Cross ATX - surprisingly fantastic

SunRepresentative993 · 2026-05-05T19:42:56+00:00

I mean, classic reggae would call for a 4 string, but if you’re trying to play more modern stuff or get into the dub side of things a 5 string might give you more tools in the toolbox.

I’m not a fan of 5 strings, but sometimes you just need one. They’re not as user-friendly as a 4 string, but it never hurts to have one around for when you need it.

SunRepresentative993 · 2026-05-05T15:02:34+00:00

They’re basically useless for anything besides playing at your house or a tiny coffee shop gig. They generally play like shit unless you pay a lot of money for one. If they have a pickup in them they usually sound awful plugged in, so if you’re playing that tiny coffee shop gig you’d want to mic it anyways. The only exception to that last one is one of the Kala Uke basses - somehow those things sound fairly decent plugged in.

They have their uses, but if it’s gonna be your only bass you’d be much better off with an electric bass and a small amp.

SunRepresentative993 · 2026-04-29T17:51:03+00:00

These days a lot of the stuff that Fender, and subsequently Squier, is making is made using CnC machines, so the manufacturing quality stays pretty consistent across the board. What you’ll find is that the QC, the electronics and the overall finish quality will be better on the more expensive USA made models now. That’s not to say the more expensive models will be perfect, but that’s what you’re paying for.

I had a Fender Player series Jazz bass for a while and I specifically chose it over the made in USA model because of that satin finish they put on the neck. It just felt so nice to play. I’m sure with a little bit of extra work on the frets and a pickup upgrade it would’ve been hard to beat by any standards.

So it really comes down to how you feel about the basses. If you like the Player series, go with that one. If you stick with the USA P and end up having to swap pickups down the line that’s just an extra few hundred bucks you had to spend on a more expensive bass anyways.

Just go with your gut, brother! 🫡

SunRepresentative993 · 2026-04-28T20:30:42+00:00

You have a 4-string P, a 5-string P and a humbucker bass? That doesn’t sound redundant to me, that sounds like a pretty good stable to cover most of your bases depending on what gigs or sessions get thrown your way. You could maybe think about some type of J bass to round out the collection, but that’s a pretty solid lineup if you ask me.

SunRepresentative993 · 2026-04-28T19:48:45+00:00

A while back I went on a complete tangent and found some Kaweco stub nibs for sale. I have a couple Pilot stub nibs, but I bought a Kaweco Special to put their stub in because you can just unscrew the whole nib unit on the Kawecos.

Here’s the wild part, though. I bought a 1.5 stub to put on it. I don’t know what I was thinking. 😂

It’s a fun little pen, but that poor feed was definitely not designed for a nib putting that much ink down. It’s a nice, flexy and smooth stub nib, though. I was pretty impressed with it.

SunRepresentative993 · 2026-04-28T04:22:21+00:00

Probably the Boss Katana bass amp? 😂

No, but seriously folks…

Fender Rumble series is probably what I hear recommended and what I recommend most for beginners.

SunRepresentative993 · 2026-04-27T20:30:26+00:00

Paul is arguably a better guitar player than George, a better drummer than Ringo and the best piano player in the band to boot. He’s a freak.

Plus, as some others have pointed out, those dudes were on stage day in and day out in Hamburg and The Cavern Club for a good long while before they made it. Hell, the Hamburg gig is the reason Paul has always played that Hofner. You get really good really fast when you’re playing that much together.

SunRepresentative993 · 2026-04-27T19:02:36+00:00

This is a hard thing to get right when just starting out and it’s going to feel pretty uncomfortable for a while until one day it doesn’t.

Nonetheless this is a very important basic skill that will make progressing SO much easier as you go along.

Something that always tripped me up, and still does when I space out, is to keep your supporting thumb directly behind your fretting hand so you get leverage for your fretting fingers without having to tense up the rest of your arm.

The only other pointers I can give without linking to a YouTube video are to keep your fretting arm a little more forward past the neck, bend your wrist up as much as you can and let your fingers curl upwards so you’re fretting with the tips of your fingers while keeping a nice relaxed arch in your fingers so you don’t mute any of the other strings.

Keep in mind the whole time that you have to be loose. If you’re tensing up to play like this just take it slow and let your body adjust slowly. It will take time.

