Baloney Balderdash

I actually pointed that out specifically in both my recent posts on that subject in this thread. But yes, you are of course perfectly right.

It means exactly what it says. By far most of all 4 string bass models on the market, including short scale models, will have 19mm string spacing at the bridge. It has simply more or less become a standard (though yes, there are plenty of exceptions, they just don't make up the majority). I suppose that could possibly, at least partially, be explained by how it will fit with most common standard pickups and after market/3rd party bridges, and also I guess it is just what most people are familiar with. And if your bass collection doesn't happen to reflect that then that just means it is not statistically representative. If you don't believe me then try to look up the specs of 100 (to get a reasonably actual statistically valid number) random current production 4 string bass models, distributed about equally over different brands/manufactures, without deliberately going for those you already know got a different string spacing than 19mm at the bridge (to avoid coloring the statistics subjectively), and do the statistics yourself.

Danelectro, like for example the Longhorn bass is 16.5mm string spacing at the bridge. And I think, but not 100% sure either, that Höfner is 15mm, not 14mm, as said though I might be wrong. The most common string spacing at bridge for 4 string basses, including short scale basses, is 19mm. (Edit!!!: *Doh!* That message was ages old, but I guess at least then we got that settled)

It does sound like a classic case of a neck that needs some relief, and that it is buzzing specifically on the first 3 frets suggests to me that it might even have a slight back bow, and I bet if you figure out how to adjust those dual truss rods properly, which unfortunately I can't help you with, and give the neck a proper amount of relief, not only will the fret buzz on the first 3 frets disappear, but also you will be able to lower the action considerably, still without fret buzz. 4mm action at 12th fret would be unplayable to me, and is to be considered really high action, and as far as I am concerned not reasonably high, but rather unreasonably high action. I personally prefer just ever so slightly bellow 2mm at 12th fret low E string and about 1.5mm high G string at 12th fret (which is a bit bellow the guideline measurements that Fender recommends in their official setup guide). An instrument at that price point ought have good enough fret work to handle that if it has otherwise been adjusted and set up correctly, my dirt cheap budget Ibanez Mikro Bass and Harley Benton GuitarBass, that costed merely a small fraction of what a Rickenbacker bass costs (in fact almost a 10th of the price, or said in another way nearly a 1000% cheaper) can without issues, and if I really wanted, which I don't though, I am even sure I could go even lower on the Harley Benton without issues. Otherwise is simply in no possible way whatsoever acceptable as far as I am concerned with an instrument at that price point, it is in fact straight out outrageous and absolutely unacceptable, heck, in my opinion 4mm action at 12th fret and still having fret buzz issues would not be acceptable even on the cheapest budget bass on the market, if otherwise correctly adjusted and set up, and a fully valid reason to send it right back and get a replacement or your money back. But as said I am quite certain that if just you can manage to set a proper neck relief you will be able to lower the action considerably without having any fret buzz issues. If not though send it back. Unfortunately in that case it would not be the first time that I have heard Rickenbacker selling steaming turds at premium prices, they seem to have a serious quality control issue, to such a point that you'd have a better chance getting a proper instrument buying a 1000% cheaper Harley Benton, which I am sure you can see is simply absolutely entirely unacceptable, and in fact straight out outrageous. Really people should stop rewarding Rickenbacker for spewing out crap till they got their act together, unfortunately they will have no reason to as long as enough people are still eager to buy their crap at the premium rip off prices they have the indecency to continue to ask for their inferior low quality outdated products. All they really got going for them is their legacy, but still they chose to take a giant steaming dump on it, pee their customers up their backs, and then laugh all the way to the bank. Well that, and then of course sue whoever dare to offer better quality clone alternatives to their products into oblivion (as far as I am concerned a better use of all those expensive top tier lawyer money would be to ensure that their own products was of a proper high quality worth the actual money they ask for them, or if they absolutely insist on not improving the quality of their production then at least match their prices more realistically to the actual quality level of it, so people would have less incentive to chose to buy those clone alternatives instead of their original products in the first place). Not acceptable behaviour that should be rewarded in my book at least. I apologize for the wall of text rant, and as said your bass is probably perfectly fine once you have managed to figure out how to adjust the overly complicated outdated and highly impractical user hostile adjustment mechanisms on it correctly. Have the nut slots been cut to the correct depth? In any case I really do hope you manage to get your bass into properly playable condition. And at least Rickenbacker basses still got 2 things going for them that are actually not all that bad at all, one might even claim astonishing, and at very least indisputably very unique to them, which is their looks and their tone. So congratulations.

