ThomBassmonkey

I agree, I keep looking at videos that are 2 minutes of fingerstyle then 7 minutes of slapping and most people just don't play that way. Even fewer demos are done with a plectrum. I play mainly fingerstyle with a small dose of slap in my bands though, so it is handy to know what the slap tone's like, I'd still rather see more fingerstyle though. I don't use a pick, so that's fine by me.

Yeah, I've had a good look through the for sale section, the only one that wasn't marked sold (which was a PM5, near enough for me haha) had been traded and the new owner is more than happy with it, damn the luck! haha I have a wanted ad up, hopefully something will come of it. Glad to know they feel good anyway, hope you get your problems with the neck pup sorted. Keep us updated.

This was my fave bit: The head has been redrilled & the keys were changed & moved. They are enclosed with the name "Grover". There are what appears to be two left & right handed enclosures. I'm sure this was probably done to take the weight off the head, making it less top-heavy. I didn't click on at first, then I realised that it has 2+2 machine heads instead of 4-in-a-row, they're just all on the same side. Of course that'll be due to balance. Here's a link to the harmony central review he tried to link to: [url="http://www.harmonycentral.com/products/100052"]http://www.harmonycentral.com/products/100052[/url] It's not especially complimentary. haha

[quote name='chrismuzz' post='1045185' date='Dec 2 2010, 03:08 PM']3 words... Major Tone Suck!! Oh well at least my low A string didn't destroy the venue this time lol.[/quote] From a £16 pedal, are you surprised? Any pedal that only cost £16 won't be great for your tone, even bypassed. The better the compressor, the more natural sounding it'll be. That's why some studio compressors go for thousands.

[quote name='EdwardHimself' post='1045066' date='Dec 2 2010, 01:44 PM']Also the problem a lot of musicians have is that they want "their" sound on the record without any consideration for the sound of the recording as a whole.[/quote] This is half the problem, I want "my" sound on the recording. As I've said in previous posts, I know the engineer was good and I stepped back rather than cause a problem (it was a fairly expensive 2 day recording session for one track, we had the time to sort out my amp and we did use the distorted channel with a mic in front of the cab to thicken out the sound) because I trusted that it would be a good sound over all. It does irk me though that it's not my sound. We also do our own recordings (our singer had a fairly good home studio and now has a studio locally) and with him I always use amp DI and mic, most of the singal comes from the mic though so I know that in a recorded context, my amp still fits and it's my sound. I don't think the sound is terrible, I don't think the guy who did it is a [insert offensive name] and I would work with him again, it's just one of those things, like when you make a bit of fret noise in a recorded track that no one else notices until they ask why you've bitten your fingernails down to the first knuckle after a couple of listens. Totally agree with silddx, what matters is the sound as a whole, there's no point having the 4 people on stage/in the studio loving the sound if the 300 people out front or the people listening to the recording just hear mush.

We've had the same kind of thing happen. Our "home venue" (the old bell in Derby) is brilliant at sound checks, dublin castle was good, there's been a few others too, but I can't count the amount of times I've arrived on time to a sound check and the sound guy (and his PA) haven't even arrived yet.

[quote name='arthurhenry' post='1045048' date='Dec 2 2010, 01:35 PM']What about a stand alone stomp box that did this though?[/quote] You can get pitch shifters as stomp boxes. [url="http://www.rolandus.com/products/productdetails.php?ProductId=147"]http://www.rolandus.com/products/productde...p?ProductId=147[/url] It'll change your tone a fair bit though, as I said about octavers (which are basically just pitch shifters with a few different options).

Look up the Roland V-bass units, they'll do it with midi. There's a couple here: [url="https://www.roland.co.uk/advancedsearch.aspx?s=v-bass&f=b"]https://www.roland.co.uk/advancedsearch.asp...=v-bass&f=b[/url] You'd need a pup too. It is possible to do it just using a pitch shifter pedal too, never used one for bass myself, but they are terrible with chords and they sound very synthy even on single notes on guitar. There's references to people on this forum using octave pedals then playing an octave up so they can get the synthy tone for dance music.

hehe, I have severe GAS for one of these, its a shame they never seem to come up 2nd hand.

As Lozz said, check your sound out front, that's what's important. As a band you should all know where you are anyway. Also, some combinations of gear can be quite muddy, even if both pieces of gear sound brilliant in other set-ups. I've found that certain basses don't have the definition I'd like through my GK rig, even though they sound brilliant with other rigs and my GK sounds amazing with my basses. If it's a serious on-going problem and it sounds good out front as it is, you could suggest in-ear monitoring. It's an expensive solution, but they're better in general and then people can have it EQ'd how they want. Or you could talk to the sound guy at gigs and see if he can take two feeds from your bass then use an EQ with more treble on your bass to put in their monitors, though that's not always practical (Or possible if the venue only has one monitor channel).

Double Thumbing for me too. I have big thumbs and I like medium string spacing, so it's a pain to get in there. I'd probably do it if I had a bass with wide string spacing, but that wouldn't work so well for me for fingerpicking so it's not worth the money invested in a bass for something I'll probably rarely, if ever, use properly.

