Baloney Balderdash

Rockstar - Sebadoh

There are other reasons to be interested in what kind of gear different musicians play than wanting to sound like them, you know... Personally I have no interest in sounding like anyone else than myself... But you are right, anything else is a fruitless chase, unless you want to make a living as an impersonator, and I don't think people impersonating bass players are in that high demand. But I do find what kind of gear people play, even people who play different instruments than myself, interesting, and sometimes even inspiring.

I can make you a bad cable emulator for a 10'er if you are interested? No need for circumstantial expensive boxes or anything. Directly build into the cable and all!

Kiss Me, Son Of God - They Might Be Giants

I now believe this might be the closest bet yet. But what do I know...

Anyone got a Wal Mk 1 bass that they don't use? I'll take it off your back for a tenner, that is you pay me 10£, of course beside you paying the shipping and import fee. And you ought to consider that a very generous offer, it's an old bass, and I can get a shining brand spanking new bass for under 100£. Please send a PM. The offer is final!

Well if your objective with modding your cheap bass is not just visually, but to actually make it a batter instrument, it wouldn't really make sense to cheap out on parts. Why would you even bother if you aren't actually upgrading it to something better? Hardware and electronics, including the pickups, are usually where manufactures save most on the production costs of budget basses, so usually you can improve cheap budget instruments from being decent to great, or sometimes even genuinely amazing, instruments by upgrading those parts. These days what makes cheap budget instruments cheap budget instruments is cheap hardware and electronics and somewhat inconsistent quality, at least compared to higher end basses, rather than overall consistently poor quality.

Show your straps! Here is my most recent addition, to my collection of straps, which now counts whole stunning 3 straps! A 2"/51mm Levys Poly Sunset Strap :

I think I seem to remember something about some people reporting the DI Out to be a little noisy. I wouldn't know though, I use the normal output into a tube preamp/DI, and I don't experience any extra noise whatsoever. But if you have the Treble and/or Drive engaged and set high it would only be natural with some noise.

Jaco only needed a butter knife and some wood putty.

Yes: 24Bit 16 Bit 8 Bit 4 Bit 2 Bit 1 Bit Obviously it could mean something else, but a bit crusher seems obvious. Also Bits are not measured in Rate, that is Sample Rate, but in Depth. Usually you will have a parameter for controlling Sample Rate too though on a bit crusher.

Well, this slap stick saga goes on... Found out the thing about the upper fret tone was a headphones issue, so I swapped back to the new Mikro Bass. In fact it actually got a bit fatter tone up high on the thinnest string. It is indeed as I has hoped for, very much the same tone, but: A somewhat cleaner tone with a bit more sustain, but also slightly fatter and smooth. Not sure if I prefer that somewhat slightly fatter and more polite tone though to the dirtier/edgier and more organic tone of my old Mirko. It is as said slightly smoother sounding, and to me it sounds like slightly less top end and slightly more low mids. A slightly bigger tone for sure, but I also feel somewhat less organic. I'll stick to the new bass for a while though for now, and then we'll see if I eventual end up deciding for my old one instead. Definitely a great sounding bass though, and a keeper.

Put Your Hand Inside The Puppet Head - They Might Be Giants

Mercy Street - Peter Gabriel Here in form of an amazing cover by Fever Ray:

Definitely is!

A sequencer/arpeggiator?

I don't think it is, but I hope it's pitchshifter with realistic sounding pitch shift.

Deranged for Rock & Roll - Chelsea Wolfe

AI is dangerous! Someone could feed an AU with "Mine Kamph", and it would no doubt end up starting WW2 all over again! As if WWW isn't bad enough as is. I am shaking in my pants of the prospect! 😱 Or imagine feeding it with everything Trump has said, and it would run for US president, and win, and the Americans would be stuck listening to hyperbole made up nonsense... again... On a more serious note, the only reason you would have to fear AI generated music is if your target audience don't give a shit about music anyway, and then why are you even doing it? If it's for the money then there are plenty of other jobs to take where your work won't be appreciated either. And no big loss, there is plenty of shit being pumped out into the world as is.

