bnt

Video demo of the Dimension 5:

Insert "record scratch" sound effect here: the order was dispatched, they say, but returned by the courier and I was refunded. Thanks to the timing - after Christmas - it ran head-first in to Brexit-related covfefe and the courier company said "we can't even". Which is probably a good thing, since I've seen some new product releases and am having a rethink. I saw the thread about the Hotone Stomp, and if that can handle a dual output "Rick-O-Sound" bass, then I may be up for that. To Be Continued ...

The dual inputs are definitely interesting, since I'm getting more in to running dual pickup outputs and processing them differently a la Rick-O-Sound. The Line6 Helix and Boss GT-1000 can do that, but at a hefty price, so I'll keep one eye on this one and hope it has that capability.

SubZero appears to be Gear4Music's in-house budget brand - don't know much about them, though I have a couple of their pedals and a headphone amp on the way to me this week.

I can see a few Behringer MDX2200s and dbx266XLs on Reverb with seller in the UK, and also a Yamaha GC2020b. Thomann has the Behringer MDX4600 in stock, 4 channels in 1U for €111, though that could be a bit too much ..? PS: checked Gear4Music out of curiosity, they have the usual suspects, but they also have this, a full channel strip (preamp, compressor, EQ) in 1U for £100.

I bought an Artec "Mudbucker" with the idea of installing it on this bass, but on arrival it's bigger than I thought. I would have to rout to within a few mm of the back, and I'm wary about removing that much wood so close to the neck joint. I know Billy Sheehan did exactly what I'm thinking about to a P-bass and it's still playable - that's where I got the idea.

I'm playing with this at the moment on my HB MP4-EB, but with strings that are a bit too light (lowest 0.120"). A 5-string set is on the way and could even be here tomorrow, so I'll set it up properly then. I don't know how good a tone I'm going to get on a 34" scale, I'd really prefer something longer, but we'll see. This bass has a zero fret, so the nut shouldn't be critical.

Ooh, that’s lovely. This is the design that Harley Benton was “inspired by” for their Enhanced MP series, the one I got because I was cheap and looking for something I could mod. If I ever get gigging again, I can definitely see one of these in my future, maybe a 5-er in Greenburst. 😎

A Harley Benton bass back in April, a guitar a couple of months ago, and just today I finally placed an order I've been meaning to place for months now: a proper pedalboard, a few more pedals, and some strings & bits, all from Gear4Music. Funding courtesy of a gift debit card from my employer, which has been really nice to have. It's got to do double duty as a guitar pedalboard too, since I'm getting in to that too, so I got some inexpensive guitar pedals at the same time (compressor, fuzz and phaser), all mini size from their house "SubZero" line. It seems that the "bass versions" of pedals seem to cost more, but the fears that guitar effects suck the life out of bass are kind-of overblown and don't apply to all effects types e.g. I rarely hear it about compressors or phasers. Distortion pedals, maybe, which is why I specifically chose a fuzz with a dry blend control. These will all feed in to my existing tc electronics SpectraDrive, which can act as a DI and headphone practice amp evev if i don't need its own compressor & drive facilities at the time.

I have the almost cheapest one from Thomann and am generally happy with it. I don't expect miracles, and prefer to tune with harmonics. But I agree it's a bad idea to leave it on all the time, and would take it off if playing live.

I did it a few months ago on an old inexpensive bass. Even after heating, there was some flaking of the wood around the frets. I thought about veneers or plastic, but decided to use a dark wood filler that dried slightly lighter in colour than the fretboard. The fret slots don’t reach the edges of the fretboard, which complicated things but meant that I didn’t have to worry about the edges when it came to sanding. I haven’t sanded it down as much as I could have, so it’s a bit steampunk if you look closely, and the nut needs more filing down, but so far it’s rather playable.

The bridge is actually pretty straightforward, it just came with no instructions. Each bridgepiece has a height adjustment screw and a locking screw. It's possible to unscrew the adjustment screw too far, so that the bridgepiece can't be raised by the screw, but all you need to do is lift it a little by hand and tighten the screw again. I was playing the guitar again last night, and I can't get over just how light it is. I bet a guitar purist would find fault with the pickups, and I think it could benefit from more shielding, but very playable. PS - mods, when I started this thread I didn't realise that the forum has a Guitars section. It's kind-of hidden away at the bottom of the page which is understandable, I suppose.

