Baloney Balderdash

Well, unlike Dungwall/Fartgas, a P with SS through a tube amp actually sounds classic and great, rather than like a sterile lifeless wet fart of a cliché that induces puke reflexes.

There, fixed it for you.

I swear I actually searched for such a thread before making this one, I guess the "owner" in the title of that thread would be the key to my failure, rather then the much more common "porn", "show", "post" or "let's see". I really did try my best to find it, before giving up and deciding to make one myself. At least I actually remembered to utilize the keyword function. *cough* (even if I missed adding "owner" in that one too)

Looks great! Transplanted the outstanding neck the of the 2010 production GSRM20 Mikro Bass in my OP to a 2017 production GSRM20B body in Weathered Black finish I had lying around, from a Mikro Bass I bought that had horrible fretwork, unlike the GSRM20 Mikro neck. Also pulled out the DiMarzio P again and re-installed the EMG Geezer Butler P, also wired directly to the output jack socket, which I relocated to the front, on one of the redundant pot holes. This is the result: I named mine "Dud Bottomfeeder", by the way. Here depicted in a more artistic manner:

Hasn't Boner anointed himself as the deputy of Dalai Lama? In that perspective I think it seems fair.

I agree that this would be the most sensible placement taking OP's intention with using it into consideration.

No need to challenge anything with something that has been the unchallenged norm for centuries, as far as I am concerned. In my opinion that is in fact not challenging at all really but rather regressing to conformity.

So what you are saying is that you take offence of someone taking offence, but not for clicks and exposure? Isn't that ironic.

I have to disappoint you, it is as unoriginal as his bass lines.

Are you playing up a stadium without PA support?

Only a pretty bad businessman would invest in new basses with the intention of selling them later, used, for profit. There are far more profitable ways to invest your money. Buy a bass for what it is intended to, to play it, if you want to invest money look somewhere else.

The only effective way to fight the unending tyranny of shims is to just consequently say no to play bass as long as shims are used in some of them!

Double reverse P. With a reverse P configuration you get better tonal balance across the strings.

No, noon would be flat, or that is whatever is "flat" for that pedal, otherwise it is working as a traditional regular tone control, that is a tilt type EQ (on pedals that is, the passive tone control on basses is a LPF), just labeled Filter (as is tradition of the original RAT pedals (though not reverse as the original RATs)). This is how a tilt type EQ works, that is a traditional tone knob (mind I don't know what the specific crossover frequency, range and curve is specifically for the Mosky Black Rat, but in general terms) : So yes, more bass, less treble, counter clockwise, more treble, less bass, clockwise.

I know as much that the California Sound that I own is much darker sounding than the American Sound I also own, and that is even when played clean, with the gain set relatively low, but there's a huge difference in the way they overdrive and the tone of that too, so yes, seems like they are in fact different. Also in case you don't know they are all clones of Tech 21's Character series pedals, though the California and Oxford has been discontinued for some time. I am really happy with my American Sound, which is a clone of the Tech 21 Blonde pedal, and use it as a cleanish bass preamp in my current pedal setup. The California is pretty good too, but as far as I am concerned where it really shines is for massively heavy distortion tones , currently I don't use mine though, and I do personally prefer the American Sound. But as a big fan of the Joyo Orange Juice, of which I own 2 units, both in use in my current setup, which is supposed to essentially be a seriously sized down Oxford clone, but without an integrated cab sim and with simplified EQ section to accommodate the miniature size, I am definitely going to soon snap one of these bigger fully featured Oxford clones from Joyo.

