Baloney Balderdash

So anyone got any experience with the relatively new tiny AMT A-Bass and AMT O-Bass tube preamp pedals from their Bricks series, which were just released earlier this year, the two pedals being repectively an Alembic style preamp and an Orange style preamp? I am pondering on acquiring one of them and use it in combination with the NUX Soiid Studio that I just bought, for cab IR and poweramp simulation, since these tiny tube preamp pedal doesn't feature any form of cab sim. So I am interesting in knowing if they are any good to use primarily as a clean preamp for dialing in my main tone, and what to expect from the two pedals respectively, so I have an idea of weather I should chose the Orange or Alembic style preamp? Here's the link to the A-Bass on AMT's homepage : https://amtelectronics.com/new/amt-a-bass/ And Here's the link to the O-Bass : https://amtelectronics.com/new/amt-o-bass/ They are quite reasonable priced as well, just about 175 Euro/156£ (Thomann prices, though they only seem to carry the A-Bass in their stock), and the tubes works at proper high voltage too, around 250V to 300V. Edit!!! : Just found these YouTube demos featuring the 2 pedals, and judging from those it seems like the A-Bass will be closest to my personal taste, plus the A-Bass got a Mid and Treble frequency shift switch, unlike the O-Bass, both got a Bright switch though (in fact to me the A-Bass sounds great, while the O-Bass sounds like crap, though that might be the fault of the guy demoing the pedals) :

I got a GRSM20 Mikro Bass, which is actually my main, that I owned since April 2011, and I have never has any issues with the tuners whatsoever, even if this is a cheap budget Ibanez, on the contrary they work exceptionally well for being tuners on a such a cheap instrument, and the bass holds tuning extremely well too.

Not according to my taste and opinion, I like the way a P bass sound soloed, and much prefer it over the thin burpy tone of a J bass, it needs to be played through a proper cab or cab sim though, not through a full range speaker or even worse a set of headphones without going through a proper cab sim before. If you only option for practicing is through headphones then you need to get some kind of decent cab simulator pedal, preferably with the option for loading 3rd party cab IRs, to place between your bass and headphone amp. I can warmly recommend the NUX Solid Studio IR & Poweramp Simulator, which use over double the IR resolution of for example the Mooer Radar, while only being ever so slightly more expensive, although not having as many features, though I'd prefer the higher resolution of the NUX Solid Studio over the extra bells and whistles of the Mooer Radar, since all you will really need is 1 great cab IR (the NUX will require of you to find a 3rd party cab IR, the Mooer got a couple of bass cab IRs unlike the NUX, which only features guitar cab IRs from stock, but you'll likely want just the right 3rd party cab IR anyway, so I don't really see that as much of an issue, for that I recommend you checking out https://www.drbonkerssoundlab.com/ , his trademark HyperReal cab IR mixes sounds amazing (included in all the IR packs he offers, I personally prefer the ones recorded with an AKG C414 XLS microphone)).

I have often cut roundwound strings made to fit a regular 34" scale bass to size to fit my on my Mikro Bass, and if done properly, making sure to make an abrupt break on the string below the cut and making the cut as clean as possible, I have never ever experienced the strings starting to unravel, have tuning instability issues, or any other sort of issue usually associated with cutting bass strings to size. However I am pretty sure from what I have read and heard, even if not having any specific personal experience, that cutting flatwound strings to size is considerably more problematic, and might cause exactly issues similar to the ones mentioned above, so sorry, can't really help you. I guess your only option really will be to have custom strings made specifically for your needs, I know for a fact that some companies do this, but as I have never had any use for this I can't name any of them, I am sure someone else can be of help with this though. And as a fellow sub-short scale bass enthusiast I wish you the best of luck.

So I ordered 4 pieces of neodymium magnets that size wise should fit pretty closely to the 4 ceramic magnets that is glued to each side of the pole pieces of the 2 split coil parts of my DeMarzio Model P, P pickup. If I go through with this what should I expect, beside increased output, tone wise? And since these neodymium magnets are supposed to be much stronger than the current original ceramic ones, would it be wiser to only use 2 of the 4 neodymium magnets that I bought, as in just placing 1 neodymium magnet right beneath the pole pieces of each of the P pickup's 2 coils, instead of using all 4 by placing 1 on each side of the pole pieces, as is currently the case with the 4 original ceramic ones? Also if so, will that have influence on the pickup's tone as well?

