discreet

[quote name='Painy' timestamp='1427713310' post='2733251'] Well thank you VERY much!!! I already have GAS for a Squier VM P5, an SVT210HE cab, an SVT610HLF cab and a 300W all valve head of some sort. The last thing I needed was to add one of these to the list! 1st class review by the way [/quote] No, thank YOU! You could probably replace the Squier VM P5 with a Sire MM V7 5-er... it would cover a lot more ground sonically, imho. Edit: And from what I can tell from TB, the necks on the fivers are fairly wide... not 100% sure of the string spacing, though.

[quote name='alittlebitrobot' timestamp='1427712313' post='2733235'] but it's raining... [/quote] Hmm, that's a problem. You could drive to the building or use public transport, but there will still be a point at which you'd be exposed to the elephants. What about some kind of portable, waterproof shelter? It could even be collapsible to make it easy to carry when it's not raining and for easy storage at home, possibly in a cylindrical container in the hallway. Or how about some kind of waterproof outer covering for the body? You could even have a separate head covering and some sort of impermeable footwear.

[quote name='alittlebitrobot' timestamp='1427711551' post='2733220'] In the future, when you're online bass-shopping you'll be wearing a robotic glove that'll force your hand to the neck profile of the guitar. [/quote] We need to be able to check out potential purchases in the real world. I propose some kind of building where various different basses are stored, then people could actually leave their homes, travel to the building between designated times during the day and evaluate the products, perhaps using amps [i]in situ[/i]. If a particular bass turned out to be ideal, there could be some way of actually paying for it there and then at the location so you could take the bass home with you. Bit of a pipe dream, I know. Probably never happen.

Having had my new D'Addario EXL 170BT rounds fitted for a few days now, I can report that the bass is staying 100% in tune and the intonation has remained spot-on. So not too much wrong with the tuners and bridge, then... This is not a typical 'budget' bass that you would buy cheap, then spend extra on upgrades. You could take it straight out of the box, tune it up and gig or record with it immediately, no problem. Which makes it truly exceptional value for money. There's no 'if only...' about it.

Quite some love for the new Rumble 500 on here, but I haven't tried one myself.

USA Fender Precision, 1976 - Olympic White, one-piece maple neck, black 3-ply guard... sold here nearly four years ago. Hopefully coming home in a week or two!

Wow, thanks for all the kind comments, guys! [quote name='UglyDog' timestamp='1427629727' post='2732411'] ...Hipshot Ultralite tuners? Anything less would be an insult I think! [/quote] With regard to replacing the tuners - Hipshots would obviously be superior in use, but I'd really only be doing it for the look of the thing and then only when I had spare cash sloshing about - which is never. I must make it clear that the stock tuners are perfectly functional. Ultralites would be great, but I'm sure Hipshot do a direct replacement - I haven't done the research in case I get tempted. Same with the bridge. There's nothing at all wrong with the stock bridge, but something like a Hipshot 'A' Style would lift the appearance of this bass to another level. But again it would be hard to justify that kind of investment purely for cosmetic reasons. After all, none of us buy things just because we like the look of them, do we??

[quote name='blue' timestamp='1427590237' post='2732162'] Question any offer to play anywhere that's not accompanied by an offer of money. [/quote] Would generally agree, but there are situations where it's worth taking the hit, IF there's a [i]very [/i]good reason. [quote name='blue' timestamp='1427608089' post='2732203'] Maybe all young bands have to go through this as a part of the learning curve for this business. [/quote] Mandatory! There is no indication of the OP's age, but I'd say if under 25 then go for it, you are paying your dues. But if the OP is anywhere near the average age of members of this forum (147) then it will be a nightmare. You'll forget your meds, you'll get backache, you'll be grumpy because your stage trousers don't fit properly, you can't use any toilet but the one at home...