So since my 28.6" scale main Ibanez Mikro Bass is currently tuned to G standard tuning, as in 3 half steps above regular 4 string bass E standard tuning, I thought I would start a thread for bass players who have one or more of their basses tuned up higher than what is considered the norm (that is basically E, all fourths, standard tuning for 4 string bass, and B, all fourths, standard tuning for 5 or 6 string bass). That is weather we are talking about a 4 string one octave higher E standard piccolo tuning, a 5 string bass tuned E to C, a 6 string tuned E to F or E to E, a typical 4 string A or B standard, that is A to C/B to D, baritone tuning, an all fifths C to A cello tuning, or more esoteric variants of utilizing higher than regular tuning on your bass, be it on a sub short scale (bellow 30" scale length), regular short scale bass (around 30" scale length), or regular full 34" scale length bass. This thread is meant as a place for discussing alternative higher tunings than what is considered the norm for bass, or simply just as a place for you to get a chance to wave your uptuned bass freak flag, should you feel such need. To start out the discussion : I had used an F# standard tuning (that 2 half steps above regular 4 string E standard tuning), which has actually traditionally been used in classical music for upright bass solo pieces, for my 28.6" scale Ibanez Mikro Bass for quite a while, using a gauge .090 - .072 - .054 - .040 string set, composed of single D'Addario XL nickle plated roundwound steel core strings, the gauge .072 and .054 string actually being guitar strings threaded through the cut off ball end of old bass strings to be able to sit in the bass bridge, but then recently decided to re-string my Mikro with gauge .080 - .060 - .045 - .034 strings to tune it one half step further up to G standard tuning (why is explained following). It does make it lean a bit more in the 4 string baritone guitar than bass direction, but there is still plenty of bottom end to fill out the sonic space as a bass instrument, and it seems to work better for the kind of bass/baritone/guitar crossover riff writing/playing style that I currently use it for in a drums and bass duo, where I also have my signal run through an always on 1 octave up effect, to give an effect somewhat similar to that of an 8 string bass (with pairs of respectively bass and octave strings). This way chords work pretty much regardless of where I fret them on the fretboard without getting too muddy, and that thuddy, stacatto and somewhat dead, effect of playing the thickest string above the 12th fret, due to the reduced flexibility of the string caused by the shorter vibrating length of the Mikro's short scale length as you approach the upper end of the fretboard, has totally been eliminated with the lower tension and thinner gauge .080 low G string, which wasn't quite the case with the previously installed gauge .090 low F# string, also the gauge .034 high A# string seems to still just exactly have enough mass to be perfectly snappy and full sounding, like a real bass string, and not thin or anemic in any way, like as if it had been a guitar string. All together basically resulting in a tone that now sounds clear and vibrant no matter what I play at the entire range of the fretboard, while still having that full tonal quality with plenty of punch and snap typical of a bass guitar. Ironically the tone of my Mikro in some ways is now closer to what you would expect from a regular 34" scale bass, given the richer harmonic content of the thinner gauge strings, than it ever was before. Here is how my lowly, but very much beloved, Mikro Bass looks (though back when this photo was shot it was still equipped with the gauge .090 - .072 - .054 - .040 strings and tuned to F# standard tuning) :

The EHX Black Finger is a killer pedal, even if I use it with the compression practically dialed completely out of the equation as a tube preamp stage. Probably the #1 favorite out of all the pedals I own. Just makes everything you run through it sound better. Such a shame EHX discontinued this series of of big double preamp tube equipped pedals, they were a lot of value for the money, considering the tubes are run at proper high 300V plate voltage. Really regret being stupid enough to sell the EHX LPB-2ube tube preamp that I owned at some point, even if the Black Finger actually makes for an excellent tube preamp in the normal compression mode with the Compress knob dialed down, heck it even makes for a nice low gain tube overdrive that way. Have you tried swapping tubes in it? I haven't personally as I like the EHX ones it came with, but curious as to what results could be obtained by swapping out the tubes for some different models, eventual even lower gain tubes than the stock 12AX7 ones.

