bigjohn

[quote name='ironside1966' post='862020' date='Jun 9 2010, 12:56 PM']The only people I know that slate DM are the ones that never get passed the presets On the downside some guitarists I know say they are great but just don’t react to their playing or feel like a real amp but it is not far off.[/quote] I slate DM without ever having used it I don't see the point of using a model of something no matter how accurate (which is where the conjecture surely lies) when the real thing is readily available. Real valve preamps aren't heavy. If I wanted to create a sound I couldn't get with a valve or solid state pre I'd be all for DM though. I just dont! It's the poweramp bit where I get interested. That said, I have been tempted by those little TC Electronics things recently.

I've broken loads of strings. I break as many now playing fingerstyle on flats as I did playing with a pick with rounds. I usually break D strings. They usually snap when I bend them. I've never broken one at a gig though. I probably play a little more cautiously at gigs. I carry a set of worn in flats in my case for the day when it might happen.

[quote name='Tee' post='861383' date='Jun 8 2010, 07:47 PM']i'd be more worried about the gold hardware. yuck![/quote] With yer on that. I quite like the idea of a pink bass. I've got a killer pink shirt I sometimes wear.

[quote name='Mr. Foxen' post='860417' date='Jun 7 2010, 09:57 PM']I reckon my Mesa Strategy 400 is just the ting you need instead of that cold solid state power. Considering selling it.[/quote] I reckon a strategy 400 and an SVT IIP would be my perfect sounding rig. Aren't they heavy though? Actually, an SVT IIP and an RPM for the front - but that's just greedy.

You missed the Jap '65 reissue which I have... It's the best bass :wub:

[quote name='henry norton' post='860346' date='Jun 7 2010, 09:04 PM']As it happens the amp didn't reach reserve so I'm sticking with it for now. I can't say I'm too sad but I had to give it a try [/quote] Fair dos. I sold my marshall jcm800 last year cos it was a bit too heavy - I replaced it with a an ampeg SVT-IIP preamp and a digital power amp - I've then replaced the digital power amp with a lovely 18kg 1kw solid state power amp. (that 5kg makes all the difference!) I can't say I've missed lugging the Marshall but if somebody else would have carried the b*stard I wouldn't have let it go. That said, I prefer my tone now, it's easier to move, it's louder and quieter. But, there's something about the beautiful simplicity of a good all valve bass amp that I miss.

Either that or he's smeared sh!t all over his bass.

I'd do as little with it as possible at first. Certainly no Jazz pup or funny electrickery until I knew what it sounded like. First off I'd put a neck and electrics in that I already knew well so I could try gauge the wood. I'd make some recordings of the 1st bass and the new bass to compare & contrast. I'd then decide where I'd want to take the sound and have the pups made to order. The only thing I'd feel I had to decide before playing it would be whether I was going to fit a standard bridge and / or string through.

Bah. I'll be on holiday.

[quote name='lateralus462' post='834512' date='May 11 2010, 06:43 PM']I really like the look of this [url="http://kent.gumtree.com/kent/33/58453133.html"]http://kent.gumtree.com/kent/33/58453133.html[/url] - what do you guys reckon? Worth the money?[/quote] I've played an old Ibanez like that in tobacco sunburst... A bit like this... but with blocks. That's a lovely, lovely guitar. I've got no idea how much they're "worth" though.

Badass III is a good bridge - although does require the same drilling as the schaller. I do like it though. Smaller footprint than the II so less bling but same badassness...

The deluxes aren't all active. I've got a deluxe which is passive. All US electrics, including pickups and it's thoroughly nice all over.

I've got a 1212L you can try out with your head if you want? I'd be quite interested to see what a RB sounds like through one. I was thinking quite seriously about getting one before I bought my power amp. The Schroeder takes 600W from that without any trouble. I'm over in Ruddington.