I use an Ibanez GSRM20 Mikro Bass as my main too, it has a bit longer scale then the 27" you talk about, namely 28,6", but I only found advantages with the short scale and no disadvantages, I have an idea that anything shorter might have disadvantages though. I only use round wound strings, but one thing to be aware of is that even though the tension will be lower thicker strings will feel stiffer and less flexible on the short scale than on a regular 34" bass in comparison, as for round wounds in regular 4 string E standard tuning I found .100 to .045 to suit perfectly for the Mikro's 28,6" scale length.

David Bowie :

Wouh, apart from the finish, which admittedly is quite awful, I love the design of that bass. So much I wouldn't even mind the horrible baby blue cheesy 80's paintbrush poster finish. If only it came as a short scale bass and that I would actually be able to afford it I wouldn't think twice about getting one (though a reverse P in the neck position and a normal P in the bridge position seems to have made more sense to me).

I saw a few "whale hump" basses that actually looked good, but by far far the most I have ever seen looked absolutely awful to me, and will generally always avoid any single cut basses or guitars. I am not too fond of white basses and guitars either, though that didn't stop me for having a white bass as my main bass for about 10 tears or so, an Aria Pro II Laser Electric Classic to be exact, which I still own. Also not fond of basses and guitars with all the tuners in one row and generally prefer 2+2 headstocks for basses and 3+3 for guitars. No hard turnoffs really I guess beside the thing about "whale humps" and it would have to otherwise be irresistible if single cut. Edit!!!: Now, that's a lie actually, I totally hate tortoise pickguards and would never ever have one on my bass or guitar.

When someone swear by wild exaggerations and then even conclude it with no less than double exclamation signs it usually imply that they feel bothered about the subject that is being wildly exaggerated while sworn to be the actual reality. But I guess I'll have to take your word for that no ill intentions is meant by anything you post, neither your post above this one, even if the way you word it seems to suggest otherwise. I could otherwise have sworn that you by now had sought to ridicule me twice, but what do I know...

I posted these pictures in 1, ONE, other thread exactly, that I started myself, with kind of the same topic as this one, since I din't know this one existed, and which never really caught on, my OP remaining the only post in that topic, and it isn't even a copy paste of that, just the pictures and more or less the same story, just told slightly differently, I wrote everything specifically for this post. Sure I have posted single pictures of my main bass in threads where it fits the topic, but is that such a strange thing? I see no rule that you are only allowed to post one picture per bass you own ever here on the forum. It's not like I am just copy pasting the exact same post and spamming it on the forum 10 times a day like you make it sound like, or even as if I just randomly throw a picture of my bass in topics where it doesn't make sense. I refuse to feel bad about loving my bass, even if you seem to think I ought to feel ashamed of my self for whatever sick reason you might have. It happens to be my main, and I don't happen to own 100+ 1000£+ basses that I can chose from, sorry if that bothers you, but I didn't realize that was a requirement to join this forum. Your problem, not mine. I mean how hard hard can it be to just ignore a reply if you feel repulsed by it, despite nothing that normally would be considered offensive has really been posted?

Little known, but absolutely true, fact! : Cliff Burton recorded the bass track for "Master of Puppets" with finger puppets of respectively James Hetfield, Lars Ulrich and Kirk Hammett, but strangely enough looking remarkably similar to how they did in their "Load" phase, placed on the tuning pegs of his bass, and with the low E string tuning peg being equipped with a finger puppet of the Grim Reaper himself. He was truly prophetic like that. Though the conspiracy theory goes that it was actually really part of a black magic ritual that he performed to place a curse on Metalica, sacrificing his own life as part of the deal, and as an evil ironic stroke of genius using James Hetfield's own words against him, basically having James unknowingly chant the incantation sealing the ritual to the doom of his own, as well as Lars's and Kirk's, creativity :

Loved my Wetsbury Standard, which I unfortunately was stupid enough to sell, the Yamaha Revstar gets pretty close though, and I will no doubt acquire one of those at some point. Until then my cheap budget Epiphone SG Special, with the stock pickups replaced for an IronGear Dirty Torque in the bridge position and an IronGear Blues Engine in the neck position, that I named "Epicphoneya", is actually not too bad either:

