Beedster

Welcome Andy Only thing that matters with bass amplification is the size of the boxes, the bigger the better, it's all about stage presence, making the guitarist's rig look pathetically small, and whenever possible, completely obscuring the drummist. Don't listen to anyone here who starts talking about 'tone' or 'frequency response' or 'dispersion' or any similar nonsense; only thing that matters biggest box that will fit in the van. If you find a box that's too big, get a bigger van

Absolutely, I've bought several basses from Mark over the years and they have all been 100% as advertised, delivered quickly, and really competitively priced, by which I mean Bass Direct often sell instruments at prices that aren't much higher than you'd find in a private sale, but of course you have a whole lot more peace of mind and protection

Assuming you're in London, I don't understand why you want to buy from Japan, it's expensive, very slow at the moment (Covid has slowed international deliveries to a snail's pace), and if there's an issue with the bass you will not be able to recover any of the VAT/import duty, at least not without a huge amount of hassle (and the fact that some of those sellers indicate no returns would make buying a complete no-no for me, plus the frets at 60-70% given seller hyperbole......?). There are always good Precisions for sale on this site, and none would - or at least should - come with any of those problems.

Agreed, plaiting fog indeed The best test for me at present is simply comparing a voice track recorded in the booth to that recorded at the desk using the same mic and placement. The ambience in the editing space is quite noticeable, despite the fact that acoustically the absorber panels I've installed already dampen the room considerably to the naked ear.

Thanks mate, I think like most aspects of gear there are opinions, general principles and experience, the latter is what I’m after, there’s plenty of the former two on the web already. As with all such things it’s going to need a trial and error approach to a degree, but it would be good to minimise the error as much as possible early on

Nice bass but courier and import duties/VAT will make it expensive

Folks I have a decent booth for recording voice and instruments, but I'd like to get my mixing/editing room slightly better sorted. It's a 3m x 5m space. I've used foam tiles on the walls until recently which frankly were pretty good. I have however got an old set of MSR Acoustics Absorber, diffusor and cloud panels that I'd like to use as I'm confident they'll do a better job. I've used the absorbers recently and they'r e step up on the tiles. I have 5 absorbers, 5 diffusors and 2 clouds as per here http://www.msr-inc.com/studio/project/project_modules.html This is the room layout suggested by the manufacturer for the tiles I have The picture appears to suggest that I mount the absorbers and diffusors in pairs of one absorber and one diffusor each. My understanding of acoustics suggests that this is not the best way, but then I've consistently found throughout life that my understanding of many things is not necessarily the understanding shared by experts, so I thought I'd get some thoughts from you good folks. Unlike the layout above I have a 2.5m, wide desk at at one of the narrow ends of my 3x5m room that faces into the room so that I can make eye contact with whoever is in the booth. If I was to do a lot of mixing I would almost certainly hang the the necessary number of panels c thereby creating a virtual wall between myself and the rest of the room. One of the reasons I want good acoustics around the desk, apart from a decent listening environment, is that in voiceover work that I do I occasionally have to drop a few words or, more usually sentences in to the track during the edit, and to have to go back into the booth to do so is a PITA, so assuming there's no noise coming from the outside I prefer to do that at the editing desk. The problem at present however is that with the current setup there's a noticeable difference in ambience if I have to do more than a few words. My main question however relates to the advisability or otherwise of the pairs of absorbers/diffusors. Any advice/suggestions most welcome Chris

Can someone explain single versus dual action?

I agree with a lot of that, but not re fretless and sustain, all my FLs sustain way better than my fretted even without vibrato, which as you rightly say should perhaps not be in the equation really? Anyone got any data re frets versus wood in the context of sustain and tone?