Just shot this picture of my updated pedal setup: My entire signal chain for my "amp-less" setup explained in written form : (*pedals listed in [ red/bold/underline text ] are "always on" effects*) 4 string 28,6" scale Ibanez GSRM20 neck + GSRM20B body Mikro Bass (equipped with an EMG Geezer Butler P pickup, wired directly to the output jack socket, and strung with gauge .080 - .060 - .045 - .034 D'Addario XL nickle plated roundwound hex steel core strings, tuned in G standard tuning, 3 half steps above regular 4 string bass E standard tuning) ->> TC Electronic SpectraComp (always on 3 band parallel compression, adding extra punch, snap and bite, but without really affecting my playing dynamics) ->> TC Electronic Sub'N'Up Mini (always on digital polyphonic octaver, used as an 1 octave up effect mixed with clean bass signal, giving an effect similar to that of an 8 string "octave" bass, with pairs of respectively bass and octave strings) ->> Boss LS-2 [A+B Mix <-> Bypass] (always on parallel effect loops mixer/switch) ={ [Loop A Send] ->> Joyo Orange Juice (always on low gain overdrive, [Tone] set at about 11 o'clock, [Voice] set to boost a wide curve around a 800Hz center frequency about +3dB pre gain stage, always mixed with clean {bass+octave up} signal from parallel effects [Loop B]) ->> [Loop A Return] ->||<- [Loop B Send] ->> (empty effects loop for clean {bass+octave up} signal blend with Orange Juice in effects [Loop A]) ->> [Loop B Return] ([Loop A] + [Loop B] mixed at an about 50/50 ratio) }=>> Boss LS-2 [A+B Mix <-> Bypass] (always on parallel effect loops mixer/switch) ={ [Loop A Send] ->> Behringer SF300 Super Fuzz (Boss FZ-2/Univox Super Fuzz clone, octave fuzz, always mixed with either clean {bass+octave up} signal or the Metal Zone distortion from parallel effects [Loop B]) ->> Mosky Black Rat (RAT clone, in Turbo RAT, LED diode clipping, mode, quite raunchy, fuzz-esque, high gain distortion, always used mixed with the Metal Zone distortion in parallel effects [Loop B]) ->> Monarch MFL-22 (flanger, most often used mixed with phaser in parallel effects [Loop B]) ->> [Loop A Return] ->||<- [Loop B Send] ->> Joyo Orange Juice (always on low gain overdrive, approximately same settings as the other Orange Juice, except slightly higher gain setting, mixed with clean {bass+octave up}, Black Rat or Monarch flanger signal from parallel effects [Loop A]) ->> Boss MT-2 Metal Zone (distortion, used with a relatively low gain setting, always used with the Orange Juice behind it stacked into it, and always used mixed with the Rat distortion in parallel effects [Loop A]) ->> Behringer VP1 Vintage Phaser (EHX Small Stone clone, used in the high feedback and deep sweep mode, always used boosted by the Hotone Trem in front of it, and almost always used mixed with flanger in parallel effects [Loop A]) ->> Hotone Trem (Tremolo with rate and depth at 0, always used to boost the Behringer phaser placed behind it and make it a bit brighter, since it's a few dB above unity gain when engaged and got a tone control) ->> [Loop B Return] ([Loop A] + [Loop B] mixed at an about 55/45 ratio) }=>> Behringer UT100 