NBD - Sire Marcus Miller V7 Alder-4 AWH Body: North American alder, vintage white, 3-ply tortoiseshell guard, cat's-eye jack socket. Neck: 4-bolt 1-piece hard maple, rosewood board with binding and pearloid block inlays, natural bone nut. Neck Spec: C-Shape, 34" scale, 7.25" radius, 38mm nut, 20 medium/small frets, truss rod adjustment at heel. Pickups: Marcus Super Jazz Alnico 5, USA heavy Formvar wire, 60s spacing. Tone Circuit: 18V Heritage-3. Vol/tone stack, blend, treble, mid sweep/freq stack, bass, active/passive switch. Bridge: Marcus Big-Mass 1, through bridge/through body, string spacing 20mm Weight: 9.5lb. Price Paid: £268.00 from Thomann UK. *Audio File: JB Groove* Short clip of the bass played with a drum track. Recorded with all tone circuit controls set flat through an Edirol UA5 Audio Interface (24-bit/96kHz) into FL Studio 11. No FX or processing on the bass apart from light compression. It's only about a minute long, but hopefully you'll get some idea of the sound. Now read on... This is ostensibly a low-cost bass which has been deliberately inserted into the market at a point of fierce competition - mostly from Fender/Squier and their derivatives, copyists and detractors. However, the only thing 'budget' about the V7 is the price. I was expecting a high level of fit and finish out of the box - this already being the received wisdom on the subject - but I was still very surprised at just how high a level. It's a lovely-looking thing and close inspection revealed not one dink, ding or imperfection. Attention was obviously paid to the bass before it left the factory - the action has been set low and with no fret buzz. The intonation was very close to correct. It was even very nearly in tune... It ships with D'Addario XL rounds as stock, which are certainly more than good enough to be going on with, but this example is fitted with my current favourite rounds, D'Addario EXL 170BT Balanced Tension 45-60-80-107. Plug in, turn on. First impressions: Great neck! And the 18V Heritage-3 tone circuit is excellent. Powerful, very versatile and with a sweepable mid that gives you cut and boost between 200Hz and 1kHz. The bass boost/cut is well hefty and you have to be careful with it as it's a real floor-shaker and window-rattler. Treble offers presence and air without being harsh or strident. The only other circuit I've used with this sort of power on tap is Spector's TonePump. But that is a 2-band and this is a 3, and is much more intuitive in operation. Like the TonePump, very small adjustments to the controls can make huge and profound differences to your output. There is also a master volume/tone stack and a pickup blend control which still operate when the bass is in passive mode. The Treble, Mid Controls and Bass kick in when the switch is set to Active mode. There is an internal trim adjuster should you want to match passive and active output levels. All controls are smooth and positive in operation. The neck is superb *cough* Lakland! *cough*. It's a slightly chunkier handful than a standard Jazz (closer to my Spector Euro), though still Jazz-narrow at the nut, with pearloid blocks and lush, creamy binding with black side-markers, all finished to a very high standard. It is lovely and straight and is a joy to play. The inlays are finished better than those on my Euro. The frets are not 'vintage'-thin, but narrower than the usual 'jumbo' type. There is no evidence of sharp or poorly-finished fret-ends. The nut is genuine bone. In short, it comes over like a neck from a bass that cost at least three times the price of this one, and then some. Weirdly, the bass does indeed have something of Marcus about it. I found it harder than usual to pacify the toppy, trebly tone that a Jazz with rounds can sometimes have and I'm left wondering if Marcus had more to do with the spec of the circuit and pickup choice than your average 'sig name' generally does, i.e. not much. I don't think Marcus' contribution was limited to merely signing the neck plates, which does validate his claimed contribution somewhat and makes him a good guy in my book. But no worries - I'm not fanatical about MM's sound or music and given the versatility of the circuit you can get pretty much any tone you want, which in my case is fairly hefty. But there is still an underlying muscular 'twang' in the mix, which I like a lot. Maybe I'm noticing this more because I've been playing flats for the last few months? The tone is tight, punchy, growly and harmonically rich with sustain until next Tuesday. If you like sustain, that is. The pickups are strong and are high output. The spec states Alnico 5 magnets and USA heavy Formvar wire and they are fitted per 1960s Jazz spacing. You won't need to upgrade these pups - you'd be unlikely to hear much improvement without spending a significant percentage of the purchase price of the bass, and probably not even then. It's a big, open tone that can ring like a piano and it sounds good in passive mode too, a bonus for those who want a slightly more Old Skool option... there is a mini active/passive switch, a bit of insurance for those who fear battery failure on stage... though in practice this is unlikely. So are there any negatives? In my opinion the bass is let down just a little by the tuners, which seem a bit 'MIM'. But they look the part (from the front), work well enough and hold tune perfectly adequately. Also the bridge doesn't really fulfill its promise - it has very nice wide, flat saddles, but the rest of it is just standard bent-steel stuff. Not that there's anything wrong with it functionally, it works well and has a through-body option. There is a gap between the flanges of the control knobs and the bell plate, which seems contrary to the careful thought and planning evident elsewhere... and as the pickups are single-coil, any blend other than close to 50-50 will generate some buzz if you're anywhere near your amp. I didn't find this particularly irritating - it's the nature of single coils, after all. If you've ever played a Jazz with singles you'll already know if this is going to be a problem for you or not. The stacked volume/tone and mid controls are a bit tall and I wonder how many will be bent or otherwise damaged out in the real world. They could have been lower-profile, in my opinion. But then there isn't a lot of room on the bell plate for all those controls... perhaps a Marcus-style auxiliary guard/control plate would have been a possible solution, but this would have increased production costs. Chrome knobs are now available but any improvement remains to be seen. The access slot for the heel-end truss rod adjuster is painted but not finished, so seems a bit rough. A non-issue for me, as is the headstock shape and the wisdom of having it bear the legend 'Marcus Miller'. I don't much care for it, but it took me as long as it takes to get the bass out of its box and play it for five minutes to genuinely not be in the least bothered about it. One final point... The bass is quite long - it only just fits in a Hiscox Liteflite and pushes the boundaries of my Ritter gigbag... but please do note that not one of the above criticisms makes the slightest difference to the sound or playability of this bass, and any perceived issues can be easily remedied if they bother you that much. Everything that's truly important is good. A chrome neck pickup cover is also supplied... there have been niggles about the fact that it hampers the strings when fitted, even with a low action. Another non-issue... if you carefully bend the thing into a gentle arch so that both screw-holes are flat to the pickguard, there is plenty of clearance. Presumably there's a reason why it arrived in a flattened-out state... I have no clue. There are no screw holes for it anyway and I won't be drilling any. Ashtrays look good but are impractical, in my opinion. So, in conclusion... this bass is a game-changer and if Fender/Squier et al don't sit up and take notice then they'll be making a big mistake. Even if you're not a dyed-in-the-wool Jazz bass fan, you can now afford to keep a quality Jazz in your armoury. If you are a Jazz Bass fan then there is nothing left to do but choose your flavour and order one. In my opinion there is, at the heart of this bass, a Jazz that could well be as good as anything currently available at three or four times the price, and perhaps even at any price.

