses and the B series has very nice woods. Can't fault them really, I also had a Cort factory Ibanez EDB 5 (again nice build and woods) and the low B on the Corts was much better. If I hadn't bought a Sire V7 I would be keeping the B5, still holding on to the C5P as a backup bass. The Hipshot Licensed are as good as the real deal, I'm going to be fitting some to the Sire at some point as I miss them!

The Fotoflame is just photgraphic film stuck on the front and not actual wood, they all look fantastic though - as you would expect being a picture of incredible looking wood! More info here: http://xhefriguitars.com/page7.html Although it's a cheap way of getting a fancy flame top they all look stunning.

Posts like that are usually from people who have never been on a big stage with a proper PA - nothing wrong with that of course, just says more about them than you. I'd ditch my amp in a second if I knew we had great monitors provided at every gig, obviously when you have to carry them yourself it's less of an advantage!

Frank bought my Shine 5 string, nice chap and a pleasure to deal with. Cheers!

Passive mode on the Cort B5 isn't actually passive IIRC, it's an eq bypass which still uses the preamp, I think it's just a lower output rubbish preset tbh which tries to mimic a passive sound so doesn't give a true impression of what the pickups sound like. I would wire them straight to a jack first to see if you like the sound of the pickups, might save you a bit of money. Alternatively you could sell the bass and get the new model with the Markbass eq. I usually set the bass at centre, roll off [i]a lot[/i] of mids and lose a touch of treble as a starting point then eq it back on my amp. Got some very good sounds out of it that way but before I got a Sire V7 I was planning on sticking a different preamp in and keeping the pickups.

Swap the preamp, nothing wrong with the pickups IMO, a lot of folk wire them passively. The stock pre is ok but the frequencies aren't to my liking, even a £30 Artec (they do one with a sweepable mid) will be a good drop in replacement. Still amazes me how companies can get the bass and treble frequencies wrong on preamps. EDIT: I have the same bass btw.

I've heard mixed reviews on them, a local pro player I know who gigged a Cort A5 for years loved his and sounded fantastic. Tbh a lot of the negative reviews I've read seem to be from junior players on harmony central etc who sound like they are expecting a specific sound. The Hipshot lic are meant to be very good, tbh the budget tuners on my C5 are rock solid so I expect them to be decent.

There's some cheap clearance Cort B5 basses on eBay at the moment. £238 for the open pore mahogany: http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Electric-Bass-5-strings-Cort-B5-OPM-Open-Pore-Mahogany-/391419316633?hash=item5b2268c999:g:hgwAAOSwvgdW6IyM £228 for the Sunburst: http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Electric-Bass-5-strings-Cort-B5-Tobacco-Burst-/391407674559?hash=item5b21b724bf:g:jK8AAOSwyjBW6JyD Nice spec basses - licensed Hipshot ultralite tuners with Cort factory Bartolini pickups and preamp. I've ordered the mahogany one as I need a new 5 string and I love the C5P I have, the B5 is the same bass as the C5 but with better wood, electronics and hardware. The company is actually Proel, the bass usually goes for around £400 and is basically a different version of the Ibanez SR505 (also from the Indonesian Cort factory).

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Toby-for-Tobias-Bass-guitar-BLACK-USED-Case/281979788108?_trksid=p2045573.c100034.m2102&_trkparms=aid%3D222007%26algo%3DSIC.MBE%26ao%3D1%26asc%3D35951%26meid%3D95576ea614784571853583bd8c0316cd%26pid%3D100034%26rk%3D3%26rkt%3D4%26sd%3D261473566415 A few marks but decent nick, bargain for someone. Comes with a gigbag but looks like it's for an acoustic bass though. Still can't complain at that price.

Nylon coated strings are the way forward for me, not tried them with a fretted acoustic but with a fretless they are lovely. Defretting my cheap acoustic and putting black nylon strings on completely transformed the bass from borderline usable to an absolute pleasure to play.