Ultra Tremolo (almost always used staked into the Shaker chorus in front of it) ->> TC Electronic Shaker Mini (vibrato functioning as a chorus, loaded with a Boss CE-1/EHX Small Stone fusion -esque toneprint, almost always used with the Behringer tremolo staked into it) ->> Artec SE-EQ8 (always on 8 band graphic equalizer, settings as follows: [Freq=100Hz LoShlv Boost=+1dB ; Freq=170Hz Q=wide Boost=+1dB ; Freq=280Hz Q=narrow Boost=+3dB ; Freq=500Hz Q=narrow Boost=+2dB ; Freq=800Hz Q=narrow Boost=+1dB ; Freq=1.4kHz Q=narrow Boost=+2dB ; Freq=2.3kHz Q=wide Boost=+3dB ; Freq=5kHz HiShlv +/- 0dB]) ->> Zoom G1Xon (Always on subtle plate reverb, and additionally used for 4 other reverb patches, which respectively are as follows: Plate Reverb->HD Hall Reverb->Tape Delay, more prominent reverb :-: '63 Spring Reverb->Analog Delay (set to a slapback type delay), lush splashy spring reverb :-: '63 Spring Reverb->Tape Delay (set to a slapback type delay), brighter sounding lush splashy spring reverb :-: Plate Reverb->HD Hall Reverb->Tape Delay, extremely thick lush reverb, used as a reverb pad effect with volume swells via the build in expression pedal, as well as a trippy reverse delay patch, and an aggressive quacky "wOÚh" filter effect patch controlled with the build in expression pedal) ->> NUX Tape Core Deluxe (Roland Space Echo tape delay emulation) ->> Zoom MS-70CDR (Always on "160 Comp" (emulating a DBX 160A compressor), set to a quite subtle compression -> always on 2 x 2 band parametric EQ : [Freq=63Hz Q=4 Boost=+1dB ; Freq=250Hz Q=4 Boost=+1dB ; Freq=400Hz Q=4 Boost=+1dB ; Freq=1kHz Q=4 Boost=+1dB] -> always on faux, EQ based, cab sim, consisting of a 2 band parametric EQ set as follows: [Freq=12kHz Q=1 Cut=-18dB ; Freq=20kHz Q=0.5 Cut=-20dB], and additionally used for a lush Church reverb that can be switched on/off, which is often used combined with the other reverb effects of the G1Xon) ->> Joyo American Sound (always on clean preamp, Tech 21 Blonde clone, analog Fender style preamp/overdrive emulation, with [Low], 125Hz, and [High], 3.2kHz set ever so slightly above noon, and [Mid], 400Hz, and [Voice], 800Hz, pre gain stage, set at about 2 o'clock, which would be just about +3dB, [Mid] set ever so slightly higher, equal to maybe an additional +0.5dB, all EQ points controling a quite wide Q curve around the center frequency) ->> EHX Black Finger (always on tube driven optical compressor, used primarily as a tube preamp stage) ->> ART Tube MP Project Series (tube preamp, with HPF fixed @40Hz) // ->> Band rehearsal/jamming/gigging // ->> Home practice // ->> Home recordings // : // ->> Band rehearsal/jamming/gigging ->> [Effects Return] (poweramp input) of Peavey Solo Special 112 (160W, solid state guitar combo, with the build in 4 Ohm 12" speaker unit disconnected and instead hooked up to a The Box PA 502 PA speaker) ->> The Box PA 502 (full range PA speaker with 1x 15" woofer/mids driver + 1.7" high frequency tweeter horn) // ->> Home practice ->> The Mix Mix 502 (mixer) ->> Sennheiser HD 380 Pro (headphones) // ->> Home recordings ->> M-Audio Fast Track (audio interface) ->> Reaper (DAW) //

