Delberthot

Was it the 7250L or 7250M? I haven't tried the 7250L but the 7250M are D'addario EXL165 with different coloured ball ends. There may be another subtle difference but they feel the same to me. I've never found them to be overly high tension.

It's at the top right hand side next to the font colour change option

Unless you have a double neck in which case it's exactly the same instrument

I got it just to try using a compressor, if I'd liked what it did then I was planning on buying a more expensive one but it gives me exactly what I need. Everyone has a favourite external preamp but I am finding that the Radial Tonebone that I am using is the most incredible piece of tone shaping that I have ever used. It's almost impossible to get a bad sound from it. I love the sound of a Jazz bass with both volumes up and the tone at about 60% but this meant losing some of the mids - the Tonebone gave me back my mids to enable me to cut through yet still retain the sound that I love. The compressor also adds an extra layer of something, a kind of brightness that I can't explain but isn't a harsh top end

I've told the story many times about how my EBMM Sterling sounded more like the Stingray sound I heard in records than any Stingray I had owned, well: About 10 years ago I was fortunate enough to have a Warwick NT5 Thumb and a silver sparkle Modulus Flea bass at the same time. Try as I might I just could not get a sound I liked with the Modulus yet the Thumb sounded exactly like Flea's Modulus in the Off the Map DVD. More recently I have been struggling to get a proper P bass sound with my Player Precision and almost ended up selling it. I bought a cheap Behringer compressor sustainer and it has completely transformed the sound to the familiar, almost slightly overdriven sound that I know and love from all of those old Queen albums. This cheap, plastic £17 pedal is absolutely incredible and have it switched on all of the time with both my Jazz and Precision. I would say to persevere with what you have. I've had many Precisions and Jazzes over the years and never bonded with them but I am now at the point where I have no interest in getting anything else. I generally use the Precision for the first set and the Jazz for the second as I love playing both basses.

After 33 years and 140+ basses I have discovered that my perfect bass: is made of wood/acrylic/balsa/potatoes/ferrero rocher has 4, 5, 6, 8, or 12 strings is active or passive is shiny matches my stage clothes sounds like a bass

Guy Pratt used one on a couple of tracks when touring with Pink Floyd in the Delicate Sound of Thunder era

I might be going against the grain as I don't have the patience to sit for hours working out patches for multi effects only to find that they sound garbage in a live setting. I'm finding the combination of my Radial Tonebone with Behringer CS400 is giving me the best sound I've had in a long time into my QSC K12.2 For overdrive I am using a cheap Mesa Boogie distortion copy by a company called Twin Note that cost me about £15 on Ebay and a Behringer Ultra Chorus just for the hell of it All of the controls are right in front of me and I can change them quickly should the need arise After a month my guitarist is still at the stage where he's still not 100% happy with his Helix

I've got the bass version for my Jazz bass and they are great bags. Plenty of padding and comfortable when worn like a backpack - just need to remember to duck when going through doors or I too would have a headless bass. I have the older black version for my other two basses

Just do it 😀 Life's too short to think "what if", give it a whirl and see how you get on. Until relatively recently I was of the mindset that if I bought a new bass that made the old one redundant and I'd have to sell it. Now I take two basses to a gig and play whatever one I fancy playing on the night. Plus I still get my Harley Benton out on occasion.

D'addarios are the only strings that I ever use after trying everything else. When I first switched from flats to rounds I wanted the smoothest string I could get so after careful research, D'addario EXL165s became the string of choice for me. Absolutely love them and could easily get 8 or 9 wedding length gigs out of them before they started to get dull. Afterwards I switched to EPS330 stainless steel roundwounds as I wanted something brighter and even then they were still pretty smooth under the fingers and never caused any issues. Now that I am back to using passive Fenders, I'm back to Chromes again as they suit what I am looking for in a string again. As an ad-on, after a lot of research and trying them for myself, Fender 7250Ms are for all intents and purposes D'addario EXL165s with slightly different coloured ball ends for £13ish compared to £18ish for the D'addarios

