Paolo85

There you go! I can't believe 10 grams matter! I must say, it's not like the bass was neck diving before. It would slide from angled up to horizontal every now and then. Just enough though to trick my brain into resting the wrist on the body to hold it, as I don't rest my thumb on the pickup. In fact, maybe more than perfect balance I am looking for slightly body-heavy..

Well, the strap is for multiple basses so I am happier this way, but true, as I ended up needing just 20gr, it would have not been a problem with other basses!

Not completely incospicuous but they do not bother me at all. I only needed four of those in the end - 20 grams - to go with this bass from alright balance on a neoprene strap to great balance. I hindsight, they would have fit into the control cavity. They are not directly attached to the body for the most part. There is packing tape in between as they are very hard to take off once attached onto something. Cheaper than a high mass bridge, do not require a neck shim and cannot result in unexpected, unwanted changes to the tone assuming high mass bridged do something to the tone

Bookmark this conversation for the setup I had two HB but I never tried the B450. Regardless, yes, with that bass combined with whatever amp you try and soubds good to you plus a good setup no doubt you are good to go! Unless you are unlucky and get a bad one which is always possible with mass produced instruments. But you have, I believe, a multy-year guarantee with Thomann for actual faults, and for other stuff (eg bad fretwork) there are ways to cope and ways to solve it.

Sorry, no silks at the bridge for the GHS!

They are not flats right? Because GHS flats look like this and they are a bit rugged for being flats

You connect the bass to the pedal with the jack, and then you connect hopefully good headphones to the pedal with the [EDIT] jack exit. You may need a jack adapter. And then you are done. The pedal works with power plug or batteries although the latter don't last long. With the pedal you can hear the dry signal (that is the clean sound of your bass, in no way altered) which is very nice. It also has amps and cabs simulators - they emulate the sound of famous amps. I am not 100% sure about those, some seem to do well to my Jazz bass and my Stingray-inspired Cort, but with Precision basses I haven't found a satisfying option. Still, with the budget you are on chances are that with an actual amp you'd be worse off. With the Zoom you have an aux in to play along with songs, a tuner (although I have my reservations on that), a metronome and drum loops to play along. As for the setup, I'd go to a tech/luthier with decent reputation (you can google names around you and ask here about them). Shops also can do setups normally. I personally would avoid unless you have it included with the purchase of the bass as I had a bad experience with a famous shop in Denmark Street, but I guess I am not a significant sample statistically. Now, a setup is 40 pounds I believe. So that's a lot in your budget. But when I started I played for years with a bass with bad setup. Combine that with a number of other mistakes and few years down the line I had to quit for tendinitis. There is also the option to learn how to do a setup yourself. You'll find plenty of topics here where we discussed that. The first time around I'd prefer a tech to do it personally though

Sorry I missed the metal bit. Yes if you want to play lot's of stuff that uses the low B don't worry there is no problem starting out with a 5 string. I mean, there are the issues mentioned above but they are not massive issues. Cheap basses often neck dive, even 4 string basses. (Also, non cheap basses can neck dive). A leather strap helps. By the time you get into a metal band at a level that the bass player's muting technique is an important issue, you most likely have already learnt how to mute a 5 string.

For bedroom practice consider the option of zoom B1 four pedal and headphones. For low volume playing I have a Hartke HD25 and I am quite happy with it. Fender does cheaper amps with good reputation. Some people say you need at least 40 watt but I guess it depends on the definition of "need". As for the bass, theeere is no guarantee that you get a good one within your budget but the HB is an extremely sensible bet. I would make sure you squeeze in your budget money for a professional setup as it can make a world of difference. Also the tech can tell you if the fretwork happens to be proper awful and with Thomann you can send it back. Most likely with a good setup it would be playable. My opinion is that it is better to start on 4 strings unless there are very specific reason for 5 - eg you plan to play play lots of metal songs that downtune or go to the low B. It's less things to think about (muting is simpler on 4), more likely to get a better balance with the bass (5 string basses are more likely to be neck heavy and neck dive, although the HB B550 has a sensible design and the risk is lower than in say a 5 string jazz bass). But also, when I had 5 string basses I used to find it annoying because I was only playing song clearly written for four strings and I had that string there doing nothing. Very much a first world problem but it annoyed me!

