LawrenceH

[quote name='Musicman20' post='992902' date='Oct 18 2010, 10:53 PM']Yes, I agree aesthetics are not a priority, but if its between a high end fantastic large manufacturer and a small DIY high end manufacturer, I know which I would choose.[/quote] If, and it's a big if, all else were equal, then I think I'd usually choose the small manufacturer assuming they were in the same country as me. One voice has a lot more weight with their reputations so I'd hope that would translate to good personal service. East, Shuker, Wizard and Barefaced all seem to fit this judging by the bulk of reports on here. And in terms of value for money, I think the loss of bulk buying power is easily offset by their lower overheads. Despite what I said about the Eminence drivers, the cast chassis Kappalite range Barefaced uses are a lot higher build quality than, for example, the OEM Sica speakers loaded into Tecamp cabs (whose build quality gets raves about) with a noticeably higher rrp. These are pressed steel chassis models and not even the premium Sica models. I was quite surprised when I discovered even quite high end cabs are typically not using the top-range drivers offered by companies like Eminence, Celestion etc. Alex's cabs are by far the best value in this respect. Again though, if you don't like the sound of them then that's all that matters in this particular case! But I would think that reflects a particular aesthetic rather than an inherent aspect of 'small v big' companies. Wizard are another whose products seem to cost a fair bit less than equivalent big-name offerings. This may reflect the fact that both conventional cabinets and pickups are pretty old, mature technology - most of the hard design work for cabs is done by the speaker manufacturers, the 'big name' cab manufacturers are just box builders really.

[quote name='Lozz196' post='992632' date='Oct 18 2010, 07:30 PM']Very true, a watt is a watt, however you rarely see 100 watt solid state amps being able to cut it in a live situation in heavy rock/punk bands, but 100 watt valve amps don`t have any trouble at all. Straying onto guitar amps, our rhythm guitarist used an Orange Tiny Terror for a while, all 15 valve watts, and at gigs it had no problems keeping up. This in venues that held 150, and we are a punk band (tho not a hugely loud one). I`ve never seen a 15 watt solid state that could manage that, even flat out. Valve amps do seem to be louder pound for pound/watt for watt. Dunno why, I`m not a technical person, but I`d stand in a practice room with a 100 watt solid state amp flat out. Valves - forget it![/quote] It's the distortion, innit. Sounds a lot less noticeable when you're driving a valve amp to absolute blue b****ry whereas solid state clipping is just nasty and onset is very sudden once you exceed the rail voltage.

[quote name='fretmeister' post='992701' date='Oct 18 2010, 08:23 PM']I love my F1 head. It's ace. It goes great with my TecAmp cab.[/quote] Tecamp - good example of a company that offers multiple cabinets based around the same drivers, which appears to be the complaint here unless I'm missing something (their XS, S, M and L I Think?). The point with the Tecamps is that as you increase the size of the bass cab you increase the low frequency output of the cab, up to a certain point at least, even with an identical driver. I'm sure the larger MB 15" cab will have a noticeable increase at the bottom end compared to the NY but it's a trade-off v size and weight. Seems fair enough to me.

[quote name='Musicman20' post='991979' date='Oct 18 2010, 09:44 AM']Are they any better? Well, Im no speaker cab guru, but I would trust Jim's designs over virtually anyone else. That's probably due to reputation more than a massive amount of experience with his cabinets. ... Jim will not ever release his exact driver spec, but Im guessing, and from memory, they are custom Eminence speakers as are most nowadays.[/quote] To be honest, with all the software available it's hard to design a simple ported cabinet wrong these days! Stick to tried and trusted proportions, get the tuning right for the driver and an adequate port size and there's not all that much more to it. And from what I understand a custom drive unit will be based on a standard chassis and will typically trade one set of compromises for another. It won't be all that far off the standard production equivalent in most cases. That's not to say the Berg drivers won't have a nice tone, it may well be tweaked to a particular aesthetic, but it's not full of magic 'custom' dust. I'm no expert at all but I spent a long time reading around the topic a while back, and have made cabs based around Celestion and Eminence drivers including the Deltalite II 2510s, as well as using a few very good PA rigs based around high-spec drivers. People tend to use TS parameters as a proxy for quality, which is missing the point. In terms of sound quality IMO the modern Celestion equivalents are at least as good as the much-praised Eminence units, and the best B&C units (B&C make the Markbass drivers) arguably outstrip both. Whether that gives the tone you like for bass guitar is another matter, but I think the fact that Eminence are American and therefore cheap over there compared to the European units has a lot to do with their reputation and wide useage. A lot of very high end no-compromise PA gear uses B&C. Personally, I think the Markbass gear sounds great with lovely growly prominent mids - but for people who love say the TC RH450 into RS210s, then that Markbass sound is a little off from what you'd consider the ideal, which'd be more biased towards the low-mids. So if I were making the choice, I'd go by tonal preference and assume the quality of the drive units in most proper high-end stuff is similarly good.

