Baloney Balderdash

From the first and only Manowar album I can still listen to without reservations and unironically actually think is even a really good album :

Well, obviously I think it looks better with the decal or else I wouldn't have pondered on adding it. But true, it does look good just as it is from stock too, in fact the best looking 6'er that Thomann had at any price, in my opinion. All the others either where hippy sandwich style or looking like some coke OD flashback to the 80's, which for some odd reason seems like a very common thing for 6 string bass design.

An update : So after the bass haven been stuck at the same stage of the shipping procedure for 3 days straight it finally moved on to the next step and an estimated delivery day finally is displayed as well. So if I can trust that estimate and it doesn't get delayed further, the bass should finally be in my possession by Tuesday the 22nd next week, but I kind of fear, due to the general Christmas work pressure on the mail service coupled with the current shut down Corona situation, that it will be delayed even further, and that I won't have it before after Christmas. Damn, this wait is so frustrating. At least I hope the delayed delivery will mean that by the time the bass finally arrives I will also have received the strings I ordered for it, since they were ordered from a different shop (as Thomann doesn't sell the individual strings of the right gauges that I need for the planed tuning) and haven't arrived yet either (no tracking service on that shipment).

Welcome to the club, I always feel like I am missing an arm and a hand when soldering.

Raining Blood (by Slayer)

That video explains nothing though. Already watched it once, when I tried to search for a solution. But I did find a post on the Talk Bass forum that seems to be of some use. Seems though that without using feeler gauges there will be no fool proof way to ensure that I will get the adjustment just right to prevent the risk of the neck possible developing a twist/warp over time. Seems this is as close as I can get to a proper instruction, but as said close to worthless without me having the right feeler gauges, plus the guy who wrote this reply doesn't even seem totally certain that this would be the perfectly correct way to do it : https://www.talkbass.com/threads/dual-truss-rod-adjustment-tips.519035/#post-7016950

Well, sure someone on this forum must have experience with adjusting double truss rod necks and be able to help me. Aren't that partially what this forum is for?

@PaulThePlug Just read up on some more reviews on the bass while I am waiting for it to arrive, and one of them mentioned that this bass do in fact have 2 truss rods in the neck, so how would I go about adjusting them correctly?

Well, I haven't got the bass yet, still on the way with the mail service, so can't really check, and I have not been able to verify or falsify weather or not it got 2 truss rods with a Google search The truss rod cover is wider than usually, practically covering the whole width of the lower part of the headstock towards the nut, unlike the usual 4 and 5 string Ibanez Sound Gear truss rod covers (same headstock, just with 6 instead of 4 tuning keys), though that still might still just be an odd design choice to match the wider neck, even if the cover on the 5 string Sound Gear basses seems to have the same size covers as the 4 strings. Hope you are right though, cause I am really not comfortable with the thought of having to adjust 2 truss rods right and risk the neck developing a twist/warp if I get it wrong.

Edit!!! : Just read up on some more reviews on the bass while I am waiting for it to arrive, and one of them mentioned that this bass do in fact have 2 truss rods in the neck, so how would I go about adjusting them correctly? So I ordered an Ibanez SR306EB 6 string bass a couple of says ago, and I expect to receive it by the end of this week. However I just realized that the neck might have 2 truss rods build into it (not positively sure if this is the case though), to ensure stability of the wider 6 string neck I assume, and I am already getting anxious about how to adjust them correctly. Knowing factory setups I guess I can't even be sure that the 2 truss rods are actually adjusted equally from factory, so how would I make sure to adjust them right without risking ultimately causing the neck to develop a twist/warp? Of course if someone can confirm that the neck of this bass in fact only got 1 single truss rod in it then I guess I have no need for knowing how to adjust a neck with 2 truss rods anyway.

Unlike my other basses I don't think I will add any visual mods to this, just keeping the nice stylish minimal matte black, though I do ponder on perhaps adding just one thing, a silver OM sign in a Lotus flower decal as the only thing, making it look something like this : Edit!!! : A fairly radical change in concept, but just found this Jack Skellington (from Tim Buton's animated "The Nightmare Before Christmas" movie) decal, that I think would fit absolutely perfect for this bass, so likely going to order that and transfer it to the bass, like this :

My old Aria Pro II Laser Electric Classic, which was my first bass ever : You can read more about it here:

The shipment of my new strings got delayed, so only just received them today. So here is my old Aria Pro II Laser Electric Classic, thoroughly cleaned, fretboard polished and conditioned, the .095 to .040 D'Addario NYXL string set installed, and action, neck relief, intonation and pickups adjusted properly : Plays and sounds absolutely beautifully.

I kind of ponder on getting a capo to the 6 string bass I ordered a few days ago and expect to receive with the mail service by the end of this week, an Ibanez SR306EB. I only will need it to fit like up to and including the 5th fret (I could possibly live with it just being up to and including 3rd fret though). This bass got a 54mm nut width and is 83mm wide at 24th fret. Preferably it would be a capo that is easy to clip on and off, and I'd prefer if it's one that I can get through Thomann as well. What options do I have?