[quote name='Number6' timestamp='1427572745' post='2731928'] Lewisham on the DLR to Bank and then onto the Northern Line.....be there in a jiffy [/quote] Errm... I don't do public transport, especially not with gear!

[quote name='KK Jale' timestamp='1427556198' post='2731721'] Personally I wouldn't be keen to travel from south of the river let alone Scotland... [/quote] +1. I wouldn't schlep all the way from Lewisham to Chalk Farm for a pub gig! A frustrating time guaranteed for all! Sorry for the negativity, but you have to stop this from happening!

[quote name='ras52' timestamp='1427569249' post='2731874'] What size cab do you use it with? And do you lose any low end by not being in contact with the floor? [/quote] A Schroeder 21012L. [color=#282828][font=helvetica, arial, sans-serif]49lb (22kg), [/font][/color][color=#282828][font=helvetica, arial, sans-serif]23.5 X 23.5 X 16" (60 X 60 X 40 cm).[/font][/color] No low end lost - it's on castors when not on the stand. It supplies shedfuls of low end anyway. That Folded Standback looks like an accident waiting to happen. I think it's more for g**t*r amps.

[quote name='Cosmo Valdemar' timestamp='1427547112' post='2731612'] I recognise the pictures but can't put names to most of them... Same as real life really. I'm on there though, which warmed my soul. [/quote] Who are you again?

Result! And nothing went wrong. Much.

[quote name='Happy Jack' timestamp='1427551075' post='2731655'] Am I being precious...? [/quote] No. I don't like narrow spacing either, or short-scale basses, or heavy basses. I don't even like basses that aren't white.

8.615 million as of February 2015... how many of the extra .615 million are musicians, I couldn't tell you. Edit: This number is equal to the highest ever population figure for London - in 1939, just before WWII.

[quote name='Happy Jack' timestamp='1427390462' post='2729841'] If they can get John Entwistle I'll be there like a flash... [/quote] I'm only interested if Keith Moon can make it as well.

Hey Humph, welcome to the forum.

It'll be perfectly fine!! Unless something goes horribly wrong, of course. Which it won't!! Actually I had a 2013 VM Jazz V for a while and it was really good. If that's any help!

[quote name='JapanAxe' timestamp='1427404002' post='2730089'] ...when you said 'Thanks!', did you mean 'Thanks a bunch for stoking my GAS', or 'Thanks for sharing that amazing event' - or something else? [/quote] All three, I suppose...

[quote name='JapanAxe' timestamp='1427398751' post='2729990'] I took a trip to Bassgear specifically because I noticed they had a Mesa Prodigy in stock... but in the flesh with my '73 P plugged in, I struggled to get a sound I liked. It was a bit better once I found the sweet spot on the gain control, but in brief the Prodigy was unremittingly aggressive, and made my (usually well behaved) E string uncontrollably boomy. I hadn't considered the Demeter. Boy did I get a surprise when I plugged in! Difficult as it is to describe sound, this amp lets you hear your bass's voice. I should mention I put the Demeter through my BF Compact, and also compared it with my go-to Streamliner. I love the round warmth of the Streamliner but the the Demeter outdoes it for clarity whilst not lacking warmth. I pick up the Demeter next week... [/quote] Well I wasn't expecting that! Thanks!