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Saetia · Jun 22, 2026

Rich Fiscus · Jun 22, 2026

Cory rich40 said:
I have narrowed it down to 3 brands for my step daughter’s first bass. A Sterling by music man(the reason being, I love stingrays), a Squire cv bass(upper end Squire), or Ibanez SR. I have a plan to take her to our local guitar center to try them out. Sadly I have never played a Ibanez SR. The budget is going to be $500. For those with experience with the Sterling brand, how will it compare to a real stingray as far as comfort and string spacing goes? I know Sterling gets a lot of hate with quality control issues. Would a Sterling make someone a good beginner bass? I’m dead set on this bass being a 4 string since I started on a 4 string, but I’m sure a competent teacher could teach a student how to begin on a 5 string. Now the scary part. How many times did we develop calluses on our fretting hand’s fingers when we first started? We overcame it and toughened up. She was diagnosed as autistic when she was in first grade. If they still used the term, you would probably say she has Asperger syndrome. Which is on the milder end of the spectrum. The calluses could cause sensory overload for her and I don’t want her to give up. I will give her encouragement but is their a cheat sheet on how to deal with calluses on your fingers? Maybe a light glove or something? I also suspect I’m mildly autistic but my parents never had me diagnosed or if they did when I was younger they never told me.

Speaking as someone with an Asperger’s/autism diagnosis, and with 2 daughters on the spectrum, I don’t know that I’d worry about callouses, but if it is a problem, gloves could definitely be a solution. I use Musician’s Practice Gloves to deal with neurological issues, and they should definitely make a difference. But I wouldn’t worry about it unless/until it becomes a problem.

RicheyLather · Jun 22, 2026

Bob_Ross said:
That reminds me of this funny story: When I was shopping for a flattop steel string acoustic guitar a couple years ago I went into this modest-sized Mom & Pop music store in Tucson AZ and started checking out some Yamaha instruments. I played the first two chords from Allan Holdsworth's "Fred" and I swear every employee in that shop stopped what they were doing and came over to listen. One guy -- who turned out to be the store manager -- said "Them sure is some purty chords!" in a voice that reminded me a bit too much of the movie Deliverance.

Is ^^^that the episode where he also played "Do The Nothing"?
If so, I'm pretty sure you can see a pre-Cars Greg Hawkes playing saxophone in either Martin's, or Flo & Eddie's, band.

Yeah, Greg is there, remember noticing that 30 years ago or better.

RicoTheBassMan · Jun 22, 2026

John D Harris said:
OP's first post of the thread:

"Any suggestions for a light weight bass combo?"

Next time I use sarcasm I will note it in my post. (sarcasm)

PitBossMan · Jun 22, 2026

That makes more sense, if you don't have access to a couple of the ones where it's easy to return then I can understand your hesitation and forgive the tone in that sense.

I still don't think at any color you can go wrong with a JT. I'm glad your guys had a good deal as well!

Looking forward to hearing the review

One Way · Jun 22, 2026

Excellent news! The standard wind Fralin pickup in my MIM Fender P bass consistently provides great tones

gln1955 · Jun 22, 2026

I don't get out much to places that deal in vintage instruments, but the few I've played were not inspiring. Probably a reason they were still on the rack for years. I'd like to play "one of the good ones" people rave about.

I owned a couple early 70's guitars. One was a boat anchor 72' Tele with a thick poly maple board. No love for that thing at all. I shortly traded it in for a 73' Strat that was much more to my liking but nothing that you couldn't get today off the shelf.

slobake · Jun 22, 2026

Hope it was good for all

SomewhatHarmles · Jun 22, 2026

Thanks everyone! I forgot about posting this original thread (a few friends died recently).

I'll skip on the hinged bass guitar for now. I'm thinking of just doing a headless steinberger like thing, or just having something bolt/unbolt together (thanks, Bruce). Makes way more sense than my original idea. :thumbsdown:

. I'm toying with the idea of including something like a 711L ratchet wrench, and hiding it in the body smuggler style for assembly/disassembly.

Hectobar, let me know if you do that pinned headstock! I think you could probably fabricate it using a dowel jig and some metal tubing.
Personally, I have too little energy right now, with the wifey and toddlers and doggo.

brushfirewolf · Jun 22, 2026

700-1000?

<Obligatory Sire recommendation>

I think the V8 is hard to beat in this bracket but there's plenty of great instruments for around 1k. Especially used.

brushfirewolf · Jun 22, 2026

Love the daphne blue. Looks like a vintage bridge too? Maybe that's just an AI pic.

Not a Player 2 but $2700 for this is absolutely diabolical:

75th Anniversary American Professional PJ Bass®

75th Anniversary Precision Bass Collection Introducing the 75th Anniversary Precision Bass® Collection: Celebrating three-quarters of a century of foundational tone and revolutionary design. Each 75th Anniversary Precision Bass model showcases the rich heritage and legendary tones that have made...

www.fender.com

bajistapromedio · Jun 22, 2026

96tbird said:
since your bridge captures the ball ends, preventing them from rotating freely when you wind the string on the tuner, I’m thinking twisted strings. Put the saddle back on. Loosen your strings but keep tension on by pulling up and away from the FB. Now push the ball free of the bridge so any twists can release. Pull the string up and let the ball go back in its slot, and wind the tuner back up. Then set your intonation.