I'd add the Ibanez SR series to the list, pretty small slim bodies and slim necks add up to lightweight instruments.

[quote name='TheGreek' post='992040' date='Oct 18 2010, 10:59 AM']+1[/quote] 'Sounds better' is a bit subjective eh? Precision, Jazz, (& MM Stingray to be fair) pretty much have the basses covered (geddit? sigh). If you see the bass as a lead instrument then of course there are others out there that might be more suited. Though having said that, personally I love Jaco's sound but I think Stanley Clarke's tone is a bit rubbish! Always put me off Alembics. Aesthetics and ergonomics are a different matter. If I could have a Fnder sound with a bass that played and felt like my old Ibanez I'd be a happy Larry indeed.

I know it's confusing with all the different opinions, but I had an Ashdown Perfect 10 as part of a trade deal once and it was IMO the worst practice amp I've ever tried. Quite bassy but no definition to the tone making it feel like very hard work to play through and incredibly sluggish-sounding. Good if you just want a general low rumble but not musical at all IMO. Conversely, I really quite like my old Ashdown Electric Blue, even though it's about as budget as giggable combos get. Tried a small Marshall practice amp in a shop and it was fairly honest tone-wise, certainly more so than the posher Hartke 4 x 10" that they initially plugged me into, through which every bass sounded the same!

Rotosounds have more oomph in the mids than slinkies in my experience. It may well just be that the tonal balance of the strings doesn't suit the natural tone of the bass/electrics. Other than that I can only think it'd be worth tweaking the neck a bit just to see if it makes a difference.

[quote name='Spoombung' post='991144' date='Oct 17 2010, 02:39 PM']Anyone know the best place fro pickups?[/quote] Bass direct carry Nordstrands. [url="http://www.bassdirect.co.uk/"]http://www.bassdirect.co.uk/[/url] After hearing on here that you can buy Fender 75 vintage jazz pickups separately, I went into a Fender dealership here in Edinburgh (Scayles) and they rang Fender UK on my behalf - I was then told that my best bet both price- and speed- wise would be to just order direct from a shop in the States rather than wait for them to get them shipped out! I ended up ordering on ebay from Homeless Dog Custom Guitars.

It's definitely worth taking someone knowledgeable with you. They'll be able to tell you, for example, if a guitar has been well set-up. I say this because from what I remember the Yamaha and Squier P neck and fret profiles are pretty close, so if the Yamaha didn't play well it may be because of this (I've never found one that couldn't be set up to play very easily with a trussrod tweak and a play around with the action at the bridge). Someone experienced would also be able to tell the difference between something that sounds better because of superior pickups/wood rather than, simply, the fact that it had newer strings on than anything else. For maximum versatility of tone, 2 pickups are very useful, however, the P bass itself with just the one pickup has been used in pretty much every style of music that uses bass! So if you liked the sound and feel of the Affinity P, then go for it. I know I've said before, but don't be scared of looking secondhand to make the most of your budget. Good luck!

[quote name='warwickhunt' post='988303' date='Oct 14 2010, 07:09 PM']2 have sold on eBay recently for £255 (used) and £360 (new) but I'd realistically have expected to get about 50% of the price you paid new; which would be about £210[/quote] I sold one one here for about £150 I think, but mine was pretty battered. And it got snapped up straight away, so I probably could have got a bit more if I'd been prepared to wait. I'd say for a mint one warwickhunt's bang on the money, so to speak.

