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Obrienp

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  1. Obrienp
    Selling my Hofner Ignition Violin bass in excellent condition. Only about 6 months old and without any dings or scratches. Fitted with LaBella Beatle Bass flats 50-100, replacement more robust machine heads and traditional “tea cup” knobs. You will get the original machine heads, knobs and round wound strings, in case you want to revert. Also benefitting from a professional set up from my friendly local luthier, who sorted the nut and a few of the frets, plus neck relief, bridge height, intonation, etc. The replacement machine heads are better than the originals and use the same screw holes etc but still feel a bit vague, although they do seem to hold tune. With the benefit of hindsight, I should probably have gone for the even more expensive Hofner Germany machine heads sold by Thomann but they cost about a third of what the bass costs. I suspect even then they are not that brilliant: the guitar style machine heads are a design flaw IMO but they are part of the vibe of these quirky basses. You can look up the specs on line but the basics are: full hollow body, “staple” humbucker pickups, idiosyncratic pickup selector and preset tone options, 30” scale, quite narrow string spacing. I think it sounds really good for that 60s hollow body sound and of course for early Beatles stuff. In that respect I think it sounds more genuine than the contemporary range with the centre block. So why am I selling it? Well, I find I am just not playing it that much. I took it to a couple of gigs as a back up bass and used it on a couple of songs. I was expect to use it more, as I play in a covers band that does a lot of 50s and 60s stuff but it hasn’t really happened. Now I am gassing for a medium scale solid body and I need the money to fund it. The cheapest I have seen these online is £290, so £220 is pretty keen, as you get £125 worth of strings, machine heads, knobs and set up thrown in for free. You are welcome to try and buy in Fakenham, Norfolk. I have a box, so I can ship at buyer’s expense. I will also meet up within a reasonable distance, say 60 miles, or so. I am also selling a genuine Hofner Violin Bass Hard Case, for £45, or £40 if bought with the bass. The case has a few light scuffs but nothing that has gone through the tolex. Obviously open to reasonable offers but I need the money, so not looking for a trade..
  2. Obrienp
    Hi, Welcome. I’m originally from NSW but I’ve been living in the UK off and on since I was 7. Nice to have another antipodean on here! Trying to remember the layout on my EHB1000S (let it go a few months back). I think you are referring to the mids control, in which case, there wasn’t a detent on the sweep part (lower part of the control stack). That makes sense, as it would be difficult to decide on a factory default frequency range. You watch , somebody will correct me😏. Enjoy anyway. Great little bass. Only let go of mine to help fund a Nordstrand Acononyx.
  3. Obrienp
    I usually get that once they’ve heard me play. 🥴
  4. Obrienp
    @fretmeisterThere are two Jazz configuration Vox Starstreams: https://www.voxamps.co.uk/collections/bass-guitars. Pretty good value for money and they certainly meet your weight criterium. I have the passive single humbucker version and they are pretty well made. Also very ergonomic and comfortable to play. If you can stretch to the active one you get loads of quality parts: I can’t imagine anybody needing to upgrade it. Heck, I am getting a feeling of deja vu: have I already posted this? Old age I am afraid. Apologies if this is a duplicate!
  5. Obrienp
    Hi, They were off a 4 string but they are pretty long. Dimensions are 10cm length, 3.4cm width, 2.2cm depth. They might work on a 5, depending on string spacing but I don’t know how long the bar magnets are under the cover. Best wishes, Pat
  6. Obrienp
    I wouldn’t be without mine. I got the Boss offering: a bit more expensive than some but it’s still going strong 3 years on: it has great range and a charge lasts more than 6 hours. It automatically choses a channel based on what else is operating in the environment and to date, I have never had issues with radio interference (hope that wasn’t tempting fate). It doesn’t seem to alter tone and there is no lag that I can detect. Being able to walk around the room during soundcheck is a real bonus both for setting the mix and for getting your bass tone right. I don’t know whether this is unique to Barefaced cabs but what you hear on stage is very different to what the audience are hearing in the middle of the room.
  7. Obrienp
    All good points and I agree with you that tone is very subjective. My ‘51 P with the 1/4 pounder certainly cuts through the mix! I don’t have the Bronco anymore, otherwise I would measure up how far out the ‘51 pickup would be on string alignment. I wonder whether the poor string alignment would make it sound even more unbalanced? Anyway, @barrycreed I would certainly check out the Creamery pickup. I wish I had known about it when I was modifying my Bronco. It was quite a lot of hassle getting the split P pickup to fit but it did sound good.
