Stub Mandrel

The hardest thing to get good results from is a sweepable mid. The problem is the ear tends to hear any change as an 'improvement' and you can go in circles. Also in a soundcheck situation, other band members are unlikely to have the patience for you to seek the ideal tone...

As the designer you will have the understanding needed to get the best from them. If mire active basses were truly 'flat' with all controls centred and had less aggressive cut and boost than is typical, then they would be easier to use for the average owner.

And that huge empty section... move the vips to one side and bring the audience within 6 feet of the stage and you could drop the volume by 10dB too.

Just a look at that photo tells you they couldn't organise a p*** up in a brewery!

What does 'gain resonance' actually mean? How do you measure it? Is it a good thing? The problem is resonance has two essentially different meanings in this context so we iften have different understandings of what we are discussing. In physics: "the reinforcement or prolongation of sound by reflection from a surface or by the synchronous vibration of a neighbouring object." You measure it by applying different frequencies. E.g. play lots of notes and see which ones sustain longest. These will be the resonant frequencies. The ideal for a bass is the same as a speaker cab - to not have any marked resonances that cause particular notes to be exaggerated, causing other notes to seem muted. In music: "the quality in a sound of being deep, full, and reverberating." So yes we want that... but what does it actually mean for instruments? For an acoustic instrument it chiefly means a highly responsive sound board, (with no strong frequency resonances). For an electric instrument it's really just about reasonable sustain (how much do you need?) and a lack of dead spots. So to 'sound resonant' you want to minimise any 'resonants'. 😁

I have a Blackstar amplug, and with the gain up high it has a really heavy distortion that sounds great to me (in the right context) I haven't found an affordable distortion/overdrive that is comparable. It does seem to be heading for Darkglass territory but I don't want to spend that kind of money for maybe one or three songs. If anyone knows this sound and can suggest a pedal...

Well done Richard! I'm in as long as I get back in time to eat and then set up for my gig. Probably need to leave about 3pm to avoid stress

In order: Yes. Depends... is is a new material rehearsal or moshly a revision session with one or two new songs. If we can't get it right after 2 or 3 attempts it's "go home and learn it properly before the next time". What'sApp Not in any structured way.

My passive basses are much easier to get a good tone than my active ones. It's like having to solve a puzzle where >90% of the settings are poor and you have to find something in the usable range, then tweak it to what you want.

Nothing that doesn't pale into insignificance compared to amp settings.

Last night the desk defaulted to our last gig using their house pa for the first set. and as the pub had loud background music a decent setup was tricky.

Only because I'm standing in the men's section of Tesco catching up on basschat.co.uk while ms. S browses clothes...

I could barely slap back then. Never had any issues with fretboard length. My Fender Performer was designed to meet the needs of 80s players, including slap. It has 24 frets and close string spacing.

We were scrappy but the punters were happy. two gigs in a few months with no rehearsals. A month before next gig so we're going to get some rehearsals in. We all made silly mistakes. I was way too loud playing Uprising through my Joyo XVI but it was fun 😈

Cool 😎

My favourite 1980s bass tone: Dave Pegg, Fender precision.

Interesting... so they have a better database but don't let their customers use it!

😢 I've left it there. Might be a future project...

Coincidence to be honest. But I liked it and sometimes find fewer limiting - especially lack of a top E.

Agreed. My Fender Performer which I've had since about 1992. None of my Squiers are listed. It's only relable for recent numbers.

You won't get far that way. The Fender database is useless.

It's not that difficult. You have a model that reflects the rate of cooling at the current ambient temperature, and the rate of heating at any given power level. Knowing that you can predict the net temperature change over any period.

For thirty years, aside from my fretless, I only had 24-fret basses. How on earth did I survive?

I'm thinking of protection that predicts an overheat and reduces output power marginally rather than cutting out.

Did suspect it would match. Sire-shape 😉