My first 6 string bass just ordered! [Dare I say final update anymore, when I keep raising this thread with new updates regardless... Anyway: THE BEAST NOW HAS A NAME!]

[Baloney Balderdash]

Checked my mailbox just to be sure the strings hadn't been delivered there...

But they were! 

So now the bass has been equipped with the new strings, D'Addario XL bass strings gauge .105 - .080 - .060 - .045 - .032 and the .024 string from a D'Addario's Fender Bass VI string set, threaded through the cut off ball end of a bass string, and tuned to D standard tuning, which makes the tension of the individual strings pretty similar to that of the strings of a D'Addario 4 string bass gauge .095 to .040 string set, and the bass has been set up and intonated to accommodate that, seems to work quite well, though I still need to get used to the wide fretboard.

 

This is a new, and I think slightly better, picture I took of the bass after it had been set up with the new strings and tuning :

 

Edited December 23, 2020 by Baloney Balderdash

[Hellzero]

I got it : the chicken head knobs are an homage to your cooker !

[Baloney Balderdash]

Finally plugged the bass into my setup, and wauh!

It sounds amazing. 

Fairly aggressive  with a nice amount of punch and snap, a somewhat Jazz Bass like burpy character, just much more meaty and ballsy, but at the same time with a very well articulated, somewhat modern and hi-fi, definition.  

The tone I preferred was with the pickups in series mode and the blend knob set to about 20-25% bridge pickup/75-80% neck pickup, and the preamp EQ set completely flat.

However it seems that no matter how I adjust the pickups the low D string (which on a regular tuned 6 string would be the low B) has a slightly higher output then the rest of the stings and the low C string (which on a regular tuned 6 string would be the low A) has slightly lower output than the rest of the strings, which is a bit of bummer, even if I guess I can live with it.

Overall though I am really satisfied with the tone I can get from this bass. 

Slowly getting a hang of the wider fretboard too, and think it is quite likely that this will become my main bass. 

 

Update!!! : 

Just plugged the bass in again, and I discovered that I got the pickup blend the wrong way around in what I wrote above, so it was actually more like 20% neck/ 80% bridge.

I also lowered the bottom string side of both pickups to minimum height and raised the top string side of both pickups to about maximum possible while still having the sufficient couple of mm distance to the highest string when fretted on the last fret, and succeeded in almost entirely balance the output across the strings.

And after some more experimentation I discovered that I actually preferred the tone with the balance tipped even more towards the bridge pickup, with a very specific sweet spot that seems to be about just 5% neck pickup and 95% bridge pickup, and then with the treble control boosted to around the 2 o'clock position, the mids control boosted to around the 1 o'clock position, and the bass control still set flat (and still with the pickups in series mode).

Really powerful snappy tone, still with enough low end to give it a plenty of punch, and completely gone is the somewhat Jazz Bass -esque burp the tone had to it, which admittedly was about the only aspect of the tone I wasn't really crazy about before.

This bass sounds massive! 

I think I am in love. 

Best bass tone I ever had!

And sustain for days (which, even though that is a good thing in my book, means that I am going to need to be more careful about muting the strings I don't want to ring).

Also playing on the wide neck is getting easier and easier and doesn't feel awkward at all anymore, this bass is definitely going to be my new main. 

Consider me a full fledged 6 string bass convert. 

So glad I decided buy it. 

 

Edited December 25, 2020 by Baloney Balderdash
Update!

[horrorshowbass]

Nice one man

Yeah the powerspan pickups are nice and aggressive 

[akabane]

Welcome to the 6ers club!

once you’re in...

[binky_bass]

...there's no going back! 

[Hellzero]

Unless you go up to seven or...

[akabane]

3 minutes ago, Hellzero said:

Unless you go up to seven or...

...then go back to 6! 

[Hellzero]

No you have to step up to 8 before going back to 6. 

[TheLowDown]

Looks great. What's the neck profile like (C or D shaped)? I think a D profile is the most comfortable for a 5 and 6 string.

 

Edited December 25, 2020 by TheLowDown

[Baloney Balderdash]

Here you can hear me noodling on the bass, recorded directly through the setup described bellow with absolutely nothing done to it post production, not even compression and first take :

[Video deleted, see update!]

 

Signal chain :

6 string Ibanez SR306EB bass (strung with gauge .105 - .080 - .060 - .045 - .032 - .024 D'Addario XL nickle roundwound steel strings, tuned in D1 standard tuning, 3 half steps above B standard 6 string bass tuning) ->>

