lemmywinks

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!

Have a look at bassic bits / Rockwire. You can also get the same components they use in cables on eBay, just make sure you spec decent jacks (Neutrik) and quality cable (Klotz, Van Damme). One here, 5m/15ft with an angled jack for £15.49 delivered: [url="http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Klotz-Cable-Guitar-Lead-Neutrik-1-4-Straight-to-Right-Angle-Jack-Plugs-AC106-/251907868797?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_3&var=&hash=item3aa6e1087d"]http://www.ebay.co.u...=item3aa6e1087d[/url]

I can beat £150 - my Cort C5P was £90! It's the model with the Fishman piezo bridge too.

Thanks for the mini-review, that was very thorough! I agree about the build quality and excellent parts Cort use, my C5P feels like a very expensive bass, the neck is solid and it stays in tune better than any bass I've had before (Warwicks, Zoot, Gibson). Not sure if they've goofed the electrics on these though as the Cort I have doesn't need anything replacing IMO, this is why I'm interested in taking the C5P along to compare. I think the slap switch will be a smiley eq preset, my Cort Curbow 5 had one and it was always in the off position, might be an idea to change it to a series/parallel switch for the MM pickup. The treble thing isn't an issue for me as I can just turn the tweeters down on my cabs and put the VLE to use on my amp (a variable low pass filter), I never have to do this currently though as the high freqs sound very solid and musical with my current rig. I think I'm leaning towards giving this one a miss tbh, still interested in trying them at some point with a view to buying one (or a GB5 and possibly a Skyline) but the one I have seen looks to have a wonky MM pickup which really puts me off.

There's a new one on eBay for £390 posted so the used one at Bass Direct is slightly on the expensive side! I believe at one point these and the Skyline basses were made alongside each other at the same factory so the resemblance is probably not coincidental. I'm stil going to check it out at some point, if the MM pickup is as wonky as it looks in the photos it's off the list though.

Also just noticed what looks like some off centre pickup routing on the bass, looks like the MM pickup is way off and the G string barely over the poles:

[quote name='dannybuoy' timestamp='1434057936' post='2796416'] Considered a Yamaha BB425? They are on sale at the moment: [url="http://www.gak.co.uk/en/yamaha-bb425-standard-bb-vintage-white/48076"]http://www.gak.co.uk...age-white/48076[/url] [/quote] I've never liked the look of those Yamahas, the styling really puts me off tbh even though I know loads of people like them and last time I played one it had a ridged surface to the end of the pickup which was uncomfortable on my thumb. Have no idea if they are stil like that. Also I'm looking at cheaper brands which are known to have good low B strings, the cheaper Yamahas I've tried have been a bit floppy and indistinct which I'm looking to avoid. Haven't tried that model in a 5 though and I've liked the more expensive Yamahas, In fact one of the best basses I've played was a TRB 6er (so it should be for over £2k!). I think the choice is between a Cort or one of the Sires. The Sires are an unknown quantity but have been reviewed so well across the board [quote name='mcnach' timestamp='1434059987' post='2796430'] The preamp... I felt the bass control added too much "boom" without fattening the sound enough. I guess I'd want more low mids. The treble control I rarely touch on a bass. [/quote] Hmmmm, that sounds like the opposite of what I want! The pre on my existing Cort has a very useful Bass voicing, no idea what frequency it is but it's higher than the bass knob on my LMII (which is 40hz IIRC?) and fattens up the sound without getting boomy which makes dialing in low end really easy. I'm really not a fan of boomy bass eqs on preamps, one of the reasons I sold my last 5 string was because of this. The one I was looking at is this one: http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/251989764877?_trksid=p2060353.m1438.l2649&ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT It's the 3 band eq version with what I'm guessing is the slap switch. Maybe it has different electrics and will sound different, who knows! Comes with a case though which I could sell on for around £20 as I only use gigbags.