ThomBassmonkey

There's so many factors it's hard to pick a "best". Combo advantages: quicker to set up, only one thing, generally cheaper. Stack (half or full) advantages: more choce, if you don't have lots of room in transport there's a chance you can borrow a cab at the venue and use your head and still sound like you, if something breaks down then you still have gear you can use and not have to borrow/rent/buy a whole new rig, it's much easier to add/take away a cab as needed, if you want to upgrade later, you can do one piece at a time and spread the costs. I'd go for separates any day, the only real bother is plugging in the leads from your head to your cab(s) and that's a minor problem for the convenience they give. On the combos you're looking at specifically I'm not an Ashdown fan anyway but I'd go for a 410 over a 115 for a lone cab if possible. For a decent combo on a budget I'd be looking at Hartke, just my opinion though.

If you want a monstrous rig without the hassle I'd look at 2x12 cabs. I use a GK MB fusion head and two neo212 cabs for most of my gigs and it never struggles and we play some decent sized venues. I can carry my full stack and 2 basses in two trips too (I could technically do it in one, but carrying a cab in each hand with two basses on my back is far from convenient) which is handy.

[quote name='51m0n' post='1318695' date='Jul 27 2011, 09:06 PM']You have a point, but if you provide too little gain then you are hamstringing the poweramp section, it can only amplify what you give it. If you are talking valve amps then by the time you are soft clipping (overdrive) then you are already past that point anyway.[/quote] It's just another setting on the amp. If you have too little bass it'll sound thin, if you have too little treble/mids it might sound muddy, if you have too little gain it can sound weak. They're all settings that should be set to taste. If you're in a studio, playing as hard as the dynamics of the recording will go then setting the gain by that is totally the right way to go, but that's with (ideally) mostly transparent pre-amps, if the gain is going to change the tonality (which it does on an amp) then you should set it to what sounds good, not what you can get away with without clipping.

I was going to suggest a Sandberg but I was beaten to it. It's not uncommon for them to sell under £650 when they come up, it's a bit over your budget but they're brilliant basses. You can probably get a USA Fender Jazz too for around that money (I'd go with the Sandberg but the Fender is another option). Most Warwick necks will be very different to Jazz necks, the G&l ones seem to vary a lot from what I've heard so it's worth trying them out.

I don't understand why people think that gain needs to be set just below clipping point on a bass amp, especially with valve amps you use input gain to control the drive and grit. In a studio (on studio preamps, not counting instrument amps) you set the gain as high as possible to reduce the noise floor but live, so long as your amp isn't fuzzing loudly it's fine.

I think there's already enough out there, as has been said people are still using a 60 year old design. I'd like to see pickups designed that emulate other pickups, J shapes that sound like Ps, for example. They'd be popular amongst people that want a change without routing their basses, I don't think I'd have a use for them personally though.

I know what you mean, on my Sandberg it's always felt most natural for my thumb to be right between the pickups which is frustrating. I also loathe fret buzz but it sounds right on my ray for some reason (once it's in the mix, it still bugs me when it's solo'd). Great instrument, I'm loving mine. I still enjoy playing other basses though and for the first time, I have no bass gas.

I'm looking at floor tuners at the moment and have narrowed my choices down to: The polytune. Polytune mode doesn't bother me, I don't often need to quick tune and it's reduced accuracy in that mode. It's fairly cheap though, would be great for our guitarist who can't stay in tune past the intro for most songs, it'd do the trick for me easily. Strobostomp 2: more accurate, easily availabe over here, very expensive, supposedly the screen is very readable in sunlight and it has a built in DI. Turbo tuner: very fast tracking, slighty more accurate then the strobostomp, cheaper than the strobostomp, hard to get hold of over here though. Doesn't let you tune without muting the signal which is potentially annoying but great for the battery!! I'm leaning towards the turbo if I can find one, otherwise I'll probably go for the strobostomp, both are sensitive enough for setups, the DI would be nice as a backup plan on the Peterson but it's pricey for what's actually an inferior tuner to the turbo tuner. All are supposedly true bypass for me which IMO is essential. It makes NO sense to have your tone sucked by a tuner.

