ThomBassmonkey

There's two ways to check the neck relief. Firstly, fret a note at the 1st and 13th fret. There should be a small gap there, do the same thing in other places on the neck, it should be similar up and down. The other way is to detune your string by quite a bit (two steps should do it), then play up and down the neck on that string. You should be getting a lot of buzz up and down the neck, but it should be fairly consistent. Check your neck relief first, cholking notes are more important than a mm or two on action. Edited to add, acoustically it's probably not fine, just that it's not as obvious. Cholking the note is an acoustic property rather than an electrics one (unless you're getting confused with your terms) and IMO neck relief is one of the few things on a bass that should be set up to a standard instead of to opinion, action should be used if you have buzzy frets.

I'm a GK endorsee and I spent the whole weekend on the stall and still didn't properly get to try one out, so if you think you're frustrated that you missed a chance, imagine my frustration. But...the reason I didn't have a proper play with it was because I was blown away by the MB heads. If you're looking at hybrid heads, don't discount the MB Fusion. It's small, simple, it's still got two channels, still 500w. You'll be missing out on motorised knobs (which sounds like it may be a bonus for your piece of mind, it certainly wouldn't do mine any harm, I'm very skeptical about that kind of thing's reliability, even from GK) and bi-amping, which since you've not decided on a head yet, you probably won't have decided on a bi-amped cab either (and if you do go for a bi-amp compatable cab, you can run them on full range mode anyway). The best bit is it's tiny and only weighs 4.5 lbs.

[quote name='Ou7shined' post='1177452' date='Mar 26 2011, 05:52 PM']5 Pingrays. Reason - bitchin' !! [/quote] I have to say, I really like the concept of the pup positioning on that bass. You'd have to pay me a LOT of money to have one in that colour though. How close does the P pup mimick a proper P? Does it make much difference that it's the other way around (to be honest, that always made more sense to me anyway as the D and G strings are inherently more trebly and moving the pup away from the bridge would help equal them out with the lower strings). And of course, does it do a proper MM?

What is it about the really early P or J basses that makes them so desirable? I've never understood it personally, craftsmanship and quality has improved a lot since then, what makes them so special to play? I can appreciate the age of them, but I don't see that it specifically makes them a better instrument.

[quote name='MythSte' post='1177348' date='Mar 26 2011, 03:48 PM']It looks like someone broke a Ritter and glued all the salvageable parts onto a cheap Yamaha...[/quote] Couldn't have summed it up better myself. It longs wrong with the coloured top and neck but natural back of the body.

You don't need to justify your choices, I'm not your SO. But it's going to make it much more interesting if people put reasons for their choices. They don't have to be basses that you've never played, you can have ones that you have and you'd recommend other people to play (I've owned 3 out of the 5 on my list). Just trying to keep conversation going, folks.

Frankly, if he's legally bound to sell you the amp (which he is if you've bought it through eBay), then re-listing it is attempting to sell property that isn't his and is directly theft. I don't know if it's reportable to the police or if you have to let eBay deal with it, but it's definitely illegal in more ways than just breaking the contract as soon as it's re-listed.

If you like the sound of your GK, DI that. People use Sansamps becuase it colours the tone, so it'll take you away from the tone you have at the moment. If you're being fussy, you could take your own mic and boom, but there's not a lot of point, the GK DI is very good and messing about with a mic is another thing you have to do that can be avoided, especially important in time restricted gigs where fast changes are needed. Having a DI never hurts in case your amp dies, but the sound-guy will almost always have one to hand (never been to a gig yet where the sound man hasn't had a DI for our keyboard, though she brings her own just in case). Mid range cables should be enough, bad cables will degrade your sound, but there's not a lot of difference in sound quality between mid range and high end cables IME. If you're spending about £20 on your leads, you'll have something that should be easily giggable. If you get an EQ pedal, you can use the volume control on it to bump/lower the volume for one of your basses, that way you swap basses and just click it on or off as needed. It shouldn't colour the tone too much either. If you're questioning whether or not you need a wireless system, don't get one. If you're not sure you need one, you won't be prepared to fork out the money for a decent one and crap ones will make your sound suffer. You need to spend big to get one that doesn't interfere with your signal quality.

Where are the reasons, guys?

I mostly use the DI out on the back of my head, I use the OD channel so a DI before my pre wouldn't work for me. I'd rather be mic'd (I didn't spend all that money on a rig for it to be DI'd!! ) but I'm not fussd, it's quicker for fast band change overs if I'm DI'd so I'm happy to compromise. Even before I was using a 2 channel head, I preferred to have my amp DI'd so that it sounded like MY amp and not a generic sound. It has lead to issues with sound men (most notably in recording "just plug into the Sansamp"..."Then I'll sound like everyone else instead of having my own sound"..."Yeah but it's tried and tested" Yawn, it's just lazyness, I was especially annoyed after our last recording session where I specifically said that I wanted to use the distorted sound for some sections and I got completely ignored, but that's another story). If I was using a valve amp that didn't have a post pre DI out, I'd probably want to put the DI box in the FX loop so that it benefitted from the valves. Most amps do have a decent DI now though so it's not so much of an issue.