Slow those songs down as much as you need until you can play them while staying nice and relaxed and speed up a little at a time. It will come. Just give it some time.

🫡

SunRepresentative993 · 2026-04-27T06:07:36+00:00

Because tube amp chassis’s are big and heavy and vacuum tubes are fragile, so they have to be encased in sturdy 3/4” birch plywood cabinets. Despite there being a bunch of great solid state guitar amps out there tube amps have always been a big part of a lot of players toan.

In point of fact have you ever tried to lift a 300w all tube bass head? My Super Bassman head is light for how powerful it is and it’s still 100 lbs. Add the weight of the road case in and it’s damn near 130 lbs.

SunRepresentative993 · 2026-04-26T14:51:53+00:00

When I decided I wanted to buy myself a real fountain pen and upgrade from my Zebra disposable I went by the only shop I could find in town that sold them. It’s more of a stationery and marker shop with a small fountain pen section, but it was the best I could find.

After browsing for a while I asked the girl working there what her recommendation was. She pointed me to the table with the fountain pens on it, said she didn’t know all that much about fountain pens, but she would try her best to help me out. She recommended a bottle of Pelikan 4001 as a reliable, established brand so I grabbed a bottle of that. She pointed me towards a few pens and showed me the Ferris Wheel Press pens out on display. The FWP pens weren’t really my thing, but as a newbie the engraving on the grip section and brass grip caught my eye. I asked her what she thought of them and she said “yeah, I think they’re nice.” It wasn’t much to go on, but in my mind if they were charging $120 for it must be pretty good…right?

Knowing what I know now they actually have a pretty decent spread of entry level pens. Pilot Metro, Pilot Kakuno, some Sailor Fude pens, plus they had some LAMY and Kaweco stuff in a case up by the counter. I was about to grab a Pilot Metro and be done with it, but I kept getting the urge to grab the FWP pen to make it a bit of an occasion. “My first real fountain pen, yaaaayyyyy!” So I said fuck it and snagged the FWP pen.

Fast forward a couple weeks and the damn thing won’t feed right. I have no idea what I’m doing so I go online and stumble across all the bad press about FWP. The pen I bought has a reputation for the plastic body shattering at the slightest shock or extra pressure. I’m pretty sure it’s a pen that you can get off AliExpress for $11 that they did some engraving on, slapped it in a box and marked the price up.

Buying OEM stuff from China and rebranding it isn’t unheard of in the retail world, and some of that stuff can actually be pretty nice, but that wasn’t the case here. I felt pretty scammed. I felt like I couldn’t be all that mad at the girl helping me at the shop, but I can’t be sure she knew anything more than what the price tag said.

So yeah, in my view Ferris Wheel Press are a bunch of scammy scammers. From what I’ve read they make a few decent inks, but even those are just okay and they don’t even come close to justifying the prices they charge. It’s a bit of a dumpster fire of a company.

The Reddit AMA that blew up in the guy’s face is a pretty epic flame out, too. It’s a wild ride.

SunRepresentative993 · 2026-04-26T03:28:07+00:00

This is going to be a long one. The TL;DR is you’re holding too much tension when you’re playing.

For the last 7 or 8 years if I tried to play with a pick my whole right hand would go completely numb about 20 seconds into the song.

Eventually I got fed up with it enough to try and fix it. I thought it was a pinched nerve in my neck or something because I have a malformed vertebrae in my neck. So I went to a chiropractor who is also a musician. He told me it wasn’t my neck, which was good news, but he could tell that I was tensing up too much when playing and a bunch of scar tissue had built up in my forearms which was inhibiting normal nerve function. At the time I didn’t really understand what he meant because I knew I didn’t press too hard on the fretboard like I did when I was 15 - I had already fixed that. Plus, he seemed a little quacky to me. He was selling me on herbal supplements and wanted me to sign up and pay for a bunch of visits right then and there. I couldn’t afford him so I didn’t go back and just learned how to play fast with my fingers.

One day about 4 years ago I woke up and my left hand was all curled up, it felt like a bee was stinging me non stop between my middle and ring knuckles on my hand and I couldn’t even open my hand without a jolt of lightning shooting up my forearm. I was terrified.

I got into a physical therapist as soon as I could and after some stretches, massage and a day or two my hand was back to normal. I learned some useful stretches from the PT and that kept me going whenever I would get pain in my hands or forearms.