My old Peavey amp and my SWR Triad 1 cab actually both pretty much look like if they had just left the factory, even if being from somewhere around the early 90's and both bought fairly recently used. My main bass, an Ibanez GSRM20 Mikro Bass, from the December 2010 production, bought April 2011 looks pretty battered though, the worst blemish being from a failed haphazard attempt to drill an extra pickup cavity in the far neck position, which then later was filled up with filler mass and painted and varnished over, though quite poorly executed as well, this haphazard procedure also causing 2 small chips of the end of the fretboard wood to be ripped off by the drill piece ramming into it, as the drilling machine at some point spun out of my control, and since I stupidly enough didn't even bother remove the neck first. Here's a frontal shot of the whole bass : Here's a closeup the blemish from the haphazard failed attempt to drill an extra far neck pickup cavity, and the holes in the freboard at the last fret is from taking off the neck, filling out the neck screw holes for a tighter fit back on, however resulting in me needing to drill new pilot holes for the screws, but drilling far too deep, all the way through the fretboard, and then filling out the resulting holes in the fretboard with glued in wooden sticks, one of the previously mentioned chips in the fretboard wood is also visible on this picture (I have pondered on at some point thoroughly but carefully removing the filler mass that I pretty sloppily filled the failed pickup cavity with, and then redo the job, this time using a much more durable filler mass and paying more attention to getting it done properly, though this far, a couple of years by now, it seems like the original filler mass holds up just perfectly fine, but I just would wish I had made a better effort to make it look decent and that I had bothered doing the needed research and bought a filler mass that with guarantee would hold up at least as good as the mahogany wood the body of the bass is made of, instead of on a whim sloppily just slapping the first thing I had at hand that could do the job down in the hole, without much consideration really going into the process, unfortunately that seems to be a recurrent theme for me, acting spontaneously on a more or less random whim with a resulting haphazardly and poorly thought out and executed outcome) : And here's a closeup of the chipped off wood pieces of the fretboard, one wood chip found again and relatively successfully glued back on, but another wood piece never found again, and now lost and missing forever (luckily the fretwire remained perfectly seated and completely undamaged, and I have also pondered on possibly getting it fixed by a luthier, since I contacted one about it, sending him pictures of the damage, who confirmed that it would be perfectly doable, by cutting out a piece of the fretboard around the damaged area and then replacing it with a perfectly matching undamaged piece of wood, cut to precisely fit the removed part, which he claimed he ought to be able to do sufficiently precisely and elegantly subtle for it only to be noticeable for someone specifically looking for it) : And here's a big chipped off piece of the thick polythene coating of the bass from the side of the upper end towards the bridge part of the body, happening back to when the bass was still relatively new and I accidentally dropped the gigbag with the bass inside of it on the concrete sidewalk on my way to band rehearsal, luckily nothing else took any kind of damage whatsoever :' And finally this crude/crooked star like "engraving" in the polythene finish/wood, done on purpose by hammering a flat headed screwdriver into the body of the bass, and then dabbing special paint, supposed to replicate the effect of marble, down in the resulting cracks, and after that had dried then additionally dabbing clear glitter nail polish down in the cracks as well, intended to replicate the effect of the kind of star shaped crack that a sharp point impact in a glass window sometimes will result in :

I have admittedly drooled a lot over the basses displayed on the Serek homepage, personally I am particularly fond of the Sacramento model, and if I were to buy one of their basses it would be that model, short scale of course, and then probably equipped with TV Jones Thunder Blade pickups, or perhaps the Novak Thunderbird ones, but really they are all gorgeous basses to look at and listen to, and your's is no exception to that. Though if I ever get to save up the kind of money that a Serek bass would cost me, and can afford to use them on a bass, I'd personally rather chose to spend them on having a custom bass made exactly to my preferred specs by one of the cheaper luthiers who'll do custom work. I absolutely do understand the appeal of these basses though, as said they are absolutely astonishing beautiful instruments, and the ones I've heard demos or sound samples of has sounded no short of amazing as well, I just happens to have some very specific and a bit unusual preferences and wishes when it comes to the ultimate specs for a bass, so getting a bass that would actually fulfill those wishes and be able to closely match my, as said a bit unusual, personal preferences would have priority for me. However had my economical situation been different and I would never have to consider my priorities in that regard and weren't being forced to make such a choice, but was able to afford both I'd most definitely get me a Serek Sacramento bass, or perhaps even a couple. In fact owning a Serek bass is actually quite high up on my bass guitar wish list, just not at the very top, and I'll just have to come to terms with the facts of my economical situation coupled with my other higher priorities making the prospect of me ever actually getting one of these basses extremely slim, with quite high probability even. I suppose that would probably really make it more of a dream than an actual wish, as in : "If only..." ->**deep wistful sigh**<- "...guess we are just not meant to be..." Though they sure do seem to be absolutely amazing instruments, and I can totally see how you would love it so much.

