lemmywinks

Obligartory tag for @Bassassin 

Just grabbed this from my local Cash Generator, spotted it at the weekend and had a half day off work so decided to snag it as I need a boring trad bass for some upcoming dep gigs. Was £110 and they wouldn't shift on price as it had just been discounted from £140. Not sure what's original, I think the pickup, scratchplate and knobs might be replacements as they look too new but the bass overall is in superb condition for an old cheap bass. It's missing a thumb rest and pickup/bridge covers, assume the covers would have been stock. It also has a large silver sticker running under the strings by the bridge, assume this would have been disguised by the bridge cover but not sure if it's stock, had a poke and a prod and it doesn't seem to be hiding any naughty routing mods.

Can't find much info on these, most CMI basses on the internet have a different logo, tele bass style pickups, cr@p tuners and that horrible forearm overspray which hides a butcher block body. This has a 3 piece body, brass nut/saddles, good quality tuners and seems very well finished overall. Truss rod adjustment is at the body end with a wooden plug at the neck and a skunk stripe. I thinksome El Maya branded instruments had the wooden plug and brass nut but not seen them on many MiJ basses.

Is this 70s or 80s? Looks to have a standard sized neck plate so thinking later. Also any clue about the factory? Seen Chushin Gakki linked with CMI a bit.

The only times I've been disappointed buying blind was from big UK music chains selling "new" items and from a Thomann B Stock, all the used gear I've got has been splendid.

Ideally I'd like to try every bit of kit before buying but this isn't always possible unless you restrict yourself to your local area or are prepared to write off a full day and fuel costs.

There shouldn't be an issue with discussing brexit now IMO, unsettling truths are always preferable to comforting lies.

One of the earlier Samick ones with the MIJ bridge, those J pickups are beastly as well.

4 hours ago, neepheid said:

 

It's mostly BS, I reckon - mostly people parroting some vague scare story they've heard and wanting to be seen to join the internet dogpile.  I used and abused a RedSub BT5110 (Ibanez Promethean's more down-at-heel sibling) as my main amp for nearly 12 years.  Twice weekly rehearsals at war volume, hundreds of gigs.  Left it in car boots over winter, brought it into hot venues dripping with condensation (only a couple of times and I was absolutely bricking it).  It finally crapped out but it even had the decency to wait until the very end of a gig.  I was quite sad when it went pop.  Would have bought another one if they still made them.

There's one of the original Prometheans for sale on FB marketplace at the moment if you're still after a replacement, spotted it yesterday.

8 minutes ago, grapefruitmoon said:

Piggy-backing a bit on this thread, but are there any good cheapish recommendations for an Android tablet for the Xr18? I'd prefer something a bit cheaper than the iPad I currently use.

Regardless of platform for your main mix go as big as you can, it's nice to have the screen real estate for touch devices. Honor Pad 8 might be a good budget Android option, Lenovo do some larger Android tablets too.

I prefer the full Windows X-Air Edit app over the Android, we have a Portege X20t-C (8gb/256gb, 12.5" screen) for our main mix and I use a Surface Go (8gb/128gb, 10" screen) for my personal monitor. Both have detachable keyboards which is handy. If I had to buy a budget tablet for mixing I'd probably just go for a used Surface Pro tbh.

We also went with the XR18 as everything is XLR. This means our keys player doesn't ask which cable to use as a way of getting out of setting up so well worth spending the extra £.

You can fit the desk, a router and a power strip in a 3u shallow rack.

1 hour ago, Terry M. said:

These are Mexican made and finished in the USA. Highway One runs between the two countries. The made in USA sticker doesn't mean all parts were made there. Just so we're all clear on that. It doesn't mean they're not good,I'm just saying not be overly seduced by the USA label 😊👍

There's been a few cross border instruments, the country where they are finished usually dictates what the "Made in..." part says. Highway One were Z serial numbers so even the ones without the country of origin stamped on the headstock would be classed as USA Fenders. Can't remember the name of the series but MIM Fenders assembled using MIA parts were still MIM.

Realistically the wood will most likely be sourced from the same place, hardware could be from either country on any model, CNC machines are the same etc.