I assume washable means you are able to wash it off, not that it is water proof/resistant, not many people actually wash glue, except for when trying to get it off somewhere where it is unwanted. If it is water based then there is a big chance it will also dissolve in water once it is dry, as that is how it works as a glue in the first place, being water based. What that means is that the active ingredient, the actual active adhesive/gluing agent dissolves in water, which is what makes it fluent and useable/applicable, then once it is out of its air and water tight flask and has been applied to a surface the water will start to evaporates again which in turn will cause the adhesive/gluing agent to bond as it gradually dries and cures accordingly, which though also means that water is likely to be able to dissolve the gluing agent once again if applied after the curing/bonding process has taken place, unless some kind of more complex chemical process is going on in the bonding/curing process, which might be totally possible, and will be in some cases, though not most commonly, and obviously not the case here either from what you tell happened when applying water. And the same applies to water based colors. To sum up: It being able to dissolve in water is what makes it actually work as a glue or a color, and that is exactly what water based means.

It might be due to the paint you used being water based, meaning that it will dissolve in water, and at least you ought to have checked up on the glue you used weren't before you went to great length applying several layers. Not that I personally couldn't have done the exact same mistake, in fact chances are I would, as I constantly find myself doing haphazard hack handyman jobs, because I often start on stuff rather impulsively wanting to have something fixed as quick as possible and therefor end up using less than ideal tools and materials, whatever is available at that point in time, and fail to check properly up on things first to make sure I do it properly, and have in fact ended up ruining a couple of instruments that way. Just saying.

You need to smoke ganja, man! That be the only way! No great reggae musician ever did not not smoke weed. And to be honest seriously, unless you need to remember a lot of complicated stuff that'll expose a constant stress factor and pull you out of it you do play better when your stoned/high, much much easier to get into flow and 100% be in the music.

