|
Post by Michael on May 2, 2016 12:27:49 GMT
Thank you very much!
|
|
|
Post by Michael on May 4, 2016 19:24:52 GMT
sorry for merging - hijacking your thread bigoldnoob with my bass, how's the push-pull mod going along ?
|
|
14 posts
|
Post by bigoldnoob on May 13, 2016 11:57:24 GMT
sorry for merging - hijacking your thread bigoldnoob with my bass, how's the push-pull mod going along ? Hey! I tried so last weekend and failed. I mean, the push/pull thing did what I wanted, but the "pop" sound whenever engaging/disengaging the preamp was too dangerous, so it stays active as it was. The bass keeps getting played almost daily by my girl with absolutely no problems and great joy.
|
|
|
Post by Michael on May 18, 2016 12:09:49 GMT
very happy to hear that! play on and have fun with the bass, it's a really awesome instrument.
|
|
14 posts
|
Post by bigoldnoob on Oct 22, 2016 8:10:11 GMT
Just wanted to do an update/vent. This bass is crap really. Despite all the tunning I did on it it still plays like ****, the neck is damm awful thick. Also sounds so unnatural, bassy (in a terrible way, boomy, no articulation at all) and no high end definition, have to cut all bass and max the treble to have a usable sound. Can't be slapped properly due to the neck pickup position (or is it because of the totally unnecessary 24 fret long neck?, what a stupid "design" idea). Most uninviting piece of gear we have at home (besides the previously discarded totally lousy B450 piece of crap). Still, my wife says she doesn't need another bass, she got used to it (in fact returned to taking bass lessons) but still she can tell the difference when, every once in a while, picks up my Maruszczyk Jake 5a+, or any of my Musicians, or even my basswood P franken kit (only decent HB bass I've played so far -BTW, after much researching these might most probably be a rebrand of those Derulo kits sold on Aliexpress-). I'm waiting for her to lower her guard and sell this terrible waste of (heavy AF) wood and get something way better for... what? 100€? Can't salvage the wood because it's heavy and neck is unusable thick. Can't salvage the pickups as these big pole Wilkinsons simply are flawed, I have both Music man and Delano big pole pickups that sound great flat as they come, no orthopaedic EQ needed (checked them passive, the flaw is the horrid pickups, plain bad). Sorry for all the ranting, just wanted to make sure nobody reads this thread and gets the impression the MM84 is a remotely decent piece of gear. It's not. And it's not to the point every time I pick it up I feel tempted to dump it out my (7th floor) window, slam it against a wall or put fire on it and watch it burn with a big smile on my face. TERRIBLE, JUST TERRIBLE!
|
|
|
Post by mrdes on Oct 22, 2016 9:20:01 GMT
I'm really sorry to hear that you don't like your MM84, but perhaps you got a bad example. I have one and really like it. I find the stock wiring gives a great variety of sounds although there is some small difference in output level due to the coil tapping etc but this can easily be smoothed out with the volume pot. My particular example has quite a lot of treble with all the eq positioned midway and can get a bit ear piercing when maxed out. If I wanted a HB music man bass to play slap I would have saved the fourty odd quid and bought the single pickup model although I can play slap on this one every bit as easy as any of my jazz basses by slapping close to the 24th fret. Its a real pity you don't live closer so I could lend you my MM84 to try out as I reckon you must have got a dud.
|
|
14 posts
|
Post by bigoldnoob on Oct 22, 2016 11:25:53 GMT
I doubt the sound problem is only on mine, I wired each pickup directly to the output jack and they simply suck, both of them, coil by coil, unusable without heavy EQing. Should I think I have BOTH bad pickups? And also nothing wrong with the bass being unplayable because it's a bad unit, the neck is OK, straight, can be setup properly, it's just THICK, plays hard (with .040 strings), therefore bad for any minimum standards of decency in the XXI century. I'm used to a couple Stingray 5ers and the aforementioned Maruszczyk, so I know I'm spoiled by very fine playing instruments (very thin necks, 20mm front to back). But this is too much, easily 5mm thicker, acceptable if it was 1960. My crappy 88€ P-bass kit (sound samples at the beginning of this thread) is WAY better both in construction and playability (literally light years away), besides sounding heaps better, despite the cheap basswood body. If you read this entire thread the original wiring was unusable and totally ilogical, had all the wrong combinations but no good ones, couldn't emulate P, nor J, nor MM properly, was all boom because of TOO MANY SERIES COMBINATIONS, BIG BEGINNER MISTAKE (now it does after me rewiring it, in fact with no volume nor EQ mismatch), I even sent thomann the correct wiring, guess still they don't give a F. Did you open the control cavity on yours? Looks like soldered by impaired kindergarten kids! Does yours eat batteries? This one did, had to also rewire the output jack the right way to cut battery supply once unplugged, otherwise it would stay always on. Despite the obviously beginner mistakes the design itself is bad, really bad. Tried to like it for some time but there's nothing to like about it. This might be just marginally better than the B450 I sent back (what a piece of crap!, at least this MM84 resonates) but it's still awful for my standards. No more HB basses for me. Anything HB I've tried in the under 300€ range is crap (save for the 88€ kits) compared to what you can get from other cheap manufacturers (i.e. SX), not to mention you can get pretty decent 2nd hand Ibanez basses in the 200€ zone. I'm keeping a Kahuna CLU (uke bass) I got which is not bad at all but still thomann cut the WRONG corners, it comes with those rubber strings which are plain unplayable (and the E string is ugly quiet). Stupid on thomann's part as they could charge 10€ more for it and string it with real life usable wound strings. Definitely not repeating the HB "experience". I don't know what necks people are used to play, a question of standards I think, but for me this bass' neck is unplayable (it's main flaw). Nothing to do with price, there's basses in that price range with well designed necks (it's a mystery to me why in this CNC era a manufacturer would choose to produce a thick neck, don't get it really). Sorry, I'm burned by the experience of trying to get my lady a nice comfortable bass and comming up with not one but two pieces of #$%& from HB. Never again.
EDIT: the MM84 it's 24mm thick (front to back) at fret 1, 25mm at fret 12. Don't get it really, unless their standard is f-ing Warwicks (horrible playing/sounding furniture IME). For a reference, my Stingrays (5 STRINGS!) are 20mm at fret 1, 21mm at fret 2. My Maruszczyk (also 5 strings) is 21mm at fret 1, 22mm at fret 12. And my cheapo' P-kit is 22mm at fret 1 (but very narrow, sorta' like a Jazz Bass) and 23mm at fret 12. For me a 20% increase in thickness compared to a 5 string bass is anything but acceptable. I really don't know why ALL MANUFACTURERS don't publish the f-ing front to back thickness of a neck and are OTOH so worried to publish radius and width, which without the front to back thickness means ZERO. If they did, buying without trying would be much safer for playability freaks like me :-(
|
|
|
Post by mrdes on Oct 22, 2016 14:31:11 GMT
Its a pity you got burned by two bad Harley Benton instruments and I hope you get a deacent Ibanez instead. My MM84 can get p bass j bass and music man sounds so I think maybe something is up with your wiring or pickups. As for the neck it is what it is and could be sanded thinner but I quite like the difference to my other basses and it is the only D profile neck I have. I also have a uke bass and the strings are genuine Aquila thundergut the same strings as come on Kahula uke basses and Ashbory basses so I don't think Harley Benton should be knocked for fitting them to their uke bass. If its any use to you the BZ400 has a fast thin neck and is a very nice instrument.
|
|
|
Post by JAC on Oct 22, 2016 21:38:50 GMT
It's a shame you can't click with HB basses, but everyone has their own tastes.
For example, you may find Warwick's to be expensive furniture, but others find them to be their dream basses.
|
|
|
Post by kodiakblair on Oct 22, 2016 22:22:36 GMT
Did you think about changing the strings before reaching for the soldering iron ?
|
|
|
Post by Deleted on Oct 23, 2016 6:17:35 GMT
Did you think about changing the strings before reaching for the soldering iron ? This is something guitar players should learn doing before dooming the pickups too harsh and changing pots even pickups.
|
|
14 posts
|
Post by bigoldnoob on Oct 23, 2016 7:25:18 GMT
Did you think about changing the strings before reaching for the soldering iron ? This is something guitar players should learn doing before dooming the pickups too harsh and changing pots even pickups. Of course I did, twice in fact. As of now it's on brand new Warwick Red Labels nickel (cheap, yet totally decent and lastig, and what I use in all my other basses without a problem -you can hear them in my P kit samples-).
|
|
|
Post by kodiakblair on Oct 23, 2016 8:48:56 GMT
It's never a given that strings sounding great on some basses will sound great on others.
|
|
1,481 posts
Disclosures: Everything I don't like I can modify.
|
Post by blablas on Oct 23, 2016 10:40:06 GMT
I agree with bigoldnoob, I use the same Warwick strings on most of my basses, in principle these Red Label nickel Warwick's are my stock strings. But I also agree with kodiakblair, on a few basses I use different brand strings, being La Bella Supersteps, DRstrings and Elixer.
|
|
|
Post by mrdes on Oct 23, 2016 11:19:51 GMT
I've bumped an old thread with sound samples from when I first got this bass as I'm still on the original strings and battery it would probably sound duller if I did it again today.
|
|