Baloney Balderdash

Elixir string tension chart nickel-plated bass strings: Elixir string tension chart stainless steel bass strings: String tension calculator, based on D'Addario strings: https://wahiduddin.net/calc/calc_guitar_tension_from_size.htm

You forgot to mention the secret "all buttons pressed=both pickups in series" mode. But congratulations. These seem, look and sound like cool, super fun and nice basses.

Also, the Effects Return on most amps, and certainly is in your case, is essentially exactly the same as a poweramp input, and hooking a preamp up to a poweramp is basically exactly how regular amps, including yours, work, so you are doing exactly the right thing, as it seems like you prefer your tube preamp pedal, rather than your tube preamp pedal into your amp's tube preamp section. Also like this whether you turn up your preamp pedals master volume or the amp's master volume will do the exact same thing, letting more signal into the poweramp section, hence raising the volume, it doesn't matter which you use, as long as you don't let more power into your poweramp than it can handle, which though won't damage your amp either, just likely not sound good, which though is simply fixed by turning down a bit till it sounds good again.

You don't like the tone of your bass but you don't like to change it, one of those got to change, can't have both. One is reality the other is an idea. You have to make a decision which you want to stick to. Fantasy, and live with a less than ideal tone for you, or reality, and accept you'll have to change the tone of your bass for it to... well, change? Is the result more important to you than your odd ideals, or is sticking your odd ideals more important to you than the actual result.

Certainly more solemn and prodigious than the names of my basses: My main Ibanez Mikro Bass: "Dud Bottomfeeder" And my Harley Benton GuitarBass (take on the Fender Bass VI concept): "The Noodle"

Can't say I am any big fan of Mötley Crüe, or hair metal in general for that matter, but that bass looks pretty freaking awesome!

My own take on the blues (not strictly traditional though), a guitar solo played on top of a backing track, which was a challenge on a guitar forum some time ago (that means backing track is not by me, guitar, vocal and production is):

Right, I wasn't thinking that properly through. Thanks for correcting me.

Rather than only using half of the dual voice coil couldn't it be a case of either using the dual coil in respectively parallel and series mode of the two coils, seems to make the most sense to me?

I just use the build in HPF fixed at 40Hz -12dB/Oct in my ART Tube MP Project Series tube preamp/DI, and even though I have my bass tuned to F# standard tuning, 2 half steps above E standard tuning, which means the lowest fundamental would be just about 46Hz, I can hear a significant tightening up of the low end, clearer, more well defined and articulate, and actually also punchier, cleaning out all the fluff from my signal, when that HPF is engaged.

Come on in tube lovers! Alright, we got white tubes, black tubes, Spanish tubes, yellow tubes. We got hot tubes, cold tubes. We got wet tubes. We got smelly tubes. We got hairy tubes, bloody tubes. We got snapping tubes. We got silk tubes, velvet tubes, naugahyde tubes. We even got horse tubes, dog tubes, chicken tubes. C'mon, you want tubes, come on in Tube Lovers! If we don’t got it, you don't want it!

Ned Ferm - "Irene"

I don't use bateries for any of my pedals any way, and I got a crowded pedal board, so personally I appreciate the small size. But yeah, not that much bigger than a 9V battery the pedal it self. Also a really nice touch that they incorporated a flipable lid over the knobs, so that your settings are safe from getting knocked out of place.

I really like the Electro Harmonix 12AX7EH tube. Use it in all my tube units. The cheap Chinese ones that most cheaper tube units comes with from stock tends to sound thin, shrill and fizzy.

The Joyo Orange Juice is indeed a great drive pedal for bass. I own and currently actively use no less than 3 of them on my main board. They do everything from perfectly clean, over just on the verge of tube like breakup, to low gain tube like overdrive that is very sensitive to picking dynamics, and all the way up to a medium gain grindy distortion. In my opinion what the Orange Juice really excels at either used for lower gain tube like and very touch sensitive overdrive, or a really grindy distortion/higher gain overdrive. My favorite setting is with Tone set at about 11 o'clock and Voice to about 2 o'clock, then Drive to taste, though at high Drive settings eventual turn the Tone down to about 10 o'clock. Reacts really well to stacking too, and will tighten up a high gain distortion pedal either placed before or after such, more so with the high gain distortion pedal stacked into it, less so with it stacked into a high gain distortion pedal.

