Muzz

Me too, please. Are they any good for metal?

And yet he bought a verrrry expensive FBass with lots of knobs... He lost me at "An active bass doesn't sound better than a passive bass, because if it did, we would all play active basses...", which shows a fundamental misunderstanding of, well, people, and the zillions of reasons people buy both active and passive basses. Clickbait, as we've discussed before...

All my basses are active, most of them have a split-coil pickup in the right position, the ones that do sound like P-basses if I want them to. Do I win a prize? 😀

I think what I'm getting at is the differences in EQ/sound we have mean that the more aggressive, more trebly sound I use might well mean I don't notice, or it isn't such an issue for me...

It's been so long since I used anything other than BF cabs (apart from a lovely holiday with Berg AE112s, but then I was using three of them, which kinda gets around the sensitivity issue) that I might be spoilt for sensitivity, if that makes sense... 😀

I think I may be getting around higher volume definition issues with my EQ/technique, plus up against two Rawk Geetars you can get away with moider...🙂

Looks like an accident waiting to happen to me - a surface switch, easily flickable while plugging in in the dark on a stage; with two of those into a traditional 4ohm-minimum amp, you could easily ping the switches to present a 2ohm load to the amp...it'd put me off buying one immediately. At the very least they should make the switch recessed, or harder to flick...

OK, so I read quite a lot in various threads about the Walkabout being underpowered, but it always mystifies me. I use mine mostly in a Rawk covers band with two traditional (read unreconstructed) 80s Geetards, both terrific players, both using JCM100s and 412s, and a drummer who makes Cosy Powell look and sound like he was in a cocktail lounge jazz trio using brushes... We rehearse way too loud, and we gig loud, too (it kinda goes with the territory) with vocals, kick and overhead through the PA in everything but very big pubs, then maybe a bit of bass and guitar in there too. I run my Walkabout through a BF Super Twin for rehearsals and smaller gigs, and I have a Compact to stick under it for bigger gigs for the whole Bass Stack look... 😀 And here's the thing: it's ridiculously loud. Drummer-flatteningly, ear-ringingly, room-fillingly loud. I wear ear protection when we rehearse, we're that loud. Even without the second cab. I EQ the very bottom end out - I use the left hand parametric set to -15db at 40hz, as I find it clears the mud, but there's still plenty bottom end present. I play mostly with a pick, and use (mostly) a pretty aggressive P-bass kinda tone, with juuuust a little drive (not into yer actual distortion - say midday on the Gain), and I'm not scared of mids - well, not on the Walkabout; it's really, really good at them... 🙂 Is it my EQing, my choice of cab(s), or just my ears that's making me think I can't imagine needing a louder amp*? * Actually, I doubt it's my ears, because the other chaps in the band don't have any problems hearing me - unfortunately, instead of asking me to turn down, they just turn up (see '...we rehearse way too loud...' above)...I suspect it's a Guitarist Thing... 😕

It was built at the same time as Wals were being built? Well, that adds £1000s to the price, and clearly warrants mentioning in the title... I should have added 'Built at the same time as the Ferrari F430' to the sale ad for my old Passat...

One analogy is if you're driving along at a reasonable speed, and you keep the accelerator where it is, but start to depress the clutch (i.e. reduce the load on the engine), then the revs will rise higher and higher, potentially damaging the engine...

Yep, them's is your options. There are a few amp heads which will run under 4 ohms loads (the Mesa 800s, Genz Magellan, etc), but the vast majority have a 4 ohm limit. As above, I don't know what the exact repercussions might be of running a lower impedance load and what triggers there might be, but if the manufacturer says don't do it, they mean 'If it goes click/boom/fizz, don't call us'...

The short answer to what the necks are like is that they can be what you like; Jon will make them the way you want. I took my custom build back to him after a couple of years because I wanted the neck slimming/reprofiling, and he did a fantastic job...and popped some Luminlays in the while he was doing it...😊

They must be good, though - look how much Mr Rundgren's enjoying his...

Took me an age to get Galway Girl where I wanted it, but the one that surprised me the most was when, after listening to it in pubs, clubs and at parties for the best part of 40 years, and playing it now and again on bands for nearly as long, I actually sat down and listened to the bass in Freebird. Blimey. Not particularly tricky, but just surprising there was so much of it I'd never heard...

I have the East U-Retro (the older model of the Uni-Pre, IIRC) in all my main gigging basses - very intuitive, very musical preamps.

Head heavy? I had a Washburn B20-8 back in the day that would literally plummet to the floor if you took your hand off the neck...and it used to snap strings alllll the time - the break angle to the rear tuning pegs was bonkers... Didn't hate it, though, because at the time it was something very different, and when newly strung made a glorious noise. I had a 78 Jazz which weighed a sniff under 12lbs and sounded Brown. Didn't hate that, either, because some collector bought it off me for collector kinda money. I presume it's on a wall somewhere...I hope he used good big rawlplugs... Thinking on, I don't think I've hated any bass I've had - if I didn't like it for whatever reason*, I sold it... * And I've had some really silly reasons, from Wrong Colour (otherwise terrific Warwick Fortress which some fule at the factory had painted Not-Brown-Not-Olive-Not-Nice) to Can't Unsee (Warwick Fortress - "That top horn looks like a nob") to A Bit Embarrassing (Warmoth Explorer Bass with bling blackburst flame maple top, pearl binding and gold hardware)...

If they did a Reverse (a la T-Bird), I'd be in serious trouble...despite the single coils...it really needs some chrome covers and surrounds...

It's amazing, isn't it, that whenever a seller's unsure, they give the impression that something's more valuable, rather than the other way round? You know, like using the words 'I'm not sure' in the original ad... 😏

A couple of better pics...still not great, but I'm no photographer...

It's a Horn...Black Walnut body, Flame Maple drop top, maple neck with wenge stringers, birdseye maple board, two EMG split-coil pickups, John East U-Retro EQ. Works for me.... 🙂

This is all I have right now, but I'll get a better pic shortly.

😀

Not even funny once...the 'Look how clever and funny I'm being' expression on a man dressed like a concussed 8-year old's drawing of Roy Rogers on Gay Night had my teeth on edge after ten seconds...

Oh, heck, that is kinda fundamental... 😕

Were the 'mistakes' so fundamental that they needed a whole new bass to get round? Crikey, that's unlucky...