krispn

aye the prices are now daft. I have the big box with iron core TX wonder what the Bass Gallery would give me for it 😀

I had a MacBook fail and while apple claimed it was outside their 1 yr warranty they suggested I go to the reseller- Curry’s and make a complaint as it wouldn’t be expected to fail within that time period. Ironically Apple didn’t see fit that it should be fixed by them while telling me to go back to Curry’s. Luckily the store manager was from N. Ireland as am I and I threw a bit of thick country ignorance at him and he understood (I told him I had Applecare on an iPad Pro which meant two free replacements. I explained to him how I’d be up to collect my new iPad Pro tomorrow as I felt my current one might be about to have an accident and I might just “accidentally” break that one too so he could expect me back the following day for my second free replacement). Needless to say he agreed to fix the issue!

Or use the clean tube pre amp amp setting add a bit of comp (if you like) and a bit of the parametric eq and you can tune it to suit more or less exactly the clean sound you’re after.

I said somewhere else recently but those early Fender 51-54’s with the ‘baseball bat’ necks sounds great because of the chunky necks not in spite of them.

I’ve had a few and if you want clean, flexible and a solid platform for using existing pedals a Basswitch preamp is hard to overlook. I’ve owned one since 2012/2013 and it’s got a host of features which made it and continue to make it a great all rounder. Twin inputs and two channels A/B - one passive, one runs into the eq (plug in one bass and you can switch between channel A or B) One input has an impedance switch for piezos so good for an upright etc. dual fx loops - one series, one parallel (series is always on, parallel is switchable via footswitch), clean blend on the switchable fx loop. It also functions as a clean boost or can boost the fx in that loop - and it has a phase switch! ‘Studio grade’ Four band eq with dual semi parametric eq, DI which runs via a transformer , Mute switch etc etc etc It’ll also drive a power amp or powered cab and can take 9-24v power and does internal trickery to filter and stabilise the power coming into it. Ive used it live for years, my fiddle player used it for a while when deciding on which preamp to get and honestly while this is a bass DI I think it sounded better than the preamp she ended up buying - likely due to the semi eq, the impedance switch and the quality DI! It’s a lot of pedal!

Or a job at Which

I have a used CV Jazz (which I repsrayed ad upgraded the pick ups) and a bitsa P which I’ll likely never shift. Not had them longer than any other bass but they’ll be here a while. Previously my longest running bass was a Dingwall Super PZ5 into a Monique amp which I gigged for years in a pub band and out with a bigger gig I had and loved it but sold them to boost my savings. Like @peteb I bought them to gig- it was always with the intent of gigging them. As much as I loved the look-design-craftsmanship they were both well crafted instruments as much as they were utilitarian tools to do a job. The discussion about fancy basses and whether to gig them or not... I couldn’t imagine owning a Ken Smith or the BBNE as mentioned in the first post and not take them out to a couple of gigs just to hear them in context but if the basses are collectors pieces, bought to gaze upon and rarely played then so be it. Many of these higher end basses are investment pieces and bought for their quality and craftsmanship but it does feel like a terrible waste to some folk who see owning the best bass they can afford so they can actually play it. “basses are also musical instruments and many high-end basses can also be fantastic pieces of craftsmanship.” Some might argue that first and foremost a bass is a musical instrument. Ken Smith designed and built his basses to be played fancy as the woods are and the time invested in crafting them. Sure he wanted to ‘craft’ a killer instrument but he didn’t make it to be a piece of furniture. Nathan East had Yamaha build him a bass which he could gig. Everyone has an opinion on it I suppose!

