Muzz

A Cadillac Bongo?

Wouldn't be for No One Knows, by any chance, would it? That's what ruled out the B3 and the HD500X for me... 😃

They're just rubbish at what they do. When I moved into a function/covers band with a wide range of styles and genres, the challenge was (and still is, which is one reason I love doing it) to play outside your comfort zone and make a completely different style work. All they're doing is shoehorning what they already know into songs where it doesn't work, because they're scared to play something they're not comfortable with... The best dep guitarist I've ever played with could switch from genre to genre, and every one sounded authentic; the tones, the feel, the way he played. He was a chameleon (not the band, tho they are from round here) : you would never know what his favourite genre was just by listening to and watching him play.

Ohhhh, that colour scheme/top design on a Thunderbird-y bass...the full Ray Dietrich... 😍

There's a book of jazz standards? Nominally interesting, but completely irrelevant to my music and playing...

Wow, look at that string spacing at the nut...I doubt even in Fender's darkest days of QC that'd have left the factory like that...I agree with the Shonky diagnosis above...

That's what I paid for mine...

I'm enjoying the 'youth' bit, but seeing as I've only ever had one pedal at a time (ME50B, then the Zoom, then (very briefly) HD500x, and now the Stomp), and long periods in between without a pedal, I'm not exactly the Pedal GAS type: I don't like too much complication onstage (or off it 😀) and I only use them in the function/covers band, where we play a verrry wide range of songs, and being a trio, it's nice to get the bass tone close to the original if I can. When I'm playing with the Rawwk band(s) and dep situations, I'm happy with going straight into my Walkabout, but the function/covers band is DI/IEMs and no backline... Having said that, if the tone I had the other night (and as I said, that was after a 20 minute from 'Now then, how does this thing work?' to All Done rush) is anything to go by, I could see myself killing rock 'n roll stone dead and going FRFR across the board...

Only in certain areas: if it's all virtuoso noodly stuff then no, the returns in punter appreciation are likely to be sparse outside of the odd muso in the audience, but if the work has gone into making the band very very tight and gets the punters up and dancing/singing/engaged, then they'll appreciate it. IMHO, IME, etc, etc...

Yeah, but the drizzle set in by half four...

I loooove that bass, but the price tag's gonna be hefty...

I've been chasing this particular beastie for a while, as the Zoom B3 and HD500x I had got rather wobbly down past D, with lots of artefacts chiming in, but I'm pleased to report the HX Stomp's as clean as a whistle down to C. A bit expensive if that's all you want it for, mind...

There's also the point that the band will sometimes need to change the arrangement of a cover to take into account the lineup of the band; we're a trio of guitar, drums and bass, but as an example we do Daft Punk's Get Lucky. There's no way we can play the song as recorded, so we change it. The parts change, but the groove remains... 😉

I left a pair of glasses at a posh hotel gig a long drive away from home. I called to ask the following day, they said they had them, but they wanted £25 to put them in the post. I've got other pairs...

First gig last night with the new Stomp. Having just moved house, I hadn't any time at all with the pedal, so in a 20 minute session yesterday afternoon I just found a factory preset I quite liked, faffed about with it a bit (changed cab, eased off the compression), and went with that. Straight into the PA, and it was a small pub, so I monitored by the traditional method of Ears And Wander Round A Bit. Sounded really, really good. I mean better-than-good-backline good... I also set up some pitch shifting (one of the main reasons I moved on the B3 and the HD500x was the solidity of pitch shifting, which wasn't quite there) and it's rock solid. Looking forward to having a good play with the thing once I get more than 20 minutes at a time, but initial impression is this is the last pedal I'll need, which makes it very good value...

Yep, I have no EQ change from fingers to pick (or technically vice versa, as 85% of my playing is with a pick); if it doesn't sound the way you want, just play the thing differently...

Pretty much the only thing I'd change my Walkabout for is a Prodigy...I'm a sucker for blue lights... 😀

Just in the 'we're all different' camp, the older I get (I'm 55 shortly) the more I gravitate towards thinner necks. I even had Jon Shuker slim down the neck on my main bass (it was already a 38mm nut, but I had some wood taken off the profile) last year. The slimmer the better for me...

I have a 212 and a 115 if I want a daft high stack, but the 115 is 8 ohm and the 212 is 4ohm*, so the 115 shouldn't be working as hard as the 212. Oooo, Lozz beat me to it...on that, though, I don't know what your SVTPro 7 goes down to impedance-wise, so it's worth bearing that in mind if you were to look at a modular solution...EDIT: I've just looked it up, and it goes down to 4 ohms, so tread carefully with regard to cabs: two 8ohm ones will be fine (but if it's a 210/410, then the 210 will be working harder), but a 8ohm and a 4ohm, for example, will run the amp too hard (2.67 ohm) and may release the Magic Smoke Of Disaster... *My Walkabout will do 2.67 ohms no problem, but this isn't exactly common...

I'd say the cabs you have add a fair bit of colour, so if you like the sound you have, you'll need cabs which have a similar colouration - tweetered cabs, for example, would be a step away from where you need to be. I have BF cabs, (but not the 10s) and the ones I have (Super Twin and Compact) are less coloured than many out there, which can involve some EQ tweaking. Having said that, I run a pretty old-school sounding amp (Mesa Walkabout) through them, and they reproduce its tones very well. The BF six10 is, I believe, designed to be a (much) lighter, better version of the good old Ampeg fridge, though I have no direct experience.

Interesting, that shorter scale length difference...I'll be interested too, to see how it works out...even less adjustment than a Dingwall, and as you say, that's second nature after a few seconds: I switch between mine and a standard layout mid-gig, and it never even registers.

Ooooooo, me back... 😕😉

One of the big advantages of playing in a function/covers band that doesn't rehearse (we gave that up a long time ago, once we'd been playing together long enough) is that when a version of a new cover does the rounds, everyone knows it's exactly that version which must be learnt; anything else and the miscreant will look a piece of onstage cheese, and an old and yellow piece of onstage cheese at that... It helps that we're a trio, too - there's nowhere to hide... 😉 I should add that within these boundaries, we'll change stuff on the fly: nothing super-technical, but if the BL judges a song's gone on long enough, he'll call an early end, especially with the funkier/dance numbers - Le Freak is a good example; it can go on and on and on, long after it's made its point; sometimes the dancefloor is loving it, and we'll persevere, sometimes he spots them flagging, and calls it for something else. Ditto the reverse, if people are dancing, we'll keep something going.

I'd be straight to Jon Shuker...I've got my next build spec all ready and waiting 🙂 I'd also agree with Ped, though - you need to be sure of exactly what you want a luthier to build for you, or be equally confident that you'll keep it anyway: I'll keep the Shuker I had made for my 50th forever, because it was paid for (in part) by all my friends and family. Happily, it's also a great bass for me, and gets used nearly every gig 🙂

We play Don't Look Back In Anger, and for the third chorus everyone drops out but me, just playing single root notes while the punters sing it to us. Satdy night was me and sixty or so people raising the roof. Brilliant to be a part of.