Making Your Electric Bass Sound Like An Upright /// Scott's Bass Lessons

I was watching P bass videos when I run it to this. People tend to forget how much of your tone depends on where you pick of pluck. Guitar and bass sound different if you play close to bridge or close to neck. It always seem to take guys who play with simple setups to show this. There is similar video where Telecaster player shows you can get everything you want from Telecaster. One tip was to change where you pick the strings. If you have active bass and tons of pedals you can live without these tips. But is always interesting to see how guys who play straight to amp get tons of different sounds from their set up when they know what they do.

First thoughts of LTD Surveyor '87

Reached one milestone month ago. Decided to celebrate it with new bass. Earlier this year planned to celebrate it with custom made guitar. For custom made guitar’s money I have got good guitar, good bass and set up pedalboards for both. I think that was better use for the money.

After starting to learn bass I have seen several videos telling bassists should own P bass because it sits so well in mix. Have also seen people playing with ones and seen how well they sit in band context. Owning two basses with active pre-amp and worrying about battery life on them I thought maybe I should own passive bass. P bass was good option with humbucking pickup. Wasn’t so sure about limitations of P bass.

LTD Surveyor ‘87 sounded tempting. I have good experiences with LTDs I got form local store. Problem was finding more information about the bass. There are videos on ESP’s site and same videos on Youtube. But it is hard to find customers’ reviews or comments. Threads on message boards didn’t offer much help. People told they are getting one and then went silent. For that reason Fender Player Precision bass started to feel better option. It had more videos and sound samples. I am not offering sound samples here but I will tell what I think about the instrument.

I went to test the bass in store. It didn’t feel spectacular. Some times you just know you have to get the instrument when you start to play it. This wasn’t one of them. There wasn’t any problems. I just didn’t get that feeling. To be honest I was there to buy something else and tested it because I was there. Got back home. Thought about it and went back next day to get the bass.

After playing the bass for few days I think I understand why owners went silent on message boards. My only issue is the tuners. They feel weird. Like the amount of resistance to turning changes from time to time. Don’t know how that is possible. Not a big problem. Just annoyance when you have to turn backwards because tuner jumped little bit. Other that that bass is well made for what it is. It is passive P bass with single coil Jazz pickup on bridge.

It sounds quite dull on its own. P basses do sound dull on their own. You can’t shape sound like with active pre-amp. You can only cut down high end with tone. P basses sound dull on their own but work well on mix. At least that is what I have heard. I haven’t used this or any other P bass on song context yet. I think some owners expected something more. Because they couldn’t complain about quality they went silent.

I knew P basses sound dull on their own and have limited tone shaping qualities. That is why I got one with Jazz pickup on bridge. I would have put noiseless Jazz pickup on bridge. This is single coil. It isn’t as noisy as I feared. Noise is there on higher gain sounds. It is not as noisy as my other basses on single coil modes. Preamps could add more noise on those. On highest gains you have to stay on P bass pickup but Jazz pickup can handle moderate gain without getting too noisy.

Jazz pickup makes this versatile compared to normal P bass but it is nothing like active preamp with two or three band EQ. I think Surveyor ‘87 biggest problem is headstock says LTD. ESP and LTD are popular on metal community. There aren’t too many ESP or LTD passive basses. If you get this expecting it to sound like bass with active preamp you will be disappointed. If you understand what you are getting this is good option. It is around price of Fender Player Precision bass with popular modifications. This has those modifications. Addition to that you get Jazz pickup which makes bass more versatile. Based on my experience on Mexican Fenders this could be better quality instrument.

I don’t think I could get everything I want from bass from this but none of my basses can’t give everything I want. If I had to do with only one bass this probably wouldn’t be it. That might change after I learn how to get most out of it. I am so used to shaping sound on bass’ preamp I am not so good doing that on amp or pedals. In this case pedals. I am using Darkglass Microtubes B7K Ultra’s amp simulation. It has four band EQ with three selectable frequencies for high and low mids. That should be enough.

Do I Need A Buffer & Where Do I Put It On My Pedalboard? – That Pedal Show

I shouldn’t be watching these videos after making pedalboards for guitar and bass. I was curious if there was something I needed to know. I don’t have issues with either boards. Both have buffers. Not buffer pedals but pedal with buffered bypass. It didn’t give too much useful new information to me except the demonstrations. I don’t remember seeing effects of long cables shown this well. That Pedal Show’s previous buffer video showed how signals change after you add buffer after or front of certain pedals or just turn other pedals on. That is shown also here. It is long video but if you want to learn how buffers work it is worth it.

Hereticus (Eisenhorn #3)

I think I will have break on Eisenhorn binge. This is last book of Eisenhorn trilogy. There is another Eisenhorn book containing short stories and five spin-off books. I think I need a little break from these books. I am starting to think humor of first two books was not intentional after all. Hereticus is more serious than first two books. It could be because it is about ending. Eisenhorn has lost his old colleagues in inquisition. His team is getting old. At least by our age standards. To highlight that book doesn’t open with action. We are long way form first book where I wanted less action.