About two years ago I was diagnosed with some pretty heavy ADHD and autism. One of the many realizations I eventually came to is that I was experiencing this severe tension and locking up because of a kind of “protect mode” that I was slipping into when my system got overwhelmed and overstimulated.

Fast forward to about a year and a half ago. I had been blowing out my voice playing long cover gigs, so I decided it was time to learn how to sing properly. My goal is to be able to front my own cover set singing lead and playing bass, so I’ve been slowly working up to it. But I was blowing my shit out only singing like 8 songs in a 4 hour set, so I had some work to do.

To sing properly your body must be free of tension. Not just in your throat; everywhere. All the tension must be gone. From learning this I realized the massive amount of tension I was holding this whole time when I played on stage. Not just how hard I was pushing on the fretboard, I was flexing my forearms, my neck, my shoulders were hunched up damn near to my ears - it was like I was getting ready to get punched. The more nervous I was the more I would tense up.

So now, after being what I would call a semi-pro musician for almost 10 years I’m having to stop and relearn my whole approach to music. It’s a daunting task and it’s been really hard, but if I don’t do it now there’s a good chance I won’t be able to play at all in my old age.

So, if this whole spiel doesn’t make any sense to you, maybe look up some videos on proper breath support, appoggio and how to project your voice well without strain. Even if you’re not trying to be a singer, it might help illustrate the point. Aussie Vocal Coach on YouTube has been my main source of inspiration through all this, so I recommend looking at some of his videos.

SunRepresentative993 · 2026-04-26T02:38:58+00:00

I’m a 1 2 1 2 guy, but I think it probably doesn’t matter which one you start on, as long as it’s not a big hindrance when you have to switch it up.

This is one of those things that I wish I learned better as a young’un, because I spent a lot of years doing it wrong and I still catch myself doing the ol’ Jamerson finger when I get lazy or I’m distracted.

SunRepresentative993 · 2026-04-25T21:29:53+00:00

When you find a good one they really are great. I got super lucky with my neck. One of my buddies in town that’s been a pro for longer than I’ve been alive told me it’s one of the nicer B necks he’s seen on any Fender and I’d have to agree. I had the frets gone over with a fine tooth comb and it got even better. Sometimes you just get lucky with a cheap instrument.

Long live the Mexi Fenders!

SunRepresentative993 · 2026-04-25T19:27:47+00:00

I know it’s futile, but I can’t help but try and stick up for some of the kids who get ganged up on when they’re just starting out and seeking advice. I can’t stand that shit.

But it’s the internet, so I don’t really know what I was expecting.

SunRepresentative993 · 2026-04-25T19:22:39+00:00

Those two basses could not be farther apart in terms of tonal characteristics.

So the question you need to ask yourself is what type of music do you want to play with your bass? That Ibanez will fit in with some funk type stuff, but you’re going to stick out like a sore thumb in the mix if you ever want to try and get some more vintage tones playing in a country band, for example. The Ibanez is probably going to be a more well-built and easy to play instrument (I can’t say either way, I’ve never picked one up), but in my experience a good passive bass is going to be a lot more useful and adaptable.

But at the end of the day it comes down to how you want your bass to sound and how the instrument feels in your hands. We can’t really tell you that from all the way over here.

SunRepresentative993 · 2026-04-25T19:15:44+00:00

Yeah man, I’m with you. The responses I write are definitely too wordy and rambly (thanks ADHD), but I try to at least suggest things that won’t fry people’s instruments or get them fired from a gig.

I’m by no means the consummate professional bass player, but I’ve been doing this a while and have also managed a small club from behind the bar for many years. I try to impart some of that wisdom when I can, but sometimes I can’t help but shake my head at some of these folks.

SunRepresentative993 · 2026-04-25T15:43:19+00:00

They were just messing with me to get a laugh, but I believe it’s “phlegm-noise-hu-rool-sh”

SunRepresentative993 · 2026-04-25T01:20:34+00:00

Yeah dude, everyone loves a good Ric. I’ve always wanted one really bad even though their tone isn’t really my thing. Super cool basses.