It's a good head, as Raggy says it has that classic GK sound. I didn't play it as much as I should at LBGS (I was too blown away with the MB heads and spent the weekend on them haha) but what I did hear of it was that it was in the same league as the 700RB with sound and power, it obviously sounded a bit different because of the valves but with me hearing it with 20 people slapping over the top of me, it's hard to put my finger on exactly what. The motorised knobs are very sturdy. As far as that kind of thing goes, I wouldn't be too concerned. GK gear is bombproof though so they should hold up well. The function of every setting on the amp changing when you swap channels is nice though, my 2001RB's OD channel has it's own EQ settings (only 2 band as opposed to the clean's 4 band) but things like countour don't change when I switch.

There's another thread on the BGM top 65 basses to try article, but I figured that 65 is a pretty long list so we should go for top 5. I did try doing a search on this as it strikes me as the kind of thing that would pop up from time to time, but there's so many ways of wording it, I couldn't find anything. So, I haven't read the BGM so don't know what they've based it on, whether it's the best 65, or a kind of "basses that could change the way you look at the instrument" type of thing, so just list any that you feel people would benefit from playing for whatever reason. Feel free to put anything that's a bass instrument in. Try and put up your reasoning too instead of just 5 basses in a list. My list: #1 Any Dingwall. The fanned fret thing is amazing, I've only played combustions, but the feel of them is brilliant, the fanned-ness is barely noticable and the string tension is the most even on any bass I've ever played. It's number one because personally I think it's something everyone should try. It's a fairly unique concept (at least basing a whole brand on it) and one that has the potential to make a lot of people question whether or not it is actually a better idea and why more people aren't making fanned fret basses. #2 Sandberg JJ (or I assume a P, never played one personally). I love mine, they're a great example of what you can do if you take a classic bass and upgrade it. Small touches like the 0 fret aren't often used but are really nice additions to an already brilliant bass. I'm a massive fan of delanos based on mine too. The pre-amp's versatile and with the active/passive switch has a massive array of tones available, without losing that core jazz sound. #3 Warwick Thumb. Warwicks are a massive brand that have managed to carve their way through a market that's led by only one or two brands. The Thumb is the bass that (for me at least) really sums up the Warwick sound and feel. Playing this one bass should give anyone that's not played a Warwick before a good idea of what they're about. #4 ACG Recurve. I played one of these a while ago and, if I'm honest, I didn't get on with the asymetrical neck, but it was definitely something that I've not seen or tried before. Brilliantly made bass too, it felt and sounded great. #5 (a good example of a) Westfield P copy. I've not personally played one of these, but knowing my experience with the guitars and from hearing about the basses, if you get a good one, they're brilliant examples of what a cheap bass guitar is capable of. They can punch well above their weight and with some upgrades can be very capable basses. A friend of mine had a Westfield strat a few years ago that was a complete dog, I did a setup on it and was actually shocked at how well it played afterwards. He ended up buying some new pickups for it and gigging it regularly. I've heard similar tales of the basses. I'd like to have put an EUB in my list, but I really don't have any real experience of them to pick one. Stingrays, Jazzes or Ps could've easily gone up too, but they're fairly predictable and though they're classics, when so many basses take the concepts that they introduced and ran with, I don't think they'd ever make anyone think twice about what's out there (at least that's what I based my list on, not that anyone else has to do the same).

It sounds like you don't think you can justify the weight or size of the rig. Defo worth looking into getting a smaller, lightweight rig. It doesn't have to be a downgrade at all, there's plenty of high end light/small gear.

I don't think I ever really play well at gigs, there's numerous parts I regularly fluff and it's probably about 50/50 between playing songs perfectly and playing badly. I don't see the problem though, same as people comment on tones and how many people notice them, the VAST majority of mistakes your bandmates won't even notice. So long as you know the songs well and you're a competent player, you should never be terrible. Obviously there's some mistakes that do shine through, but the best way to deal with them is to just keep going as if nothing happened, people still won't always notice. Our singer's terrible for it, every acoustic gig there's at least one song that he forgets the lyrics to. It's embarrassing but he's a charming fella and usually jokes his way through it. We were on a local radio station on Friday and he played an acoustic song, beautiful long intro on guitar then the first line was quickly replaced with "oh balls". I always think (as well as it being band philosophy) that people at a gig (whether at your local or at the O2 arena) are on a night out and don't expect a flawless performance, they just want to have fun. If we play a good set but there's a few mistakes, as long as we keep it in good humour instead of getting visibly frustrated, then people will still enjoy it. We always get raving reviews about our acoustic sets and we never practice acoustically, so I don't know half the songs (I joined after they stopped doing a lot of acoustic sets and never quite got around to learning them properly, my own fault) and the aforementioned problem with the singer's memory (long story, but it's a genuine health thing, not just lazyness, I think he gets into his guitar playing too much when he's doing acoustic gigs and loses where he is). It's all about keeping up the banter and having a laugh.

