Ontopic String's and Adi's gear & pedal thread

We had crappies in the man-made ponds that were stocked for kids to fish for in Omaha. My friends ate this shit called doughball that we used as bait. It was, more or less, bread dough, but I’d never eat that shit.

I never cared for blend knobs either, but it’s what’d to find active instruments with more than one pickup with vol vol etc and not vol blend etc.

It used to be rumored that blend knobs on passive instruments were tone suckers and I totally bought into that, and still do.

@wetwillie The Grind I had, I put in new pots and wired it like a Les Paul with an added pickup selector switch. New pickups would’ve been next, but I ditched it when I went to my medium scale Luthier-built FBB.

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I think the reason people find the blend in a jazz bass or other single coil instrument a tone suck has to do with one pick up always being at 100%. You can’t do a little of both or like 90% of one and 20% of the other.

I simply turn my blend on my Jazz all the way to the neck pickup. I can start dead center and turn it a hair to the neck and it sounds super close to the neck pickup soloed. They may as well put a 3-way switch on that bass. Would suit me fine.

Every once in a while I like them both at 100% with certain overdrives.
 
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I also have a jazz wired in series. That’s the way I like it if I want them both at 100%. It gives it something a little spicy in the mids.
 
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We had crappies in the man-made ponds that were stocked for kids to fish for in Omaha. My friends ate this shit called doughball that we used as bait. It was, more or less, bread dough, but I’d never eat that shit.

I never cared for blend knobs either, but it’s what’d to find active instruments with more than one pickup with vol vol etc and not vol blend etc.

It used to be rumored that blend knobs on passive instruments were tone suckers and I totally bought into that, and still do.

@wetwillie The Grind I had, I put in new pots and wired it like a Les Paul with an added pickup selector switch. New pickups would’ve been next, but I ditched it when I went to my medium scale Luthier-built FBB.

View attachment 14997
My understand(agreed) on the blend issue for passives is the tone cap for both pickups are still engaging, but not like when you have only one pickup on. So electrically more tone is getting sucked by the caps when you are blending, 50/50 being the worst. Damnit immi, talking about that Grind makes me want to keep it. Nice bass but what is going on with the finish? Looks faded along all the wear points like it was reliced.
 
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I think the reason people find the blend in a jazz bass or other single coil instrument a tone suck has to do with one pick up always being at 100%. You can’t do a little of both or like 90% of one and 20% of the


What? Where did you hear that? I’ve had several active basses with blend knobs and that is literally the first time I’ve heard (read) that. Are you saying that if you had a meter on each pickup and increased one while decreasing the other, one would always remain at 100% output while the other increased along with it?

Sorry, but I call bullshit on that.
 
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Don’t take it personal, I still love you.

But I also won’t sift through all kinds of documentation of proof you may have, so make any response you have easy please. What you are claiming makes very little sense to me, and I need simple.
 
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What? Where did you hear that? I’ve had several active basses with blend knobs and that is literally the first time I’ve heard (read) that. Are you saying that if you had a meter on each pickup and increased one while decreasing the other, one would always remain at 100% output while the other increased along with it?

Sorry, but I call bullshit on that.
Don’t take it personal, I still love you.

But I also won’t sift through all kinds of documentation of proof you may have, so make any response you have easy please. What you are claiming makes very little sense to me, and I need simple.
It’s not that important. There’s different types of blend pots too, so it’s not always the case. But I believe in the majority of cases you are turning one pickup up or down while the other stays at 100%. Or you have both at 100%.

There are blend pots that do 50/50 at the center as well. I don’t know much about those.

There’s no way I can explain it to you without proof. You could always trust me, dismiss me, or use my favorite line “I don’t know”. Otherwise there is a plethora of threads on TB and TGP of people smarter than me explaining the concept.

I’ve always wanted a Master volume/volume/volume bass. I’ve never taken the time to see if it’s possible.
 
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My understand(agreed) on the blend issue for passives is the tone cap for both pickups are still engaging, but not like when you have only one pickup on. So electrically more tone is getting sucked by the caps when you are blending, 50/50 being the worst. Damnit immi, talking about that Grind makes me want to keep it. Nice bass but what is going on with the finish? Looks faded along all the wear points like it was reliced.
I didn’t even think about the pull of the other pickup, even though I know it’s there. You can probably switch the volume and tone pots with some that pull less. It should bring the load (tone suck) down.

Man, I just want A 3-way pickup selector going straight to the jack. Zero tone suck, well, some that’s undetectable to the human hear. Those wires technically create resistance.
 
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Think about it for a few seconds. If one pickup stays at 100% and you’re blending in output from another, the overall volume will raise. Let’s say you start with it dead center, and the volume control is dined (all the way up).

Then you start turning up the neck pickup by “blending” more of it in. Why does the bass not get louder? It might get more full because that’s the nature of the string at that point of that place on the string, but that isn’t “volume”. By your reasoning, if you turn the blend knobs all the way to the neck pickup, both pickups will still be at 100%?

Um. No.

You’ve been mislead, friend. I still hang out over there on accosting and some of the questions I’ve seen being asked lately are like a bunch of chimpanzees found bass guitars or something. Don’t believe everything you read there.
 
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Think about it for a few seconds. If one pickup stays at 100% and you’re blending in output from another, the overall volume will raise. Let’s say you start with it dead center, and the volume control is dined (all the way up).