I bought a Harley Benton GuitarBass (pretty much a Fender Bass VI clone, but with a fixed TOM style bridge, and a much larger (flatter), almost 14" (350mm), fretboard radius) recently, a few months back, and I absolutely love it. Has become my main instrument of choice. Unbelievably high quality for the money. I have it strung with custom made Newtone nickle plated hex steel core roundwound guitar strings, gauge .080 - .060 - .045 - .034 - .027 - 020 (these gauges chosen for a close approximation to perfectly balanced tension across the strings, which I personally prefer), tuned to G1 standard tuning, as in G1 - C2 - F2 - A#2 - D3 - G3, that is 9 half steps below regular guitar E2 standard tuning, or 3 half steps above regular bass E1 standard tuning. Which I personally found to give the perfect balance between still being able to go deep enough to fill out the role/sonic space of a bass instrument, but exactly tuned high enough so that you pretty much can do complex chords at it's entire range without it getting unreasonably muddy. This is an instrument that really shines for melodic work, being less unwieldy and bombastic, as well as having a wider frequency span/range (except for 6 string bass of course), than a bass, but sounding way more substantial, full and rich than a guitar, and the true single coil, and by the way genuinely great sounding, pickups of this particular instrument, combined with the thicker strings compared to a guitar (thicker strings will have a wider dynamic response/range, as well as they will also respond much better and more naturally to more percussive playing/expressions), results in it having an extremely wide dynamic and expressive range, being unusually sensitive, but very naturally/directly responsive, to your picking dynamics and playing in general, making it amazingly articulate and really allowing for some incredibly detailed nuances that would otherwise be lost if played on a regular bass or guitar, which is one of the main reasons why I love playing this instrument so much, that it really does seem to sound exactly the way you play it, as if there is a very direct and natural correlation between your hand/finger movements and then what actually comes out, down to the tiniest details. That is of course unless you apply heavy distortion or compression, though I've found that a very subtle compression with a low compression rate (I have mine set to 2.5:1, and I would suggest not going any higher, that is 2 to 2.5 ought to work optimally), just the right, relatively high, threshold, and just long enough attack time to let the full transient of the attack through, as well as some light dynamical and touch sensitive overdrive, and ideally in the order: low gain touch sensitive dynamic overdrive -> subtle light compression, so that the overdrive pedal gets the absolute full dynamic range of the instrument to work with, actually can enhance this aspect/quality (the natural sensitivity and direct dynamic response to your picking) even further, How this works more specifically is the overdrive enhancing the effect of the bite of the attack gradually increasing the harder you pick, while the compression enhances the effect of the snap of the attack gradually getting more and more prominent the harder you pick. Typical true single coil pickups will react dynamically to how much force you apply to your picking, not only in terms of volume, but also in terms of tone, such that softer picking will have less high frequency content, making it sound more mellow, but then with more and more high frequency content gradually being added the harder you pick, making it sound gradually more and more aggressive the harder you pick, an effect which is much much less apparent and not having anywhere near the same range of expression either with your typical humbucker pickup, which predominantly will just react in terms of volume to your picking, but this too again with a much more narrow dynamic range compared to your typical true single coil pickup, overall making humbucker pickups in general sound much more compressed and much much less naturally and directly responding to your picking strength and technique/style. But while I do really think melodic work is where this sort of instrument really shines and works at its absolute optimal potential, it can of course be used for more traditional bass like lines, or chord strumming, like you would a guitar, as well. Though with the reservation that one should keep in mind that fast complex strumming patterns of full chords really does not tend work out very well on this instrument, whereas arpeggios/finger picking chords on the other hand works even extremely well. Here's how my Harley Benton GuitarBass looks (including some artistic PhotoShop shenanigans):

Being 6'4" my 28.6" scale Ibanez Mikro Bass must look like I am playing an ukuele. Luckily my new favorite is a 30" scale, that with a big body that has its bridge placed like it would typically be on a guitar, that is a good deal in on the body from the edge, and 6 inline tuners headstock (it's a Fender Bass VI clone), it is actually as big as most regular 34" scale basses would be. Even if frankly I couldn't care less, I mean Stanley Clarke is probably even taller than me, and definitely got a lot larger hands, still his prefered electric bass is a 30" scale, and he seems to be doing a lot better than just regularly great. And I am sure there are huge guys who play 24.75" Gibson scale guitars too and are doing great doing so. Also plenty of famous rock stars that looks terribly ridiculous regardless of what instrument they happen to play. If looks was that important to me I would have become a model, not a musician. Last I checked you don't hear music with your eyes.

Depends, sometimes just 24.75", but can go all the way up to 34" when in the right mood.

My Harley Benton GuitarBass, a genuinely great instrument and take on the Fender Bass VI concept: - Jack Skellington (character from Tim Burton's "The Nightmare Before Christmas" animated movie) skull sticker on the lower part of the body to the right of the controls - Green and red electrical tape (also known as insulating tape) cut to size and shape and stuck onto the top of respectively the Volume and Tone knob - Strip of red electrical tape with "Noodle VI" typed on it with a permanent marker stuck over the "Harley Benton" logo on the headstock (I do this with almost all brand names, regardless of price, cover them that is)

Ah, that explains it.

I am normally a D'Addario man, I tried several other strings but always settle back with regular nickle plated rounwaound XL strings. Well, that is until recently when I decided to take the chance on Newtone strings, and I am extremely satisfied. They actually sound and feel a lot like D'Addario strings, so it won't be a big change for someone used to D'Addarios, same basic character, just better, like feeling ever so slightly smoother on your fingers, without though being unnaturally smooth or slippery, like for instance Elixir strings, they seem to have just about the same tension in relation to gauge and scale, and then they sound somewhat just slightly more articulate and present, it's subtle though, definitely not enough for them to have a drastically different character from D'Addarios, just somewhat slightly better, and at a more than reasonable price for custom strings, not much price difference from D'Addarios really, but to your exact preferences and measurements that fits perfectly to your specific instrument and application. I at least can warmly recommend ordering from Newtone, and would think it is absolutely worth a shot, my bet is is that if you like D'Addario strings you by far most likely going to love Newtone strings. Note that Diamond series hex core strings will be the closest match to regular XL D'Addario strings.

