T-Bay

Forget about what it sounds like when you are on your own. I can get the fattest most gorgeous sounds from my Thunderbird but the same settings give a boomy mush when I play with the rest of the band. By comparison my Jazz that sounds quite trebley on its own cuts through well. I use a bottom heavy Orange Terror 1000w amp and have to turn the bottom end of the eq down completely to get a decent sound from the Thunderbird.

At least it’s happy.

Crazy money, but they quite often come on at a stupid price ‘coz rare mate’, then gradually reduce over to time to around £50 or thereabouts.

Not quite the scale of above but two of us were bought a burger in the kebab house around the corner from one of our gigs by someone who had enjoyed their night (a lot of liquid enjoyment by the sound of the voice), as it was only an hour after we finished playing and 200yds from the pub we had played it’s hardly a chance encounter. We were about to order and he came and said what do want lads? I’ll get it as you lot were amazing tonight’. It was a very nice gesture.

Best thing is not to watch it, much as I enjoy the bits of the program I have seen on the whole, I couldn’t believe how they killed the history that bass.

I don’t get more than a couple of months out of any roundwounds I have tried. I play a lot to be fair but when they die they sound as dead as anything. The difference a new set makes is massive. So as mentioned above it’s well worth trying new ones. By comparison I have flats on one of my Basses and they seem the same as when I put them on 18 months ago.

Yup pretty much, it’s ok but not great but it was better than one our guitarist loved which was awful, thankfully the guitarist put up the eventual name so avoided anyone’s nose being put out.

Oh boy, just been through this with our new band. After three months nothing had come up then got the offer of a gig so needed to come up with a name ASAP. It’s ridiculously hard and even harder to get one everyone likes. In the end we got one that no one hated. Good luck.

Mine fitted apart from the wires, they wouldn’t fit past the plastic side..

As mine was the bridge pick up I just dremelled the old cover, easier than cutting the body!

Really? I thought it was dead popular, I heard people were dying to give it a go.

I use brake cleaner for all adhesive removal jobs, dirt cheap and surprising gentle on lacquered/ painted surfaces.

I picked up an Alan Entwistle pickup from a fellow basschatter to replace the dodgy bridge pickup on my bitsa Jazz. It has a Seymour Duncan in the neck slot. First impressions were that it seems to be of a decent quality for the money (not expensive new) and is supplied with a sensible length of wire with soldered ends. All good so far. It’s deeper than a standard Jazz pickup but most after market ones are. When I came to fit it I found that the plastic cover will not fit in a standard Jazz slot - the corners are a bit too square to fit it. It’s not far off but enough that you would need to open the slots up which I wasn’t prepared to do. The pickup NEARLY fits in the standard Jazz cover but the wire outlet fouls it. Five minutes with a Dremel and it was good to go. Once fitted I had a play. As you would expect it’s a much lighter sound than the Duncan bridge pickup but pleasant all the same with a bright top end. Adding it mid dial against a full dial (hope that makes sense] bridge adds a nice mid range punch that wasn’t there before. As the original wasn’t working I can’t compare it to that sadly but for a budget pickup I am impressed with the quality and sound. I don’t know if the figment issue would be different on other Jazzes but that was the only issue encountered. Verdict - 8/10

Yes, just preamp valves. It had a pair of AX7s, I replaced them with ECC81s which helped a lot. Cost was about £30 iirc for decent quality valves, cheap ones could be had for about a fiver each but I didn’t want to do that. The valves do affect output though, not an issue with a 1000w amp, but could be with a 500w depending what you need it for and what valve swap you do.

Not used the combo but my terror 1000w head isn’t great at doing clean. I swapped out the valves to get a bit more clean head room which gives a bit more flexibility but I wouldn’t be looking at one if a clean sound was the main buying criteria. I love the sound personally and it works for my band but it’s not the most adjustable sound wise.

Bright spark mini? Mine always seemed transparent.

We have an old fashioned independent shop in our small market town. But being honest I don’t know how it survives as they have a few beginner guitars, some horrendously overpriced (and always dirty) stock and one type of bass strings (if you are lucky). I really would love it to be brilliant but I guess the level of stock it would need would kill it overnight.

For fun I ran my £2 eBay clip up against a Boss one and found no difference. I then used a signal generator to get precise frequencies and see how the two responded and there was no difference once the fact that the cheap one had one less increment than the Boss. I then got a £10 Chinese foot pedal tuner and repeated and got the same result. The only thing I can’t test is if there is any variance across individual units but based on how the circuitry works there is no reason there should be beyond the usual quality aspects but my Chinese one has been used and abused for a few years now and is still going strong.

Sex Pistols - never mind the Bollocks Sugar - Beaster Nirvana - Incesticide Smashing Pumpkins - Gish Pearl Jam - Ten The Cure - Wish The Cult - Love

Not a massive bargain, but picked up what I thought was just a Jazz copy for £60 unseen as I wanted a few bits for a project. Turned out it was a decent quality Squier with Seymour Duncan pickups and upgraded electronics. I use it all the time as it sounds great and I am not worried where I use it or if it’s going to get a ding or two.

Kurt Cobain, I was doing my masters in the Netherlands and only had a radio with the world service being the only program in English I could find. To hear a stupid plum voice announcing his death in about two seconds before going onto the cricket scores has always stuck with me. It still saddens me 25 years on.