+ 1 to the above. Something like a QSC rmx2450 will do the job very nicely and you shold be able to pick one up for under £350. Beware cheaper amps as they can't sustain the output for anything more than a short transient, so often aren't suitable for bass-heavy applications. EDIT: actually, looking around they are a bit more than that typically, but I got one for about £150 that was faulty and they're fairly trivial to repair for a competent amp tech unless the board has actually caught fire!

There is a shop in Edinburgh selling that Vintage line. I didn't try them, but the guitars looked very well put together, QC looked good close-up. I'm intrigued.

[quote name='51m0n' post='987023' date='Oct 13 2010, 03:13 PM']If you D.I a bass with as short a signal path to the recorder and apply no eq then you have a really good representation of what that bass sounds like. Clealry you need to note the strings used, piuckup selection, preamp settings and the playing style as well. And yes it wont sound exactly like you playing the part, but it will be a good indication of the timbre of the instrument.[/quote] +1. If you're experienced enough to know the limitations of what you're listening to, then the clips can be very useful to give you an idea of the ball-park sort of sound. In a similar vein I remember hearing a clip from a company that made a bass with a bridge pup that was switchable between 60s and 70s jazz position and it was the first time I truly appreciated the specific effect that shifting it over 1/4 of an inch had on the sound without being confounded by other variables. To get the same appreciation I'd have had to play a fair number of basses with both positions.

[quote name='neepheid' post='985499' date='Oct 12 2010, 11:00 AM']The following utterances are opinions, not facts.[/quote] Whereas the following utterances are facts, not opinions. The look of rosewood plus blocks/binding is the sex. But maple just sounds funk-eh and that's that.

[quote name='Bassassin' post='985432' date='Oct 12 2010, 10:09 AM']I think the break-angle over the nut will be what makes a difference to tension rather than the length of string behind the nut. Fender types often suffer from a shallow angle on the E & A because of the headstock design, I think a second string tree for these two strings would help. Also make sure when you string up that the windings go from top to bottom of the post, so the string comes out at the lowest point. This should help make the angle sharper & improve tension.[/quote] This sounds more like it actually. You could also just make sure the strings are wound so that they come off the tuner nice and low down and are held there by higher winds.

Best build diary ever

[quote name='EssentialTension' post='984804' date='Oct 11 2010, 07:53 PM']First reply thought it was about pickup height, which it wasn't. Second reply took three paragraphs to say 'try before you buy' and then seemed to think the problem was OK because Jamerson's bass was a wreck. Third reply got the point of what was being said but maintained it was merely cosmetic otherwise Lakland wouldn't allow it. Fourth reply said +1. Fifth was me.[/quote] It's a very American board

Actually that left-handed neck thing might well work! BIt of an expensive experiment though. I definitely noticed the change in compliance on the E string when switching to a jazz from an Ibby (using the same strings and scale). But I quite liked it. If you're not using through-stringing, then that might be worth trying if the bass is drilled for it. Whether these things make a difference or not probably depends on the friction between the string and the nut/bridge.

[quote name='charic' post='984028' date='Oct 11 2010, 06:24 AM']That's fair enough. There's not really a LOT to go wrong though. Short of breaking it yourself which wouldn't be covered.[/quote] Yeah, what charic said - a bass isn't really very high tech! I think all my basses have been secondhand and I kind of prefer it. The wood on an older bass is likely more stable than on a new one. In answer to your question, pickup type and importantly position, body wood, neck wood/construction all seem to impact on different aspects of the tone. But, with their twin pickups and sensible body woods something like the BB414 or a jazz would be versatile enough to cover any style, really, apart from sounding like a double bass - having said that, flatwounds, solo neck pickup, bit of foam at the bridge and it'll do the same sort of tonal job.

If you're mainly after the 70s spacing then you could probably get a US75RI or a MIM 70s for a lot cheaper (try US ebay there's normally one or two), though obviously that wouldn't have the relicing. But otherwise going by the ebay prices on those things, you really are better off buying a whole one and then selling the parts separately! Though that would be a shame.