SumOne

Fair enough for the Moog Voyager effect, I'll need to (virtually) give that a try - but I think it is niche. And yeah, stereo modulations and delays applied to bass/synth bass - mostly if just affecting the high end can be great, but personally they are features I'd look for on modulation and delay pedals to apply further down the signal chain rather than a synth bass pedal itself.

I suppose for more atmospheric pad type sounds it can be useful. But bass (synth or otherwise ) is best in mono as far as I'm concerned, and that's the general rule in music production as well as live. Stereo bass can cause phase issues, and it just looses some of the impact. e.g. on a reggae soundsystem all the bass is mono.

You're right - I am keen on this pedal! I'll try to have a bit of self control though (both for buying, and for selling once something else shiny and new gets my attention). That restraint probably won't last long though! Like others have said, this looks like MXR have hit quite a sweet spot gap in the market of useful bass synth sounds, tracking (hopefully), functionality, hands-on editing, presets, size. Feels a bit pricey, but I must be getting old as I think everything is pricey nowadays!

A new review (with a bit of a clickbait title) It chimes with what I've been assuming: Great Bass in nearly every way, but I'd prefer a blend and a series/parallel switch. And yeah, the price is steep. GAS is a difficult condition to cure with rational thinking though! I still want one.

The Prodigy have always been one of my favourite bands, their set still looked like the most energy of the festival.

Most aren't too annoying viewed from the crowd - it looks worse on telly as the camera is far back, high up, zoomed in.

Was this via special delivery? I worked for Royal Mail customer services for a summer many years ago and only had one case where a special delivery item got tracked part way and then disappeared - they got a refund upto the insurance limit. Nowadays that is £750.

Might as well make Bass playing as comfortable as possible: Those Zoom pedal displays are small, something like the Boss GX 10 is much more readable. And as already mentioned - get a lightweight Bass (and amp/cab). 'what does it weigh?' is a cliché question when someone puts up an advert selling a Bass without saying the weight, I think most people that do gigs/play standing up eventually find it quite an important consideration. Manufacturers seem to have realised this and there is quite a good choice of lightweights now. There's a slight 'back in the day we didn't question the weight of a bass' attitude sometimes....yeah, but people also smoked in pubs, didn't wear seatbelts, had asbestos and lead around the house, and probably have bad backs now!

Buy lots of individual pedals. ....then realise it's a bit unwieldy, costly, and difficult to do complex changes live quickly. Sell individual pedals and buy a multi fx. ......then realise that it isn't as 'hands/stomp on' and not as 'what you see is what you get' and some sounds (like envelope filter) aren't as good as individual pedals. Sell multi fx and buy individual pedals. Repeat.

Nice. Well I guess that settles it, can definitely get that tone on a Jazz ...or a Stingray, and probably a P! 'all in the fingers' n'all that.

These are probably done digitally with a synth, but it feels like a synth emulating a Bass Guitar: ... I guess they are aiming for a Bernard Edwards Stingray sort of thing. What do you reckon, Stingray to get closest to this sort of sound?

A lot of Liam Bailey's stuff is worth a listen:

You all know this one, but posting as I played it at a small festival a few hours ago. Good to get a bit of Max Romeo (RIP) to a mostly non Reggae crowd.

I'm sure an SP1 is great, and I might treat myself - but I think I'll feel like I've paid a bit much if they rise much above £2k. Not least as the D-Roc 5 is about £1,750 and I can't see many (any?!) reasons the SP1 should cost more to produce. (the D-Roc often being about 4.4kg rules that out for me though). With quite a big multiscale range from Ibanez (EHB, SR, BTB), and a lots of others others doing it (Cort, Spector, Maruszczyk, Hils, Sire, Strandberg) at least there is a fair amount of choice/competition nowadays. I think Dingwall are onto something good with he SP1 doing the more traditional passive P Bass thing though for the sound and look and front jack etc. almost all of the multiscale competition has gone the ultra-modern route.

