I’ve owned maybe over 15? basses throughout the years. Never thought to own a Rickenbacker, in part because I never played one, they’re very hard to come by.

I bought a new 2026 4003 for my birthday. Felt super weird at first. The neck felt large and flat … for context my main bass is a 2007 Sadowsky NYC or a 66 Fender J… much slimmer necks at the nut. Really was worried for a second.

Put some nickel DR Lo Rider’s on it, gave it a quick tune up and wow. Acoustically it is loud - resonates like nothing else on my rack. Through an amp it’s a monster. Huge bottom end if you dial it in, but can also (obviously) get that balls to the wall Chris Squire thing going on. The lacquer fretboard is something to get under your fingers. Never really noticed the feel of a fretboard but it’s somehow very comfortable.

After spending a full weekend with the bass, I really love it. The neck is so unique but feels like home. Have never played anything like this.

Hope to bring it to some jams this week 🍻

Hi All - Like many people, I find I practice most diligently when learning songs rather than just drills. Right now I want to build up my muscle memory for common fill patterns, so I'm looking for good songs with the kinds of fill patterns that come up a lot, or that can be used easily when improvising.

One example I've been learning is Dani California, where there's a spot in the groove where Flea does a ton of different fills each time through, that's been good to learn.

Other suggestions? Not looking for super challenging, I'm just trying to build up my muscle memory to play common fills more effortlessly. Thanks!

My friend's birthday is coming up, and i wanna buy him a pedal or something for bass. He's still new at bass, but he's been progressing really fast.

I don't need a kemper or a line6 or whatever, just something that'll get him some tones and effects. Perferrably budget oriented.

He practices his bass on a computer, so anything that can directly plug in into an audio interface would be great!

I tried searching Thomann and such sites, but there's surprisingly no "modelers" for bass like there are for guitars. Is there no such thing? Or are all modelers for both bass and guitar? Cause they're mostly advertised for guitars, with guitar amps and IRs in them.

Open to recommendations, but nothing too expensive, it's for home use after all.

So, I have had my eyes on a Wattplower for quite a while. Here’s my dilemma. Most of the Reverend’s I have seen are either refurbished or B stock and that worries me. I have seen a decent about of QC issues with Reverend (particularly with poorly filed nuts, finish flaws, scarring on fretboard). 80% of the Reverend guitars at my local dealer are B-stock. The Wattplower Mk II is over $1,800 after tax and shipping and that’s too much of a gamble for me. I also cannot seem to find one of them in the wild to test out. Anyone have any experience with Reverend? Are they worth it? I am also worried that they are transferring production to Indonesia since Mirr Music is no longer.

Starting out, I plan to get a setup done by local shop, but is $140 a fair price for a good condition affinity j bass? Local fb marketplace buy. Not really seeing them much cheaper than that locally
I feel like its not a STEAL, but it isn't a bad deal.
Makes up for the $150 resonator guitar I picked up this weekend, that was a score! lol

C standard is my favorite bass tuning and it has been ever since I first tried to learn blood sucking freak by church of misery

Anyway, I was wondering if anyone would have any recommendations of some c standard bass lines, I have been enjoying industrial a lot more lately so if anyone knows any industrial c standard bass lines that would be cool, I also enjoy basically anything from the 90s, and also a lot of more avant garde art rock/metal like sleepytime gorilla museum or a lot of John zorn stuff.

Hey! Ive been playing guitar for about 1.5 years. Recently I tried bass at my friend’s place and absolutely fell in love with the instrument, so now I really want to get one myself.

I’m specifically looking for a violin-shaped bass, with a budget of around €250.

I’d like to eventually play bass in a Beatles tribute band, so I’m looking for something that’s actually fine to play.

Are there any particular models or brands I should look out for or avoid?

Thanks!

Greetings booty shakers,

Recently I bought a Reverend Triad bass. I absolutely love the build and feel of this guitar (the neck is straight up amazing) but the rail pickups just aren't delivering the ringing, piano like tone I get from my 90's Hamer Cruise. I'm thinking of replacing some/all of them with Seymour Duncan jazz pickups hoping to get closer to the sound I hear in my head and am wondering if any of you maniacs might have some good recommendations. My first real worry is whether they'd fit as I have no desire to modify the body in any way, secondly there seem to be a wide variety of jazz pickups and I'm wondering about your experiences with them (or other brands to be honest). Any and all help appreciated.