They likely will include some old effect, kind of like the legacy effects in the Line6 Helix and Pod Go pedals, which are basically previous generation Line6 digital effects, but I strongly presume Zoom will include new improved effects as well, for one they would have to have used a new form of algorithm to allow for IR use. Though of course this is also just guesswork, but would at least make most sense to me.

I strongly presume they have, as I edited in in my previous post, for one this allows for loading third party IR's, and at a higher quality/resolution than the Line6 multi effects allows for. I also strongly assume this is a whole new generation of digital Zoom effects, with improved quality, and likely utilizing a circuit modeling technology (where instead of basing the modeling on approaching the sound of the original effects, it actually models the individual components of the circuit in question), similar to what the Line6 digital effects utilize, though the latter is purely guesswork.

That is still considerably cheaper than any of those Line6 pedals, and even a nice chunk cheaper then Line6 Pod Go, which doesn't feature parallel routing either, and which seems more like the direct competitor to this. Add to that I'd expect the effects on this to be able to fully compete in quality with the Line 6 modeling, if not even better, the IR loader at least allows for higher quality IRs than Line6 multi effect does (at very least I expect to like the effect models in this more, since I already prefer Zoom digital effects over for instance Boss ones).

This looks extremely promising. Especially as a big fan of the newer Zoom digital multi effects (G3/B3/G1X(on)/B1X(on)/Multi Stop Boxes and G3n/B3n/G1 Four/B1 Four), this though seems to most likely be a totally worthy competitor to the like of the new Line6 Pod Go and similar high end digital multi effects, and I guess in usual Zoom style for a considerably lower price. If it lives up to this I'll no doubt get one at some point. A proper high end Zoom multi effect seems like a wet dream come true to me.

It would probably be the way to go if I was doing a lot of chordal stuff involving the low D and G string, but with how low tuned they are I figure the chordal stuff I'll do will mainly be centered around the last high 4 strings C-F-A#-D#, as I expect to use those four strings a lot as I kind of would the 4 lowest strings of a guitar (this just being 4 half steps bellow regular E standard guitar tuning), with the low D and G mainly being the "bass" area strings. I did consider tuning the bass D-G-C-F-A-D though, exactly like a guitar tuned in D standard tuning, just an octave bellow, but after some pondering I ended up deciding that D-G-F-A#-D# would likely make most sense practically with how I was going to use the bass, so I have ordered the strings accommodating that tuning with proper tension, using the D'Addario String Tension Pro online string tension calculator app. Damn changing the strings is going to be expensive, especially since I have to buy individual strings with this tuning I plan to use, and because I prefer balanced tension strings for bass (something I actually have begun doing anyway for all my basses, cause there are not many truly balanced tension string set options out there, and I prefer my string tension to be as uniform as possible. I feel for guitar it matters less, or even is desirable, but for bass I feel balanced tension makes most sense). Also kind of wonder if I should maybe have ordered a proper looper pedal to go with it, as I think that would pair well with a 6 string bass, instead of the 49 key midi keyboard with weighted keys (so they will feel more like proper piano keys, instead of wet dough to play on) I ordered. Think that'll be the next musical equipment I need to order then (thinking of getting the EHX 720 Stereo Looper or perhaps the new 1440 one).

This absolutely astonishing beautiful song :

Volunteers (by Jefferson Airplane)

Think you have misunderstood something, I am tuning it to D standard tuning (D - G - C - F - A# - D#), not A standard tuning, as in 2 half steps bellow regular 4 string E standard tuning, which would be 3 half steps higher than regular 6 string B standard tuning, and there's no open A at all in D standard tuning on a 6 string bass, also I have ordered the right gauge individual strings to accommodate they will have proper tension, so no. And the reason would be that I am mainly going to use it for more melodically based work, with no need of going as low as the low B. Also, yeah, Ibanez makes some amazing quality instruments for the money, even my 4 and 5 string Mikro Basses are great instruments, as good as perfect fretwork and all from stock, even if belonging to Ibanez's entry budget line of instruments that would be the line just bellow the one the Ibanez SR306EB belongs to, so this ought to be a step up in terms of quality. Will do an update once I have got it home, set up, and had a chance to try it out properly, though it'll likely not happen before towards the end of next week.

You could claim that being able to adjust the pickups and better upper fret access would be an advantage of the Ibanez over the Harley Benton, and judging from reviews and YouTube demos it sounds better too, to me at least, many mention the Harley Benton sounding boomy and muddy, whereas there seem to be a lot of praise of the pickups in the Ibanez, finally to me the Ibanez also looks much much better. The only disadvantages of the Ibanez over the Harley Benton, from what I can see and to me personally, would be the fact that you can't run it in passive mode from stock, as you mention, which though would just be a matter of always making sure the battery is fresh and keep an extra one, just in case (there's easy access to the battery compartment at least), and that it has slightly wider string spacing, though to some that would actually be an advantage, well and then the price obviously. Hard to tell for certain though, when I haven't actually personally played any of the two basses in question. In any case I have already ordered the Ibanez, so no turning back, unless I return it again, but if it works as it is supposed to and live up to the impression I got from the reviews I've read and the YouTube demos I watched featuring it that won't happen.