This how it looks currently (changed the pot knobs and chrome tuners for some black ones):

Yeah, so as I played some more on the new Mikro Bass, I found out I wasn't really satisfied. For one the frets for some reason are slightly broader, I suppose Jumbo Medium versus regular Medium frets, and I prefer smaller frets. This might however also had contributed to the fact that the highest thinnest string sounded thin and somewhat lackluster played up above 12th fret, and also lacked sustain. And I wasn't totally happy about the slightly smoother, more polite tone, of the new bass compared to my old one. So I swapped back, using the opportunity to give it a proper cleaning, that I haven't practically ever done, and also swap the chrome tuners on it GSRM20 Mikro neck, taken from the bass that it's body is originally from. I refrained from installing the EMG Geezer J pickup, as it, unlike the P which is no short of amazing, really isn't all that great a pickup. I properly will install a J pickup, the same way I did on the new Mikro Bass, at some point, which is likely to be a Gemini Pickups Mountain Lighning one. I regret being stupid enough to mod my new Mikro Bass, before i had made 100% absolutely sure I also actually liked it better than my old one, so I could have send it back and gotten a refund. Well, I suppose at least I got plenty of spare parts now. Oh, and by the way, the metal plate that the bridge is bent from on the new Mikro Bass is also actually thinner than the old one. And I discovered that Cort's Indonesian factory aren't making the Mikro's anymore either, production is back to China somewhere. Here my old Ibanez Mikro is, as it looks now: Not that much different visually I suppose, except for a somewhat battered Rosewood fretboard, versus a brand new shining Purple Heart one. and a somewhat thinner finish, which actually shows the grain of it's unusually light, supposed Mahogany, but I strongly suspect Okoume, body, which though also has a couple of minor ding marks (well and then the Jack Skellington skull sticker, and the folded piece of cardboard in place of the J pickup). The neck, despite being rather battered, is phenomenal though, most stable neck I ever had on any guitar or bass, that hardly ever requires any adjustments, and it holds tuning extremely well too.

Hotellounge (Be The Death Of Me) - dEUS

Yes, this is totally a thing. Tone affects the way the strings feels, the way we perceive them. Not that strange really, playing music, an instrument, is to a large extend about adjusting our playing to what we hear, and in order to do so we need to be able to physically feel the sound. Obviously that doesn't mean that the actual physical properties of the strings changes with EQ adjustments, but the way we perceive those physical properties does indeed. The subjective reality is, surprise, surprise, not objective.

Even if I made a dedicated thread for it, I suppose it belongs in this thread: My new 4 string Ibanez GSRM20B Mikro Bass, "Dud Bottomfeeder II": Just 28.6" scale length, Maple neck, treated Purple Heart (which is almost as hard as and stiffer than Ebony) fretboard, Okoume (which is a cheap alternative to Mahogany, lighter and not as hard, but is supposed to have very similar tonewood qualities, and looks a lot like Mahogany too) body. EMG Geezer Butler P/J pickup set installed, wired directly to each their own front mounted jack output socket, and respectively red and black electrical tape applied on to them. One of the stock pots and knob left, though with no functionality but cosmetically. Stock side mounted barrel type jack socket removed. Black electrical tape applied over logos on head stock. Strung with Elixir Nanoweb guitar strings, of the gauges: .068 - .052 - .038 - .038, picked for almost perfectly balanced tension, tuned to tenor bass tuning, A# standard tuning, as in a ½ step above the upper 4 strings of a 6 string bass in regular B standard tuning, threaded through the cut off ball ends of the crappy stock bass strings, to not fall through the bridge string mounting holes. Copper shielding tape applied in the nut slots to fill some of the space from the slots being cut for a gauge .105 - .045 bass string set. Simple basic cheap capo applied over strings on the head, behind the nut, to make the strings sit better in nut slots, to secure proper break angle, and to mute eventual sympathetic vibrations from strings between nut and tuners. Just bellow 2mm string action on low E last fret, with minimal, almost straight neck, relief, and without any fret buzz whatsoever.