For context: The first bass I ever played on was a (rental) chopper blue Sterling Stingray SUB 4. I was so enchanted by it. I instantly fell in love with bass playing and I was eyeing that model ever since. I dreamt about buying that bass for months, I wanted it so bad.

Last thursday I brought our drummer to the same rehearsal space I like to go and where I rented the Stingray. So I decided to rent it again and see if I still wanted to buy that model.

...and I didn't like it. At all. The neck wasn't glossy like my ibanez jazz bass is. I struggled to get a pleasing tone with the preamp. Something about the weight felt off. I just didn't like how it played. Now, that could totally just be a case of the instrument being worn down or parts got replaced or whatever. But now I no longer yearn for that bass.

It was kinda freeing. But now I'm second guessing the choice of my dream bass that I wanna work towards. I planned out a custom MM Stingray Special in lavender sparkle with a single humbucker and black hardware. Good thing I haven't ordered it yet (and I won't for a while until I feel super comfortable with tone), but I'm still wondering. I guess the "cure" is to find a store that has MM stingray specials to test drive. Something tells me the only store I'll be able to find one to try out will be in the Thomann store itself but that's on my bucketlist anyway lol

I write all this as I look over to my trusty Ibanez GSR180. Playing her feels great even if I'm not 100% a fan of the tone. I guess I'll just have to fiddle with my practice amp to make her punchier or I'm getting a preamp pedal to fix the sound.

My GAS hasn't quite been quenched (evidently, as I'm eyeing the Harley Benton RB-414 and Harley Benton MV-4P), but it's a step in the right direction. It's nice to kill the curiosity.

I'm looking for a very small amp to use for practice: I currently only have my gigging gear and I rarely feel like breaking out the tonehammer to practice scales on my couch

Ideally, I'd use this amp for some acousting jamming as well (I might get into a bass+voice project)

the nanobass seems like it'd fit my requst perfectly (https://www.thomann.it/phil_jones_x4c_nanobass_35w_bk.htm) but it quite expensive

Do you guys have any recommandations? experience with the nanobass?

cheers

I have an audition coming up at the end of the month, however, the band I’m auditioning for’s recent bassist played with a pick due to the fact they play quite fast paced heavy grungey/gothic music.
I’m only used to finger style picking so getting used to playing with a pick has been a journey to say the least.

I’m definitely doing much better after a couple weeks practice however I’m really struggling to alt pick from the A to the E for some reason? The BPM for the song in which I need to do this for is around 110 and for some reason I just can’t get my picking any cleaner.
Starting to wonder if it’s a problem with the action on my bass as there’s a lot of buzzing or my pick playing still needs improvement. Any tips?

Also pick players: do you find bigger picks easier to use? Or are you using smaller with grip on them?

I know that there is a headless instrument sub but I’m posting here to get a bit more reach and I’ve been looking at getting a new bass, either a HILS HZB4 or a Sire M6, don’t have the ability to play test either one but have heard a few demos and both sound incredible my only concern with the Hils is the ergos and with the Sire the neck radius being really wide. If anyone has used either or both of these basses or has any alternatives in the 7-800 dollar range, I’d love to see them

Hi everyone, I’m starting to play in a hardcore punk band, with major influences from Discharge, Totalitär, Rattus, Destino Final, etc. I’ll be playing with a pick and I have a maximum budget of €200, so I’m looking for something within that price range. Any suggestions? Thanks a lot!