[quote name='Clarky' post='753236' date='Feb 21 2010, 08:47 PM']More generally, why does noone make a tiny valve-driven Fender Champion equivalent for the bass? I would have thought there would be a huge market for bass players to have a small, great tone practice amp for home use only.[/quote] I've often wondered this too. I've got an Ampeg B50R, which sort of does the job and doesn't rattle the windows at lower volumes. It looks pretty enough to be allowed to sit in my living room. Also, if you whack it up it's a great little amp for playing with a drummer using brushes. It's like a bigger amp that's been shrunk (1x12). It's solid state, but still does nice warm old school Ampeg B series tone. Very rare though. I've only come across mine (I bought from eBay about 5 years ago) and one other on eBay since.

[quote name='ironside1966' post='751081' date='Feb 19 2010, 04:33 PM']May be you or your band play too loud and thats why you need a bigger amp[/quote] Loud does not need power. Loud needs enough power and a sound made up of particular frequencies. You can make a 2W transistor radio sound "loud". People say "turn that down, it sounds sh!t". I totally agree that a 100W bass amp can be EQ'd to sound "loud". But you've got to agree that a 1kW amp can be driven hard and not sound "loud". ie, if you're amplifying lower bass frequencies, you need a lot more power than you would to produce mid bass frequencies to create the same dB.

[quote name='ironside1966' post='750957' date='Feb 19 2010, 03:02 PM']This is a good point that a lot of musicians play to the power of their own amp, if the bass guitar could not compete with the volume why didn’t everyone else turn down. I have nothing against large amps but speaking with my sound engineer’s hat on, musicians and bass players need to play at reasonable levels even without a PA and a reasonable quality and efficient amp and speaker of 150 watts is capable in most cases, it seems to me that modern gear has more power but is less efficient or the ratings quoted are at 2 ohms. Sorry to be boring but the legal and safe level of noise is well below the volume of what most bands play at Low frequencies use the most headroom in an poweramp[/quote] legal and safe levels of noise have nothing to do with the power being used to create it though does it? you can make 10kW amp inaudible if you use it to create noise which is below or above audible frequencies. I'm comfortable with 4,5,600W as I know I won't have to EQ to make my bass more audible. I use the EQ to get the tone I want, then turn it up to make it audible. That's the point of having a loud amp for me. It means you can actually use the EQ for what it's for (tone shaping) rather than bandpassing to avoid clipping the poweramp. Even with some 300W combos I've used, I've found myself EQing more mids and treble to the point where the sound of the band suffers. That said, I've got a super efficient 150W combo that does the trick, but it's heavy and large.

[quote name='ironside1966' post='750801' date='Feb 19 2010, 12:47 PM']Done many gigs both large and small with a 150 watt amps and I remember a time when 200 watts was considered aloud pro amp never accrued to me that I did not have enough headroom. I used a 450watt Peavey databass for years never got it past 4 and the main reason I bought it was because it was considered small at the time. I totally understand headroom having worked with PA’s for a long time but what worries me about the 1000 watt brigade is do you turn it down and play within reasonable volumes because I have met many who don’t. Dose the big fat loud sound with tones of punch work within the context of the band? In a pup gig with a small stage large gear as a large footprint. How big and loud [b]dose [/b]an amp need to be before it gets silly? Would a smaller amp do you more [b]favors[/b]? What’s more [b]impotent [/b]your sound or the bands?[/quote] I've never had a dose, had favours from an amp nor any trouble that would require a helping of Pele's keepy uppy tablets. I'm currently using putting 600W (with the gain at about 7/10) into a schroeder 1212L for pub gigs. It's not that loud. In fact, at the last gig we did, I was asked to turn it up. It would be loud if Eq'd differently. Big fat loud sound would require less power. Flat to a little mid scooped with a flatwound strung jazz with the tone rolled back requires quite lot of it. Not so long back I used a 100W bass amp for a gig, people who came to both that one and our last gig, with the big rig, all remarked how much better the band sounded, basically because I wasn't crawling all over the guitars with an amp EQ'd to be heard over the drummer.

