sykilz

My white BB414,simply the best sounding bass ( for a rock covers band ) that I've ever heard or played, have a Fender Jazz and had a Warwick Corvette, both struggled to be heard live with two budding Slashs on guitar.....then I remembered playing one of these while testing out an amp in PMT years ago, £150 later I get a used 414, the rest is history. It is fairly light at 9 lbs, but was still too hefty for my aching back, so swapped out the tuners for hipshots, which made a big difference. Now my go to bass!

I own 2 basses,both white,both luverly......

I still buy cds although quite often I will get a .....cut price......download first if it's a new band I want to check out, but I still NEED a physical product, as much as anything so I can just grab what I fancy in the morning ,depending on mood, off the shelf, chuck it in the car and it's ready to play, no faffing around trying to find it on a digital device,assuming I remembered to put it onto a digital device in the first place! Maybe if I was starting out in the download age it'd be different, but with 300 cds already,and all accessible....and filed alphabetically...!!!!.....its actually easier,for me, this way.

Dear Mojo,( the OP ), my main gigging bass is the Yamaha BB414 I bought from you for £150 last year, because compared to a German Warwick Corvette and a Dimarzio puped Fender Jazz, it absolutely wipes the floor with them for getting the perfect sound for my band, sits perfectly with the two different guitarists sound, powerful, defined,punchy. I keep trying to gig my more expensive basses, but for this band, they're simply not as good as the cheapy. Luckily my band don't have any gear snobs, we just play what sounds good for the band. Play what you like!

I owned a modern player (?) dimension bass for about 5 hours, and took it back to swap for a jazz, for me there was one half way decent position out of the five on the pickup, and through a proper big gigging amp it sounded awful. To me,anyway, I play hard rock mostly. It was beautifully made, however,and looked great. So I would say make sure its a sound you want before commiting, because it's pretty much a one trick pony ( assuming its the same pup as on the one I had ).

Got my tickets too, never seen him solo, just with Chickenfoot, and he was great, bonus that Southend is much better to get to than London, even though I live mid way between the two!

Its sooo loud, isn't it...! I use the TC BC4x10 for most gigs, but for very large pubs, like this weekned, also have the 2x12 to stack up, seriously nice rumble from a very affordable set up. When mine was in for repair I borrowed a friends Ampeg.... I think SVT PRO7... Supposedly 1000 watts aginst the TC bh500 which allegedly has about 250 watts and lots of compression, and the Ampeg really struggled to keep up with the band volume wise, was so glad to get the TC back.

Very nice, sounds like a good deal too! What are the pickups like, modern sounding or more"old school"?

Cheers, think the Yamaha has a barrel type, will have a delve. Just paranoid it'll snap off if. I bend it back at all. Will ditch the lead, hopefully my jazz isn't as affected as not used as much, and it's quite new. The Whirlwind lead also sounds, to my ears, a lot better anyway. Cheers.

It seems like a few of the connections in this amp, instead of being soldered, are just push fits, kinda like spade plugs, and they lose connection when not seated properly, think mine shook loose as I used to wheel it on top of my cab which has castors fitted. The amp repairers told me that they see a lot of amps that have been damaged by wheeling/shaking/vibration!!!!!

Sorry for the delay, not been in this section for a while, I had it repaired by essex amp repairs, it was a few connections that weren't good enough, nothing " major " but enough to render the amp ungiggable. Has been fine ever since, touch wood!

Love the Jar of Flies E.P by Alice in Chains, especially "Rotten Apple",great tone from Mike Inez, who also has a great metal/rock tone on Ozzy's No More Tears....IMO.... Hope this link works..... http://youtu.be/KEeFNvvR-ng

Basically, I've been using the Planet waves compression spring cable in my Yamaha for a while, and it, I think, caused the jack socket to "widen" ever so slightly, so that now if I use my Whirlwind cable, it works, but any little movement of the cable and you get that disconnect and pop as it reconnects. Is there any way to pull or push the innards of the jack socket to make it a wee bit smaller again....? Cheeers!

Lik Lozz said a few posts back, I changed a Mex P bass from the BBOT original to a GOTOH hi mass, very chunky bridge, and there was a difference in tone / clarity of notes, even our drummer noticed without being told that there were any changes to the bass, BUT I didn't like the change, lost some warmth and deepness to the tone, so changed back!!!!

I have nothing to really contribute, but I enjoyed reading your opening post so much, it's brightened up my day no end! If the band fails you should write a comedy book about life in a band!

We do pub covers with the songs coming from the 60's ( Gimme some lovin, You really got me ) through to the 90's ( American idiot, Buck Rogers ) probably most are 70's though, and I worry that we need more modern stuff in the set ( we do classic rock, and rocked up versions of pop-ish songs ) but a) the older stuff seems, at many venues, to be the most popular! And we can't settle on any newer stuff to do as we can't agree on a modern song that our crowds will warm to. So I'm going to quit worrying and enjoy the oldies.

I use the soon to be discontinuedBH500, which is larger and heavier, and found it great for rock, with the 4x10, no p.a support, loud as hell.

I used Essex amp repairs to fix my T. C Electronic head earlier this year, although they're near Chelmsford so may be too far from London. Great guys though, cost me £60, head's been fine since.

I looked at this a LOT on bassdirects site. A lot. Like it......

Sounds good for first impressions. My BH500 is stupidly loud at 3-4 (out of ten) on the volume dial, plenty loud enough in a very loud classic rawwwk band, playing into a BC410,4ohm, even though it's apparently only 240 watts, so would expect the 800 to do o.k for volume. I'd probably get the BH550, save a few quid and get similar output to the BH500. Will probably keep the 500, it's all about the weight for me, lugging the 500 about can be a pain in the back...!

My only problem is, I don't have a smart phone, had one and hated the stupid lil keyboard, so went back old school, however I have an ipad for home use, can that do tone print, or do you have to hook up to the PC?

I've purchased tickets for gigs where they tell you to take your original credit card etc. on a couple of occassions, and have done so, but have never actually been required to produce the credit card. Guess the touts know this. I really can't be bothered with big gigs now, would have liked to go to Foo Fighters next summer, but the already ridiculously high prices and inevitable fast sell out means it'll be a hell of a lot of money to stand in an echoey stadium several hundred yards from the action. Bah humbug! Small venues for me.

Look forward to review, I have the BH500, which sounds great for rock covers, but it's hefty, these are meant to be very light weight, so may upgrade if the sound is up to the job.

Does anyone know how these newer, three band e.q SR300's compare in sound to the previous "style sweeper" e.q.? I loved the feel ( weight ) and skinny neck on my SR300, but could never quite get a sound I loved from the style sweeper, I think the newer e.q , being somewhat simpler, might suit me better, anyone had both types to compare? Absolutely LOVE that maple and blue, by the way!!!!

Hey MoJo, the BB414 I mentioned a few posts back is the white one you sold me a few months ago.....rock monster!! Gig it regularly, best sounding bass I have, bit weird looking but so what!!