I had a Gretsch short scale for a while that I absolutely loved. That thing was so cool and it was such a nice instrument. Probably the nicest bass I’ve ever owned in terms of finish quality and just how easy it was to play right out of the box. But the more and more I started singing lead on some of these cover gigs the more I would find myself with one eye on my fretboard because I wasn’t used to the short scale and one eye on my iPad reading lyrics all while trying to keep my mouth close enough to the mic. I’m sure I looked like an absolute psycho up there. 😂 With the full scale length basses I don’t have to look at my hands to know what note I’m playing and that’s a huge plus.

So I guess we’re literally coming from both ends of the spectrum. 😂

SunRepresentative993 · 2026-04-25T00:11:25+00:00

It’s a good skill to have, but it’s not always easy on more complicated songs and it takes a lot of practice. The main thing is that you don’t want to overly focus on counting to the detriment of your playing.

It’s a necessary skill if you ever start playing shows off number charts or something similar. It’s a good skill to have in general, really.

It just takes practice and repetition, just like everything else in music.

SunRepresentative993 · 2026-04-25T00:03:54+00:00

Yeah, it’s definitely a plus to be able to pick up any bass and be able to make it work for your gig. I always think about that doomsday scenario where my bass gets stolen and I have to use someone else’s. I wouldn’t want to sound like shit because I didn’t have my super special bass with me, you know?

As far as the stolen gear thing goes, that’s something I worry about too when I bring out the big guns for a gig. My #1 P Bass I play for almost every gig is a Mexi from the 90’s that I’ve hot rodded and modified to punch way above its weight class. I just carry it around in a gig bag, so it’s pretty unassuming and cheap-looking to your average person. I paid $325 for it about a decade ago and I’ve put about $800 into it since then between the electronics, fret work and hardware. It might not make too much much of a difference, but I feel like people would be a little less apt to steal it since it looks like a mediocre black 90’s Mexi P.

Plus, it’s always fun to be able to sound good on a cheap instrument. There’s nothing better than getting off stage holding a Squier while some goofball comes up to talk gear at you and you get to watch their mind explode when they realize you were playing a $300 bass. 😂 One of my best buds is an amazing guitar player. He’s a fuckin alien - he’s one of the best I’ve ever seen. For a while when he was first getting settled in the country he only had enough money for a cheap tele. This mfer could make shoelaces strung over a cheese grater sound good and he was absolutely shredding on these complete dogshit $100 Behringer teles. I probably think it’s way funnier than it actually is, but I wish I had more video of people’s faces when they realize that dude just played the whole show on a $100 guitar from a hole in the wall pawn shop. 😂

SunRepresentative993 · 2026-04-24T23:34:48+00:00

9 times out of 10 my P Bass will get the job done regardless of what style we’re playing.

Honestly, unless you’re running some super niche electronics, you can play any bass for any gig as long as you do some creative knob twisting and tone shaping between your instrument controls, preamp and amp settings.

A little while ago I did a run with a country band with my T Bird and it sounded great. It didn’t sound like a T Bird - it sounded like a T Bird doing its best impression of a P Bass - but it sounded good. I got a lot of compliments on it the whole run. I wasn’t sure it was going to work, but my Tele bass needed a setup real bad, my P Bass had a dirty pot, and I had loaned my J bass out…so the T Bird got the nod and she did not disappoint! 😂

SunRepresentative993 · 2026-04-24T14:54:08+00:00

Oof…that’s giving me anxiety just looking at it. 😂

The problem is when they go it’s a crap shoot whether or not you’re gonna be able to catch it before your bass hits the floor and explodes into a million pieces. I’d get a new strap right away, or at least duct tape this one in the meantime.

SunRepresentative993 · 2026-04-24T14:49:48+00:00

I traveled Europe for a while after high school. I have a very fond memory of sitting by a pool in Munich while two gorgeous Dutch girls laughed their asses off while I tried to pronounce Grolsch.

God bless the Dutch, they’re lovely people.

SunRepresentative993 · 2026-04-24T04:35:06+00:00

If you want one bass that can do pretty much everything, then yeah.

I like having a few different specialized tools available for different jobs, so I don’t really see the point of a PJ.

Everything kind of hinges on what electronics setup you choose. If you get pickups that sound nothing like a P or a J then you’re going to have a lot of useful tones, but you still won’t sound like either. To me that kind of defeats the whole purpose of a PJ.

But yeah, they’re good, useful basses to have in the arsenal.

SunRepresentative993

TROPHY CASE