  8. Obrienp
    I know this wasn’t directed at me but having had a Bronco I was upgrading and a spare ‘51 P pickup, the answer is no if you keep the original string spacing (i.e. the original bridge or replacement with the narrow saddle spacing). You would need to angle the ‘51 pickup to line up the pole pieces with the strings properly. ‘51 P basses had pretty well 20mm spacing at the saddles. On the Bronco you may have to do a little extra routing to get a ‘51 P pickup in at the correct angle and you would need a replacement pickguard cut appropriately. I have the Seymour Duncan 1/4 pounder ‘51 P pickup in my ‘51 P bass (self-build). It’s got a lot of gain and as Baloney Balderdash said, a lot of mids. In fact it sounds very bright and nasal generally. I only use it with the tone rolled right off and even then I find it lacks bottom end. I am not sure I would recommend it.
  9. Obrienp
    Village Hall benefit gig: not my village but playing for free. Completely knackered and felt I was a couple of BPM slow on everything but I think the lead guitarist had been drinking RedBull all day: he was hyper, so maybe he was pushing the pace more than usual. First time I had gigged with new (to me) Warwick Gnome iPro/Barefaced Two10 rig. I also decided on a whim to use my Vox Starstream instead of the usual P/J. I also use a Boss wireless system. Half way through the third number I started cutting out. It wasn’t clipping: Gain and EQ at 12 o’clock, Master hardly on. I did a quick round of pushing all the jack plugs in, checking I hadn’t accidentally engaged the tuner pedal, etc: still cutting in and out. Finally I turned the wireless sender in the bass’ jack socket. Normal service resumed. I can only assume that it hadn’t quite seated enough for the little battery saver switch to engage fully. It was a relief, as I had feared the iPro (I had bought off fleaBay) had an intermittent fault. All was good for the rest of the evening, so it seems to be OK 🤞. The gig was well received, so all is well that ends well.
  10. Obrienp
    Thanks for that confirmation. Well, you live and learn. So the volume control(s) on separate power amps (e.g. for P.A.) is in reality an input gain control.
  11. Obrienp
    Excuse my ignorance of how these things work but are you saying the Master is not controlling the output of the power amp? I had just assumed that the Gain sets the input signal level into the preamp and the Master the output volume of the power amp but I guess the implication of what you said is that the Master attenuates the output of the preamp into the power amp. Therefore, the power amp just gives its full output at all times? The only thing that affects the perceived volume is the input gain and the Master choking the output level from the preamp? Have I understood correctly?
  12. Obrienp
    I use the poor man’s Sansamp (Valeton Dapper) in front of mine but I very rarely use the EQ section on it. I find the EQ on the Gnome pretty useful TBH. It would be nice if the mids were split low/high but I get the impression that the EQ controls are interactive in some way, so they don’t seem such a blunt instrument. The Gnome certainly makes gigging easier. The standard one easily fits in a gig bag pocket. The iPro is a bit bigger but still relatively compact and light. A reflection after a few days of ownership, is that the increased dimensions of the iPro would allow for a Speakon socket, rather than the jack it comes with. Something I think Warwick should take into account if they do an update.
  13. Obrienp
    I used the iPro at a band rehearsal yesterday. We were in the hall that we will be gigging at on Saturday (a fund raiser for the hall) not a huge venue but bigger than your average pub. Two guitars and electronic drums through individual amps and DI’d into the PA (500 watts RMS active speakers each side). Bass through the iPro and Barefaced Two10S (@4 ohm) only, sitting on an Auralex isolator to offset the suspended stage. I had the Gain and all EQ at 12 o’clock with the master volume at about 8 o’clock and it was borderline too loud! Bearing in mind the control is off at 7 o’clock, it meant that it was running at minimum volume and still loud! It has got to be like thunder wound up! Tone on stage was very bass heavy but with the benefit of my wireless system I was able to walk around the hall to check the balance: a few feet from the stage, right to the back of the hall, it was much better, with the mids and highs coming through loud and clear. I guess that is the BF projection for you. I was thinking that the iPro wouldn’t be working hard enough at this volume level, after all it is barely on with the Master at 8 o’clock but it didn’t seem to be adversely effecting the tone, or at least, I liked the tone it was making at this level. With 100 or so people in the hall on Saturday night, we are probably going to have to turn everything up a bit, as bodies seem to absorb the sound. I am interested to hear what the iPro is like with Master a bit higher. I have also yet to try it with the Blues band I play in, which is a much louder outfit but I get the impression that the iPro is as loud as my Terror Bass (500 watt).