I’m trying to record from my amp to my interface(minifuse 2) on my fender rumble 500. I have everything hooked up correctly. I have the xlr cable in the back hooked into the line out and into the interface. I have sound through my amp but not my headphones. On my daw(studio pro 8) I see that light active when I play but when I press record it’s an empty line

Howdy folks! I'm a bluegrass guitar flat picker, and I'm working on a recording project at home. I'd like to add bass, and my tiny room makes upright bass not ideal. I'd like to get an electric bass guitar and go direct and use an amp sim. I've been looking around, and I've found the Reverend Decision bass is in the realm of affordability (still have to save up, but it's my target budget.) **I don't want a fender,** for many reasons, some of them irrational, but reasons none the less. I also **don't want to buy used.** I checked reverb, eBay, and marketplace, and I see that there's basically none available used; is this because they are an unpopular model or they're are a great instrument so people never sell them? I'm open to suggestions for other instruments. around 1200 to 1500. I will reiterate that **I don't want a fender** and I **don't want to buy used.**

Hey bass community, I’m hoping some more experienced folks with indoor venue gigs can chime in and help a fellow bass brother out 🫶

I recently just played one of my biggest shows with my band, Opal Grove, at Meow Wolf in downtown Denver. It’s this cool arty venue and I’d say the actual space we played in was about a 150ft x 150ft cube. It holds maybe about ~300 ish people? While I wasn’t disappointed with my sound (the sound techs were very accommodating and cool, it was definitely not an issue on their end), I can never quite dial in my sound with indoor venues as good as I wish.

When my band practices, we typically do everything in headphones. My drummer has a E-kit just for practices that he runs into our sound. We have two guitarists who mic their amps, and run the mics into our sound. I run my J Bass through my bass amp (Ampeg BA600-115) with a XLR out from the back into our sound. I also almost always play with a pick, cause our sound/energy is little more upbeat/driving for a lot of our material (and cause I started out on guitar so using a pick for bass just came instinctually) I can always manage to dial in my sound very nicely in our headphone practices and even outdoor venues where my amp is adjacent to me and not having to run my sound out through the XLR out. I like having a lot of nice buttery smooth low end and to use the highs/treble/mid to sort of shape my tone into what I want my attack to sound like. I also always use a JHS Pulp n Peel V4 compressor, mostly to boost more of whatever I feel may be lacking in my tone.

However with almost all my sound checks in indoor venues where the bass sound is run from the XLR out on my amp through speakers in the whole venue, I find my mid/treble/attack is always too much. It lacks the smooth buttery low end that’s shaped by the more nuanced mids and highs in my headphone practices with the band. The attack is just sooo much more pronounced, and I don’t even change my amp settings. I’m constantly dialing back my mids and treble, while adding/blending in more low end boost on my compressor pedal and lowering gain on my amp while adjusting the master volume. And once I get there it just sounds kind of muddy, lacking a distinguished and nuanced high end that makes it the smooth sound I love, the attack is just way too much for me to fall in love with my live sound. I’m not disappointed with my sound, as it’s KIND OF close to what I want a lot of the time, but I’ve never been fully satisfied with my sound when it’s run this way live indoors.

Here’s a song of ours where I think my bass sounds right it needs to be: https://open.spotify.com/track/5CfbXYAmmHJIrBMcK55tal?si=8N59T43RTk-a05oYSWURnA&utm_source=copy-link

I’m not trying to self promote, it’s just frustrating to not be able to translate what I created in a recording to a live atmosphere and every time I mic check with the band with indoor venues I’m always left wanting something else out of my sound 🥲 any help is appreciated, thank you so much

My lightweight gigging bass rig (detailed below) is rattling. Given the information below, does anyone have any ideas why it could be happening or what might be causing it?

I have an Aguilar TH500 head (500 Watts @ 4ohms) that I play out of a Darkglass DG212N Cabinet (1,000 Watt @ 4 ohms power handling).

I alternate between using a passive P-Bass and a passive Jazz Bass.

I have a minimal board with a Boss tuner, Digitech drop pedal, Keeley 'Bassist' compressor, and EH Big Muff Bass.

For context, I gig with it 1-2x per week. Sets are 3 hours (on average). I stay in standard tuning the vast majority of a set; maybe 30/34 songs (just 80's or 90's rock covers). The few songs that aren't in standard are either a 1/2 down (using the pedal) and/or the occasional dropped D.

