Muzz

I've had quite a lot of cabs, including things like Bergs (and even an Ampeg 810 fridge, back when I could be bothered shifting something like that), and I have a Super Twin and an older Compact, which I only keep just in case I get a gig where I need a stack (it's happened once, and it was only for the look of the thing)...in reality the ST will do everything, including making old-school JCM100/412 guitarists (two of them) jump... The Super range of cabs are pretty transparent (tho cards on the table, I don't like tweeters - I had a BB2 (and a Midget) and moved it on, because there was no point in the tweeter for me), so you kinda need to rework your EQ a bit, but I believe the 10 series are the more traditionally coloured ones. Never had one of those. They're daft light for what they do, and I've gigged mine dozens (if not hundreds) of times and they're as solid as anything I've used. While bass and amp GAS remains a constant daily struggle, I'm not in the market for any other cabs, and haven't been for years...

It depends how your trio's set up, but for smaller gigs we use a small triggered kit, and a small PA with 2 x tops and a sub. Guitar DIs into the PA, and I do, too, when I need it (see next). To take a little of the strain off and for simplicity, I picked up a s/h Fender Rumble 100 (I knowwww, a combo, not what you were looking for, but worth a thought) and put a 'proper' Eminence 12 in it for £60 or so, to get the most out of the amp. It's surprisingly good, tho I have the option of a little DI, too... Tonewise I have a Stomp, so the Rumble's tone stack has never bothered me. The Rumble was a cheap, simple solution. I'd agree with Chris's recommendation of the Super Compact - I've got a Super Twin (for bigger/louder/non-DI gigs), and the only thing I'd change it for would be a pair of Super Compacts. If I had two of them, I'd use one with a Class D head (I loved my Magellan, so a 350 would do the job, otherwise with the Stomp doing the tone heavy lifting I could use anything, really) for smaller gigs, and both if I was feeling giddy at a bigger gig.

And therein lies the main issue; person to person communication. I'd say that any luthier can guide you based on what you tell him/them, but they're not mindreaders, and the more information you give them, the closer the end result will be. 'Feel' and 'sound', however, can be very relative, and so need even more information. You could say 'I want it to sound like a P Bass', which is a very basic request, but within that you might mean a JJB sound, and the luthier might think James Jamerson...or one of the many other sounds a P-Bass can make...and I know they can (mostly) be wrung from the same bass with work, but a luthier will attempt to make a bass skewed towards that goal. Again, the more info, the closer the result will be. If you don't have the experience of quite a lot of basses and what you liked about them, that information you give can also be compromised; you'll get what you asked for, but it might not be what you wanted. As another example, if Lfalex, as he described earlier, goes to a luthier and asks for 'The smoothness/tonality of the Vigier. The growl and bark of the Infinity SN4. The weirdness, immediacy and string impact noise (from the piezo) of the Ibanez EDA.', what he might end up with is a right old mess...a good luthier will tell him what's achievable and what isn't, of course, but the 'neither fish nor fowl' compromise is always the danger... I've worked in Technical Pre-Sales for IT, and the biggest part of the job is working with the customer to ascertain how close their initial request is to what they actually want...my favourite quote around this is from Alan Greenspan, and it goes "I know you think you understand what you thought I said but I'm not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant." TLDR: As long as it's not contradictory, the more info you can give a luthier the better... 🙂

Luckily I'd seen it first (actually in mid-build; I took a stock build bass for the aforementioned time constraints), but I couldn't have told you what wood it was. The weight is good - about 8lbs 6oz)

That's the bunny - American Black Walnut: not black at all...and it doesn't look much like walnut, either... 🙂

And, as they say....pics or it didn't happen... Here's mine 😁

When I got mine, I needed it in a hurry (TLDR: it was a birthday present), so I got it as a solid wood body (it's still like that on the Shuker website), then later I had a (flamed maple, coincidentally) drop top added... 🙂

Well, there are worse problems to have - as long as you're going secondhand, it won't cost much, either, and you might surprise yourself - I've owned some basses which definitely weren't 'me' (I'm thinking Status and Alembic - oh, and three Stingrays* amongst others), but every one was a learning process 🙂 I definitely wouldn't advise a custom build if you're unsure what you want, as it's a lot of money to be guessing with. * Took me a few goes to get them out of my system - I loooove them to look at, and other people sound great with them, but....not me 🙁

Maybe my bar isn't set quite as high as it could be, but beyond some fairly straightforward spec (from the top: lightweight tuners, brass nut, slim-Jazz neck profile, split-coil pickup in the P position, East U-Retro), everything else is pretty much aesthetic (swamp ash body for lightness, drop top that appeals, birdseye board with no front markers, and the Shuker Horn is My Shape) and I'm very sure there's a number of luthiers who could make something I'd be very happy with. My first custom build (Shuker) is the bass I play most, and has been for the better part of a decade now. I had to buy/try/sell a lot of basses to narrow that spec down, tho... It sounds from the above like you enjoy some things that aren't really possible in one instrument (smoothness/tonality, weirdness/immediacy and growl/bark), so chasing that chimera would always bring disappointment. Having said that, my only custom build GAS would be a Shuker-built Fenderbird (my other Shape), but I have a Frankenstein Fenderbird which ticks so many boxes I'm not sure four figures would nail that last ten per cent without compromise somewhere else...don't get me wrong; if I had a couple of grand spare I'd be on the phone to Derbyshire like a shot, but I'm not in that position these days...

