shoulderpet

Honestly if I am using rounds and they are not a special coated type or an alloy 52 type or any other type that is known to be long lasting I change them once a month. I know some people would think that is excessive but the way I see it is £20 a month is not a huge amount of money and especially not for the amount of enjoyment I get from playing, I love that aggressive grindy tone you get from a new or newish set of strings Flats on the other hand, the older the better.

Is a weird technique but a much better video than most pickup comparisons, helped me choose the SPB-2

Yeah but does it have the lyric "devil daddy's gonna spank you over and over again" ?

This was in my Youtube suggested videos the other day, from the image on the link it looked awful..... I really had no comprehension how hilariously bad it was , apparently it is the ex drummer of Five finger death punch who left to start this band😂 Psychosexual - Let the sin begin [Youtube}

Have been thinking and as my favourite tone seems to be P pickup soloed with the tone rolled off about half way on an already pretty dark P pickup (SPB-2) my ideal would be a bridge position mudbucker However the string spacing on that type of pickup seems to be way to narrow to work effectively in that position which has got me thinking maybe I should stick with a J bridge pickup but get a custom one wound to be super hot, like 25k resistance, that would certainly be an interesting tone

Thanks, still can decide, I think the only sensible thing to do is get another Mezzo bass and slap a black pickguard on it lol

And not to hijack the thread but now having 1 spare pickguard I did what any self respecting basschatter with a Halfords 5 minutes walk away and got some spray paint for my spare pickguard so now I have a gold one as well, not sure which one I prefer

I have heard people say before that going lighter on strings you lose tone and wanted to share something interesting that I have found and that is the correlation between string stiffness and tone. Longtime Rotosound user but have dabbled with Fender strings, Daddario etc but always come back to Rotos, one thing I have found that has ime been consistent across brands is that lighter gauge E strings have a better, clearer and better balanced tone. To elaborate further I find that with a heavier E string because the string is stiffer it thumps more, the overtones become muted by the initial attack of the note and by the slightly lessened sustain of the heavier string, the effect is subtle but imo it is definitely there and on a brand new set of strings it is even more pronounced due to the brightness of the strings, on flatwounds this is probably desirable but not so much on rounds where you are generally aiming for clarity of tone, I tend to go one gauge lighter on my E string (100-85-65-45) Anyone else found the same thing?

Honestly I have no idea why anyone is even questioning whether he played on the track, if you have every heard him playing live you will know that he is a very capable musician and has been for a long time

And a month on I think I might just go back to Rotosound Swingbass 66. I like the extra mids from these strings but I feel like in the month I have had them on that signature Rotosound midrange growl that I liked has kind of gone and what I am left with is a fairly polite, darkish sounding set of strings, i wonder if this is down to the coating on them

Nice is that an aftermarket pickup?

Hmm I am seriously considering a MM style pickup, maybe a Wilkinson, will be am inexpensive way to test the waters

Yes I think so, maybe a very midrange heavy j pickup might counter that, I'm thinking I will try that first and then try one of the Nordstrand pickups I mentioned earlier on the thread if that doesn't work out

Some good ideas here, one thing I think I need to clarify is that I have no issues with a J pickup being quieter, what I am after is a bridge pickup that has a beefier tone (ie more bass,more low mids, less treble) so that adding in the bridge pickup just adds in a touch of clarity rather than thinning out the tone. Also not a fan of the hollow quality that seems to be inherent in P/J basses when both pickups are on, just something funky happens with the mids that just sounds hollow.

Thank you for that, I hadn't considered Nordstrand, the Big Blade 4 looks interesting also, they do a "warm and wooly" pickup winding which sounds like in neck position it might be too undefined but in bridge position it might be just the ticket

Am looking to beef up the bridge pickup in my Ibanez Mezzo, P pickup is lovely, really fat sounding but at the moment I rarely use the bridge pickup because as I have found with every p/j bass I have played the bridge pickup brightens the tone but the trade off is that the tone gets thinner, I have always found this to be the case with p/j basses so I am looking at how I can beef up the bridge pickup. Am considering either a MM style humbucker or putting 2 J pickups in one case and wiring them in series , am looking for a fatter bridge pickup with less treble more low end and more mids, basically darker and fatter, I have a Violin bass with a pickup right up by the neck and another in the middle position and I love way that I can blend in the middle pickup and the tone doesnt thin out (though I know I wont achieve this with a bridge pickup would be good to minimize the thinning out inherent with both pickups on with a p/j bass) any suggestions?

Yeah me too, im 5,7" with my boots on

I've always used overdrive as an always on thing so I've always chosen amps with this built but I can see how that could be an issue

No, I love the idea of Onboard effects, I love the concept of FX pedals but its the hassle of having extra things to carry that stops me from using them

Wow that bridge and the wiring are shocking, the groove for the A string looks like its been gnawed by rats and taping the preamp to the cavity Wow

Wow, I feel bad for the OP, I have had my own nightmare (but nowhere near this bad) experience with trying to sort some issues with an Artec preamp with a dodgy mid control and mid sweep, the supplier of the preamp blamed it on the tech fitting it, the tech blamed it on the preamp, I forwarded a wiring diagram to the tech and asked him to have another look at it and he got the mid control working but not the mid sweep, in the end I had the bass wired passive because the original preamp sounded bad and the Artec one gave me no end of troubles, I was pis*ed about these issues with fitting a preamp on a sub £300 bass so I can only imagine how frustrating this must have been with the multiple issues that should not have been present on a bass costing nearly a grand. I would gather testimonials and proof of any costs incurred in fixing the bass and speak to the supplier of the bass about recouping these costs

Is the red one, I hate white pickguards as they look so cheap, also I felt that as it was such a lovely colour it seemed a shame to have such a cr*p colour pickguard, the black pickguard was a huge improvement

Anything is an improvement over white, can't stand white pickguards, they really make a bass look cheap. Just recently swapped the white pearloid pickguard on my Ibanez Mezzo for a black pickguard and it looks so much better

Oh yes, Electric Wizard are awesome, that huge , bassy wall of fuzz is awesome, that particular one is probably my favourite by them

Funny thing is the best bass tone I have achieved was through a tiny amp. Did a rehearsal a couple days after a gig and the drummer didnt feel like loading up his car with my bass amp (he transported it to the gig) so he brought along this little Ampeg bass amp that was rated at about 50 watts and I looked at it and I thought it was going to be dreadful and I thought my bass would be buried in the mix as we have a loud drummer and 2 guitar players, plugged my bass into the amp and no only was it loud but the tone was awesome, gritty, articulate and bright but with plenty of low end too, I was really impressed, I can only imagine how good their more powerful amps are.