Well the way they record bass does sound brilliant, that's why I didn't make a fuss. But it's not *my* sound, and it does hit me in the face every time I listen to the songs we've recorded there (though I know no one else would notice or care even if they did). I think one of the things about working in the studio (and I say this from experience of being the other side of the desk too) is that a lot of people (it particularly seems to be bassists and doesn't generally apply to people that go on forums to discuss their bass playing/gear) don't know their arse from their elbow when it comes to gear. Bassists tend to get something with 4 strings and something that's big and makes things rattle around. I can understand if you're working with that kind of bassist a lot, it's easier to just DI rather than let them spend 20 minutes in the booth making their sound woolier than a sheep and so loud your teeth are rattling through the sound proofed wall. We're not like that though, I do have a huge rig, but it's always controlled instead of cranked. It is annoying when the response to "I don't like Sansamps, I have my own sound and like to stick with that rather than sound like every other bassist" is "the Sansamp is tried and tested" without any other real justification though. I know the way recording is done digitally now gives a lot of versatility to the sound once it's in the computer, but I'm sure not everyone wants to sound like they're playing through an Ampeg on the way in.

I'm after one of these exact basses. How is the neck? I'll be keeping an eye on this for replies to the PUP too.

Just a note about Nigel Roberts, he did a repair on a Warwick for me a few months back, really nice guy, stuck to the original quote he told me even though the bass needed more work doing than he originally thought. BUT (and it's IMO a big but) he did take liberties with my bass. As much as he thought he was helping, he didn't even mention to me that he was going to drill the nut (apparently to stop the top part slipping). He didn't tell me that he'd broken the tabs off (it's a just-a-nut, he'd managed to break both sides) either. After I questioned him about it, he just pointed out that it happens as though it was ok that he'd done it. After a bit of bugging, he did say he could order a new one in (I'm assuming he was offering to replace it rather than suggesting at my expense), but by then I just wanted to get it home (the bass it's self was the result of a sour deal on here so I hadn't actually had a chance to play it properly) and left it (my bass is still in that condition). Like I said, nice guy, he did the work he said he would for the fee he said he'd charge, but he did damage my bass and drill holes, neither of which I was warned about until I had the bass in my hands again. If you do use him, I'd make sure you spell out exactly what you want doing and check your bass carefully when you get it back. I hope mine was a one off incident (I seem to have bad luck that way) because the guy was genuinely nice.

As per title really, just saw someone else (who uses quite an extravagant recording set-up to be fair ) say that with a new engineer they probably won't be able to use it? What do you do when a sound engineer says no? It's happened to me a couple of times, I play a 'wick through a GK, so it's a pretty distinctive sounding set-up, the last couple of times I've been in the studio the engineer's DI'd me with a Sansamp and sent a link through to the amp (just on distortion last time) then mic'd the cab. I trust that he's going to get a brilliant sound so I haven't made too much of a fuss (though I have made a point of telling him I wasn't too impressed) but it's annoying that instead of sounding like my rig (especially when I'm a GK endorsee), it's just another Sansamp DI'd tone. The worst part is that he wasn't even prepared to try my rig (I had to put my foot down to get it on the recording at all), it just struck me as lazy because he wanted me to just plug into the DI on whatever settings he always uses and get it done.

[quote name='Paul S' post='1044237' date='Dec 1 2010, 08:04 PM']Gary - thank you for the pic - it is nice but I don't want one! I was just curious why no-one ever talks about them. There is always talk about the various Squier models of p- and j-basses, changing pups, wiring etc but never this one.[/quote] I think it's more specifically the CV and VM models than Squiers in general.

Are you planning on using the signal from the normal pups at the same time as the midi pup? If not, get a cheap bass to put it on. You'll lose a lot of value on your bass by doing the modifications you're talking about. If you're sure you never want to get rid of the jazz, don't mind taking the hit or want to use both signals at once, losing a bit of wood shouldn't affect the sound too much. Changing the saddles too will affect the sound a little. It should still sound roughly the same though. The loss of value would be a far bigger factor if I was making the choice than the affect on the tone.

What's the problem? If someone doesn't like a certain type of music, that's up to them, you can't persuade someone to like something they don't.

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[quote name='KevB' post='1043437' date='Dec 1 2010, 10:09 AM']If the sheet music is in B and when you hear it it's somewhere below B but not quite proper Bb either then they would have to have slowed the tape down to get that effect.[/quote] If time alteration were the culprit, it's more likely (in this circumstance) that they played it in B flat and it was sped up until it sounded nearer B, then someone else did the notation and assumed it was just B out of tune. It's always possible they tuned down a semi-tone originally. I don't really know much about the stones though so that's just hypothetical. [quote name='essexbasscat' post='1043489' date='Dec 1 2010, 10:44 AM']I never saw an electronic tuner until more recent years. Until then, I'd guess EVERYONE tuned every musical instrument by ear alone. I've come across tons of recordings from the 60's and 70's that are 'off' by standard tuning. Just re-tune the bass.[/quote] I think this is more likely. So long as everyone's in tune with each other and the vocalist is ok, it doesn't really matter whether or not A=440Hz. Concert pitch is just a standard, it doesn't make the music sound better in any way. There's even relatively recent recordings I've heard (can't think of any at the moment, but I remember hearing them in college) where the musicians have tuned up to each other and they're not in concert pitch.

If I were you, I'd make a bit more of a fuss, if not for your own benefit then for the benefit of someone else who's in the same situation but less willing to compromise. It takes 2 minutes to update a photo on a website, compared to the hassle of getting the wrong thing sent to you, it's nothing,