dmc79

My white player has moved to a new home, so I’m left with this black beauty as my sole remaining bass. Modded with CS62 pickups, KiOgon wiring loom, Fender P / Tele knobs, and a 3-ply black plate. Black, black & maple: OOF!

Lee bought an EHX Bass Soul Food pedal from me. Paid up right away and was a gent throughout. Deal with confidence.

VTDI is excellent, and very versatile. It’s what I use now. I’ll post more tomorrow but here is one of the better demos of it. No talking, just on screen explanations and some of the many sounds you can get from this ‘magic box’: One quick thing to note is the Blend knob. I’ve read a ton of stuff on this pedal and while some would say you either want cab simulation / tube emulation or you don’t, just because the sample settings have the Blend at 100% doesn’t mean you have to. I’ve seen plenty of examples (and tried myself of course) of people having the Blend at 3pm, noon or even just left of noon. I’ve never been keen on it fully cranked myself. Lots of options with this box

The smaller enclosure Cat Tail looks awesome. I've been reading up on Rats, and this pedal (and variants of it) comes up all the time. Hope this isn't a stupid question, but are these good at low level or kind of really wild from the start, if you know what I mean? I know this is probably a different sort of band to what you'd associate with Fuzzrocious, but I've heard some stuff by The Wedding Present where they used a ProCo Rat on bass for some slightly grindy tones, without going all out distorted, with the distortion knob at like 9 o'clock. I'm tempted to just get a Rat to try and replicate that sound, but I keep reading about them losing low end. Does the Cat Tail nail that kind of lower level distortion or its strength at the more balls to the wall stuff? Thanks

Just to fry your brain even more, I've added those mentioned since and some more I thought of, to my original list. There's more for sale here currently than I realised.

There’s also a Two Notes Le Bass for sale currently. There’s nearly always someone selling a Preamp/DI box here

There is one for sale in the Classifieds here: Otherwise plenty of options out there. Some have an optional footswitch operated distortion circuit built in. Some have option of plugging in earphones for silent practice / aux in for playing along to phone, iPod, etc. Some have sweepable mids if that matters to you. Here are a few to start you off: MXR M81 (very transparent preamp/DI) MXR M80 (more colour to this, and optional distortion) Ampeg SCR-DI (distortion circuit and headphone input) Aguilar Tone Hammer (a popular one, has higher power needs than some, overdrive switch) TC Spectradrive EBS Microbass / 2 / 3 GK Plex DSM Noisemaker OmniCabSim - Deluxe & Mini versions 3 Leaf Enabler (discontinued) DSM & Humboldt Simplifier NUX Melvin Lee Davis NBP-5 Broughton Messenger Radial Bassbone OD Tech 21 BDDI (& version 2 with more mid options) Tech 21 BDDI Programmable Tech 21 BDDI Deluxe Tech 21 Para Driver (think this has a V2 as well) Tech 21 VTDI Tech 21 VT Bass Deluxe Tech 21 Fly Rig Tech 21 Steve Harris Tech 21 Dug Pinnick Tech 21 Q Strip (more transparent than their other options I believe, with low & high pass filter controls) Orange Bass Butler Caline Wine Cellar Behringer BDI V-Tone Bass Driver Lehle RMI Basswitch IQ DI Walrus Audio Badwater Laney Digbeth Eden World Tour DI Darkglass B7K Darkglass Vintage Ultra Darkglass Microtubes X7 Two Notes Le Bass tube (dual channel) Sushi Box Finally Tube DI box Then there are the more expensive tube DI boxes such as: Shift Line Olympic Noble preamp REDDI My list certainly isn't exhaustive. It's somewhat of a minefield, depending on budget and what exactly you think you need. I'll get back with my thoughts soon based on the few I've tried.

I'd probably be able to remember how to play a boatload of songs without printed music in front of me if we always played them in the same key. We play any given song in a number of keys depending on who is leading. I don't mind the odd song here and there, but if we play a few in the likes of Eb, that first to fourth fret stretch is a killer. No wonder some people switch to short scale! Is it normal to get your songs for Sunday morning after 6pm on Sat?!