Judging from your avatar you wouldn't even know the true meaning of that!

What I meant by hand was actually manually)*, as in not automated or computer controlled, which in it self will allow for a certain degree of variance in production within an acceptable margin. But my actual main point was that back then, late 50's/early 60's, Fender literally didn't have a standard recipe to exactly how many wounds e.t.c a given pickup should have, as in there weren't any strict specs carved in exact numbers that the pickups needed to adhere to (aside of course for gauge of coil wire (I strongly assume, at least), size of pickup pole magnets, and obviously being able to fit inside the pickup covers and cavities, and I strongly assume that there likely still would have been some more loosely defined, approximate, numbers/requirements within a predefined acceptable margin that needed to be met as well), or at least that is what I have been told. I might be wrong though, but it does kind of makes sense to me. Like a case of on the estimation of feel and close enough for Rock'n'Roll is good enough for Rock'n'Roll. Though I am pretty sure that by the 80's they probably would have had introduced more strict and exact standards to ensure consistency. *) manual (adj.) "of or pertaining to the hand; done, made, or used by hand;" c. 1400, from Latin manualis "of or belonging to the hand; that can be thrown by hand," from manus "hand, strength, power over; armed force; handwriting,"

Would: "....absolutely love it... except for the nut width is just 40mm" be another of those silly rationalisms of yours? Cause the way you phrase it to me sure looks like that would be to do with how 40mm nut width sounds to you, what you think it means for your playing, rather than how it actually feels and plays in your hands?

Back then all the pickups were handwound, and there weren't really much consistency between the individual units, so a comparison between two random units of each would be pretty pointless, as far as I am concerned, they were more or less all different from each other.

The Kick Inside - Kate Bush

I own and use in my setup both a Zoom MS-70CDR and a Zoom B1Xon, even plays a quite central role in it, both loaded with my own custom set of Zoom effect models, via the unofficial 3rd party Zoom Effect Manager firmware hack program (that in my opinion Zoom really ought to have offered something similar to anyway long ago), especially love the Zoom B1Xon with the easier on the fly switching between different patches and the, by the way great, build in expression pedal that can be assigned freely to whatever one parameter of any one effect of any given patch, at any range and working in any direction you should wish for, though undoubtful the stomp box format is really practical from a space saving perspective. I really do believe that the Zoom B1Xon and G1Xon (which I also own one of as a backup should my beloved B1Xon ever stop working) is the best multi effect Zoom ever made, so genuinely great sounding (well admittedly this doesn't go for all the effect models of that generation equally, there are in fact some pretty horrible sounding effects on these units as well, but generally speaking) despite it being a bit aged budget digital multi effect, and so amazingly versatile and tweakable. As far as I am concerned the newer generation of Zoom units and digital effect models is a step back in the wrong direction for Zoom (they most of all remind me of the equally horribly crappy digital effect units Zoom put out in the 90's), much less versatile and tweakable, and in my opinion also sounds like crap, and I should know, being stupid enough to have bought and own both the Zoom B1 Four and G1 Four, which I am sure I will never use again, and really ought to sell, was it not for me feeling bad about passing on such crappy pieces of gear. Love my Zoom B1Xon, and I am pretty sure it would still earn a spot on my pedal board even if I at some point should acquire a more contemporary high end digital multi effect unit, like for instance the widely popular Line 6 Helix Stomp, or the, on paper at least, even greater (more processor power, and a relatively large touch screen, which for instance allow you to draw EQ curves freely) and more recent, but also actually slightly cheaper, HoTone Ampero II Stomp, which I have been eyeing and actually seriously pondered on weather I should maybe buy at some point in the future.

