lemmywinks

1 minute ago, Rodders said:

Another vote for the Fishman Platinum Pro EQ, I've been using it for just over a year after picking one up second hand. Wouldn't be without it now, the only thing that is slightly annoying is there is no markings on the mid sweep to show frequency range.

I've been toying with the idea of picking up the simpler Stage Pro version so I don't have to lug my board to rehearsals.

I have the Stage as well, it's an ace little thing, no tuner or comp though but the eq is still brilliant.

The Trace 2x8 with Faital drivers is probably a bit more capable, one for sale here:

1 hour ago, Basslearner said:

Hi

 

How do you stream the audio from your phone. I'm using the software which has connected but no audio

Instead of going through the phone app just connect your phone directly to "Pocket Master Audio" (not "Pocket Master BLE"), should just see it as an audio device.

I mate of mine has the Unity 250 1x15 combo, it's decent enough and can fill a good sized room on its own. A little unrefined sounding and boomy when I've heard him live but that may be (read probabably is) down to his eq as he's a converted rhythm guitarist. Quite compact for the sound it puts out too.

10 minutes ago, Ed_S said:

I like to find really cheap basses that just happen to have great necks, and then have fun replacing all the bits that were actively skimped on in order to have that standard of woodwork and fretwork at such a low price. In those cases I think the word 'upgrade' is more easily justified, but I do agree that it's important to make peace with the fact that a £200 bass with £200 of parts fitted and a load of time invested using expensive tools is still very often only worth £100.

 

All the same, if such a bass falls out of use or favour down the road, I prefer to send it off as-is and stand to a degree of loss - partly in the hope that it makes the new owner happy and perhaps lets them have something they otherwise couldn't, but mostly because taking something that I've made as good as I think it can be and then spending even more time to rip it apart and make it worse (even if only subjectively), I find to be the complete opposite of fun.

Yeah this, my backup bass is a cheapy which has a neck I love and a solid low B string. Swapped the tuners out for some Grover clones (tenner second hand on eBay) and stuck an expensive preamp in it (£150 used East Uni Pre off here) and will be using it as my main bass for some upcoming dep gigs as it sounds so good and feels great to play. Total cost was under £300 and it punches well above its weight.

If I sell it on the East is staying with me though!

Upgrades are fine, I won't think twice about swapping something on my gigging basses as I'm the person using them, always keep the originals in case you sell it on though.

Also the Tech 21 Dug Punnick pedal and the JHS Punchline.

There's also the Gallien Krueger Plex, Tech 21 FLy Rig, EBS MicroBass 3 and also a cheaper Fly Rig clone I can't remember the name of

EDIT: Valeton Bass Dapper was the cheaper one

2 minutes ago, warwickhunt said:

 

Ditto.  I find the Fishman Plat Pro exceptional.  I ALWAYS use the HPF and though I'm not a fan of most pedal compressors, this weeks so well.  

 

The only downside is if you swap basses mid gig and they are vastly different outputs, it is difficult to quickly adjust/match the side mounted (recessed) trim control.  This is not an issue if using one bass or if you have time between sets to adjust... it really is minor and despite using basses with massive differences, I manage.

You could just use the boost footswitch to quickly match levels if you don't use it for anything else.

1 hour ago, ped said:

Yeah I had one a while ago and found it very noisy. Could have been a defective unit or maybe a problem elsewhere but I think I sent it back. 

I think someone mentioned on one of the HB Block 800B threads found that the noise from that was due to paint preventing it from being properly grounded, same deal with some of their guitars (there's a KDH video with a tele he bought) which have painted bridges and saddles that don't ground properly. Maybe as simple as that.

Some people complained about background noise on the Harley Benton btw, might be worth looking into before buying.

Been using a Fishman Platinum Pro EQ for years, love the comp and eq (with sweepable mids) on it plus it has an accurate tuner and a really nice DI. The HPF and brilliance controls are handy for taming excess at either end of the bass frequency range.

The Sonicake B Factory might be a good cheaper option, I would tell you all about it but the one I ordered went missing!

1 hour ago, frannie01 said:

 

RE AliExpress - I use it regularly and there's a ton of nice parts on there, namely some really good inexpensive bridges and other bits of hardware. I'd avoid Wilkinson stuff on there though as there's always a chance is might be a fake. There are/were fake WIlkinsons and according to the head guy at Harley Benton that's why they had to stop using them.

I have a set of the Wilinson WOJB5 ceramic magnet Jazz pickups in my backup bass and they sound great, a bit more aggressive than regular J pickups but that's not a bad thing and I use that bass as my main instrument for any heavier dep gigs I get. They were initially a temporary measure but they're more than good enough to stay. I wouldn't worry about it unless it's not the sound you like.

11 minutes ago, frannie01 said:

Hi Thank you all for your suggestions. Just to clarify I’d love the option of having a pbass and stingray at my disposal in one bass but this isn’t the bass for all the reasons you’ve all so kindly mentioned. Not even sure the Sandberg California which this bass is modelled could do that either ?) my issues have been the imbalance in out out between the 2 sets of pups 

I’ll look at the Warmans and Wilkinson’s then thank you all for your input 🙏🏽👍🏽

The bass you're after would look like this:

As already mentioned it won't sound anything like a MM pickup due to being pushed right back against the bridge. If you just want to beef it up a little then the cheap option would be a higher output overwound pickup (Warman do a cheap one) or if you want to spend more money then swap the preamp out one which has adjustable gain for each pickup like an East or something.

