Franticsmurf

Thanks everyone. I've decided to leave well alone. As has been pointed out, to spend anything approaching the value of the guitar on upgrades or other fixes isn't worth it, bearing in mind I'm happy with the overall sound. Any fixes are to satisfy my mild OCD. Besides, there are other toys to spend my money on - now where is the marketplace.... 😀

The photo is centred over the middle pickup and shows the spacing quite accurately. The Low E string sits nicely over it's polepiece above the centre pickup. The other pickups are misaligned slightly. There is some barrel distortion in the photo from the wide angle lens, but only in the horizontal direction. 😃

That makes sense. The drop off isn't huge and may be partly due to EQ, pick-up height or a combination thereof. These are the next things to test. My OCD would allow me to do it but my lack of woodworking skills would render any careful alignment I planned into something that even I couldn't look at without feeling sick. 😀 I think I paid £180 or thereabouts, so it's definitely not worth spending a similar amount for custom pick-ups given the likely amount of use it will get. Thank you all, you've triggered some more ideas for me to look at.

I can hear a drop off in volume between bass and treble strings. It may just be a height adjustment thing - so that will be my next experiment. I assumed that as the high E string and pole piece were so far out, this was the cause.

A month on and I'm still happy with my HB Guitarbass VI. It's been gigged (FOH Engineer: "Who's the bassist?" Me: "Me." FOHE: "But... but..." etc), and it's a keeper. I'm now trying to decide what to do about the misaligned pole pieces on the pickups. I am assuming that there are pickups with the correct spacing for a HB Guitarbass VI out there so option 1 is to replace the originals with suitable pickups. Asking as a pick-up novice, would a simple replacement Strat style single coil pickup work with bass strings? Would a bar pick up be a better option? Option 2 is to dig in with a router to realign the pickups, with the D string pole piece as the 'centred' measure. Any advice, in words of single syllables, would be appreciated. 😃

Welcome to the site.

Welcome to the site.

Two gigs this weekend. 1st set up is for an Eagles tribute band 'The Long Road'. Peavey Minimax 600 into 2x TE 1x10 cabs via a small board (tuner, comp, MS60b with chorus and flange patches and an Eden Glowplug). Main bass was a Fender Player Precision, in the second (non-Eagles) half I used my Sire MM V5. Edit: I was really pleased with the sound from the amp and cabs. Plenty of tight bass, cut through the onstage mix and headroom to spare. Second gig was third man in a duo(!). Dep gig with a range of musical genres and largely unpredictable as the singer/guitarist makes it up as he goes along! So out came the Spirit headless for an airing, along with the same amp and cab combination as above. This time the pedal board was loaded - tuner, comp, chorus, EHX Soul Food, Behinger Tube simulator, Octaver, a couple of filters which I was trying out (went with the Sonicake Crybot) and Eden Glowplug. I was happy with my sound and the headless is so light compared to the others I hardly felt it. And the tuning is so stable - although I checked the tuning several times during the evening, I didn't actually have to tune it at all.

Two gigs this weekend. Friday was the first outing for newly reformed 'The Long Road', playing songs of the Eagles. At the last minute it was revealed by the guy who organised (one of the singer/geetards) it that it was a showcase with two agents attending. We weren't ready for that. We were a 6 piece on a tiny stage, no lights of our own and with a small audience. We played well for a first live outing, but not well enough (IMHO) to showcase what we are really capable of as the band hadn't tightened up. The crowd loved it. Difficult to judge what the agents thought as the feedback was filtered through the organiser, who tends to select comments to suit his own opinions. We enjoyed, there is potential to go forward and the money wasn't bad for a 6 piece. Last night was a semi regular dep with Getting Even, the same singer/geetard as above (he's a mate and we've worked together for years) and a female singer. They occasionally need a third body to fulfill contracts booked as a trio after their original guitarist let them down. It pays for my GAS and I've learnt not to get concerned about the mechanics. I just turn up and play and it's a useful opportunity to try out new pedals etc. The singer guitarist uses a laptop for his backing tracks, the singer uses her phone for tracks and lyrics. Last night the laptop crashed at the start of the 2nd set and the phone stopped working after one song of the same set. No back up options so we played bass 'n' guitar (it'll be a thing before long) versions of cabaret classics. Sound was grim - the acoustic guitar was booming and there was no need for bass on many songs - in fact we chatted about me playing guitar for these gigs as it gives us more flexibility. Despite the negatives I enjoyed both gigs.

Hope you recovery is speedy. But don't rush things - you don't want to aggravate the injury. I wouldn't be without my varifocals now but it did take a couple of days to adjust. Great for staring at the audience and then at the fretboard without having to change glasses. 😬

We used to have an agent whose idea of promotion was a pre-printed poster template with the band/gig details added in marker pen. Occasionally it was red marker rather than black. 🤣

*checks no one is looking - downloads photo - starts to practice pose for inevitable bass solo* 🤣

It looks as if the bass has been Photoshopped in, too?🤣

We have a gig tomorrow night in a club and were told the venue would promote. When we checked last week, there seemed to be some confusion and it turned out that there were two different people responsible for booking entertainment. One did weekdays bar Friday, the other Friday and the weekend. The weekday person was the social media person, but as she didn't know about our Friday gig, no promotion (other than a poster in the club) had been done. Fortunately we have been able to get the message out. Always check and assume nothing.