It could just be that the bass is lacking presence in that region. A pick up raise might help but you’re potentially looking at some eq trickery to put it where you want it. If you have access to a DAW such as GarageBand/Studio One/Reaper etc. it’s really worth 30-40 minutes having a look and again seeing what you can do with the eq on there and see/hear of you can get the bass sounding more to your preference... If you have an EQ or multifx pedal they will obviously help you find the sweet spot too (especially a semi parametric) but the beauty of a graphic eq in a DAW is you can ‘see’ where the gaps are and then know what might remedy it. I had three p basses at one stage and they all were a little different. I knew one of them was more balanced so when I did the odd recording for my old band I always brought it as it would already sound ‘balanced’. For my other P’s I knew one might need a bump at X to push a bit more or pull out a bit of Z! Now many will take this with a pinch of salt “I just plug in and play” but there’s no harm in understanding the pros and cons of your bass which ultimately will make it sound good for your ear. As an aside many of those old 51-54 style P basses with the baseball bat necks sound so good because of the fat neck not in spite of it.

I should have said try my suggestions in passive mode first and you’ll know if it’s just the ‘voice’ of that particular bass but yeah the active eq options will dictate how much you can remedy this on the bass itself.

Is it a case of it’s too thin or brittle on the top? Does it only occur with both pick ups on it is it a general feeling with the neck or bridge solo’d too? As @Al Krow says the scoop could be pulling out mids and/or high mids but it might not be the single factor. Does the bass have a passive tone control as sometimes simply rolling back can help or the capacitor can have a solid impact to thicken things up without any major tweaks. Flatwound string can be more mid range focused so that may help. There is a school of thought that generally being a thinner bass body/neck/headstock can all have an impact on the ‘heft’. The p bass is likely just inherently putting out more ‘information’ in the frequency which you’re hearing as cutting through and let’s face it they’re famous for filling out that sweet spot in and about the midrange. I’ve found looking at my p basses on a graphic eq they have a lot going on in around 400Hz and up about 2-4kHz too. This isn’t set in stone of course but if you can run the Ibanez into a DAW and see it on a graphic EQ, compare it to your p bass - you could try and see where the gaps are and see if you can do anything with EQ to help. This can be fun to do in general (well it was for me)!

Agreed but worth a try 😀

Line 6 have been on top of this stuff for years. Sure there are other options but their kit has paved the way for many other companies. Competition is no bad thing if it encourages progress.

Is this a veiled chip set comment ahead of namm21 😂

Do tell

Or turn the bass volume down just a notch.

Just be mindful of your gain stages across all amps/effects and you should be fine.

I’ve no doubt that bars will be mad keen to get back to normal business. The bar we do our regular gigs at is a central Edinburgh ‘tourist trap’ which also has a strong local crowd too. It’s an Irish bar, offers student discount and in a great location and is busy every night. We play enough fiddle-de-dee to keep the crowd happy and suit the vibe of the place - you can imagine the managers are dying to get back open. With the 6 Nations and St Patrick’s Day being big events on their calendar early in the year we’ve already been ‘penciled in’ to play those dates but we all know it’s unlikely. The bar can generate between 15-20k on those big sport Saturdays - thats one days turnover!

@Burns-bass Not the original source but this BMJ article references some of the material I was referring to and basing my opinions on https://www.bmj.com/content/372/bmj.n18 To be fair the title of the thread doesn’t appear to be based on any evidence either other than maybe optimism that some carried over dates for a wedding gig come off in Spring 2021. The evidence that I’m basing my opinions on are related to a single dose administration of a two dose vaccine. The extended delay to the second dose basically means it’s being used ‘off license’ ergo not within the administration guidelines from the pharmaceutical companies. If you were on a course of antibiotics and told it’s a seven day course but were only given three days worth and told the other four days doses would be given in three months you might question the reasoning and it’s efficacy. While not the same thing it shouldn’t be dismissed. The vaccine does not offer complete immunity nor prevent people from spreading Covid for a significant period. I’m not sure if this is factored into the projected numbers

Let me reframe my point. Is anyone who had regular gigs prior to this pandemic been getting calls to work the May bank holiday Weekend?