As other have said. The only issue in terms of ethics is that you don't put your family in financial trouble. If you are loaded it's ok to buy a Fodera to noodle every now and then - or ridicolously expensive furniture. Personally I am as interested in gear as I am interrsted in playing. I get as much satisfaction from a successful pickup replacement than from learning a cool thing on the bass. Unfortunately, while playing is free, gear is not. I only deal with cheap basses. Gear is a hobby which I see as frivolous for somebody at my level (unlike playing). Which is ok but I don't feel like stretching myself financially for it.

Well, if you played bass in the past, where to start from is rather simple. Pick the bass up, see what you can remember and if you can still do it. As for what you cannot do, the options are the same as for a teenager: either you figure out things bit by bit, learning songs you like by ear or with tabs/transcriptions, or you get lessons (teacher or online courses), or a bit of both. If you do not have a bass anymore, go to a shop and buy one that feels nice. I recommend a cheap one just because you don't really know if you want to play unless you are actually playing. As for confidence, I would take a different mindset. I don't want to be harsh but 30 is not an age where you pick the bass from scratch with the plan of making it a career, unless obviously you don't need to have a day job for some reason. You don't need to become good, you just need to become good enough to have fun playing. You don't need to have a busy band. Indeed, you may find that the way your life works now a busy band would be a pain. All you have to achieve is to have fun playing, which may happen from the moment you pick the bass up if you don't put pressure on yourself. I am not saying you cannot make it into a career. I am saying that there are intermediate steps and first you need to see how you like those. I stopped playing when I was 18 for a bad tendinitis. I tried again at I think 27 or something and I made the mistake of putting pressure on myself, to try get back to where I was in terms of chops. Too much time allocated and too harsh on my tendinis. Not sure exactly what happened but I stopped after a few months. Then I started again a year and a half ago. Almost by accident. I picked up the old bass with the intention of actually selling it. Had a noodle and haven't stopped playing since. I don't try to achieve anything specific but this does not mean that I don't practice and learn new things. I can't see this stopping because I do't see this as in or out anymore. Now I play every day, as much as I manage. I hope it stays the same and grows. But if in the future for some reason it becomes that I just play along the odd simple song on Saturday mornings that's fine. As long as it makes me happy. As for the passion, not sure what you mean. If you don't want to do it then don't

Bought a strap from Iain. Good communication, delivered in no time. Very happy with it! Thanks

Actually, careful inspection reveals that mine is a neoprene one..

I have a - slightly different - Lekato strap. The most comfortable strap I have tried - although I have not tried very expensive ones. The only issue is that it does not have much grip so unless the bass balances extremely well it gets annoying

I have two Squier Affinity Ps, had another one and I have modded them all. There are I believe two considerations to make IMHO -Mods only make sense if you want to achieve something (or if you want to have fun with it). There is now way to say of they are worth it in absolute terms. -Mods only make sense if you like the bass to start with, except for those things you want to change. Do you like to play a P? Do you like the sound of a P? Do you like the neck? Is the neck fully functional (eg not unstable, truss rod ok)? Is the bass of a weigh that is ok for you? How is the fretwork? You like it overall? The more you love the bass, the more it makes sense to spend money. A cheap bass modded to your liking, if the basic features are very solid, could sound better (to you) than a much more expensive Fender P. I have changed the pickups to all three. I do not fancy the P of the modern PJs much. I did like the pickup of one from 2000, but at the end of the day the aggressive ceramic pickups you get do my head in after a while. You can get nice vintage sounds with Wilkinson alnicos (20 pounds) the slightly hotter and darker Tonerider TRP1 (40 pounds) or look further (I bought here a great pickup from a Classic 50s P for 35 pounds). I have changed the bridge in one but just because the old one was giving me trouble. In general I am all ok with cheap bridges. I have changed the tuners in one with Hipshot Licensed ultralight. Affinity often have a light body and are neck heavy as a result. This has made the bass well balanced, so more confortable and a joy to play. I bought them used here but I would have bought them new anyway. I have changed the neck to one. Because the truss rod was not working right but I loved the rest (which was already modded), and the new neck was sold here for a good price. Financially changing neck does not make sense. I have filed bumpy frets and nit slots in two of them. This is big deal in terms of playability. Not really an upgrade. My view is if I don't like how the neck plays I don't like the bass. So dealing with frets and nut first of all. From a financial point of view, mods are not great. A 120 pound P is worth 120 after mods, maybe little more. However, if you sell, you can still put the old parts back in and sell everything separately

Does anybody know if the bridge pickup is in proper Musicman position?