I rest my case... Doesn't own one. Got these though: This one being the original stock old official Ibanez Mikro Bass gigbag that I got with my old 4 string Ibanez GSRM20 Mikro Bass, which is actually my main bass, back when that was still a standard accessory included as part of the deal when you bought a new Ibanez Mikro Bass. It doesn't have the thickest padding (not being of quite as high quality as the separately sold later version of the official Ibanez Mikro Bass gigbag), but it's the perfect size and shape for the Mikro Bass to fit quite snugly inside, which prevents it from skipping around inside the standard guitar gigbag that I later bought, which got thicker padding, and which is actually big enough, despite it being meant for guitars and not basses, for the stock Mikro Bass gigbag packed with my Mikro Bass, to easily fit inside of it, the two gigbags combined this way offering super effective protection, quite sure more effective than any single gigbag on the market would be able to offer, even if it does makes packing and unpacking the bass slightly more circumstantial, though really being a quite minor inconvenience to pay for the extremely solid protection this solution actually offers : And this one being the mentioned gigbag that the gigbag on the above picture is packed inside of when transporting my Mikro Bass : Note that the pictures not quite reflects the actual real size ratio between the 2 bags, the gigbag on the second picture actually ought to had been slightly bigger compared to the size of the gigbag on the first image.

I am quite sure he actually meant "saggy", as in dull and with less attack and articulation, tending to have a somewhat saggy response to your picking, compared to a maple fretboard.

Edit!/Please ignore this post! Wrong quote and no way to edit new quotes into already posted replies or to delete an already posted reply.... Sorry for the spam. Please refer to my reply under this one.

Thanks a lot for your reply. Though in the meantime I moved back to deciding in favor of the NUX Solid Studio IR & Power Amp Simulator, since I discovered that using a bit of full parametric EQ'ing from my Zoom MS CDR70 unit, then going into my EHX Black Finger, tube driven optical compressor, and then into a Behringer MIC100 Ultra Gain Tube Preamp, equipped with an EHX preamp tube, even if the Behringer starve the tube at merely 60V (but still sounds great to me, with a higher quality tube swapped in instead of the cheap crappy stock one), unlike the Black Finger that run it's 2 preamp tubes at proper high 300V voltage, finally going into my poweramp and then my bass cab, actually sounds really great. The Zoom CDR70 and Black Finger I would be using anyway, so space wise it's just the Behringer MIC100 that will take up extra space, compared to if I had gotten the NUX Bass Preamp with integrated cab IR simulation. So figured the over double resolution (34 bit, 88,2kHz, 2048 samples of 50ms length, which is pretty high compared to most other, even more expensive, IR cab simulation units) that the NUX Solid Studio run the cab IR files at, compared to the NUX Bass Preamp, plus the poweramp simulator that it features, would be a much better choice for my use, since I already got a preamp tone that I am really satisfied with. Plus I will get more slots for loading 3rd party cab IR files, and be able to change between them on the fly, even if I won't really be needing that feature.

Yes, but I assume the stated numbers is the measurements for the entire unit, and not just specifically for the 15" woofer, to me anything else wouldn't make much sense, as that indeed would say very little about the actual capabilities of the unit as a whole, and practically make the stated specs completely meaningless and useless. It would be like selling a car stating the top speed of it by how fast it is theoretically possible to roll the wheels when detached from the car. That can't possibly be how it is actually done, can it really? And in case they did in fact chose to state numbers that would actual make sense, be useful, and actually really inform about the actual capabilities of the unit as a whole, then I would think, even if it's sensitivity was really only being 85dB/w, that it would just be a matter of turning up the volume higher, as that would just mean it would be quieter at a certain amount of watt than a unit with higher sensitivity, right?