Book could have tried less to make us understand how boring Eisenhorn’s life had become before adventure begun. Malleus showed boring regular life more interesting. This doesn’t have similar world building. Here it is smaller scale which doesn’t work as well. These books work better when everything is grand and epic. But there is limit to all that before it doesn’t work any more. Hereticus goes over that limit. During these three books Eisenhorn nearly died several times only to return almost like nothing happened. After certain point action start to lose its impact.

Hereticus tells story of Eisenhorn’s old choices coming back to haunt him. It starts like this could be his journey to “dark side”. Most interesting parts of Hereticus are when characters are tempted to do something heretical. I hoped book went deeper to “dark side”. It loses momentum when Eisenhorn is shown to be able to resist “dark side”. Eisenhorn becoming heretic would have made series great. Until about halfway I expected it to happen. It would have been in line with first two books which didn’t do same thing again. After about halfway Hereticus start to feel it does same thing again. Change was so big I thought I missed something. Like original plan was to make Eisenhorn heretic, then plan was discarded and new second part was written almost from scratch.

Ravenor of this book gave hope for his spin-off trilogy. But I am not as excited about these books anymore. It might sound strange but Hereticus doesn’t go far enough. Warhammer 40K is all about going over the top and often too far. In this case it doesn’t go far enough. It could have gone much further into heresy and still have same ending. I expected it to go. Book is named Hereticus after all. Had it done so I would be here praising the trilogy and Warhammer 40K. Now I don’t when or if I return to this series. If I return to Warhammer 40K books it is this series. I enjoyed first two books and first half of this one but second half soured it for me.

Malleus (Eisenhorn #2)

I can understand why first Eisenhorn book is said to be best starting point for Warhammer 40K books. It feels familiar if you know Blade Runner or Dune or Star Wars. It didn’t hide sources of inspiration that well. Second book in Eisenhorn series does feel like its own thing. I might not have got into it if I had not listened first book and if it didn’t feel so familiar.

I don’t remember if Eisenhorn was portrayed as walking disaster almost as dangerous to his friends as his enemies in first book. These books are his version of the story and he sees himself as cool inquisitor but other characters’ reactions tell they don’t see him as cool as he sees himself. He runs into situations he barely survives. People around him are not as lucky as he is. He doesn’t get into fight every time he turns around like in first book but he still gets into trouble many times. This doesn’t feel as much Blade Runner as first book but Eisenhorn gets hurt and survives more based on his luck than his skills like Deckard does in Blade Runner.

After first book I hoped there was less action and more everything else. Book delivers so well I started to wish action starts soon after Eisenhorn had recovered his injuries from beginning of the book for some time. Now action make more sense than in first book where it felt coming after certain number of pages. Over all the book feel tighter than first book. There were times when the series was becoming one of my favorite scifi series but it didn’t reach the heights of my favorite series.

Warhammer 40K universe is something lesser writers can’t make work. I am surprised how much I have liked these two books and how well they have made the world work. I think it is because Dan Abnett doesn’t make these too serious. I hope the humor was intentional because these books don’t work as well when they get serious like this one at the end. There are two more Eisenhorn books to go. After that there are three Ravenor books and two Bequin books. Not sure if I binge all those in one go. So far these have been entertaining.

Xenos (Eisenhorn #1)

I have been curious about Warhammer 40K books. Have watched lore videos on Youtube and played Dawn of War II. I am not interested about the miniature wargame all this is based on. I find lore interesting for most parts. Science fiction parts and aesthetics to be specific. Feel like fantasy part and over the top nature of the world makes it worse. Guess miniature wargame needs those. Someone said in Dune group Dan Abnett’s Warhammer 40K books are good ones if you want something Dune-like. I have understood Eisenrhorn series is good place to start on Warhammer 40K books. They are considered better Warhammer 40K books. I don’t want epic space battles with ridiculously powerful character. I look for smaller scale stories in that world.

Xenos starts Eisenhorn series. There are eight other books in series and more to come. All written by same person which is positive. Some other series seem to be written by various writers and have more entries. It is easy to see what makes this Dune-ish. World is really heavily inspired by Dune. First half is bit like Blade Runner in Dune world with some Star Wars flavor. Later half is goes more into Starship Troopers and H.P. Lovecraft territory. I don’t think every Dune fan will like this. It goes quite far from Dune. Familiarity is bonus if you are into other movies and writers I mentioned. You shouldn’t expect masterpiece. This is after all based on miniature wargame.

I liked Xenos for most parts. Maybe because I like its influences. There has to be action because this is based on miniature wargame but sometimes it feels so forced. Especially when it cuts more interesting parts. I found this promising rather than great. It almost gave me what I wanted. It was almost there. Maybe next one or ones after that gets there.