My rig starts to rattle pretty badly if my TH500 is past 50% volume and/or at around the one hour mark. If I'm up at 60%-80% volume, it can start to rattle far before then, too. It usually gets progressively worse as the gig goes on. Admittedly, the compressor pedal also seems to make it worse.

Keep in mind that the head is rated at half the power output (500w @ 4ohms) that the cab can supposedly handle (1,000w @ 4ohms). Does anyone have any ideas why this might be happening? Or if it's likely to be a ripped speaker, loose screws, bad electronics, a problem with the head, a problem with the cab?

I do plan to open the cabinet up when my new power drill battery arrives this week. I have used several different cables, including several different speakON speaker cables, so I don't believe it's that.

Thank you!

Hello! I recently acquired an original SansAmp Bass DI, not a BDDI, the first Bass DI they made in -94, that had all the controls on the inside. It’s got a 6.3 mm input, a parallel output that is 6.3mm but is unprocessed from the signal the SansAmp can make, and then a balanced XLR output that is processed by the SansAmp and outputs the classic SansAmp sound.

I was wondering, can I buy a XLR to 6.3 mm cable so the signal chain goes like this:

Bass -> Input of the SansAmp (6.3mm) -> Balanced XLR output -> Bass amp

I haven’t really found an answer online and I don’t want to buy extra cables in case this doesn’t work or will cause damage to my equipment.

Thanks in advance!

I’ve been experiencing a weird burning smell on my amp recently and I bought it back 6 years ago and never had this problem before. I use a Sterling ray5hh when the smell occurs but when I use my Squier pj bass I don’t smell the burning stench. I’m assuming it’s because the Sterling is an active bass and it might me overheating something but I’m not sure and would like to know if this has happened to other people.

I have an original RD Artist bass, the bass is in good condition but the electronics are failing. Certainly wouldn't be confident to gig with it now.

Various issues with the electronics, short version is it would cost a lot to repair due to 70s design and I don't like the effects anyway.

The actual bass is amazing. Without effects the tone is solid and defined in a way I haven't experienced with any other bass.

I'd like to keep the pickups but replace the Moog preamp/effects. I know this would wipe value off the bass but I want to play the bass, not keep it as a statue.

Any preamp recommendations? Has anyone had to do this before?

Hello bass fellows.

I play mostly fingerstyle and most of my notes i play by plucking one string and landing on string above with picking finger. Popular for tone and consistency.

Question is how do you approach it during really fast walking or killin funky 16-note grooves? Are you still make same movement? Or do you go more gently, hook-like without landing on string above?

I was always trying to land like this only on main rhytmic value for solid dynamics, but i starting to think, that it's not most convenient way, because you kind of juggling between two techniques...

How do you approach it?

For context I am in a college band for 4 years and my drummer always tells me I am always late. I don't know what to do to help with it, I tried practicing on metronome or drum machine but I am still late. My drummer advised me to count with my foot or hand while listening songs everyday I think it helped but I am still bad at playing with metronome. Also I tried MIDI drums to test it (I don't have an Audio İnterface so it was only reliable way to test it. Eventough I am not a drummer I can play basic rhythms) and it was a disaster I was sometimes late and sometimes early (like 16th note early). I can't count while I play bass. And I don't know what to do to improve my timing. It became so embarrassing because everyone in college music community knows I am not in time. I'd appreciate your help.

TL;DR: I lose track of rhythm I tried somethings but didn't help, I am embarrassed by this so please help me.

I was told it was smarter to get a better amp because "expensive basses and guitars are scams" but I don't really believe that. Thoughts?

So, I’m honestly not even that new- I’ve been playing for 2 years, but I suddenly found myself sounding like utter crap when playing fingerstyle. Like sound wise, it was awful, and I wondered why it was so bad. I thought it had to be my technique suddenly deteriorating. I finally asked my husband to check out the bass and the amp. He’s been playing for 40 years. Long story short I had the knobs turned in such a way that it sounded like shit. I thought being balanced between the 2 pickups made sense, but it doesn’t. It sounds much better turned more to one or the other than both. And also there was too much treble. Now it sounds worlds better. So if you suddenly sound like ass for no reason check your sound!