[quote name='chris_b' timestamp='1435236092' post='2806809'] No. They wanted us to think their cabs were special, so we would buy lots of them, but they are bog standard cabs. Really. What really gets me, enough to labour the point again, is that someone will ask a question and they will get a reply. In this case, with the best intentions, they will be given the wrong information. And that wrong and misleading info has been gleaned not from the marketing blurb, but from the User Manual and label on the back of the amp. [/quote] Weren't the TC cabs tested by BGM and the nominal impedance was found to be quite a bit above 8ohms? IIRC the cabs tested were around 11-12 ohms. Obviously impedance isn't a constant and they can still be classed as 8ohms but still, it's there.

I don't like the Garage Days sound much, too ratty for me. The Sadowsky live sound and the Load studio sound are excellent to my ears, huge sounding bass tones. Every time I saw Metallica with Jason a great bass sound was a constant, as great as Cliff was he didn't sound as good on record IMO. Now if they could take Kirk's wah pedal away and teach him some scales you might have the making of a popular band

[quote name='chris_b' timestamp='1435226715' post='2806648'] I just don't like being told I have to buy TC's "magic" cabs to be able to run 3 at a time. [/quote] TC's cabs were over the stated impedance weren't they? I thought the 8ohm cabs actually came in at around 10-11 ohms so you could use 3 of their cabs with other amps. [quote name='wateroftyne' timestamp='1435158348' post='2806055'] Just do what TC do and pull a number out of the air :-D [/quote]

[quote name='bartelby' timestamp='1435226598' post='2806647'] The bass on Load is pretty nice, but that should be expected with Jason. [/quote] Bass in Metallica has never sounded better than Jason's Sadowskys and whatever else he used to record (Zon, Spector, Alembic etc.). The guy had great taste in gear and a great sound.

Four whole steps is a lot, I agree. There is a reason songs are written in specific keys and deviating too much can really suck the life out of them, although I heard an extremely low version of I Want You Back a while ago and it worked extremely well, much better than I thought it would! Different but still very catchy and you could still dance to it (not me personally, I dance like an orangutan having a seizure). Whether the audience will care or not is a different story.......

The bit about Freddie Mercury and Bono Muse write the odd really good song, they could do a solid greatest hits album. So much pretentious drivel though, they're the band the skip track button was invented for.

Those wax sticks from cheap DIY stores (basically wax crayons but in wood shades) are great for touching up basses, I used some on my old Aria (think Foxen has it now) which was absolutely hammered and they worked miracles. You can rub them in with a fingertip and blend different colours, also if you use them on open grained wood it will show through a little so it doesn't look odd. I've filled tuner holes and then matched them afterwards, also handy for removing dot markers when defretting.

Probably cheaper to buy a used Streamer Standard BO (about £250) and use the neck off that, they have a proper German wenge/ovangkol Warwick neck. Can swap the TRC over too so it has the correct model. EDIT: Like this - [url="http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Warwick-Streamer-STD-Standard-Natural-finish-Made-in-Germany-/111642678081?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_3&hash=item19fe6c1341&nma=true&si=K2%252FyWff15%252FzcYOQc1KWvkVBx0kE%253D&orig_cvip=true&rt=nc&_trksid=p2047675.l2557"]http://www.ebay.co.u...=p2047675.l2557[/url]

A one knob compressor is pretty limited though (no pun), besides the LM3 shell can house plenty of controls: The thing I like about the LM heads is that they aren't lacking anything in terms of sound shaping. I would expect the same level of control with any extras.

[quote name='Phil Starr' timestamp='1434411504' post='2799390'] The 'gutless' thing may also be down to eq. Our ears are more sensitive to the frequency extremes at high sound levels, so you need a bit more bass added as you turn the volume down. This is a function of how our ears work and nothing to do with particular amps or speakers [url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fletcher%E2%80%93Munson_curves."]https://en.wikipedia...3Munson_curves.[/url] Reset the eq when you turn down. [/quote] This would be the first thing I would do. Dial the "missing" frequencies back in, it will sound a lot less gutless!