chris_b

The deal breakers for me are, weight, string width at the bridge, pointy bits and bad tone. Everything else is a maybe.

These spurious claims are a new way for publishers and songwriter to make money from their back catalogue.

I know a player who refused to acknowledge anything other than a Hammond through a Leslie cab could produce a decent organ sound. This went on for many years. He's now using Nord and getting a great sound. Age even gets to keyboard players in the end.

Fitness and core strength are always a worthy goals, but they cannot paper over the cracks forever. The years always win in the end. 30 years ago, a back injury like mine would have meant retirement or taking up flute. Now I just find a lighter or better designed piece of gear and carry on. I'm very thankful of the new choices that regularly become available. At this rate I'm good for another 15 years at least.

Just spent 20 mins re reading. That was a pleasant walk down memory lane! Happy days, so full of potential. Sadly, mostly not realised!

Well in 30+ years of playing I've never had a twisted string, because before I tighten up the string I push it out the back of the bridge an inch or so and that ensures the string straightens up and does not twist.

Anyone who manages to twist a string and doesn't fix it before tightening up, well that's just user error.

For practice I use one of my regular gigging amps, usually the Aguilar TH500, a Barefaced One10 and headphones for the laptop. I can get a good tone at low volume and it's easy to balance the two volumes. I'm checking out putting everything through a Palmer bass amp.

It is Chris White in that video. He produced a couple of songs for a band I was in in the early 70's. Nice guy, very hot on sound and the recording process. Sadly the songs were never released.

On most days my #1 is a Sadowsky Metro MV5 Jazz. On the other days it's a Mike Lull PJ5. Some days I just can't decide.

tort looks better, imo

IMO a Jazz bass is the right bass to upgrade with a preamp. John East preamps go very well with Bartolini pickups., so you might also need to upgrade those.

I know and, on occasion, play with the original drummer. A great player.

Both my Aguilar amps have pretty noisy fans, but I usually can't hear them over the tinnitus. Both amps run very cool even when cranked up so I'll accept a little noise. I'm used to the background noise of a gig so I can zone out a little amp noise when playing at home. The amp is over 6 feet away, which also helps. Agedhorse has also posted on TB about disabling or changing the fan. Don't do it, because it invalidates the warranties, invalidates the Government safety standards the amp was built under and it may become a fire hazard. If anyone really can't live with the noise of their amp when playing at home, the only options are to buy an amp without a fan, or a headphone amp.

Hate gigs? No way! Last week I played 5 gigs in 6 days. That was 10 hours of playing in 5 different bands. By the end I was shattered, but loved every second. Somewhere along the line I finally caught Covid. I'm surprised it took this long. It's a very mild case, but I still had to cancel 2 gigs and a rehearsal this week. Making those phone calls hurt way more than Covid!

Probably means what they say on their website. . . . Recommended Amp Power 100-250W RMS (safe with up to 500W if you're running fairly clean sounds)

Roger Sadowsky has no connection to the basses made in his name by Warwick.

If you really have to mod this bass. . . . one of the best sounding jazz basses I've heard was an Overwater with Bartolini pickups and a John East pre amp. Actually it was the best!!

So are you saying you like the sound of this bass? IMO upgrading the preamp would not be a good use of your cash, and it's because you don't like the layout of the controls? A Sadowsky preamp would sound fantastic, but if this was my bass I would need to hear a problem in the sound before I considered sinking a couple of hundred pounds into a mod. I like active Jazz basses, they are "full range" basses, but I'm sure a passive Jazz could sound great. A passive bass will only sound as good as the pickups, so you might need an upgrade there if you remove the preamp.

I've never used a pedal either. I briefly owned an amp that had compression and HP and LP filters but never found a use for them. I just prefer the sound of a good bass plugged into a good amp.

You can find the widest selection of 5 string basses in the Basschat classifieds. Not many Mike Lull basses come up but the Japanese made Metro Sadowsky's would be a very good place to start looking.

There is no rule here. Build the signal chain where each piece compliments the other and gets the sound that you want and like. It may be one make or two, use what sounds best.

Get a Barefaced 212 and an Aguilar AG800. Best of all worlds.

Bought a bass on a whim? No, never. I only buy basses cos I know they sound good. They also have to pass the "looking good" and the "can I afford them" tests, but that's always secondary to tone. I have bought bass amps on a whim, to check them out. Sometimes that works, my Aguilar AG700 and TH500, but mostly it doesn't.

Not so far. After doing my homework, I buy what I'm pretty sure will work, so no "spur of the moment" or surprise purchases for me.