So I am curious who else own, use and love their EHX Black Finger (dual tube version), tube driven optical compressor, and how they use it. I just ordered a used one on Reverb (they have long been out of production), as a backup, just in case something beyond repair should happen to the one that served me well for about 20 years by now, even if that one still is going strong and working flawlessly. It's probably the one pedal in my collection that I treasure most and it has become an essential part of my setup and tone. Just makes everything you run through come out much better sounding on the other side, adding an extra layer of depth/harmonic complexity to it. In my setup actually primarily functioning as a tube preamp stage, with the Pre Gain (input gain) dialed in so that it drives the tubes, which are a pair of EHX 12AX7, that by the way operates at proper high 300V voltage, to just on the verge of breakup, though I do have some very some subtle compression dialed in as well. These are my current settings: Pre Gain (input gain/threshold (though as far as i understood somewhat interacting with the Compress control)): Noon position SQSH/Norm (Squash=long attack, high compression ratio)/Normal=more subtle compression) : Normal mode Lamp/LED (optical compression source, Lamp=longer attack time, more low end, fatter tone (contrary to what manual states the top end is compressed more and the low end less)/LED=shorter attack time, flatter response, more neutral tone: Lamp mode Compress (compression ratio (though as far as i understood somewhat interacting with the Pre Gain control)) 8 o'clock position (just a smidge above minimum position, minimum position translating to practically no signal going through the optical compression circuit at all (except for what the full 500kOhm resistance of the pot allows for), which is to say that my setting translates to something like a just 1.5:1 ratio or so) Post Gain (output/make up gain/master volume): Slightly above unity It does seem to be one of those pedals that people either love or hate, as should be obvious from what I wrote above I belong to the former group of people, and also I have had absolutely no issues with unwanted noise, contrary what I've seen a lot of claims of. Here's how it looks (this is of the used one I just ordered on Reverb, not the unit that is currently part of my setup):

A pretty amazing instrumental cover by the Danish band Ibrahim Electric of the Danish winner of the 1963 Eurovison Song Contest "Dansevisen" by Grethe & Jørgen Ingmann :

*doh!*

That looks pretty amazing. Not crazy about the headstock though.

With Jaco Pastorius's son :

This might interest you: A finger style technique that allows you to do stuff otherwise normally better suited for pick playing (using just your middle finger would work perfectly, as I mention I use my index and middle finger interchangeably for this, rather than in tandem). Now it won't really sound like using a pick (that specific unique snappy emphasis of the attack that only a pick will give you), it has it's own sound going for it, which though I personally do actually really like, and it does allow for easily doing rapid strumming (that is once you master the technique of course), just like when using a pick.

Hartke HyDrive HD112 : https://www.thomann.de/gb/hartke_hydrive_hd112.htm

Passive transformer? Just a wild guess, I am not exactly an electronics expert.

You might want to consider if the lowest possible obtainable action would even actually be desirable to you. First of all lowest possible obtainable action will differ from person to person, as how light or hard you prefer to pluck the strings, as well as, somewhat related, preferred string gauge and tension, will influence on how low you practically can get before it starts to affect tone and sustain negatively and fret buzz becomes and issue, even with the frets absolutely perfectly leveled. Also there is the feel aspect, the fact that different people prefer different levels of resistance when fretting, personally for example I like to be able to feel that I am actually fretting the string, there needs to be at least a minimum amount of resistance, but not to much either, so for me personally I've found that just about 1.8mm string action, and not much neither lower or higher, measured from bottom of low E string to top of the 12th fret works perfect for me, about 1.4mm for high G string side, and with an absolute minimum, almost completely flat, neck relief, which minimum obtainable amount before it becomes an issue also is determined by preferred plucking strength, as well as string gauge and tension More neck relief however, up to a certain limit, will generally allow for lower overall string action, as the slight forward bow of the neck gives the strings more room to vibrate, so there is a balance there to consider as well. And to specify, harder plucking will require higher action and more relief, higher gauge will too, as the strings will require more room to vibrate, however this is to some extend countered (as higher gauge generally will mean relatively higher tension) by the fact that strings under higher tension require less space to vibrate (meaning lower minimum obtainable neck relief and string action), but again this will be relatively to and depending on how hard you prefer to pluck the strings. All in all a lot a variables to consider determining the lowest possible obtainable action that are all to some extend relatively/in relation to and interactive with each other, and that is if this is even actually also desirable, which as mentioned, is yet another factor to consider. I any case I wish you best of luck with setting up your bass to the specs that fits your playing style and preferences the best.