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Jeff Scott said:

Huh? The OP is not replacing pickups.

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The pickups on those Ibanez models weren't everyone's cup of tea (preamps weren't the best either). It was a precautionary statement so OP could factor that into the cost, if they decided to go with the Ibby.

My Xotic XJ-1T basses.

Bassic_desires said:

Second posting of the same question in the same forum. Hmm

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Maybe take a look at the song mate.

A Funky Smooth Jazz instrumental version.
Boney James & Rick Braun - Grazing in the Grass | Larry Kimpel

Dawghouse88 said:

In case anyone stumbles into this thread looking for sound samples or a demo of the F-1X, my demo video has just released on my YouTube channel:

Login to view embedded media

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Nice variety, but ... The tonestack is basically the same as on a Fender amp, so "neutral" is roughly 2-10-2 (BMT) and not 5-5-5 like you start out with.

fdeck said:

At that price, it can't have an IcePower in it.

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In the manual it says: " Class-D ICE power amplifier ", so...

SteveCS said:

Personal favourite for clarity and accuracy in the bass is Sennheiser HD 280 PRO. I'm on my second pair now. Beyer DT770 get a lot of love also. The Beyer seem to have gone up in price over recent years whereas the Sennheiser have actually fallen, if that matters

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I replaced tattered HD 280’s with Beyer DT 770’s. I get the love from an overall sonic and definitely comfort perspective. However, the Sennheiser had a greater bass emphasis, the Beyer flatter.
PS: @hbarcat - if you know where you can find those phones at those prices it would be a public service to share. I paid $200 for the Beyers within the past year.

Malak the Mad said:

After dragging my feet for too damn long, I, recently, I got a chance to drag a few basses out for a decent photo-shoot, including my Non-Export 'Dyne! I'll do a proper "Unveiling" thread for it later, 'cuz Photoshop can be tedious, but I retouched a couple of shots just to get them out there.

Suffice it to say, I made some considerable changes to the hardware, pickups and electronics, but kept the bones intact;

• Fender MIA Standard/Professional bridge
• DiMarzio elliptical strap pins
• Hipshot licensed Ultralite 3/8" tuners
• Black/cream/black pickguard to better match the body binding, which was used as a template for…
• New routing and Fender Custom Shop '60s Jazz pickups
• Short Circuit Electronics "Heresy" wiring harness

Fun fact; the Fender bridge fit nicely into the recessed slot for the original bridge. I just lined up the center mounting screw hole and added the new ones as needed.

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Love that colour scheme. It’s pretty hard to find.

That’s cool that you found a drop-in replacement bridge. I had thought about swapping mine, but I haven’t really had any issues with the stock bridge.

31HZ said:

It's a higher-gain version that also can drive the tube a little if you want, IIRC. I don't see many of them around!

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Thank you for your reply.
If i ever see one i will buy it.

deesonic said:

My beater. I've gigged it a few times. I got the body on ebay several years ago for dirt cheap. The neck is an old Canadian made LaSiDo from the 80s that I pulled off another junk bass. The rest of the parts came from who knows where. The G&L pickup is probably worth something at least. I put my own "Nomad" logo on the headstock. It's my name backwards, Damon.
View attachment 7524790View attachment 7524791

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Nice Gotoh tuners!

I know this is an old thread, but I had to reply because I faced this same decision a few years ago. I had an EV B-215M that I gigged with for years because I was so in love with the tone. It was an integral part of my ideal bass sound.

But it was so impractical. At 127 lbs, it became virtually impossible for me to haul around, once I was fully into middle age.

So, I sold it to a local musician who wanted it for studio recording. Perfect use for that big antique colossus.

To replace it for gigs, I bought a 1x15" neo cab with a coaxial tweeter that is ¼ the size and weight, and will get lower and louder, and handle more power, than the 2x15"(+6) EV cab.

It doesn't have the "special vintage tone sauce" of the EV cab, but frankly, the difference is very subtle and no one in the audience knows or cares about it.

Tom Gallo said:

OP's post was as much about getting things off their chest as it was looking for advice.

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It can be really healthy and cathartic to write everything down. That doesn't necessarily mean it's a good idea to share every little detail with strangers.

gmarcus said:

The latest picture on Sweetwater shows that the Studio 15 now has a speaker output. this picture is at the top of their page.
View attachment 7446805

When you scroll down they show the other version with 2 ports and no speaker out
View attachment 7446806
Does anyone know what the truth is? does it have different specs now too? Can't see much information out there.

I played a studio 12 at guitar center and absolutely fell in love with the tone. just very thick and rich and the distortion is really good to. It sounded much better than the rumble 200 that was right next to it. The rumble was very boxy in comparison. Note i played a rumble 200 with a full band at a Jam session and loved the tone so I'm not sure how the Ashdown tone will translate in a live band setting.

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I just checked one out at my local Long & McQuade music store and YES, it does have an external speaker jack on the back. I snapped a photo: New photo · Saturday, Jul 4
I quite liked the sound of the amp with the stores Orange bass with Pbass pickups. It has a nice full sound with the 15 and horn. I think it would be plenty loud enough to use along side a Rock drummer. Not sure if I'll cough up the funds to try it though as my tank, Peavey TNT 130, is still going strong at 3X the weight!

OkayistBassist said:

So… I figured out what happened. I had ordered an adapter off of Amazon. I had ordered 1 adapter. They sent a pack that said 10 adapters. Inside were 13?! They were not polarity reversed like ordered.

Just ordered a Belker 5.5 x 2.1 Jack and it works like a charm. Sennheiser is now powered off of my CIOKS and I’m a happy guy.

Thank you all for your help!