Thanks for that. Quite a difference from the 4Kg stated on the site

Thanks. I've shortlisted the Hiscox P/J style bass case. I rarely play guitar but I still have the same Hiscox guitar case I bought about 20 years ago. Very good. £24 more than the Tourtech Pro, and showing shipping weight of 4.59Kg. @Madein1962 Could you give the weight of the Tourtech Pro please? Cheers

Further to my above post, I just saw the Tourtech Pro Series ABS case near the top of this page. Can any owners of this give me a reasonably accurate weight of this case please? 'Shipping weight' is shown as 4Kg, I presume that includes outer packaging when posted, and that the actual case weight is a touch under that? Thanks

I'm curious for those of you who've tried a good number of hard cases, are there any that are relatively lightweight? Sometimes for me it's not always playing, but load in/out (including carrying it up & down stairs at home) that hurts my back. I realised recently that my case is heavier than the bass. A combined weight of 9.4 Kg. No wonder that's not much fun to cart about. Anyway, I've weighed the last few cases I've had with digital luggage scales so thought I'd post those weights here. If anyone else can add any weights of other cases, that would be helpful. All rectangular hard shell cases apart from the first one: Fender bass shaped hard case (from 2000s): 4.1 Kg Fender Pro Series bass case: 5.3 Kg Gator Deluxe hard case: 5.4 Kg Fender Deluxe Travel Sentry hard case: 5.5 Kg I currently have the Fender Deluxe Travel Sentry hard case. It's great quality but I must say I miss the old Fender bass shaped one with metal latches that I had for years. It was not only lighter, but easier to manouvre round corners / up stairs etc, and it could stand in the passenger footwell of the car whilst a passenger sat around it! Maybe I'll look for another. Is there a hard case out there that's even lighter than those Fender shaped ones? As good as the travel sentry case is, I wonder if the bulk of it is just overkill for what I need - it's not like I'm ever gonna take it on a plane or anything like that. I want decent-ish protection for my bass, but also want to shed some weight for the load in/out, but would never go as far as a flimsy gig bag. Have any of you tried the inbetween option of something like the Gator foam case that was up for sale here recently? Very interested in good lightweight cases for a P bass. I don't need shoulder straps or any storage space as pedals / cables everything else goes in my rucksack. Thanks!

Entertaining thread. Sometime last year the thought crossed my mind to list the basses I've owned. I had to dig through the classifieds to get an idea on dates of the more recent ones, and through old photos for the older ones. My total is 10 basses. The scary thing is that I've been playing for 25 years, and went through just 5 basses over the first 24 of those years (2 of which I owned for around 6 years each), and then 5 in the last year alone! I'm I guess a rare example of a one bass at a time player, only owning 2 at a time during a crossover period when I had another up for sale, oh and 3 very briefly as I tried short scale. So for many years, I was pretty restrained, and happy with what I had. Then it got a bit crazy. Now I'm settled until further notice, pending one of a couple of holy grail basses surfacing. Here is my list, along with the year the basses were made (where known): Cheap Precision bass copy, black / rosewood (owned circa 1998-2002) Fender Mexican Jazz 1993, lake placid blue / rosewood (c.2003-2007) Epiphone Thunderbird, brown / rosewood (c.2007-2009) Fender Mexican Deluxe Active Jazz 2005, black / rosewood (c.2009-Dec 2015) Fender American Series Precision 2004, chrome red / maple (Dec 2015-Feb 2022) <looks relatively sensible, right? This is where it gets silly. . . > Fender American Standard Precision 2008, black / maple (Feb-June 2022) Squier Vintage Modified PJ 2013, candy apple red / rosewood (June-Sep 2022) Squier Vintage Modified Mustang short scale 2011, s*nburst / maple (Aug-Sep 2022) Fender Mexican Player Precision 2021, polar white / maple (Sep 2022-Mar 2023) Fender Mexican Player Precision 2021, black / maple (bought Jan 2023, still have) That was therapeutic. I can't imagine moving away from the classic Fender P bass anytime soon.

@Jackroadkill bought a Fender Player P bass from me. He paid up promptly and was great to deal with throughout. Deal with confidence!

Awesome, exactly what I use. Thanks for clarifying

Thanks. Holes big enough for USA Spec CTS pots?