TC Electronic SpectraComp (always on compressor) ->> TC Electronic Sub'N'Up Mini (always on digital polyphonic octaver, used as an 1 octave up effect mixed with clean bass signal, giving an effect similar to that of an 8 string "octave" bass, with pairs of respectively bass and octave strings) ->> Behringer SF300 Super Fuzz (Boss FZ-2/Univox Super Fuzz clone, octave fuzz, set to [Mode 1]) ->> Boss LS-2 [A+B Mix <-> Bypass] (parallel effect loops mixer/switch)  ={ [Loop A Send] (empty effects loop used as clean {bass+octave up} signal blend for the RAT distortion in parallel effects loop [Loop B]) ->> [Loop A Return] ->||<- [Loop B Send] ->> Mosky Black Rat (RAT clone, in [Vintage] classic original RAT mode, quite raunchy high gain distortion, mixed with the clean {bass+octave up} signal from parallel effects [Loop A]) ->> [Loop B Return] ([Loop A] + [Loop B] mixed at an about 40/60 ratio) }=>> Boss LS-2 [A+B Mix <-> Bypass] (always on, parallel effect loops mixer/switch) ={ [Loop A Send] ->> Joyo Orange Juice (low gain overdrive, with some highs cut via the tone knob, always stacked into the flanger in front of it) ->> Boss MT-2 Metal Zone (currently basically just functioning as an additional buffer) ->> Monarch MFL-22 (flanger, always used with the Orange Juice behind it stacked into it, and most often used mixed with phaser in parallel effects [Loop B]) ->> [Loop A Return] ->||<- [Loop B Send] ->> Behringer VP1 Vintage Phaser (EHX Small Stone clone, used in the high feedback and deep sweep mode, almost always used mixed with flanger in parallel effects [Loop A]) ->> Joyo Orange Juice (always on, relatively low gain, overdrive, [Tone] set at about 11 o'clock, [Voice] set to boost a wide curve around a 800Hz center frequency about +3dB pre gain stage, always mixed with the clean {bass+octave up} signal from parallel effects [Loop A]) ->> [Loop B Return] ([Loop A] + [Loop B] mixed at an about 50/50 ratio) }=>> Boss TR-2 (tremolo, almost always used combined with the chorus effect in front of it) ->> TC Electronic Shaker (Vibrato blended with clean signal, via the Toneprint editor, functioning as a deep lush chorus effect, almost always used combined with the Boss TR-2 tremolo) ->> NUX Tape Core Deluxe (Roland Space Echo tape delay emulation) ->> Zoom G1Xon (exclusively used for reverb effects, which are as follows:: a very subtle, always on, main plate reverb :-: a more prominent plate + hall reverb :-: a thick lush plate + hall + tape delay reverb :-: and finally an extremely thick and lush reverb pad used with volume swells consisting of plate + hall + tape delay reverb)

->> Zoom G1 Four (exclusively used as an always on EQ, utilizing five 1 band fully parametric equalizers to fine tune the tone by boosting the 63Hz, 200Hz, 250Hz, 400Hz, and 1khz frequency bands +1 to +2 dB) ->> Zoom MS-70CDR (used exclusively  as an always on faux cab sim, made by staking five 2 band parametric equalizers in an always on patch, boosting and cutting different frequencies) ->> Behringer Tube Ultragain MIC100 (tube preamp)) ->> M-Audio Fast Track (audio interface)

 

Utilizing of course all the always on effects (in [bold] letters in the above signal chain description) on this recording, as well as the Mosky Black Rat, RAT clone distortion, and my NUX Tape Core Deluxe, Roland Space Echo tape delay emulation.

 

Pickup blend on bass about 20% neck/80% bridge, active preamp EQ set with [Treble] boosted till around 2 o'clock, [Mids] boosted till around 1 o'clock, [Bass] left flat.

 

Edit!!! :

Since I made this recording I have rolled the pickup balance slightly more towards the neck pickup, so it instead of being something like 5% neck 95% bridge it is now more like 20% neck and 80%bridge, which gives a slightly warmer and rounder tone that doesn't drown as easily in harmonic content from the strings being all over, like on this recording, which ironically caused it to be somewhat muddy (or blurry), just in the treble register instead of the lower frequency register, as is what you traditionally would expect to cause mud, but while still retaining a lot of the same snappy aggressiveness as in the recording above, just much clearer and defined, though slightly warmer and rounder as well.   

I also changed the my RAT clone from being in "Turbo" Rat (diode clipping) mode, to "Vintage" classic RAT mode, which makes the distortion blend in much more nicely with the clean signal, and removes a lot of the really low end mud from the distorted tone that the above recording suffers from whenever the distortion is being used.

I might make a new recording with these improved settings at some point, but for now you'll have to imagine the changes.

 

Update!!! :

So here's the new audio test of the bass is using the new settings (signal chain description above edited as well to match the new settings) :

 

 

Edited January 4, 2021 by Baloney Balderdash

[Baloney Balderdash]

So as some of you might have noticed from several posts I have really fallen in love with my new Ibanez SR306EB bass, my very first 6 string, in the just a matter of under the week I've owned it.

So I guess it is time to give it a name.

I always otherwise always thought it was strange to give your instruments name, but that changed with naming my old main a lowly, but very much beloved, 28,6" scale Ibanez GSRM20 Mikro Bass, "Dud Bottomfeeder", so now I want to give this, my new main, a name too.

 

And my name for this glorious beast, very much in line with the name I gave my Mikro, is :

"The Noodle Queen"

 

Another contesting name was "Noodle Thunderrod".

 

Also I have grown accustomed to the wide fretboard of a six disturbingly fast, in such a degree even that what before looked abnormally wide to me now looks normal, and what looked normal to me before, aka 4 string basses, now look abnormally narrow.

Though I suppose this is perfectly normal for incarnated respectively 4 and 6 string players.

However I still every once in a while stumble over the narrow string spacing, though I really wouldn't have wanted it to be any wider, I can totally see the advantages in that too, as soon as my muscle memory has adapted.

 

Edited January 3, 2021 by Baloney Balderdash