Greg

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Could you send a picture of how you have it plugged in? And a link to the cable?

Gervais Cote said:

Do you know if it holds up against a hard hitting drummer with a big drum set ?

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It works for my band setting. I would suggest trying one out to see if it works for your situation.

Parts of it may be missing. There are a number of pics that I found by searching "schaller magnetic upright bass pickup," which show a couple tabs that screw into the sides of the f'board like this picture.

I didn't want to drill any holes, so I made a pickup (which I no longer have) that clamps onto the edges of the board instead. The clamp I made was unique to the size and shape of my Kay fingerboard. If I were motivated to put screws into ebony, which I'm not, I'd use machine screws and tap the holes. Which I'm not going to do, but just saying. Another idea would be to attach a longer tongue to the pickup and mount it beneath the board with dual lock, so it would have area to grab on. But I admit that the whole concept makes me nervous.

i just installed fodera v1 preamp on my custom bass and it sounds great! current setting for switch board is coil tap, active/passive and kill switch. I want to change kill switch to mid selector switch, but fodera does not have manual on v1 version... the oldest manual on their website is v2 preamp ... which has different switch board jumper layout.

wondering if someone here have old fodera preamp wiring and jumper layout, my preamp was taken off from Fodera Imperial MG year 2000.
here is the picture of switch board jumper and some unused connector that i am curious about

ezstep said:

I worked with a guy who performed with Tops in Blue for several years. According to him, there were several NCO's, one for every two performers, wearing headphones that listened to those two performers only. They noted each and every mistake and they were "graded" (for lack of a better word) on each performance. He loved it, but he admitted that there was pressure. Helluva singer, though. I have seen an Army "rock" band, a Navy concert band, and, yes, they are HIGHLY talented folks.

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Maybe they should just play midi files. Jeez.

You can, but I think you're going to develop some real bad habits that will be difficult to correct later on. I'm not sure how well a guitar teacher will be able to spot and correct your bass-specific fretting, plucking, and muting techniques. These are essential fundamentals.

To this day, I still struggle to get rid of the habit of wrapping my thumb over the neck to mute and fret the E string with my thumb—a habit I picked up from playing guitar.

Much of my playing with adult and youth choirs involves reading through piano/choral scores that are sent to me as PDF- typically no bass parts. I always print a backup copy, but do the rehearsals and performances with an iPad + page turner. Some of the scores will have as few as six measures per page which gets old fast. Before deciding, I always ask myself if the iPad is going to make the gig run more smoothly- if not, it's paper!

Moredator said:

Hmm, no bass suggestions but 30" scale strung e-c sounds like a very nice instrument! Following

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I’m intrigued my the MTD. Looks nice.

Well...
As far as the La Bella LTF-4A Low Tension Flats go? Other than the Dogal "Jaco" CarbonSteel Flats, I can't think of any flat wounds that have less pull-to-pitch tension than they do. Even the TI Jazz Flat have more. Not much more, but... more. And, as for the La Bella 760FX DTF's? Yes, they do come in a short scale set. I have them on my '17 Dano Longhorn right now, in fact. The only real difference between them and the 760FD set ( the ones made for the Longhorn) is a slightly heavier E String (96 vs. 89). I had the FD's on my Longhorn for a short while, but I found the lighter E string just a wee bit too... flexible... for my pick-playing style. Other than that? Really nice strings. The 760FX's are also available in a long scale set, but I had to do some searching to find a dealer that had them. They're on one of my '98 1st gen, MIK Dano DC59 Pros. I'm very happy with them on that bass, too...
Regarding strings that come on a new bass (or a guitar, for that matter)? Sad to say, most companies just buy strings in bulk, and put them on pretty much every bass/guitar they make. It's hard to find a brand new bass that doesn't come from the factory with D'Addario ECB61 rounds on it (even my Longhorn had the things on it). And, trust me - ECB61 rounds are NOT the best strings for every bass; no string is. They're perfectly decent, serviceable light gauge rounds, but... not everybody wants to play the string equivalent of a Ford Focus....
So, when you do change strings? It's always a good idea to at least check your setup, when you do. Maybe everything will need adjusting; maybe nothing will. But, it's always a good idea to check...

bassically_eli said:

My cabs all have the original 8” eminence driver, which is not available. I’m hoping the TS parameters of the Ciare are close enough.

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Ah, gotcha.

I couldn't tell you. :-/

I believe that Mike's design goals for each of those custom drivers were pretty similar -- and it seemed that some of the MAS/Big E designs, at least, worked well with at least a couple of different drivers. The early, bigger MAS 112s were available with an 18Sound, an Eminence, or a Faital, for instance (stock drivers, those) and the short-lived redesign of the MAS 110 (which I started a thread on, right before the Ciare drivers dropped) were available with a couple of different (I think custom) drivers.

Mike seemed to tweak his cabs and crossovers with each iteration, though, and I'm sure that at least some of those tweaks were driver driven (even though he influenced the design of many of those drivers).

I think your chances are decent and that it's worth a shot, but I can't say anything for sure. It would be good if you could get some confirmation (at least of which Ciare drivers are "Mike's") if not some guidance from Mike, himself.

I sent you a PM. Hope you reach a positive resolution!

P.S. I don't know if big speaker companies like Eminence would re-cone/repair a driver you sent them, for a fee, but maybe worth asking them?

Just saw this thread and listened to the album for the first time in a long time. Such groovy funk lines and deep deep tone!

Well I survived the Friday outdoor gig. Three days straight of 100+. Like walking into an infinity sauna! Fortunately we had a gazebo with some shade and a “ceiling” fan.

Was still way too hot for upright. The Fenders were happy to get some straight ahead time.