I remember sitting backstage with the rest of the band trying to work out two lines in one of the verses ('Barefoot on the lawn with shooting stars/Loving on the floor in Belsize Park') minutes before going on stage and opening with Pseudo Silk Kimono into this. IIRC we didn't decide on the correct words and the singer mumbled the lines. 1990, first band, maybe 10th gig ever. 😬🤣

When does depping become a regular gig?😃 I'm playing with The Long Road tomorrow night and found out at last night's rehearsal that rather than it being a one-off as I thought when I was asked to play, they're planning more dates. They are a very good bunch of musicians, though. Then Merthyr on Saturday with a duo (Getting Even - same singer as tomorrow) to make up the numbers as they were booked as a trio! I've been the third man with Getting Even a few times recently. A mixture of pop, C&W (shudder) and anything the singer thinks of. Apart from the cowboy songs, it's good fun.

It took me a while before I realised this.

I've bought three guitars with them over the last 12 months. No problems with any of them. The service was great (although I had no queries or problems so I can't comment on that aspect).

I've been messing around with my board (isn't that the real point of pedals boards?) I'm working on two new projects, both blues/rock orientated but different styles within that genre. So initially I've been using this board with a range of effects to go through the songs and get some basic sounds. Signal path is Vexpress>Tuner>Hypergravity>Bass Clone>Neo Mistress>Olycism (delay)>Octaver>Soul Food>Glowplug>amp. Most used pedals on the bottom row for easy access. The DI box is not wired in but there as a 'just in case'. Power supply under the board. Final rehearsal tonight and gig on Friday for the band playing Eagles stuff and this is the line up that will feature. Signal path is simple right to left. I was in two minds about keeping the Neo Mistress for the flanged part of 'Life in the Fast Lane', but the guitars are sounding good at that point and don't need me in there too. I was playing with the octaver on 'Rocky Mountain Way' but in the interests of simplicity and space on stage, I've gone with this set up. I've still to decide about the other band, which plays a heavier/rockier blues set but I suspect the Soul Food and octaver will find their way back in the line-up.

We have a club gig booked for Friday. They were estimating 140 ticket sales but so far it's 25. There'll be more sold on the night I expect but it's not a good sign and I wouldn't be surprised if the event is cancelled at short notice. Last time we played there, we had about a hundred or so watching us.

I've been using one of these for home practice for over a year. Great little amp. The volume always throws me when I plug my iPod into the Aux and the neighbours often get a blast of whatever I'm going to play along to, which drowns out the swearing as I turn the volume down on the pod. 😃 I've used it in band rehearsals (a 13 piece largely acoustic line-up) as it has enough quality volume to compete with the rest of the band (without drums). There's a 1/4" 'Direct Out' on the back which I've used to feed the band PA when we acquired a drummer. For gigs I used it as a monitor with the main volume being handled by the PA. I bought mine 2nd hand and the power supply isn't the original, which is an 18v unit. Mine is running off a 15v supply as I can't find a replacement.

Welcome BassFace.

After seeing a band with a short bass player playing a Jazz bass, for years I ignored anything with a big Fender style headstock for fear of looking as silly as I thought he did at the time - it really looked as big as him! With hindsight, I was clearly taller than him (I'm 5'7") but it influenced my choice of instrument for ages. I went with 'two-a-side' paddle headstocks before discovering the headless bass - first a Hohner Jack, then a Steinberger Spirit which I still have. I dabbled with short scales and now have a Gretsch Electromatic which I like. But last year I bought a Stingray 34HH and last month a Precision. Why did I wait so long? 😃

The set up is usually Zoom B1four and headphones unless I'm tweaking sounds, when it's the pedal board into amp and one speaker. Low volume, with the intention of doing final tweaks at rehearsal before or between songs. If I know my neighbour is out, I may crank the volume up and get some final tweaks done then. I tend to work on songs for the bands I'm in, and build in some technique practice along the way as I struggle to get motivated to practice technique alone. Currently working on the Xmas set for the Hulla band (few gigs but usually big charity ones) and a set of Eagles tunes and other songs appropriate to the genre for a dep role in an Eagles tribute gig (The Long Road) next Friday.

When I started playing in my first covers band, the rhythm guitarist and I shared a mic for BVs. During 'I Saw Her Standing There' we'd back up the lines 'I never danced with another' and 'I held her hand in mine'. I realised early on that he was actually singing 'I never danced with her mother' and 'I held her gland in mine'. He passed away a few years ago and I always sing his version of those two lines, with a big grin on my face just like he had on his. 😃