thodrik

It kicks out serious power through a big cab/efficient 4 ohm cab as well. I had the joy of trying a HD350 through an EBS Proline 8x10, there was more volume than I would ever need.

Cracking amps. I have the old Fafner which has a not dissimilar EQ stack which is still kicking on after 11 years. I love the 350 as well. I did think that those 30th Anniversary 360 models were really terrific bits of kit when I saw them. Really great look and having a limited edition amp is always cool. One thing I love about the EBS amps is how they always cut though a live mix and how much definition there is to the sound. There is never too much wooly sub bass under 100HZ that muddies things up on stage. Enjoy!

Also how is the Stingray HH in comparison? I always thought that they looked really cool.

Most likely true!

Oh yes, still in love. I have had a four string Excess since 2004 but the Arpege is very much a different type of bass. The three band EQ for each pick is really great once I got hang of it after five years or so!

This is literally massive news. I applaud Mesa for taking this step which is long overdue, as the high prices were putting the amps out of reach for many players. The mark ups have become utterly unacceptable over the years. This is great news. Edit: The Subway 4x10 has come down from over £2k to £1,639 on Andertons. Still expensive but not completely unreasonable for a premium 4x10. The WD800 is up on Andertons for £1,039 which I would say is pretty damn good for the quality about the same with the Darkglass 900 series.

I am also interested. I play guitar and bass and having a decent little practice amp in the house that would cover both in a small footprint would be great. I quite like the actual BIAS FX and AMP FX products, though the amp sounds to me are not as nice as the Amplitube equivalents. I find the BIAS software decent and very user friendly though and frankly it is more fun to use than Amplitube in my opinion. Ultimately though, it seems to me that Positive Grid focus so much on marketing and cleverly tiered pricing and separation of certain product features into different packages. As a result, I can't say that I am a massive fan of how they do business. However, irrespective of that if the product works I will consider buying it

My guess would be that the more expensive one is 'new' new stock and the less expensive one is 'old' new stock. Or the less expensive one is a shop floor 'demo' model with some superficial signs of use.

I must admit, the thought ‘this is a really bad idea’ did run through my head before I posted!

I am lucky enough own a Sadowsky NYC, a Sadowsky Metro and a Vigier Arpege. I think they there are really great and they have resulted in me being generally GAS free for basses over the last 5 years. However when cleaning them today I started to wonder whether my basses would pass the QC standards of some of the more discerning members on here if they had received my basses from new. In functional terms all three basses are pretty much perfect (for me). However, I have taken a photo of a cosmetic construction/finishing ‘issue’ from each bass. Sadowsky NYC: imperfection in quilted maple top which you can only spot if you look at it really close up from less than a foot away. Sadowsky Metro: strange irregular wood grain pattern or tooling mark (which I personally think looks cool but it could really bother someone else): Vigier Arpege: if you look really closely, you can see that a bit of the finish seems to have bled into the fret marker. This occurs on the third, ninth and a little bit on one of the twelfth fret markers: Obviously the issues are purely cosmetic and have never bothered me. To me they are not so much flaws as much as they are unique identification markers to enable me to pick out ‘my’ bass from identically finished Sadowskys or Vigiers. However, I’m conscious that to others these issues would be seen as flaws which should not appear on such ‘high end’ instruments which should be ‘perfect’. I don’t want this to come across as a thread to insult people who have had serious faults and problems with high end instruments which is obviously a horrible situation to go through. Nor do I want this thread to be a ‘bash [insert company]’ type thread. However, I was wondering if anyone else felt like sharing any interesting finishing quirks/cosmetic issues on their own basses which do not bother them but may bother someone else? Thanks in advance.

That plus the PSA-1 would be quite the rackmount rig!

There is also the Sansamp RPM which is a general instrument pre-amp but it works great on bass. This is because the RPM has a parametric mids control which is always a great feature to when sculpting a tone. I think I would actually personally go for the RPM over the RBI but really both would be great units. There is also a PSA-1 in the classifieds here which has loads of programmable presets for different guitar and bass tones.

From using the old Bass Driver for years from which the RBI is based, you get a much more transparent sound by reducing the 'Gain' and 'Blend' controls. When you reduce the Blend I think you also reduce the speaker simulation which always adds an inherent 'thick' coloured tone that you might not want when doing slap or back pickup Jaco stuff. However Tech 21 demos nearly always seem to have the blend set at 100% on so you generally can only access these tones when trying the unit out. If you have a nice bass you get far better sounds with the Blend control at under 50% in my opinion. The bass and treble controls still work even when the blend is reduced so that would be my starting point when looking for a transparent tone, particularly if was also using a pedal preamp. If you want a more transparent preamp there will be other options. The Tech 21 stuff is really good stuff though.

Awesome, I wanted to see them for a while but I always seemed to have a gig on the same night.

No problem, I love sharing music and I have a long running fandom of all things stoner rock/doom/post rock/post metal. Even if you don't like some of the music it is a very interesting scene to explore because lots of guitarists and bassists have really interesting set ups and there is a lot of potential for discovering different set up techniques and effects and using them for a different style of music.

I appreciate your post however there was no mistake on my part. In the first sentence of your original post you stated that you wanted to discuss approaches to achieving the 'ultimate high gain bass distortion setup' and invited forum members asked us to 'share your general thoughts about this topic'. I did that. My original post discussed what I would do if I wanted to achieve 'the ultimate high gain bass distortion'. I also posted an example of a band where high gain bass distortion is used which I think fits in with your invitation to 'share your general thoughts about this topic'. It makes no difference to me whether you personally like the style of music or vocals of a band I shared just as an example of high gain bass distortion (it doesn't even bother me if you don't like the bass tone). It doesn't bother me that my own approach to achieving the 'ultimate high gain distortion setup' would not suit the particular needs or style of your own specific project. In the context of a discussion on the 'ultimate high gain bass distortion', I am really not concerned as to whether you are actually predominantly using high gain bass distortion in your own specific project or exactly what stylistic direction the project is going to take. It is all just part of the wider discussion which on Basschat tends to be fairly free-flowing.