  14. Obrienp
    You never know, somebody else may know of a cheap bridge solution available in the UK. It seems there are quite a lot of aftermarket replacement parts for Broncos in the USA but most of them aren’t cheap. Personally, I couldn’t put up with the compromised intonation adjustment of the OEM bridge but I agree it is not worth throwing a lot of money at it. You will never recover it if you decide to sell. There is a thread somewhere on BassChat about modding Broncos. I went into more detail about my mods on that but more importantly, there are alternative solutions on there. It might be worth searching it out.
  15. Obrienp
    If you get a split Precision set, you can compensate the narrower string spacing by having the two parts overlapping. I did this on a Bronco but I had to do a bit of routing and I also had to make the original routing a little shallower in some places by adding some wooden strips. I also had to have a new pick-guard made up. A ‘51 P pickup is going to be too wide unless you set it at an angle. Of course, if you can find pickups with bar magnets, string spacing is less of a problem. There are some replacement pickups made for Broncos but they are expensive. Lots of people just fit bar magnet Stratocaster rails (humbuckers). Good luck with finding a cheap bridge with the same string spacing. I got one on eBay but it came all the way from China and had some design flaws that took a bit of metal work to sort out and it didn’t fit the original screw holes exactly. It might be easier and cheaper to to fit a more standard Fender type bridge with wider string spacing (and it might make it easier to fit a 34” scale pickup) but you won’t be able to use the original screw holes. If you are prepared to spend serious money there are various options with the narrower string spacing.
  16. Obrienp
    Yep, that’s what I found. I just use those rubber washer/doughnut things you stretch over the button once the strap is in place. A bit of a struggle to get on and off the large buttons on the Starstream but effective (and cheap).
  17. Obrienp
    Sounding genuinely acoustic with amplification is so tricky! Even with an SM57 in front of the instrument the quality of the sound is changed. Mics also suffer from feedback issues and are difficult to use if you like to move around a bit, so it is much easier to use an onboard pickup (not saying they don’t feedback as well). Piezos tend to sound harsh and brittle, magnetic pickups don’t really sound acoustic, combined pickup/mic combinations sound harsh (to my ears) and I have tried quite a few. The best result I have had for acoustic bass (guitar, don’t know about uprights) was with K&K transducers but I also use a Zoom A2 preamp that has “correction”. The upright bass voice really does correct the sound to be more acoustic, plus it has automatic feedback correction (a real problem with bass) but of course, that is reducing the tonal spectrum. There are others on the market from Fishman, etc, for more money. I used to play acoustic and slide guitar in various “acoustic” bands. I tried just about every pickup on the market and various acoustic amps/PA combinations. I eventually settled on Taylor’s ES2 system through an AER acoustic amp (DI’d to the PA) for regular acoustic and a Highlander pickup in my National, also through the AER, with radically different EQ profiles for each. Perhaps an AER bass amp is the ultimate solution for acoustic basses but they are eye wateringly expensive. Bose column PAs also seem pretty effective for amplified acoustic instruments but again really expensive.
  18. Obrienp
    A little update on this: I spotted an unused iPro Gnome going for reasonable money on fleaBay and took the plunge. It arrived today. I haven’t had much time to experiment with it but my initial impression of it, connected to a BF One10, is that it may be voiced slightly differently from the 200 watt version. It reminded me of the TE Elf voicing in YouTube videos (through decent speakers). A very pleasing punchy but slightly less transparent tone. However, that was with Gain and EQ all set at 12 o’clock and Master around 8/9 o’clock: hardly ticking over. I haven’t wound it up yet, or tried it through the Two10. The fan seems even less intrusive than the 200 watt version’s. To be expected I guess but the iPro is a bigger unit than the 200 watt version. They looked the same size to me in the group shots I had seen online but the iPro is a few centimetres wider and deeper, and just a bit taller. It is also a bit heavier. Otherwise it looks the same, save for the addition of the USB port on the back. The extra couple of centimetres make it look less comically small on top of a speaker cabinet.
  19. Obrienp
    Excellent. Enjoy! Do tell us if you work out a way to add Loxx.
  20. Obrienp
    Interesting. I haven’t noticed any neck dive on my passive H1 but I do use a wide grippy strap.
  21. Obrienp
    Many thanks for the offer but the SW is a long and difficult trek from my neck of the woods, so I won’t be attending. WRT the BAM200; I am happy with the sound from my Gnome (200 watt) into my Barefaced cabs, I am just wondering whether it is worth upgrading to the 300 watt iPro version for more gigging headroom. I think the BAM 200 would be a lateral move for me. BTW your little combo looks ace. If I had the guts, I would be tempted to do something similar with my BF One10 and the Gnome but I think such a modification would massacre the resale value of the cab. I guess I could remove the Eminence speaker from the One10 and make my own enclosure like you did but part of the BF tone is in the internal construction of the cab and I don’t think I have the woodworking skills to replicate it. I have used the Gnome/One10 combo for the back line at a local acoustic blues jam and it sounds wonderful with various different acoustic bass pickup systems, even a stick upright.