@Bill Fitzmaurice @stewblack Assuming they are not just making up these numbers, even if some might claim that it is impossible with the size and shape of this PA speaker's (The Box PA 502 A) cabinet, as I wrote the stated frequency response number in the low frequency range for the active PA speaker I suggested in the above quoted post is -3dB at 40Hz (I got those numbers from the manual I linked to), whereas, just as an example, the corresponding stated numbers for the Ampeg PF-115LF and PF-115 HE Portaflex real bass cabinets, each equipped with a 15" speaker unit, like the PA speaker in question, are -3dB at respectively 57Hz and 50Hz. Make of it what you want, but it personally makes me doubt weather the claims about this particular PA speaker in question not being able to reproduce the low end of a bass properly are in fact really also the actual truth. Not saying that the people stating it as a true fact doesn't know what they are talking about or that they are not right, just saying that from me looking and comparing, and judging exclusively by the stated numbers of this PA speaker and various real bass cabs, some by big acclaimed bass gear brands, and me knowing relatively little about the science of acoustics, it personally very much confuses me and makes me in serious doubt who to trust and who would be right here,. Though for sure looking at the most common stated numbers for most other full range PA speakers using a 15" woofer unit it does indeed seem, again only judging by the stated numbers, that most of them would in fact struggle with reproducing the lowest bass notes properly, however, assuming the stated numbers can in fact be trusted, that doesn't seem to be the case for this particular one. Now I do understand the incitament of the manufacture to paint up improved erroneous facts about their products capabilities, on the other hand as far as I know for one that would be illegal (since this would not just be vague and inconcrete exaggerated promises, but directly misleading very specific information that can be measured and verified), and secondly also put both said manufacture and the people distributing and selling their units, and repeating these stated numbers, in a bad light, if they in fact are just made up.

Thank you. Really appreciate when people genuinely likes my music. It's my brain children after all, and a lot of love went into by far most of the music I have created, so means something very special to me when someone else truly appreciate them. I don't know if you got to read my edit before you posted, cause while they are mainly my creations I was helped by 2 friends, 1 respectively on each of those tracks, creating, playing and recording their own parts contributing to the creation of those 2 tracks that way. The first one is particular special to me, because as said, it was one of my first attempts at writing and recording music by myself, and honestly among my own personal top, probably 10, tracks that I am most proud of haven written/composed overall. And you are right, there is also something quite magical over the other track, something very unique, and it is in fact also the only of it's kind I have ever created, even if of course more or less all of my other tracks share some similarities that comes from me haven channeled some of my own soul into them, but no other tracks in quite the same sort of particular unique style. A couple that maybe could be some of it's distant, not quite as wholesome, relatives (a couple of tracks by the psychedelic electronic music duo I was part of called Electro Jar to be more specific, in particular the track "Somewhere Over the Ocean (a song dictated in a dream)", and to a somewhat lesser degree the track "Lost") , but otherwise pretty much a one of a kind Jacob Læby (as in my name, and as in my identity as a song writer/composer, not as in the name, previously shared with me, of the project that track belongs to) track.

This is one of my earliest recordings on my voyage of composing/writing solo material and doing my own productions and mixing, dating back to 2006 (previously I had just taken care of coming up with and playing both/either the lead guitar and/or the bass parts, as well giving my opinions/suggestions, to songs that predominantly was created by other people involved in the original bands/musical projects that I had been part of up till then, and not really haven been involved in the recording process of the demos and releases we did, other than playing my parts, and eventual giving my opinions/suggestions to the mix, but without having any hand whatsoever in the technical aspect of it) : And this is one of my more recent compositions, recordings and productions, belonging to my "Fjernsind" project that previously shared my own name, "Jacob Læby" (for a bit less experimental example see the video in my signature) : Though the piano and flute (flute sample played on a synth) on the first track was played and recorded by a friend of mine who goes by the name Per Cnöeldh, and one of the backing vocals, the bass (not the baritone, that was played by me), and the synth (the kind of droning sort of deep buzzing one, as well as the quite subtle melodic sort of organ/deep flute like one, but not the weird swirling effects, those were created by me) of the second track was played and recorded by another friend of mine who wish to stay anonymous.