Jerry_B

I have a fretless Jazz, which is my main working bass. I'd also like a fretless acoustic bass, at some point!

+1 for the Yammy. Well-made and with a great sound - should keep him happy for years!

Nice! Eric, can you explain the bit where it says [i]As Chip Todd advocates cutting the red wire, to let the pick-ups show their true light as a Humbucker, I shall include this feature[/i]? How does that work?

Argh! Shame I can't afford one (the cheapest I've seen is 600 quid). Would be very interesting to put the unlined fretless neck from my Jazz on it

Sounds like the backing track is filling out the tone a bit.

[url="http://basschat.co.uk/index.php?showtopic=144627"]http://basschat.co.uk/index.php?showtopic=144627[/url]

[quote name='analogrowl' post='1319577' date='Jul 28 2011, 06:01 PM']Yeah, love big black too . Never saw and tried a Peavey bass. Most gear distributed here are combo, or cab but not many bass. I had an entry combo Peavey and wasn't that bad but i'm curious about their bass now. Would it works nice in BEAD tuning ?[/quote] They occasionally go on sale here. I think there may be a black one in the 'For Sale' section at the moment, in fact. They should be fine with BEAD.

[quote name='Adrenochrome' post='1319405' date='Jul 28 2011, 03:20 PM']I see you mentioned Steve Albini - I'm a fan of Big Black myself.[/quote] Same here. If an agressive sound is what's needed - maybe along the lines of Big Black - then a Peavey T-40 would be the way to go

My favourite Jazz player must be Klaus Flouride, from the Dead Kennedys. His tone [i]always[/i] cut through, whether recorded or live: That or the bass player from Decima Victima (whose name escapes me right now): I mention this as IIRC such ideas cropped up in another thread about whether jazzes were 'punk' enough in terms of presence, compared to Pbasses.

Westone Spectrum DX. I have one of these. Sounds amazing, brilliant neck, amazing chunky pickup, looks good - but a silly little design flaw means it has neck dive. After playing one for 20+ years it royally screwed with my left shoulder Such a shame, as all in all it's just a brilliant bass.

+1 to what Eric says. These are great basses - always have been and always will be.

Every bass I have is played slightly lower than my hip. This has alway sbeen the case, and it applies to fretted or fretless basses. Anything higher than that makes it feel as if the bass is stuck under my armpit or digging into my ribs

I'm thinking of bunging a Mighty Mite unlined neck onto a LTD Vintage-204 I have. That said, doing all of the drilling doesn't fill me with hope

I think you'll only find out by experimentation. There was a recent thread about such things. You can get a nice variety of tones out of a jazz, and EQing will also help alot. I also think that pickups come into it quite alot too, but that may just be my own take on things. Normally I think Jazzes are a bit too subtle compared to a Precsion, but that doesn't mean you can't tweak them in one way or another to give them just as much presence. You just won't get exactly the same sort of tonal quality as a Precision. The P/J route may also be one to try - it's one I find myself favouring nowadays, as it give you an element of the best of both worlds.

After alot of trying and testing (not a cheap experiment!), I've found that lower guage LaBellas do the job for me. They don't go dead as quickly as alot of others (Status, for example) too.

414s are brilliant basses, both in terms of tone and build quality. My own criticsm of them is that you have no option to adjust the blend between the neck and bridge pups. The selector switch is nice, but IMHO it'd be nicer to to be able dial in seperate amounts of volume.

I have to be honest and say that this is my idea of bass hell

Squier do have a version with a black headstock... Aside from that, I don't usually like gold trimmings but I must admit it does look rather tasty with the black

Bought a daisy chain effects power supply from Mel. Ordered it Tuesday, got it yesterday - nice!

[quote name='Prime_BASS' post='1310275' date='Jul 20 2011, 01:35 PM']Also being a pick player wouldnt make much difference, I'm fingers and I generally have a "louder" attack than most pick players. Unless they absolutely thrash the strings.[/quote] IMHO, even if you don't thrash the strings, you're still possibly going to have them hit the pup. Higher tension strings may stop this, but it's not guaranteed.

[quote name='Prime_BASS' post='1309909' date='Jul 20 2011, 07:01 AM']Make sure the pickup height are optimal for your playing. Generally the space between the bottom of the string to the magnets should be around 2-3 mm with the lower strings being further away.[/quote] But as the OP is a pick player, strings that close may wack the pickups and make a noise when they do so. I tend to roll back one of the volume controls slightly, depending on what I'm playing, and also roll off a bit of the tone. The pups in my Jazz sounded a bit thin, so I chucked in some Wizard Hammers and that made alot of difference!

[url="http://www.guitar-parts-and-spares-uk.com/contents/en-uk/d552_saga_build_your_own_guitar_kit.html"]More of them...[/url]

IMHO Status and D'Addarios tend to to go dead pretty quickly - especially the E string (the Status ones were all round awful). Because of this, I now use LaBella 'Deep Talkin' Bass' 760FX strings (.039-.096). They've got great sustain, and stand up well to plectrum use.

I saw them in the '80s - '83, I think. They were pretty good, but I always preferred them on vinyl than live, compared to the variety of other metal gigs I went to in the '80s