Boodang

I did have lots of basses but that was because I hadn’t found ‘the one’. Then, not long ago, I accidentally had a custom made (long story!) and that was it. Now I’ve lost interest in buying new basses. However, gas obviously hadn’t left the building as I started playing drums but I haven’t found ‘that kit’. So I’m back where I started except drum kits are larger and along with the infinite cymbals I obvious need, it seems more expensive.

Buy a B6 and ditch everything?!

Active pickups or passive pickups with an active preamp? A lot of manufacturers install active preamps as it gives you a lot of tone sculpting power.

A quick note regarding pre-amps... these are completely separate to active pickups and you can use an active preamp with a passive or active pup*. A passive preamp can only cut frequencies (typically treble roll off), whereas an active preamp will also be able to boost frequency bands and possible have a line driver as well to reduce the line impedance. An active preamp can be quite useful as you can install one that works well with a specific bass. However you can just use an external preamp (on your amp, pedal or rack) to do the same job. * There are some exceptions; active pups have an op amp so they are buffered. This means that you could blend two active pups in parallel but you can't put them in series. So you can't install a series/parallel switch on a bass with active pups. Also, there are a few preamps that have pickup impedance loading options but again, as an active pup is buffered you can't do that either.

Also, ‘the trapdoor’ toneprint is worth a punt as it’s a full on aggressive comp.

As to which pickups I favour… it used to be active emg’s but I just ended up rolling off the treble. Now I only use passive pups, I get custom ones made to get as close to the tone I’m after straight out. So for my P the response is very mid heavy and cuts thru, for my jazz it’s alnico2 magnets on the bridge for more mids, and alnico5 on the neck for more bass. Pickup design is a rabbit hole. Different magnets, magnet size/shape, windings and wire diameter… there’s an endless combination. But nothing I like more than discussing a new custom pickup design and then seeing what the results are like.

The mechanics; the more windings on a pickup the higher the output but narrower the bandwidth. So a passive pickup will have enough windings for a usable output but not much response above 4k. To get around this an active pickup will have few windings, a full bandwidth and to get over the very low output, a built in op-amp to boost the signal (hence the need for a battery). passive pups also have an output impedance fixed by the number of windings (usually around 10k ohms) whereas active pups have an output impedance set by the op-amp which can be 10k or as low as 600/300 ohms, in which case it’s a line driver and the capacitance of the cable will not effect the top end (ie roll off treble). In practice it means active pups tend to have more top end and are brighter. There’s a good YouTube vid where someone goes through multiple types of replacement pups on a jazz, as soon as he plays the emg’s it’s a bright tone. If you want that bright hi-fi tone then actives are the way to go as no amount of boosting the top end will get what you want from a passive pup as it doesn’t have the bandwidth. Of course you can still eq an active pup but you might find a passive one does that for you. ‘Organic’ is a phrase often used for the tone of a passive pup but that’s basically because it’s applying its own eq by virtue of a limited bandwidth.

Try the captain east tone print, I use this on my fretless. It’s not too aggressive and just seems to solidify the core tone. Having said that, if you want infinite sustain it might be too subtle, in which case edit the tone print and increase the blend from 39% to something much higher.

As monitoring is everything to the band we’ve decided to take matters into our own hands. So when we have a foh engineer, we feed two di’s, one to the foh desk and another to our own stage box which feeds our iem’s which we are in control of. We even get the stage monitors turned off because we don’t need them, which also helps keep feedback issues at bay. It’s definitely made a difference to the our playing. BTW love it that your son is selling merch! Does he also play?

First gig of year for us! What with a change in vocalists and 2nd guitar, it’s not been a productive start but we’re up and running now. New guitarist is quite versatile (1st guitar off stage at this point in the gig enjoying his new wireless freedom!) and a change to female lead vocals has meant a more ‘lounge’ oriented set but it went down well. Played at an embassy club, there’s not much of a live scene here in Islamabad so you always get an enthusiastic crowd as they’re just grateful someone is playing, so you’re never quite sure if they’re applauding your musical performance or just the fact you turned up!

Maybe take a timeout. Also, what I’ve found to be a tonic, is to take up another instrument. Feeling a lack of motivation for bass, I took up drums and now I split duties. And if you don’t fancy an instrument then maybe something different… in a complete moment of non musicality I took up photography.

You don’t need to release a new console, just wait 50 years!

I used a 5 string fretless strung high C in a folk rock band for a number of years, and I would say that would work well for your needs. I didn't feel the need to go high F but then that's a personal preference. However, one thing to consider if you did go 6 string is the width of the neck as it does, to me, feel a step too far. As for low B, I've never been a fan, mostly because the string itself feels like a different beast than the rest and to my ears is just too low. I know lots of people here will disagree, but you've got to get a well sorted bass to make a low B even vaguely workable (and that's before we take into account that most cabs struggle to reproduce a low E let alone a B).

In fairness to the op's original question, whilst not being the least trivial, it is about bass and he is inviting you to chat about it.... one might say it's bass-chat. But to answer the not entirely pointless question, I own what could be the worlds worse bass guitar. A Jedson from the 60/70s which is basically a cheap guitar with 4 strings on. Truly hideous to play but... with nylon strings and an MM pickup sounds huge! So yeah, I hate the bass but i can't give it up.

Apple. I had a lovely iPod (the one that looked like an iPhone but isn’t) and I’d loaded it with tons of music apps which were quite cool and I used them often. As it was getting old I kept the thing in flight mode to stop it from connecting and doing a weird update as it was ticking along nicely. Then one day it refused to boot up and displayed a message saying unless I did an update it wouldn’t work anymore. Did the update and it wiped ALL my apps as they now unsupported. Most of the apps don’t exist anymore and I can’t get them back. Gits!

It seems a lot of places do this now, so I have fun with it and give my address as 1 Made Up Rd, Made Up City, Nowhereland (in fairness I am a Nowherian citizen but as it is/was a rock floating in the North Sea I’ve never been there), and I give an email address as [email protected]

Sorry, just can't help myself!! Actually did a 'bolt on necks suck' thread last year, so I guess this is just a rehash in disguise! However, quite happy to rein it in for some genuine thoughts on 5K Fender CS basses.

Ah, Sei basses are cool... and another opportunity to show off how to join a neck to a body properly... or more precisely body wings to a long neck in this case...

But, getting back to the original premise, if you had 5k to spend on a bass, would you buy Fender CS or look elsewhere?

The Spectracomp is spot on! I hate apps and multi effects as I get lost on them, but the toneprint app is dead easy to use and just works. Plus you get a load of expertly put together comps to try out so it's not a one trick pony. My fav is the Captain East toneprint which is a tri band comp which seems to just make the bass sound better and you only have one knob to tweek. I got quite a few comp pedals, some of them quite expensive but I still think the Spectracomp is the best sounding.

A bit of a special turd!

I agree…. it’s a bit like polishing a turd!

Me, not like bolt ons, what ever gave you that idea!! Sculptured heel or not I just think it’s a lazy cheap way of joining two pieces of wood…. Especially on something costing 5k.

I need access to the 24th fret! (In fact this bass has 28 frets!) The last band I was in replaced me with a guitarist.

I agree about the stripes but the set neck join makes upper register playing a joy as opposed to the clumsy restricted bolt on. However, the body is walnut and something my luthier had made ages ago and done nothing with. I got him to put on a mahogany set neck with a ‘62 jazz profile (although compound radius), and the single stripe was a necessary product of its construction. Looks aside it plays like a dream and because of the way it was made only £800! Which is one reason I feel a Fender Custom is not good value.