Bridges that capture the ball ends and prevent rotation require more attention to prevent twists. Yuck.

Great suggestion! While it did not solve my intonation issue, one of the strings (the D) sounded less bright than the others before, but balances well now, so was probably twisted up and not resonating like it should have.

hyp.spec · Jun 22, 2026

Love, love, love the XS electric and acoustic strings. Was super excited to see these come out, but despite the negative feedback here no way I'm dropping $60 for a set of roundwounds, coated or not.

FeltTipPen · Jun 22, 2026

Congrats on an excellent bass! Being a fan of JT I was ready to take the plunge but the scale was a challenge for me. :crying:

The fanned frets was not as much of an issue though.

And the low B is as advertised! Clear and powerful! I would have had fun with it at church :bassist:

The E string had a noticeable authority to it as well!

bullshark · Jun 22, 2026

slobake said:
I quit drinking espresso years ago. No I drink Yorkshire tea. I can get if for seven cents a bag. I often us a bag more than once. That turns out to be 3.5 cents a bag. I enjoy it and it is much less expensive than coffee, especially espresso at Peets or Starbucks.

Bought myself an expresso machine for my 60th, about 20 shots in it's basically paid for, now I get great shots at home for pennies each.

macteacher · Jun 22, 2026

anyone else joined up and have thoughts?

Bass4ThePublic · Jun 22, 2026

Dasgre0g said:
View attachment 7521056

It's amazing. I'm very jelly. Can't wait to hear it someday

It’ll be here in a couple weeks. My drummer still works at the music store I used to work at. I get a pretty steep discount on ampeg cabs. 60% or so.

pklima · Jun 22, 2026

Edit: and I just realized that the bass made its debut, very appropriately for the build-off, at a summer solstice festival!

It took almost two years after the band I planned to use it with drifted apart and pretty much reformed. And I also acquired a cheap, wide 88-key keyboard bag it fits into (but the bag won't fit into the trunk of a car). Sounds great though. It turns out the volume pot is scratchy (I mean it is a 1999 pot that's never been cleaned), but other than that it worked perfectly well, and I even put the upper fret access to use strumming upper register chords in one section. Also, it looks completely absurd.

Will it ever get used on a second gig, we'll see, haha. But it's, like, a real bass now.

micguy · Jun 22, 2026

waveman said:
Why is it that most bridge pickups for Jazz bass or P/J bass sets are lower output than the neck/middle body pickup?

Having played with distortion/fuzz and back to clean setups, I used the bridge pickup mostly for that, and that suited me great for that, but as I am putting one together, I am thinking of going higher output J bridge than P pickup. Like Seymour Duncan Quarter Pounder bridge and Fender Anniversary 62 P pickups.

Jazz basses are designed for a different sound than a Precision - the pickups have less inductance, and less output. When people started putting Jazz bridge pickups into P basses, they just dropped what they have in there - the two different pickups are not really designed to work well together. What makes it worse is that the Jazz pickup is in a location where it has less low end, which compounds the difference - quieter, and thinner sounding.

I have worked on basses where the pickups were designed for similar output - an Ibanez came through a year or two ago that had a P i=pikcup that was wound to about half the usual DC resistance, and the balance was great.. You can achieve a better balance on a PJ bass much of the time with the P pickup wired in parallel - at least the soloed pickups can be balanced better with that setup, although you mioght have to back the bridge pickup off a bit distance wise to get it nailed. Mixed, its difficult to get a 50/50 mix of P and J pickups unless they were designed for that (which seldom occurs) - the impedance differences are part of that equation.

Gorn · Jun 22, 2026

RocketMusic · Jun 22, 2026

I decided to add a topline menu called "Shop By Brand". That will let you go straight to whatever brand you might be looking for on the website.

I've only got a few brands under that menu at the moment, but I plan to spend the rest of today (and maybe some of tomorrow) adding all of the other brands that I carry.

agedhorse · Jun 22, 2026

Changing to 4 ohms won't do anything for the low end, that's governed by other electro-mechanical parameters.

There is no problem with one channel driving 4 ohms and the other driving 8 ohms.

The GoLite 410 will be significantly louder however because the sensitivity is quite a bit higher, plus the amp will be delivering more power into 4 ohms on that channel. What you have is a poor match between cabinets and not an amp issue, I don't think the results will be what you hope for. Also, the 410 actually extends lower than the SOB (in real life), so that just compounds the issue.

agedhorse · Jun 22, 2026

Howlin Mad Mac said:
I’m thinking couldn’t you wire an 8 ohm power resistor in parallel with 8 ohm speaker and get 4 ohms?

That would be messy at best...

kyral210 · Jun 22, 2026

aliwobble said:
I've been using ultramag 45s on my basses for about 10 years. After trying various other strings I settled on these as they feel going and sound "just right". Worth the extra $ in my opinion

I replaced some standard rotosound strings on my active bass and WOW! The volume increase was noticeable.

logdrum · Jun 22, 2026

Cool book -- I'd like to read it again.

You can be shut down for anything. Maybe this one is more obvious. I had some innocent post just removed because they think it was not useful. Did not know that was an infraction.

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