Well, best of luck. I don’t mind OM but prefer Sleep and lots of other post rock type stuff. The example I posted wasn’t meant to be an indication of the style of music I thought you were going to play, more just an example of bass used as a lead instrument with loads of gain. Of course there are lots of other examples of this. It sounds like you have a clear idea of what you want to do though so best of luck in getting the project underway.

When I was younger Q was the magazine I didn't buy that had Bono on the cover every other month and NME was the magazine I didn't buy that had Morrissey on the cover every other week.

I had the Boss NS2. It was average but just about did the job for a decent price. In practice I found that just using my Boss Tuner as a mute or just turning the fuzz off when I wasn't playing produced better results.

I had a set of D'addarios like these ones. Five string set 43-127: https://www.stringsdirect.co.uk/strings-c1/string-sets-c865/bass-guitar-c34/daddario-5-string-prosteel-stainless-43-127-tapered-long-scale-bass-strings-p9768 Stainless steel and hex core. Not sure if they come in other gauges. As far as I can remember all the gauges are tapered though, so if you need an untapered G you might need to buy another single: I like D'addarios and they don't break the bank either. It is easy to order single strings to make up a custom set that usually costs less than a 'custom order' set from boutique string makers. I personally prefer D'addarios to the Newtones I ordered but appreciate I might be in the minority. These days though I have moved to Elixirs nickels with just a tapered B at 130. It is my favourite B string, partly because of the sound, mostly though because it lasts for ages. In practice I discovered that I 'needed' a tapered B, From experimenting I found that I didn't really like tapered strings for E and higher, but that is just personal preference.

In short, if I was doing what the OP was doing I would be looking at a biamp system with different EQs and different effects going to the different amps. Given that the OP is tuning 'up' rather than tuning down, I would definitely be looking at an octave pedal or something like a digitech whammy or pitchshifter. However, once you start using so many different fuzzes the fuzzes can actually start cancelling each other out rather than creating a big wall of sound. It needs careful thought and balancing and what works at a gig might not work for recording and vice versa. Sometimes however, the best high gain bass sound involves very few pedals whatsoever. Just get a valve amp, crank the gain and add a fuzz/boost. It won't be subtle, it won't be nuanced, it won't be practical for rehearsal, recording or gigging at semi-reasonable volume levels, but it will be very very loud. Anyhoo, stoner rock bands using bass as main melodic instrument or similar are fairly common. One of my more obscure favourites are a German band called Beehoover. I think that the bassist used/uses a five or six string bass and at couple of fuzzes stacked into different signal paths.

I have been downtuning some of my basses for the best part of twenty years (being a long time Black Sabbath, Mastodon and Queens of the Stone Age fan will do that to you). Here are my rambled thoughts on the subject. In my opinion, the more you tune down the more balanced tension becomes important. In my opinion lots of 'heavy gauge' strings apparently designed for lower tunings are incredibly unbalanced and in my opinion are actually not very well suited for lower tunings. I tried the DR DDT sets of 55-115 for C# standard tuning years ago (2013 I think) and the two highest pitched strings were incredibly tight and unusable (for me) for anything higher than C sharp tuning but the lowest string was getting overly floppy at anything below a low D. It got worse as the low B strings in the 'heavy' five string set did not go any larger than a 135 which in my opinion wasn't much good for anything lower than a standard low B. They were also really expensive. I did try Newtone for a custom set in about 2014. However they didn't end up with giving me the gauges I actually requested which for the price I was paying irked me a bit as the resulting set I received much less balanced than than what I had ordered. While the strings were very nice I didn't find them much (or any) better than a 'custom' set of D'addario singles I could make up and order myself at a much lower cost. So I have generally stuck to making up my own sets of strings from D'addario on the basis of finding a 'balanced-ish' tension.I try to keep a similar string tension in my lower/drop tunings to my preferred standard tuning set of 100-40. It is a bit of trial and error until you find a type of string and the gauges that are optimal for the tuning you use. For G# standard I was using the the balanced tension four string set of D'addario 120, 90, 67 and 50 (usually available for under £20) and for the low G# string I used a tapered 160. The 160 worked fine but after a few rehearsals I realised that I didn't need the low G#. On reflection if I needed to go that low I think I would need a 35 inch scale (or longer) or a fanned fret type instrument. As it is, my fives are now strung to drop B (B, F#, B, E, A) with Elixirs 130, 95, 70, 50, 32 which is technically 'up-tuning' rather than down-tuning. I'm really impressed as Elixir strings last for ages and have saved me a bunch of money as a result. However, no super heavy Elixir bass string exists for super low tuning so a low G sharp isn't really possible.

How much does it weigh? Unless it is really light I will just wait for the ‘Ultra’ version which will hold 20 picks, Bluetooth connectivity and an ‘aux in’.

I would like to hear the entire Tool catalogue played without effects and without a plectrum on a Fender Precision strung with flats played through an Ampeg B15. No, I don’t think it would be an improvement. It would just be amusing.

My main gigging basses and amps have not changed for ten years. But the pedals, the bloody pedals...there is always a pedal missing from my set up even when I have just bought a pedal. After 22 years of playing bass I am using my lockdown free time learning how to play with a pick as well I can with fingers. As a result I now have ‘plectrum GAS’.