I have carpal tunnel and I have had to really consciously relax my fretting hand, well in fact both of them. I fitted Chrome covers to both Precision and Jazz so that I could just focus on one area and not drift so that I can get proper used to playing in the one position for extended periods. One thing I also do is if I have the opportunity to play open strings for even a couple of seconds then I remove my left hand from the fretboard to relax it further I fitted flats to both basses because I like them but also because with less friction on the string then it means that especially my right hand is doing less work I also wear wrist splints in bed from time to time depending on how sore it gets The lower the action you can get, the less pressure you need to put on your left hand

We have Shakey, Slade and a Christmas singalong ready for this time year but every year without fail the one that always goes down every night is Mariah. We tried the Pogues but quickly realised that it's about a minute of the cheery bit and 4 minutes of depressing dirge Sadly we're no longer allowed to play my favourite Chrismas song by Gary Glitter I played Slade wrong for about 20 years then actually sat down and learned the bass line and it's not even close to what you'd expect it to be for the verse

I've found that ideal on my Precision but not on the Jazz. I have had to raise the G & E strings so that they are level with the pickups otherwise those strings were a lot louder than the other 2. The Precision pickup can be adjusted to suit the radius but not the Jazz and I didn't want to go down the road of raised A&D poles or fully adjustable poles as I really like the sound of the stock pickups

I used the videos on the Elixir website to get a rough starting point and then took it from there. Personally I think that it's important to measure your relief using a capo, feeler gauges and a straight edge to get actual measurements as once you know what you like it's a lot easier to set up your next bass than using your eye and doing it roughly. Most of us are guilty of GAS and don't want to spend too long setting up each bass as they come through the proverbial revolving door of gear. This is something that I have only recently begun doing (this year) after 32 years of playing and setting things up roughly. I wish that I'd learned to do this years ago.

I choose basses by how shiny they are, I always have done. I regularly switch between my Precision and my Jazz. Both have 4 strings, both have d-tuners, both are passive, both have exactly the same gauge of Chromes and both are set up exactly the same in terms of neck relief, action etc but they both sound, feel and play completely different to each other. I play whatever I fancy at the time and have over the years switched between 4, 5 (low B & High C), 6, 8 & 12. fretted, fretless, acoustic and semi-acoustic. It depends on what you want to achieve and if you can do it with what you have. I don't need a low B so I don't have one

Another Jazz with chrome covers, this time a 2019 American Professional with daddario flats and d-tuner. Taken just now at tonight's venue in Aberdeen

Hello Jeff by Stanley Clarke is one that comes to mind. The intro is really good and then when it settles into the main verse or whatever it would be called in an instrumental song it becomes really disappointing, then picks up at the end. I also agree with Layla - great start, I even like most of the actual song but then it becomes painful to listen to, but then again :

This seems to be turning into another one of these "songs I don't like" threads

I've just returned to using flats again after a few years with rounds. At the moment I only have them on my Precision but have a set ready to go onto my Jazz as well. I use Chromes and always make my own custom set which are 45, 60, 80, 110 as I like a slightly heavier E so that I can drop it to D. After 5 or 6 gigs I have come to the conclusion that my Precision sounds garbage on it's own and not even close to how I would normally have it but in the mix it is absolutely perfect. The pops in We Are Family come alive with these strings and the tone is even all over the fretboard.

This is a pic I took on stage on Saturday night. 2019 Player series with chrome covers, tug bar, D'Addario Chromes and US Hipshot Ultralites with xtender on the E string.

Interesting that Fender have used the tuner mounted string retainer on the A string for the Ultra series but not the American Professional range despite having the same tuners. Wonder if it actually does anything or something else that they added to give it every bell and whistle to make it Ultra in every sense?

I've been using my QSC K12.2 and Radial Tonebone pedal for nearly a year now and still loving it. I have mine on a pa stand now and it sits behind our PA so doesn't look unsightly from the front. It means that I can adjust the volume to suit the gig and leave the preamp as is. I've also managed to get my guitarist in to this as well and he's gone from a big, heavy Blackstar combo to a Helix and Headrush

I always thought that the Starcaster range was the bottom of the bottom of the range, below the Affinity range for Littlewoods catalogue and Argos etc