Interesting. I saw all the comments saying that, despite the marketing, they don't last long. I'll see how it goes. However, in my case I put them on to replace flats so losing some brightness may not be a problem for me, depending whether they age gracefully or not

I am resuming this because I just replaced TI flats with NYXL 45-105 on a P bass and I am super, super impressed. The sound is extremely dark. To my ears, if played softly near the neck pickup they are darker than the DR Sunbeams, which makes them the darkest rounds I have ever tried. Still, there is top end presence and if played hard they can be snappy (oddly, this combination of not coming out as bright but having top end reminds me somehow of Labella flats). What impresses me the most is the feel. This set 45-105 does not feel much harder to play than the TI flats. I believe they are not technically low tension, but they are extremely pliable. So they bend under the fretting hand with no effort but at the same time they are not floppy. This created two advantages compared to TI: I can keep the action slightly lower, and despite my unrefined touch I am a bit less messy when raking

Well, if you have a relief of 0.16mm and string height jjust over 2mm at the 12th fret, it looks like you have a bass with very good fretwork. Which does not surprise me as Cort basses tend to be well built in my experience.

That's a very interesting point. I remember an Andertons video on short scale basses where Lee said something on the line that they sound a bit more like a guitar. To me, a tubby short scale sounds even less like a guitar than a long scale bass. But I guess if you think of it as guitar-like, you play it as guitar-like, you'll hear it guitar-like

Any time I need to perform a new kind of "operation" that I have never tried before on my basses I sit on it for ages. Maybe I buy the tools but then don't do it for weeks or months even. I guess I find the idea both exciting and stressful. Would I damage something? Would it be extremely difficult? So far it has always turned out it's all ok. Things are doable and it is difficult to do any damage if you do research in advance and use common sense. I use cheap basses as a starting point I guess the definition of damage would be different on a 5k bass. To be fair, I do not find setup properly simple, took me a lot of trial and error to learn what I want and need. But on the other hand you can only spend limited time on it per day anyway, and it's fairly "safe"

Unfortunately a bass, a cheap bass but not only, does not necessarily come with a good setup out of the shop. So it is possible to have issues. It seems from what you say that there is little relief (the bow), and that strings in 12th position could benefit from being higher (2mm is great but requires good fretwork. Fender in its guide reccommends 3mm at the 15th to give you an example). For a good setup in theory you would need a gauge feeler, A capo, a small ruler. Plus allen keys for the truss rod and the saddles at the bridge. Without allen keys you cannot do anything, but you can survive without the rest. If you fret the first fret, ask somebody else to fret the last, and put a business card at the eight, that should give you I believe 0.5mm, which is a generous bow which some people use. I aim for 0.3mm to be honest but you could start from 0.5 and then see if, in minuscule increments, you can straighten a bit more without getting buzz. Buzz from a neck that is too straight should be from frets 1 to 5. Also, I would raise the saddles at the bridge so you have 3mm at the E and 2 or even more at the G at the 15th fret. You may need to be creative to measure 3mm. Then you can try to lower a bit and see if it's ok (buzz from string height should be from 5th fret onward). If it's just a couple of bumpy frets that buzz, you may want to live with that instead of having a ridiculous high action. Btw, I did not go into the specifics of the truss rood. I am sure you have read how to tighten (straighten) or losen (create bow/relief) Just note that you want to do max 1/4 of a turn per day. Movements from 0.5mm to 0.3mm would be much mucn less than that. And after each mivement wait hours to allow the neck to adjust Hope this helps