I’m a real sucker for 2 or three part harmonies, but if we’re talking solo voice, I’ll take this guy

Because my other Wal fretless sustained very well, and it didn't have frets (and of course, relevant to this thread, both had the same very robust bridge) So, from this there are two conclusions 1. That the absence of sustain had nothing to do with the absence of frets 2. The absence of sustain on that bass but only that bass was the result of not having frets Having played a lot of basses, I know it's answer 1, simply because some basses do resonate and sustain well, others don't, and this was the latter. I can nearly always get more sustain of of a fretless because my left hand is able to put energy back into the string to a greater degree than if there was a fret between it and the bridge, in many respects you're massaging the note on a fretless, so I'm pretty good at identifying a bass that will or will not ring out in that context. But of course we can't discount answer 2 because we don't know what would have happened had we fretted the bass, and so it remains a possibility But either way, both options to a degree highlight that every bass is different, largely because of differences in wood (even within the same species of course), sometimes in engineering, but always because the wood, the engineering, and other factors form a unique enclosed system, one in which marginal gains such as changing the bridge might be made, and in which just occasionally such a change proves to be more than marginal. But I can think of only one or two basses I've owned in 30 years on which changing the bridge did anything more than make it easier to set up or play, only very rarely has the suggested change in tone or sustain materialised, and even then it was sufficiently small to be measurable but not really important. I've often changed necks - I play Fender bitsas mostly - and that can really change the substance and sustain of a note*. But I've owned basses with cheap BBOT that rang out for hours and produced beautiful piano-like tones, and basses with Badass or similar that didn't ring out and which produced less clear notes, notes that appeared to contain mechanical artefacts before they even reach the PUPs In short, I just don't buy the idea that changing bridge will de facto change one or more parameters on all, even most basses. It'll do so if the existing bridge is somehow the rate limiter of that parameter, which in my experience is a lot less often the case that we might believe. * And of course, swapping items such as PUPs and circuit lead to significant changes, but these are signal path not mechanical changes affecting the note itself

There is wisdom there, but I suspect many would argue it works both ways

My Wal was the unusual exception, which is why I mentioned it. You said above that it didn't sustain because it didn't have frets. No the case at all.

That's a great lesson in how to reply to a question on the internet, lovely response Bill

So fretless basses don’t sustain?

You need to get out more mate. Oh......

This is the sort of thread that makes me want to take all of my Badass and similar bridges off my basses in protest at the rubbish people talk about them All joking aside, I've high-mass bridges on three of my basses and I'm quite happy to say that they make little difference that matters to me. I suspect that on my two FLs there's a possible positive effect on sustain, but I'm not convinced, and even if it is the case, I doubt it makes any difference to my tone or my playing. As per the 'Bassists Obsessed with Sustain' thread, my old Wal FL didn't sustain at all, and it sounded glorious, snarlier than a Rottweiler in a cat farm

I suspect you have better ears, or better amplification, than I do

1. You’ll need an interface. Welcome to GAS hell 2. There’s all sorts of stuff you can get wrong, but all sorts of ways you can learn to avoid it and back things up so that even if you do, it’s not terminal Steep curve ahead, but a fun one with loads of info on this site

No, me too

So, I decided a few weeks back that I had become very set in my ways musically, and started listening in depth to some bands I'd previously decided I didn't like. It's been an interesting psychoanalytic journey in which I've genuinely tried to peel away some of my biases and attitudes. It's also been really good fun, setting out on a Saturday afternoon to listen to a band that, if someone had asked "Do you like .......?" I'd have said "F**k off" Yes did well, Genesis not so well, Warren Zevon extremely well. And yesterday it was Steve Miller, I HATE Abracadabra, Take the Money and Run, and many others I've heard, but he's one of those guys who musicians like. And wow, just like when I was introduced to Chicago, not the 80's band of 'If You Leave Me Now", but the gloriously soulful blues rock outfit as they started, Mr Miller's early stuff didn't disappoint. And this song below made me realise something about my taste algorithms, because I liked it and hated it at the same time, put crudely my heart loved it, my head hated it (early bass solo at 2 mins BTW). And then out of nowhere I thought "How would I feel about it if it were in a Tarantino movie ?" and I realised, yep, I'd love it, because it would seem very cool in that context. Movies are the context that has led me to so much great music. So how do you decide whether you like something?

Si I agree re BBOT most of the time, but which ‘big heavy’ bridges take away from classic Fender tone if Fender Hi Mass and Badass don’t?

Although at 2.99 these used plectrums are a bargain https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/224206336234

Have to admit I find the ‘eBay bargain’ thing bloody annoying unless it’s a BIN, in large part because alerting 20,000 or so bass players on this forum to the auction means that it will most certainly not be a bargain, likely just a true reflection of value. Perhaps we should have a polite agreement to not use the term ‘potential bargain’ until the last 24 hours of the auction