You can get a used Highway One for about £700 when they come up for sale, that's a proper USA Fender.

Wolfgang could be playing bass like he did for Van Halen.

Saw the original lineup in the 2000s when they sandwiched an Ozzfest day into Download, Ozzy was knackered even back then but they were brilliant tbh. Love Ward's drumming.

They need to reissue the World Tour '78 tshirt in brown as well, wore mine until it fell apart.

Trace Elliot 1182 Multi?

Like this one?

https://reverb.com/uk/item/17960758-trace-elliot-multi-stack-1x18-bass-cab

15 minutes ago, Rich said:

+1 for the Artecs. My Thunder 1A has an SE2 in it at the moment, and I fitted a full fat SE3PA to my old fretless Yamaha, the three band with the sweepable mid, and it was great. For my money a 3 band with sweepy mid is the perfect preamp for fretless.

It was the SE3P I had in my old Cort, still have another one in a box somewhere. Really nice preamps.

I would get some shielding tape (dirt cheap from AliExpress) and shield the cavity btw, Artecs can be noisy without it in certain situations. I did my old Cort which had an SE-3P installed, went from noisy in my front room (tons of lights as my reptiles are in there) to deadly silent.

I've always liked Artecs, -/+ 12db according to the spec sheet:

http://artecsound.com/pickups/electronics/se2.html

https://www.thomann.co.uk/artec_se2a.htm

I have an SE2A in my fretless and there's definitely boost available, bass frequency is 100hz so doesn't get boomy too.

Bargain for someone, high action but I guess you can check the truss rod works when you collect:

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/286289076220

Some Schaller BMF in the classifieds:

One of these was the first bass I played, my music teacher at school had one.

Shame this one has been butchered as they were great instruments.

This case just arrived, the Pocket Master is very snug in there. Fits perfectly upside down but is ok the right way up too. I removed the bit of elastic.

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005006075771241.html

1 hour ago, Lifer said:

I’ve had one of these for about a week and it really is incredible.  I didn’t know you could stream audio from the phone!  I can get rid of the AmPlug!

 

I’ve been using it as an interface into Logic for a very portable demo recording rig (I have a focusrite interface but that doesn’t fit in my gig bag unlike the pocketmaster)

 

I had trouble with the input monitoring on the pocketmaster but that was easily solved by using the output on my MacBook instead.

 

I’ve only just started messing around with the captures and so far the Dual Terror one is the only one that I like.  I’ve recorded some guitars with a Rockverb capture and that sounds huge.

I don't know if BT audio works when connected as a BLE device using the Sonic Link app as it doesn't work properly with my phone, just connecting a PC/phone directly to it as Sonic Audio works fine though.

Great playing!

I saw one comment the other day (think it ws Phillip McKnight's video) asking if instead of saying "Squier by Fender" on the back of the headstock these would have "Fender by Squier", made me chuckle.

38 minutes ago, mcnach said:

The company is consistently bad, but just how bad depends a lot on the individual drivers. To say I dislike EVri is putting it mildly, but I moved to a new area about a year and a half and the driver that delivers around here is pretty good. Fingers crossed!

 

However I've noticed a general tendency to simply leaving parcels at the door step without knocking at the door. What can possibly go wrong :rolleyes:

Yeah the driver makes a massive difference, a mate of mine used to have an Evri (Hermes back then) driver who introduced himself to everyone on their new build estate when he delivered parcels, gave his personal number out and wrote down their preferences for alternative delivery addresses or locations. Super reliable guy, Evri went from being their worst courier to their best and pretty much every house gave him a decent wedge of money at Christmas. He went back to Portugal (due to the thing which cannot be named but everybody knows was a ridiculous idea) and now their new driver is awful with things going missing all the time.

Was the same with us and our good driver is still the one dleivering parcels 95% of the time, it's that 5% where we get the other guy and we consistently don't get our stuff. because of that 5% I just don't use them aside from via AliExpress where I get the option of Parcel Shop delivery every time.

Nice 4 knob Audere in the Marketplace which may be a drop in replacement: