First Bass Rig Day!!1

[FuseG4]

First Bass Rig Day!

Finally, after a few months of looking at lots of crap, asking questions in the Bassment, and playing a few things, and calling in an early birhday present from my mom (THANkS MOM!) so I could afford a slightly better practice amp, I give you my first bass rig. Now it's time to get learning and get playing!

Brand new Squier Vintage Modified Jazz Bass with Duncan Designed pickups, in sexy Olympic White. I named her Makoto.
Brand new (and redesigned for 2014) Fender Rumble 40 with switchable overdrive, vintage and contour features, XLR and headphone out, and super super lightweight at 18 lbs. It's loud too. Nice and loud. Perfect for jamming at friends' houses and loud enough for a coffee shop that's for sure.

Like I said, it's time to get learning and playing so y'all enjoy the pics!

 

[skyydogg01]

Re: First Bass Rig Day!!1

Nice rig! Congrats

 

[Diminished Triad]

Re: First Bass Rig Day!!1

I have a few smaller Rumbles and maybe one that size.......and they do the trick. I used the 40 Rumble at a large shopping center gig and it worked fine. Nice bass guitar! Whew.............If i was able to start out like that who knows where I'd be today! LOL! Great gift!!!

 

[kilphody]

Re: First Bass Rig Day!!1

Now you have a good starting point. Congrats. As you said, time to get learning and playing.
PC

 

[blueman335]

Re: First Bass Rig Day!!1

Nice looking bass.

 

[marcboomer]

Re: First Bass Rig Day!!1

It's a good time to become a new bass player. Easier than when I was a kid.

 

[Funkfingers]

Re: First Bass Rig Day!!1

The one change on a Squier VM Jazz Bass that would bring most benefit is better quality pots. The classic and distinctive tones of the Jazz design are achieved by careful blending of the two pickup signals. The resistance taper on cheap pots makes this more difficult than it ought to be.

 

[Rich_S]

Re: First Bass Rig Day!!1

Nice rig. It's similar to what we ended up with when my son started playing. He has a CV P-Bass. Also, his first amp was an older Rumble 25, with I thought sounded darn good. Pretty good quality overall, although I had to replace the board-mounted input jacks when their solder joints failed. Board-mounted input jacks should be banned by U.N. Convention.

One minor correction to Funkfingers' suggestion... the FIRST thing to change is the supremely cheap output jack. It will fail in short order, and should be replaced with a proper Switchcraft. While you're in there, replace the pots, too.

 

[FuseG4]

Re: First Bass Rig Day!!1

I set the bass up to fender factory recommendations and it feels great.

One weird thing is that my pickups are not hum canceling when used together. That's gonna need changing. My neck pickup says duncan designed but the bridge one does not. Weird! I thought they would both have a logo.
I noticed some newer squier VM jazz basses have "fender designed" pickups, not DD. Did I get a "transitional period" bass with one of each or is there some mistake? Or do DD jazz bass pickups not have a RW/RP?
Must have been some good wiring in the guitar center cuz I certainly didn't notice this when I demo'd the bass before buying it.

I'm not to worried at the moment though. My practice tone so far is the neck pickup alone with the tone rolled off a bit and that takes out enough hum for me.

I've been doing drills of left hand 1-2-3-4 and 1-3-2-4 up and down the strings and up and down the neck, very slowly, trying to get my right hand fingers to get coordinated and alternate properly is the hard thing.
Getting my thumb to follow my fingers and mute the A is also taking some work. Practice practice practice!

and yeah I'll probably swap out all the electronics in the near future.
My cheapo soldering iron got corroded to crap after a few years of use (and a time or two of leaving it on too long) and so technically a new iron is first on the list. But then yeah at least a jack and some pots for now.

 

[Kamanda~SD]

Re: First Bass Rig Day!!1

Great start...those VM basses are great, and the Rumble at least looks good now haha just kidding. Nice rig...

Hm, certainly is weird about the pickup, maybe pop it out and see whats on the bottom?

**** chromatic drills for now...get groovin'! Pop up some drum tracks and just groove along, one note even, learn to lock it in. Try not to think like a guitar player!

Agree on the new pots, I prefer linear all around FWIW. Save your cash on the jack unless it's acting up and get a good capacitor in there.

Enjoy!

 

[FuseG4]

Re: First Bass Rig Day!!1

Yeah I ended up just jamming and rocking out after a while.

Grooving to (I can't get no) Satisfaction and Dead Flowers by the Stones. Oh man I should have started doing this years ago!
Gonna go find some nice drum tracks. Garage band has several of them and I can just set them to loop for a while I guess.

Gotta find some time to play my 6 string today too. Time flies whilst having fun, for sure.

 

[Falloffthebonetone]

Re: First Bass Rig Day!!1

That's it. The next bass I get, I'm naming it Kenpachi Ramasama.

 

[FuseG4]

Re: First Bass Rig Day!!1

That's it. The next bass I get, I'm naming it Kenpachi Ramasama.

LOL. OK do it.

 

[blueman335]

Re: First Bass Rig Day!!1

Try not to think like a guitar player!

+1. You have to play differently, and flow more, and really lock into the drums. The power of a bass is intoxicating.