Nuts though this was a double post and deleted it. Needless to say my numbers/information came from respected medical journals and show that after the initial vaccine (after about 21-28 days) efficacy drops off to about 50% which still has it as a success and higher than other vaccines in circulation where 40% efficacy is considered a success.

Don’t let my posts on bc cloud the optimism I embrace daily. I work in mental health and am continually focusing on the positives, trying to encourage and promote positive outlooks and outcomes for the people I work with. My comments are in relation to the prospect of gigs by the Spring which is as baseless a prediction as my suggestion that it’ll be 18 months away. I was gonna say that. Having more folk vaccinated is of course a positive but the way the body develops immunity is not an instant thing so if numbers are projected based on immunity on day one and not being a potential carrier on day one the they’re not realistic. Again best case scenario is to vaccinate a population when it’s not in the throes of a pandemic. We have some catching up to do.

May is an arbitrary date which isn’t backed by anything other than a click bait inspired thread title. The reality is that Covid will continue to spread and we’ll likely need another 18 months (a figure I too have pulled out of my hole) to see any sort of positive dent into this. The disregard over the festive period and the half assed notion that a jab will automatically guarantee protection is foolish and misguided but folks want to have that hope as the last year has been horrendous for many. A lot of folk cannot be trusted to continue to follow guidelines and I’m sure we all have a neighbour, family member or colleague who thinks “Sure I’ll be grand” and carry’s on regardless of the consequences of their actions. I get it though - due to the haphazard way Covid appears to vary in terms of infection/symptoms/severe illness and the sheer variability among those who have caught it folks are ‘justified’ in their own minds about the risk. It’s not about me making a judgment call on other people’s actions but there’s little hope for convincing folk to continue to behave in a socially responsible manner a year in and with high infection rates we’ll continue to see more infections. Vaccines work best when a population isn’t experiencing a pandemic. We’re at the wrong end of this just now and need to claw back lost ground. Optimism is wonderful and it makes a great thread title but come on we’re a long way off and I’d be hard pressed to find anyone who deep down doesn’t see this getting worse before it gets better.

Yeah I can see the first half of 2021 being worse and trailing into the end of the year before we might see a positive shift. A vaccine which we’re now being told will get rolled out to everyone so we all have ‘immunity’ makes sense but when it’s a two stage dose and we’re now being instructed to forgo the second dose within the correct timeframe (and see efficacy drop to 50%) - still it’s half as good as nothing.

The stomp is very feature rich and the recent update has increased its functionality so there is a lot to learn and it’s potentially able to do things for you that you don’t know you need yet! Firstly you could try and recreate the JhS pedal settings on the stomp to best match what it’s doing for you. There are a few choices of comp so you’ll have options to find the one which closely matches the controls on your pedal. Adding it on a parallel path might be fun to try too for the studio style ‘New York’ sound - it’ll basically equate to having a clean blend function if your pedal doesn’t offer that feature. You can set the stomp up to send fx to your amp while sending amp/cab sims to foh if you wanted. Useful if you want to gig your amp and have a ‘rig’ sound coming via FOH or experiment a bit. Do you want to run the stomp as a complete one box solution or incorporate it into your rig for fx? The getting started cheat sheet posted above will layout the basic ways to hook up the unit for various uses/rigs. One option is you could use the Ashdown ‘Original preamp’ in the fx loop as your preferred pre and that’s pretty easy to set up - you could also run you comp in that loop with the Ashdown pre so you’d have those two units always available. My understanding is the new ‘favourite setting’ on the stomp means you could create a basic chain and if you save that as a ‘fav’ when creating a new patch and use it it’ll save the loop etc. which you’ve identified as a fav. I’ve not played with this yet but that could save a wee bit of editing time in basic patch layout and creation. If I’ve got this wrong let me know and I’ll edit accordingly. You tube will be able to show how this works. Actually that’s a fair point there’s 60 pages of thread and you may find just searching a query on you tube yields quicker results with clear how to’s plus check out the 3.0 update videos to see what other new tricks the unit has up its sleeve.