That pic wasn't there when I ordered the guitar. They changed the guitar during production, they added some extra string clamps on the headstock as in the "living room" pictures. I've been very busy at work and haven't played much, but so far I like it. The little tool is an Allen key, you can use a standard Allen key if one is handy. Fingers work on some strings if they're strong enough, but the tuners are tight and close together.

Browsing ads here in Ireland, spotted this for sale. The seller might be open to shipping, it appears. It’s a Warwick Thumb JD Bass from 1987.

DV247? I remember when they were Digital Village, then kind-of forgot about them after I moved to Dublin. I'm out of the cheap Tele market for the foreseeable, though, since I went in a different direction, as per the "Headless Guitars" thread.

I’ve had a wide DiMarzio ClipLock in red since 1990, and it looks nearly brand new. I haven’t used it non-stop, but it hasn’t let me down. This is what Steve Vai uses with his JEM guitars, which are not light, and he does the throw around the body thing.

Ordered Thursday night, arrived from the UK on Saturday morning, which is quite amazing considering how cheap the shipping was. First impressions are good. Neck is very lightly finished, no thick lacquer there. I'm playing it through my old Korg AmpWorks box for starters, but want to put together a combined bass / guitar pedalboard at some point. The bridge ... I think you need an Engineering degree to figure out how it works, so it's a good thing I have one. 😎

About an hour after I posted in the "I want a cheap Telecaster" thread last night, I basically went in the opposite direction and ordered one of these: It's a kind-of Strandberg clone, but with some major differences. The headstock is where the ball-ends go, and the string ends attach at the bridge. At first I thought the bridge was going to be like the NS Design basses, but instead there appears to be some kind of clamping system inside the bridge. My first decent bass was a headless Hohner B2V, and my step-brother was inspired by that to get the equivalent Hohner guitar, the G2T. The Steinberger Spirit guitars today are basically the same. I've never stopped liking headless instruments, and have been pleased to see them come back in to fashion, but they cost more than I wanted to spend. Harley Benton (Thomann) have their Dullahan models, named after the headless horseman of Irish folklore that inspired the legend of Sleepy Hollow, but they're quite expensive and have some quirks (I hear), such as fiddly bits of metal that can fall off and get lost. There are also many Strandberg clones from Chinese sellers - Chandbergs? - and if you start spending real money the other main competitor is Kiesel (the company formerly known as Carvin). I'm a pretty bad guitarist, as guitarists go, and Plini has nothing to fear from me. I was seriously considering a Telecaster, which is also a compact instrument, but this jumped out at me and looks like good value, so one will be here with me early next week. I know we have headless bass fans here, but do we have headless guitar fans too?

More Purple, this time in the Squier Classic Vibe range:

If all else fails, you could order a PB Shorty from Thomann, under £100 and you’d get a free bass body with the neck. ☺️

Um ... sandblasted Teles at a nice price? There's a green one too. Be still, my beating wallet:

Here's a bloke who dropped some Aguilar pickups in to the EHB1005MS, and he seems pretty happy with the results:

Yeah - the best comparison I can think of is with classical music. TfTO is like four short Romantic / Impressionist symphonies, and you don’t tend to listen to several of those in a row. The post above got me wanting to listen to the album again, which I just did: only the first album (two tracks) today.

TfTO is a lot, but there’s a lot of good stuff in there. You should try it, but my advice is to pace yourself. Reviewers treated it like a standard album and tried to listen to the whole shebang in one sitting, which isn’t a good idea in my opinion. For example, The Remembering features some of Rick Wakeman’s all time best work.

Well, if I think about sustain and tone, I hark back to my previous reply that mentioned how energy is lost, absorbed in to the body etc., and the properties of the material means that it doesn't happen evenly across all frequencies. Some frequencies sustain more than others -> there's your effect on tone.