[quote name='Hit&Run' post='749160' date='Feb 18 2010, 12:05 AM']This sounds ominous. I remember reading about this in a previous thread. Is it basically through body strung = forget LaBella?[/quote] I put a set of TIs on a string through bass and the A string snapped at the bridge before I'd even got it in tune.

[quote name='yorick' post='749896' date='Feb 18 2010, 03:56 PM']From what i remember, rosewood gives a slightly warmer/mellow sound, and maple is a bit punchier/toppier.[/quote] I thought that but I'm not sure if it's real or not It's more true when they're not plugged in I think. When they are though, I find it hard to tell the difference. More about how they look and feel. I like a no-nonsense maple on a P and rosewood on Jazzes.

[quote name='Sibob' post='748499' date='Feb 17 2010, 02:34 PM']From the ebay listing: "NOT ACCEPT RETURNS AS I DONT KNOW WHAT TYPE THIS IS SO I AM NOT SELLING IT AS SOMETHING IN PARTICULAR" Hmmmm Si[/quote] I agree with the whole binding contract thing I'm afraid. It was won - you've got to pay unless you can get the seller to agree to cancel the whole thing. However I do think Paypal will refund - and if he's got any sense, he'll have realised that too. His hope must have been that someone would buy it as a genuine Fender and not question it's authenticity. Despite his arse covering as above, he still listed the bass as "FENDER JAZZ BASS" - which is untrue. He can't say "NOT ACCEPT RETURNS AS I DONT KNOW WHAT TYPE THIS IS" when he's advertised it as "FENDER" when it quite clearly isn't. If he wanted to advertise it as a "FENDER JAZZ BASS" he should have either had it's Fender authenticity checked beforehand, or be ready to clarify if the authenticity is called in question. Otherwise at best he's advertising falsely, or at worst he's selling counterfeit goods. If he won't give a refund on the grounds that he's complicit in either, then ignorance is no defence. Really though Gareth. Agreeing to spend £700 on a bass which you've not seen and on the basis of 3 crap photos and someone saying they don't know what it is?

Loud and sweet as.

I use whirlwinds and OBBMs. Every other brand of lead I've ever owned no longer work or I've lost. I can't tell the difference between the two in terms of tone. My whirlwind is longer. I just pick the shortest one I can than doesn't make me feel like I'm tied to my amp. I'm quite interested in trying a a coiled lead though. I've never done so I don't know anything about them. Do they have an effect on tone due to being coiled? I've just read that guitar players say the coil bleeds some treble something to do with inductance and that the shielding is necesarilly poorer to allow the lead to coil. I would like to try one to find out. Any one got any insights?

[quote name='51m0n' post='745675' date='Feb 15 2010, 11:25 AM']Its all about context. But IMO generally a 200w combo is not really sufficient backline without PA help, in most cases (ie blues rock pub band). And in most cases the pub rock band's PA is not up to giving any useful help to the bass without being in grave danger of going 'pop'. IME anyway.[/quote] I agree (although there's 200w and 200w - I've played pub gigs easily with 100w amps before with no PA support - but then struggled with 250w amps in the same venue). And I don't see how playing a pub with a PA capable of mixing bass / guitar(s) vocals well enough and loud enough to play live drums to is any less overkill than turning up with a good loud bass amp and letting the PA take care of vocals. If you [i]only ever[/i] play venues that have a decent in-house PA, I can see where it would make sense to have an amp that was purely for monitoring. But even then... I'd rather have the option.

[quote name='BurritoBass' post='745250' date='Feb 14 2010, 08:44 PM']The 80s was my least favourite decade but like anyone, I'm hard pressed not to find stuff I liked at the time. This made me want to be in a band and launched my love of Fender instruments and custom colours [/quote] Ha ha! The Dog's D'Amour. Great band! I went to see them once and ended up getting arrested with the bass player. The cops took the fingerprints off my wrong hands (right hand in the left, left in the right on the form) and gave us cups of tea before letting us go. It was like a carry on film.