Then you start turning up the neck pickup by “blending” more of it in. Why does the bass not get louder? It might get more full because that’s the nature of the string at that point of that place on the string, but that isn’t “volume”. By your reasoning, if you turn the blend knobs all the way to the neck pickup, both pickups will still be at 100%?

Um. No.

You’ve been mislead, friend. I still hang out over there on accosting and some of the questions I’ve seen being asked lately are like a bunch of chimpanzees found bass guitars or something. Don’t believe everything you read there.
I’m referring to passive blends with a 100/100 center.

If you start with center positions (both pickups 100%) you don’t blend either in when you turn the knob. You’re blending one out. Turn toward the neck and you’re blending the bridge out. Turn towards the bridge and you’re blending the neck out.

You don’t notice a change in volume precisely because one of the pickups is always at 100%.
 
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I’m watching Aerosmith at Donnington on AXS-TV and you know what?

They SUCK badly. I’ve seen them live 3 times. First time was after Rocks came out. They were great. Second time, Toys In The Attic Tour and the sound system sucked, so they sucked, plus drugs, so they sucked anyway. They could’ve been lip syncing and they still would’ve sucked. Third time, Permanent Vacation Tour. I only went because it was going to be the last concert I could go to in Omaha, which was a HUGE hub for tours in the ‘70s and ‘80s, being so centrally located. Everybody came there. I saw Head East twice in one summer LOL. The draw to that concert was Guns N Roses was supposed to open.

BUT, GnR got too big and started their own tour. Fuckers. So, Dokken got signed to be the opener. And Aerosmith actually was pretty good because they were clean again and Permanent Vacation isn’t an awful album (says that with with fingers pinching nostrils closed).

This concert? They’re phoning it in. They have a huge stage and they’re all 65 and in good shape, so let’s run a lot! Oh it’s over, thank dog.
 
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Speaking of gear and bass shit…

And I know talking about other forums on forums is taboo, but I don’t care. But…

There was a guy over on TB that I had some limited back and forth with naked Phil Buckman. I’m unsure what his username was there. He was the bass player in the band Filter (Hey Man, Nice Shot)(?) and lead a secret life as the voice narrating the Carl’s Jr. (and Hardee’s) commercials.

Well, he has a new gig. He’s the new bass player in Steel Panther. I don’t know if anyone here even knows about SP, but they’re a hoot.

Breakfast just arrived. More later. Ruminate on that for awhile. If you’re unfamiliar with Steel Panther, go to YouTube and search.
 
Speaking of gear and bass shit…

And I know talking about other forums on forums is taboo, but I don’t care. But…

There was a guy over on TB that I had some limited back and forth with naked Phil Buckman. I’m unsure what his username was there. He was the bass player in the band Filter (Hey Man, Nice Shot)(?) and lead a secret life as the voice narrating the Carl’s Jr. (and Hardee’s) commercials.

Well, he has a new gig. He’s the new bass player in Steel Panther. I don’t know if anyone here even knows about SP, but they’re a hoot.

Breakfast just arrived. More later. Ruminate on that for awhile. If you’re unfamiliar with Steel Panther, go to YouTube and search.

Funny, the song Take a Picture by Filter is about getting drunk and naked on an airplane.

  • Lead singer Richard Patrick has said that the song is about him getting drunk on an airplane, taking off all of his clothes, and fighting with the flight attendants who tried to subdue him.
 
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Funny, the song Take a Picture by Filter is about getting drunk and naked on an airplane.

  • Lead singer Richard Patrick has said that the song is about him getting drunk on an airplane, taking off all of his clothes, and fighting with the flight attendants who tried to subdue him.

Did you know that Richard Patrick’s brother is the liquid Terminator in the T2 movie?

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Funny, the song Take a Picture by Filter is about getting drunk and naked on an airplane.

  • Lead singer Richard Patrick has said that the song is about him getting drunk on an airplane, taking off all of his clothes, and fighting with the flight attendants who tried to subdue him.

He was also in Nine Inch Nails. In the movie “Hired Gun”, he spoke about taking a song idea to Trent Reznor who more or less told him to fuck off and if he wanted to record his own song, go do it. So he quit the band and started Filter.
 
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Played an outside show on a flatbed trailer yesterday. I've been having signal chain issues with my pedalboard into the markbass tube 800 (very untubelike hybrid).
My last outdoor gig I had to run my compressor to get enough signal to drive the amp. Batteries had died in my bass.

So yesterday im using the same exact setup. Markbass half stack, veilette archtop (with fresh batteries)
Pedalboard mostly just for the envelope filter, chorus and tuner. Compressor is almost never on these days.
My cab is over distorting regardless of attack. At some point I watched the cone perform two thrusts and apparently die.
"Oh shit I blew my cab!"
Drummer says "plug direct see what happens".
So I bypass the pedalboard and voila, beautiful clean signal.

On the next break I did a little troubleshooting and found the Onespot 9v lead to my Source Audio filter was 50% non inserted. Shazam! I have a pedalboard again.

Seems the drummer has been actively observing us pedal nuts for years.
Thanks Matt.
Are you listening Immi? Drummers come in handy sometimes.
 
Thinking of pulling the trigger on this cheap ugly Russian bass made with exotic woods and custom pickups.
I k ow the suspense will kill some.
More will be revealed.
Thinking about beheading(partially) one of my basses and making it headless but with the flare of the headstock left. So my hand knpws where it ends. :)
Fuck it, I've already altered the body, may as well continue. I have all parts.
It started as a $1100 bass. More will be revealed.
 
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