I own and use the Behringer SF300 Super Fuzz too in my setup, as my go to high gain fuzz tone, placed right after the Mosky Black Rat, Rat clone, in the same effects loop of my Boss LS-2, and use it either blended with parallel "clean" (really lightly overdriven) signal from the other effects loop of the LS-2, where the always on Joyo Orange Juice (for my basic "clean" tone I have this higher low/lower medium gain overdrive blended with parallel clean signal from the opposite effects loop of the LS-2) and Boss MT-2 Metal Zone is also placed, or blended in parallel with the Metal Zone, which I, as stated in my previous post, have dialed in to deliver sort of a higher medium gain distortion, depending. Sounds amazing either way, though obviously not indentically (regardless though with the Metal Zone blended into the equation it predominantly still sounds very much as fuzz, just a bit heavier, but somewhat smoother (less raspy and spluttering), and with the octave aspect of the Super Fuzz being more subdued). The Behringer Super Fuzz works no short of amazing as a bass fuzz, and that actually totally regardless of price, dirt cheap, as it undoubtfully indeed is, or not. I dare say that it might very well even be one of the absolutely best bass fuzz pedals out there. I also own the Behringer clone of the Boss TR-2 Tremolo, and used it for the longest time as my go to tremolo, but, even if it is indeed an excellent tremolo effect on it's own terms, I discovered that it actually doesn't sound much like the original Boss TR-2 (the Behringer having a somewhat more throbby/choppy quality in comparison), and I personally came to prefer the original TR-2, which I therefor now use in my setup in place of the Behringer (that, and Boss finally, in the, newer, more recent years's batches of this pedal, actually fixed the slight volume drop that this pedal otherwise caused when engaged, whereas the Behringer clone still suffers from this issue (mind it really is just a slight volume drop, and absolutely something you can live with, but it's there)).

And this YouTube video featuring jazzy post-rock pioneers Tortoise is another of my all time favorite YouTube concerts :

Too square for me! This is where the real jazz is at : But yeah, seriously speaking, to be honest personally I do much prefer above, I think it is safe to say "all star", avantgarde/free jazz band, in fact this is one of my absolute favorite YouTube concerts. Just absolute ferociously uncompromising. And also they are all playing like as if their life depended on it.

I've posted this before, just when it was released, but I think it deserves a repost, have become a part of my list of all time absolute favorite songs. So incredible powerful and heartwrenchingly beautiful, and the video, which Emma Ruth Rundle directed herself, is just as amazing and suits the song perfectly. "Return" from Emma Ruth Rundle's most recent album "Engine of Hell", just absolute breathtakingly sublime! :

Great piece of advice. I already tend to do this though, mix notes from different scales as I see fit, as well as adding some chromatic notes here and there. Mind though that this won't work equally well for everything, so as with everything you need to be mindful of the context. One thing is something fitting in strictly harmonically, or not so well but creating interesting tension, in case of added chromatic notes, but mixing the Pentatonic Minor, or the "Blues" Scale with added chromatic "blue" notes (b5), Minor and Dorian scales, which is exactly what I would do, won't sound very traditional, say in the context of playing traditional blues for instance. But otherwise sound advice to not let staying within a specific scale dictate your playing/note choice, but rather see scales as general guidelines that you can add to and subtract from as you see fit, depending on the specific musical context within they are played/used.

Without knowing I would think the Ultimate Overdrive being an OCD clone, borrowing the name after Joyo's OCD clone, the Ultimate Drive. The Low/High switch on the pedal seems to confirm this assumption, since this match the switch you'd normally find an OCD based pedal, including the original, and not the Vintage/Turbo or Classic/Turbo you'd normally see on RAT clones, as well as the Tone control on RAT variants usually will be called Filter, from the original RAT, and this is just called Tone, as it would on an OCD drive. The Pocket Metal I am pretty sure being an EHX Pocket Metal Muff clone, which the single Mid "Tone"/EQ control knob seems to confirm.