shoulderpet

Steve Harris changes them for every gig and every recording session, fresh flatwounds can be pretty aggressive however for most of us they are just too expensive for us to be able to afford to do this

Oddly enough I am one of the few that finds flats work better at home, I find most bass amps and rigs have more than enough low end (too much on a lot of them) and then when you throw in guitars and a drummer I find it gets hard to hear what is going on

I would look at used, someone on here said the other day that a £500 bass is essentially a £200 bass with slightly better quality control and a little more labour time and I really agree with that assessment, I have played (and returned) a number of £400-500 basses and I am always struck by how marginal the improvements are vs basses that I own that are in the £200-250 price range

This is true, Affinity used to be pretty good value for money but now looking at the Affinity series you can nowadays get a better bass than an Affinity for less

Ok so as I never actually use tone controls I am thinking of just having a volume control, I will reach out to one of the companies that does custom pickguards and see if they will make me a control plate shape with one hole for the volume control to replace the original control plate

That's a real shame, sounds like they sent you the wrong pickup, from the above or doesn't sound at all like it is the Artec

That's a real shame, sounds like they sent you the wrong pickup, from the above or doesn't sound at all like it is the Artec

Yeah, I will wait for the bass to be delivered and assuming all is well I have some mods I want to do No load pots Kiwi shoe polish neck tint mod New pickguard (white always looks awful imo) Brass saddles (purely aesthetic) I would love to reshape the headstock to look like a 51 p bass but I have neither the tools or the know sadly

Im not a massive fan of P/J basses, I had a Fender Mustang that sounded good in P/J mode but all the other basses I have tried have all been Meh in P/J mode, you lost a lot of the beef in the tone as soon as you roll in that J pickup, Also things get a little bit brighter but you lose some of the snarl from the P pickup along with a good chunk of mids

Something has just occurred to me as a possibility, hoping someone with more know how than me can weigh in. If I used no load pots for both the volume and tone when both pots are on full would that then essentially be the same in terms of tone and output as going direct to the output Jack?

Yeah no pots is a good option, if I could find a control plate with no holes where the volume and tone would be then that is probably that I would do

More brightness really, I always find right single pickup basses I like them as bright as possible

I have an even cheaper way, thanks for looking, much appreciated

Thanks, if I get the bass and I like it then then I am thinking of fitting 500k pots or maybe even 1meg pots

Well, when I say a mod platform I don't mean anything crazy, just basically swapping out the parts that are generally junky on cheaper basses (tuners, pots, pickguard, bridge,fret dress if needed maybe the pickup depending on what the stock one sounds like), I know this will cost more than the bass itself but if I like the bass once I receive it then I have no qualms about putting money into it to get something I like them more. Btw do you know if the stock pots are 250 or 500k?

And after giving it some thought I have actually decided to go for the PB-50 (Harley Benton single coil p bass) there is just something about the simplicity of the one pickup one tone that appeals to me. Also means that if I do mod it there is a simpler circuit to modify and one less pickup to swap out.

Thanks, yeah that is my aim with this is to have a cheap bass and use it as a modding platform

Interested to find this out too

I brought covers for my p bass and I thought I would get used to the one covering the pickup but I just couldn't and it impacted my playing so the pickup cover came off and the bridge one stayed on

Hi Am looking at picking a cheap jazz bass and I can easily afford a Harley Benton, looking on the Thomann website they have the JB-20 which appears to be there Squier affinity clone and for a bit more they have the JB-75 which is basically a Vintage modified clone, does anyone have experience of these? Is it worth paying the extra for the JB-75? Thanks JB-20 JB-75

Am after brightening up the tone on my P bass, have put some brighter strings on there but after a little more, am wondering what my best bet is for this , no load tone pot or TBX tone pot ? Thanks

Oh yes, I remember a gig that I went to, great gig but soundwise not great and the bass drum read eq'd with so much low end that every time the drummer hit the bass drum you couldn't tell if it was the bass or the drums that you were hearing

I disagree, I know there are some musicians who think that bass should be felt and not heard but honestly I dont understand that mentality at all Honestly I think the bass should be felt less and heard more, I have been to a lot of gigs where the bass was eq'd with bowel loosening amounts of low end and zero clarity, unfortunately that seems to be the trend now

Yes and at that price there is no excuse, on a £200 Squier I could possibly overlook it but not on a bass costing thousands

That bridge cover not covering the bridge pickup would bug me