Depending on the style of music, fretting every note isn't always an option. Something that springs to mind is Deftone's My Own Summer (Shove It). Can't remember what tuning they're in offhand, but the bassline's not much fun to play (though not impossible) on a standard tuned 5er. There's quite a lot of bands that use fast riffs containing open notes that would be hellish to learn in standard. [url="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XOzs1FehYOA"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XOzs1FehYOA[/url] (chorus is at 33 seconds in, the verse would be easy enough). I can't really offer any advice, I think 1 semitone up would be fine on a B string without having to change string guage though (so long as you're not using heavy strings to begin with).

[quote name='stingrayPete1977' post='1176502' date='Mar 25 2011, 08:27 PM']If your playing to 300+ people how much of front of house volume is from your amp compared to the PA? Really for a balanced sound in a venue that size most of what they hear should be from the PA IMO anyway. Many pro's dont have an amp at all now, DI pedal or box etc and away they go [/quote] The funny thing about bass amps is that a 300w 1x15 2x10 or 2x12 (or even 1x12 if you're doing small, quiet gigs) is probably going to be enough volume to play small gigs, then enough monitoring until you're at a point where every gig's guaranteed to use good monitors or you're using in-ear monitors, then your requirements get smaller. If you're talking about "sensible" then 4x10s are useless, 8x10s are absolutely absurd. My amp sounds fantastic though, it sounds even better when I use both cabs. Some of the venues I play warrant having that much power on stage. Do I need it? No. Do I find it's worth the effort carting it around? Yes. Every so often on here, I mention Jay, the soundguy at The Old Bell and Redemption in Derby, he's done the sound for my band a lot, he knows all the songs and he actively works the sound while we play. I'd trust him as much as I'd trust myself, I never question anything that he says when it comes to sound. I went through a period where there were no GK 410RBHs at the UK dist, so I only had one. He said then it'd be better when I got the 2nd one for the stage sound (the PA there is more than capable of handling out front). He was right, the extra speakers make the bass sound stronger without specifically making it louder (IME at least), probably partially to do with the height, but also it adds power and presence to the tone. Of course now all he does is whine about how loud I am, but that's life.

I'd go with 1 too. Whatever people have you believe about tonewoods etc, they're only a minor part of your sound (and that's all opinions anyway, I expect if you made two identical basses, one out of plywood and MDF and the other from the finest tonewoods, then stuck in the same pickups and preamp, some people would prefer the ply/MDF sound). Electrics are the biggest part, a decent set of electrics on a cheapy bass can sound fantastic. As I've said before too, cheap basses suffer from bad quality control. You pay your £150 and you could get a dog of a bass or you could get a stunning instrument that could hold it's own against basses worth many times that. If you buy a bass for £1500, you should be getting a well made bass with good electrics. That doesn't mean that a corker of a £150 bass with upgraded electronics won't sound as nice.

[quote name='UncleMeat' post='1176437' date='Mar 25 2011, 07:45 PM']If I like the sound I care not how much it weighs.[/quote] This is the truth to an extent. My rig weighs 250ish lbs IIRC, I still lug it about to big gigs, I only take one cab to smaller gigs so it weighs a mere 150ish (just for the cab and head, not including basses, leads etc). In saying that though, it's just not worth it for tiny gigs and practices. If I'm playing to several hundred people, 1080w into two 4x10s is great, maybe still a bit overkill but it gets me the tone I love and using more speakers makes it sound better (IMO at least, two 4x10s sound better than 1, not just louder, probably to do with elevation). I intend to go down the lightweight route for smaller gigs and practices, the rig I'm looking at (MB Fusion and 2 NEO212s) weighs under 130lbs for the rull stack, about half of my current rig as well as being smaller and more convenient (less trips to the car for example).

I've used them both recently as well has having owned the 700RB-II in the past and currently using a 2001RB-II (and hopefully in the near future getting some MB/NEO gear). MB500 pros: Smaller, lighter, slightly cheaper. 700RB-II pros: Bi-amping. They're both designed to make similar noises, the 700RB-II is made with less constraints in mind but the MB500 does it's job perfectly. Don't underestimate the bi-amping though, although the basic purpose is to allow you control over tweeter volume from the front panel of your amp, it does allow slightly more control with the crossover buttons than I've seen on most cabs too. The boost control is part of the power amp (I like to think of it as a power amp gain) and should be relatively similar on both as that solid state power amp growl is what makes the GK sound (and why GK have decided not to make any all-valve heads). I guess what I'm trying to say is that the 700 gives you more functionality and slightly more tonal options, but the MB is purpose built to be light and small and does that job admirably. If you need to be concious of size and weight or you're not using GK bi-amp compatable cabs, then the MB will suit you perfectly. If you're using bi-amped cabs and the size and weight aren't an issue, the 700RB will be the one.