1 minute ago, Terry M. said:

This is true. If I was a 4 string Fender kind of guy I'd go and give it a test run. I don't live too far from this shop. The owner has a decent bass inventory and invites offers. I hope he gains more traction in the marketplace going forward. 

I did wonder if that was a real store tbh, the owner has done a great job of making it look almost exactly like one of those scam pop-up web stores that steal your credit card details! Good to know it's legit

2 hours ago, Terry M. said:

https://fenderfever.com/products/2375?_pos=49&_fid=ab9285fa2&_ss=c

 

Case in point. Albeit a Jazz. 

Great price that, pretty much what you'd excpect to pay in a private sale.

1 hour ago, okusman said:

Headed to Guitar Guitar Birmingham today. First thing to say is they had a really good stock/selection and I was totally looked after/put up with. It’s the same chap each time I go in, and he’s a gent.

A/B’d Squier CV/New Standard/New Player II and US Pro Precision basses.

 

The Indonesian made Standard bore the spaghetti Fender logo, and played fine but….they were NOT ‘better’ than the Squier. The neck was anaemic and the ceramic p/us were rather lacking in character. I played a 3TSB and the Poplar was rather ugly under the laquer. 
At £549, it’s the logo you crave at a price you can afford, but the Squier (possibly made in the same factory) was a much nicer looking and playing instrument. Same Poplar/Laurel combo and more pleasing Alnico p/u. £369.

The New Mexican made Player Ii at £749 was an improvement on the previous iteration. They had a glorious Alder-bodied Aquatone blue example I played and it was a much more appealing neck with rolled edges to the fretboard. It just played and felt £200 better!  Model I played had a maple board, so not an exact. A/B…but the quality jump was obvious.

The USA pro was £1000 more. 
It had the best wood under the laquer, fretwork was 10/10 and the neck just sat right. The tuners, the bridge, the neck joint…it’s a better quality of parts.

It’s sound was impressively round and full…yes there is a difference from the Squier CV 😘.

There were Ultras and US Performer PJ version available, but I stuck with the single pickup instruments for sake of reference.

 

My conclusions..

The Standard is a marketing ploy…I wasn’t disappointed, just felt it was a triumph of brand over substance.

The Squier CV remains a very gig-worthy bass

The Player II was impressive; it felt and looked like it was worth playing and equally paying £749.

The Pro is what it should be.

 

Anyway, my two pennies worth.

 

PS I don’t, or ever have owned, a Precision bass. I want to add one to my arsenal. Today made realise I really should dip my hand in my (bass) pocket.

 

To throw a spanner in the works - the new price of the Player II is in used MiJ territory.

1 hour ago, kwmlondon said:

I just wonder if Sire have a manufacturing system better suited to smaller runs - they're getting more and more niche with their instruments they must have a setup where they don't need to sell such huge numbers but can still turn a profit. I'm not an expert, but it'd be interesting to see how the whole supply chain works for the different companies.

I don't know if anybody has ever found any information about the mysterious Sire factory, they claim it's their own facility in Indonesia (and now also China) with their parent brand Dame being produced in Korea and that they don't use OEMs.

I would imagine they do shift decent numbers, I regularly see them on the gigging circuit here and have a few mates who own them. They'll have probably done a small run of the new Godin clones and even less singlecuts but gone big on the Z series, the singlecuts are targeting the boutique on a budget market really and I imagine they'll be able to be heavily discounted and still not make a loss. Hopefully the Godins were a huge flop and I can pick up a GB5-FL when they're at clearance prices!

EDIT: Looking at Andertons they may just be doing batches of the F series based on preorders.

The recent Charvel basses were just Mexican Fenders with loud colours and atrocious premps weren't they?

Jackson also seemed to have turned their Concert line into pointy headstock Fender clones and the Spectra line is just a wonky Soundgear copy. Shame as the old Concert shape was a neat diversion from the usual Jackson aesthetic:

Having control over the keys player's eq in the mix. Best bit is he doesn't even know or care.

38 minutes ago, Terry M. said:

The latest versions of active Squier Affinitys are REALLY good though. I briefly had a 5 string black Jazz V.

There's still nothing there to compete with a Sire V7, Cort Fusion or the old Sadowsky Metro Express line, the £400-£600 price point is where it's at for a lot of people and all Fender/Squier have is passive instruments.

There's still gaps in the Fender/Squier range though such as the lack of a proper active Jazz in between the Squier Affinity and MiM Player Plus ranges. Think the Contemporary J bazz (not with humbuckers) is discontinued.

It's like they just saw Sire gobble up that part of the market and thought "yeah that's fine, we'll just make weird stuff nobody wants"

You can buy heavy duty bridges on AliExpress for a reasonable price:

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005004594501983.html

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005002623534069.html

37 minutes ago, NJE said:

I have been looking at Gator gig bags and couldn’t work out what the difference was between the Transit and the Pro Go X as gear4music have both at different prices. 
 

Thank you for clarifying.

Think it's just the material that's different, the Pro Go X is made of the same stuff as the Pro Go Deluxe. I got mine when they were discounted to £50 a few years back, wouldn't pay more than £80 tbh as the TFG Extreme is cheaper and of similar quality. If your budget is around £100 then look at the TFG Ultimate as well, that's a great gigbag and nicer than the Pro Go X.