Bass Direct ticks a lot of boxes for me: Fair part excahnge prices, great selection of basses to try out in a friendly place, and it is often only shop in the UK to get certain basses.

Bax seems to be back. For places like GAK and PMT with physical shops mostly making their £ selling mass produced new instruments then they can't compete on price with big online only shops for price, so what's their selling point? Even if people want to test the instruments, they can just do that in the shop then buy online elsewhere. And even that isn't really necessary as all online sales can be returned for refund within a month. I don't think they've adapted with the times with internet, return laws, big automated warehouses, cheap delivery. We've seen it with shops like Our Price and HMV going under while shops like Rough Trade have expanded. They do in shop signings/gigs, have cafes, have fairly obscure vinyl and merchandise that can be tricky to get online. Personally I'd try and do similar with an instrument shop - don't compete directly with online shops for shifting mass produced boxes, put some effort in to offer alternatives: In shop demos, talks from musicians and manufacturers, small gigs, product launches, lessons, good part exchange deals, second hand, servicing, in shop experts happy to help, equipment rental, practice spaces, cafe/bar, boutique brands and custom stuff. Incentives like 'buy here and get a free lesson on how to use your new keyboard/set-up your bass/pair your mixer with your Laptop' etc. really make it a 'go to' hub for musicians. I think places like PMT have dropped the ball on this.

Nice one. I should've got in there with the original Bass Direct prices, their prices have now gone up to £2,050.

Nice! So I assume <4kg? Yeah, I've usually found that fretting for the fanned frets is not really much adjustment - especially for that area where most fretting is done from about frets 4 - 10 where it's nearly verticle and covers roughly 2x octaves where most basslines live. More to get used to right up around fret 20....but no need to venture up there too often! I see Bass Direct have another one in stock (unless it was this one and they haven't updated the website). I'm very tempted to make the trip there to give it a go and potentially part-exchange....but the 5hr round trip means I don't think that'll happen any time soon.

Nice! A bit off topic, but just for my education - why drop A? Do you use the low A or is it more for helping with certain chord/open string stuff across all strings?

Yeah, I bet the SP1 will be great. I've been in contact with Bass Direct to get a part-exchange price for my current Bass and they've offered a fair price so I reckon I'll go for it once they have some in stock to try.

So are the Bass Direct prices the actuall prices, or just a pre-order estimate? ....I dunno about paying more than £1,950 (for the 5) as even that feels slightly over-priced given that it is about £200 more than the D-Roc 5, and what is there on the SP1 that costs more than the D-Roc to produce given that the D-Roc has 3x pickups, metal flake or colourshift paint? (I'd probably get a D-Roc other than the fact I've seen them weigh up to 10lbs/4.5kg, nobody needs that kind of backache in this day and age!). Compared to other multiscale basses ,the SP1 5 at £1,950 is £250 more than the most expensive new Ibanez EHB (or about £900 more than the basic ones) and £250 more than the Spector NS Dimension. Saying that though, some more real-life weight measures are available now from USA shops for the 4 strings, they tend to be about 8.2lbs (so roughly 3.7kg) so I'm guessing the 5 strings will be slightly under 4kg (which is my self-imposed weight limit). I reckon I'll get one but £1,950 is my spending limit.

The split path is good, can use as a simple A/B switch or as a blend, and the blend can add more complex stuff like dynamic sensitivity and cutoff frequencies for each path. I found that it isn't really necessary for most compressor/drive/effects though as the 'x comp bass' is multiband compression (Boss like to confuse things and call it 'multi dimensional processing') and has a clean mix (Boss call it 'direct mix'). The same with distortion like the 'X-OD Bass' and in fact I think all the amps and all the bass effects have a clean mix so I often use the split path just as a simple A/B switch to make it visually easier to see what is going on to turn a few effects on/off together (which can be done without a split path). The split path things is useful for the Royal Blood type separate Guitar/Bass amp split and I've found the split path and dynamic sensitivity things also useful for nerding out with effect stuff like slicer+delay etc.