  22. Obrienp
    I was just watching a couple of comparison videos on YouTube: Anderson’s and an Aussie guy whose name I forget. The Anderson’s video compared the Ashdown Ant, TE Elf and Warwick Gnome; the Aussie one was just the Elf vs Gnome. I have to say in both videos, listened to through decent speakers, I preferred the sound of the Elf with EQ at parity. I guess it has the Trace sound but the Warwick came across as completely transparent. The difference narrowed with some EQ twiddling. I didn’t care much for the Ant, which surprised me as I have always rated the Ashdown sound (if not the weight of their gear, Ant excepted). Of course, quite a lot depends on the speaker matching. Conclusion for me: if the Elf was the same price as the Gnome, didn’t have the noisy fan, and I wasn’t paring it with a vintage voiced cabinet, Trace might have got my money. Paired with my BF One10, or Two10, I think it would be a bit too coloured. An issue I ran into at a gig last weekend, when I combined my Orange Terror with the Two10 and a P/J with flats. Somehow I don’t get the same overly coloured effect with the Terror and two OBC112s (careful crafting by Orange perhaps). I am thinking that the Gnome might be a better pairing with the Two10 but has it got enough headroom for a medium sized gig? Would the Gnome iPro be a better gigging amp with the extra grunt and therefore headroom? Still cheaper than the Elf (at Thomann anyway). I am assuming that the standard and iPro versions sound the same, all things being equal. Anybody got the iPro and like to comment? Even better, has anyone done an A/B of the standard Gnome and the iPro version?
  23. Obrienp
    I am very glad to hear you are happy with it. I thought my passive version was good and well made but the active one is obviously that, plus, plus. 👍
  24. Obrienp
    I should have used mine at the gig I played on Saturday. I had a very vintage signal chain: P/J with flats, Orange Terror Bass head, BF Two10. Without the benefit of a proper sound check and despite the Auralex isolator, I was just a background rumble. The Gnome would have been plenty loud enough, even without PA support and a lot more neutral. It makes a good pedal platform as well, like you say. I can get enough colouration from my Valeton Dapper for my needs. It’s just, even on the Two10, it looks comically small, whereas the Terror looks more in proportion 🤔.
  25. Obrienp
    A little update on this because a lot of my gear has changed but not the Gnome. My main amp is now an Orange Terror Bass 500 Mk2. I sold one of my BF One10s but kind of regretted it recently; needing the extra grunt of a second speaker but not always having enough space at gigs for my two OBC112s, I bought a used Two10S off a fellow BassChatter. Arthritis also forced me to go short scale with my basses. During all this change of gear, the Gnome has been a constant. Subjective I know but I think it is a great sounding little amp. Definitely more “modern” than the Terror but good in its own right. It is surprisingly loud through the One10 @8ohms, even louder through the Two10S @4ohms. These two combinations are loud enough for rehearsals with both bands I play in (Dad Rock and Blues). In fact, with gain at 12 o’clock and EQ flat, I rarely have the volume above 9 o’clock with the former. All this in a head that costs around £130 for the basic model I have. It gets used much more than my main gigging amp, doing home practice and rehearsals. I use it nearly everyday and so far, not a hint of trouble. The fan comes on pretty quickly but it’s not loud and despite the hours of operation, hasn’t started to rattle. All the pots are still good, the knobs still in place, nothing has come loose. I always though it was built like a tank and it does seem to be living up to expectations. It fits neatly into a gig bag pocket, or in my case goes into the bag with all my leads, etc that I take to gigs, so it’s there just in case. Drawbacks: the only one so far is the jack out instead of speakon connector. This means I have to carry a jack to speakon cable with me to gigs. Not a big issue IMO. Some people would want an Aux in socket and the headphone out is full sized, rather than miniature but personally I see that as a plus. Apparently the USB socket is bidirectional on the “i” version and the Pro has another 100 watts as well, which I guess gives it more headroom. I’ve never run mine at the ragged edge, so I don’t know how it performs at full chat. Maybe the extra headroom is worth the cash. I don’t know how this compares to an Elf, or a BAM 200 but it seems like good value to me. Definitely worth considering if you are in the market for a miniature head.
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