If I was in a band with a guy using a Mesa with extension cab at a small venue, I'd be considering which was more important, the band or my hearing. The guitarist in my band uses a 1x12 50w Mesa combo and it rarely goes above 3. The thing to remember about valve guitar amps is the distortion sounds better when they're cranked, buying an extension cab then having to turn down is actually bad for your tone. If you're using a 4x10 and 1x15 and you can't hear yourself, something is seriously wrong.

G&Ls, Warwick Corvettes (though rare) and Musicman Subs would be my picks.

I'd go for the barefaced. I've not used them but given the two options I'd go for a half stack over a combo every time.

I've never understood when people can't hear that they're playing badly. I cringe every time I hit a bum note, even on stage, my mind boggles at how someone might not even realise. Sounds like you made the right choice, it was never going to make it anywhere and if the other two bands are bringing money and fun, they're worth sticking with.

A friend played guitar and I couldn't afford a drum kit. Since then I've had various guitar, drums and other stuff but bass is the one thing that I've really stuck with,

For those that have changed pickups, anyone done it on a SR5? i've been looking at the Delano MM pups, I loved the delanos in my Sandberg J and the copies in my HH5 are brilliant too. I don't know how simple a job it'd be though with the 3 way.

[quote name='Evil Undead' post='1306122' date='Jul 16 2011, 07:51 PM'] Yikes. Ok, bottom line... is this not going to be big enough for small gigs without an extension cab, even if I DI it into the PA (as well as using the inbuilt speaker)?[/quote] Without knowing your drummer, it's impossible to say. The drummer in my band is a hard hitter and I don't think I'd get away with 1 12" speaker, I prefer to take my full stack even just for practices to make sure that I have a good sound and better height on the speakers instead of cranking the amp. If you have a quiet drummer, it might be alright though, especially with PA support. Good luck and god speed.

210s give a rounder sound for me, 15s do low end well but they don't have the definition IME.

With 19 to 32 votes, the consensus of the forum was... drum roll please.... CORRECT!! The votes were already swinging the right way before I put up the second clip. IMO that shows that whatever some people are saying, it's still a recognisable tone even with the "wrong" settings and pickup material when compared to another H equipped bass when I made no other attempt to make them sound similar. I think If I'd put up the second clips first and done a better job of EQing, it would've been very hard to differentiate. Both basses have the same tonal qualities and I bet if shown one of the recordings without the other for the comparison the Sandberg would easily pass for a Stingray, especially once they've been through an amp or modelling. IMO nothing else will sound like a Stingray because nothing else is a Stingray. But as soon as it's in a mix, I'd seriously doubt even the most experienced experts would get it right every time. It's alright talking about different pickups etc but the two basses used are very very different, the pickup type (in that they're humbuckers, pickup model and placement is different iirc) and a maple neck (not fretboard) are probably the only tonally significant things they have in common so the fact it gets so close speaks for it's self IMO. I do feel that all the talk about pickup materials is people preparing an excuse for if they're wrong. Sorry if that's not the case but the subject of "does xxx sound like a Stingray" is a fairly common one and I don't think i've EVER seen it questioned what Stingray they're asking about and if they really do sound so massively different it'd be an important fact to find out before being able to reply helpfully.

I'm about to go off to play a fezzie, I'll post the results in the early hours of tomorrow morning. I don't know whether people will be surprised or not, but I definitely could've done the test better, but I still think it's been a telling excersise, as much socially as on the actual subject. It's surprising how the usual stance of "a stingray's a one trick pony but nothing else sounds like it" suddenly has a page of stipulations attached once it gets put to the test. I know that Stingrays have had different pickups, that the 4 string doesn't have the 3 way etc but I don't think I've ever seen either mentioned when talking about the Ray sound. In future when people ask "will a g&l sound like a stingray", more questions will have to be asked about the desired sound. I'll post my proper thoughts about the actual experiment with the results. To sum up without giving the game away, I think my Sandberg is close enough that even an expert wouldn't realise it wasn't a Ray if they were't told and it was EQd to sound like one.

I wish my Ray had a passive switch too. Both my Sandbergs had it and it saved my butt once or twice when the battery died mid-gig. It's a great emergency backup. Re-the phantom power. I think it's been covered before and it has been tried but not enough bass or amp manufacturers took it on to make it worth it and also it means that wireless systems can't be used. Also if for some reason you want pedals before your amp, it would't work or would get messy.