Ummmm...I used to be in a band that covered this, but it was in the charts at the time. That'd be 29 years ago...you'll understand, I'm sure, if I can't remember much about it... 🙁🙂

I read that the sensitivity of that 27 is 95db, doesn't sound like it'd make an awful lot of the 150-180w going into it...it all depends on the band (and the gigs), tho, but without PA support I'd want a bit more...I've gigged with a Fender Rumble 100w 112 (albeit with a much better/more sensitive speaker in the cab), but only for small trio stuff...

I've always lived by the phrase 'Never engage with idiots; they'll drag you down to their level and beat you with their years of experience...' 😐

Comments on FB Marketplace...enough said... 🙄

I would refer at this point to the great Michael Caine, when asked what he thought about the truly terrible Jaws: The Revenge in which he starred: "I've never seen the film, but I've seen the house it bought for my daughter..." Also, when pressed as to why he'd taken the job in the first place, he said "I got a copy of the script, and the first page said 'Act 1, Scene 1; A beach in the Bahamas', so I said 'When do we start?'" 😁

Hahahaaa....Ioved the '...and a Boss..............delay...' 😁

Ahhhh, I see - not my genre, and I hate loose strings, so I see my mistake there... 🙁🙂

Just a thought, but what about an octaver with a low octave running all the time? Something like a TC Sub n Up? Or would that muddy the sound too much?

I've lent gear a few times, and I guess I've been lucky (tho I don't do many multi-band things) but it's always been treated with respect. I even lent my Dingwall to some friends of friends who'd turned up at a gig for our guitarist's birthday so they could do a few choons. The lad was super-careful (he even took his belt and buttoned jacket off) and loved it. Whenever I've been to a multi-band thing, I usually leave the EQ alone and just adjust my Stomp...

I once got chatting to the bassist/singer from Limehouse Lizzy (who are incidentally very very good), and asked him why he used a black and maple Stingray rather than a P. 'I just like Stingrays' he said, and he's a big bloke, so I smiled and left it at that...

*Extreme pedant alert* Apropos does not require the word 'of' to follow it. Oh, and there's three speech marks* in the above sentence. Ahem. 😐🙂 *End of extreme pedantry* 😉 * Quotation marks, inverted commas...just so I haven't missed anything out. 🙂

That's a shame...although I'd say the fuzz (the Stomp's got a lot of that, not that I'm any expert or fan of it) would actually help cover any possible tracking issues going down very low (from a 4)...Impending Doom Built In... 🙂 Could be worth an hour's twiddling in a PMT near you...

To the OP: I've got a Dingwall ABZ if you're anywhere near Oldham...it's a 4, but it's the same scale as the NGs (and better made, ahem) if you wanted to try it out... Those fan-fret Ibanezes (Ibanii? I dunno) look very nice, and a 5 wouldn't have to be detuned much to get to A# Dunno how it'd be for you, but the HX Stomp Pitch Shifter works for me down to C (from E) just fine in a mix (and lets me keep the high string tension I like)...not so much on double- or triple-stops, but might be worth a tryout. I've got one of them, too... 😉

Absolutely - I refer in particular to my often-told 'I bought a 12-string and no-one noticed (or cared)' story... 😐🙂 Actually, that's not strictly true; our singer told me he liked my Stingray sound on a couple of tracks on our album after we'd recorded it. I was forced to point out that the two tracks he liked were in fact played on my then bitsa P. I'd used the Ray on two different tracks. He went 'Oh.', and he's never mentioned basses again. In his defence, they were both black and maple, so I can see his confusion... 😐

And then it's all for, as they say, a given value of 'great'. I will say, tho, that when it came to opening the biggest live performance ever broadcast (there's a figure touted as 40% of the world's population), the choice made was a certain band as a banker. And it worked. Anyone can sniff as much as they want about populism and musicality, but that fact remains.

Now we're into personal taste; and as usual, for every person that likes something, there's lots of people who don't. I managed about a minute of that. It's about serving the song in the genre it's played, and AL and CW are doing just as good a job artistically as anything more complicated. Everything else is, as I say, personal taste. LS Lowry is a reasonable comparison; a lot of people don't like his famous artwork, but anyone who's seen his earlier pencil work would know he was a very very good artist in more conventional terms. The 'matchstick men' was an artistic choice which illustrates his Salford brilliantly, and the simplicity of line and form is a choice, not a necessity from a limited skill set.