I went the other way and pulled out the J pickup of my P/J bass. I've pondered on getting the bridge J cavity routed to fit a Seymour Duncan Quarter Pounder single coil 50's P/Tele Bass pickup in there (I figure it would really just be a matter of routing out the space between 2 of the cavities for the mounting screw ears), and then installing a stereo jack socket, so I would get a separate signal for external active mixing from each of the two individual pickups, using a stereo cable with stereo jack and a small mixer (though if one wouldn't mind having a 9V battery in their bass, this could be achieved more elegantly by installing the EMG ABC Active Balance Control instead). But not sure I'll go though with this idea, as I am actually really satisfied with just the tone I get now from the reverse EMG Geezer Butler middle/neck P pickup. But yeah, if I was to install in an extra bridge pickup in a P Bass it would be a single coil P pickup, and more specifically the Seymour Duncan Quarter Pounder one, which actually unlike the Quarter Pounder P and J pickups doesn't scoop the mids out of you tone, quite on the contrary.

Currently own, use and love following dirt cheap pedals : - Joyo Orange Juice (own 2 of these amazing tiny pedals, used as sort of dirty preamps towards the start of my signal chain, miniature clone of the Tech 21 Oxford, analog Orange amp style preamp/drive emulation, but without the cab sim of the original pedal and with simplified EQ controls as well, to accommodate it's miniature size, can get really grindy (next pedal that I will buy will be the new full featured Tech 21 Oxford clone, the Joyo Oxford Sound pedal, though I do still appreciate the smaller size of the Orange Juice, and the other options it not featuring a build in cab sim and a simplified, but somewhat different EQ section, gives it compared to the new full sized and full featured version)) - Joyo American Sound (clone of the Tech 21 Blonde, analog Fender amp style preamp/dirt emulation, used as clean preamp towards the end of my signal chain) - Mosky Black Rat (RAT clone, with both a Vintage, classic silicon diode clipping, mode and a Turbo, LED diode clipping, mode, used in Turbo mode, as part of my high gain super massive and monstrous heavy and ballsy, really raunchy and almost fuzz-esque, distortion setup, mixed in parallel, via one of my Boss LS-2 pedals, with one of the before mentioned Orange Juice pedals stacked into a Boss MT-2 Metal Zone, the Mosky Black Rat retains low end a bit better than both the original RAT pedals and most other clones on the market) - Behringer VP1 Vintage Phaser (Pretty accurate clone of the original big box EHX Small Stone, and does a better job at that than EHX's own Nano reissues, used with the Color switch engaged (deep sweep/high feedback setting), and mixed in parallel, via one of my Boss LS-2 pedals, with my Monarch MFL-22 Stereo Flanger, for a super lush, swirly, somewhat quacky, psychedelic effect with a somewhat mystical oriental quality) - Behringer SF300 Super Fuzz (Pretty accurate clone of the discontinued Boss FZ-2, which again was a take on the legendary Univox SuperFuzz circuit, but with an added active Bass and Treble EQ control, pretty gnarly and thick sounding high gain octave fuzz with a raspy and somewhat sputtery quality) - Behringer UT100 Ultra Tremolo (identical to the UT300 which is a later rebrand, and which while supposedly being a Boss TR-2 clone doesn't sound very much like the original, I prefer the sound of the Behringer to the original Boss version though, which I by the way own as well. The Behringer, beside having a more throby character, just having something about it that makes it sound a bit more vibrant and alive to my ears) - Zoom G1Xon and MS-70CDR (cheap budget, previous generation Zoom, multi effects, personally prefer the effect models featured in these pedals to those in the newer generation Zoom B1n/G3(X)n/B1(X) Four/G1(X) Four multi effects (I own both the G1 Four and B1 Four myself), both the G1Xon and MS-70CDR loaded with more or less the same effect models, using a hack that allows you to install any effect from any of the same generation Zoom multi effects to any one unit, but the G1Xon I use for various reverb patches, among that one where I utilize this pedals build in expression pedal for volume swells with a thick lush reverb pad effect, and beside that a trippy reverse delay patch as well as a lush aggressive really quacky sort of "wOÚh" effect, using an effect modeling the Moog MF-101 LPF pedal, and also for this utilizing the build in expression pedal, assigned to control the Frequency parameter of the envelope filter, while the Sense of the filter is set to 0, whereas the MS-70CDR is used for an always on patch consisting of a model of the legendary dbx163a compressor going into some fairly mild EQ'ing, handled by 2 x 2 band fully parametric equalizer models, then going into yet another 2 band fully parametric equalizer, this used for a faux, EQ based, cab sim, approximately mimicking a LPF set at about 3.5kHz (-3dB) with a -12dB/Oct downward slope, finally going into a lush but very wide, roomy and big sounding (basically meaning a relatively high pre delay setting) church reverb model which can be switched on/off as one sees fit, this reverb often being used in combination with various other reverb patches from the G1Xon to enhance them further)

Probably my favorite Bad Religion album (from 1988), back from when they were still great :

Some, if not even most, short scale basses will fit perfectly fine into some guitar gig bags/cases (as far as guitar gig bag goes I think most would do for most short scale basses. But that does require that you know the exact dimensions of respectively the bass and bag in question, before you buy). Also sorry about the spam, I kind of found these posts after I already posted the other replies.

Stanley Clarke doesn't seem to mind. And with his standards I think it ought to be good enough for everyone.