Yes I have one @Whying_Dutchman . Cheap project bass that I modified a little bit. I play my P Bass 99% of the time, so it hangs on the wall looking gorgeous. I should sell it’s but not worth the hassle; so it’s now my holiday / hanging out on the deck bass.
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Ok, now I know how it feels to be 1% @Al1885 
I have four “real” basses at my home now - from left to right:
- Ibanez TMB35-MGR Talman Short scale
- ESP Ltd B-4E NS long scale
- Ibanez EHB1005SMS short/multi scale
- Blackstar Carry On Bass sub scale.
In terms of ergonomics, the long scale ESP and the sub scale Blackstar are the best for me. I can easily reach all frets and pluck wherever the f#ck I want to pluck.
The cheap TMB35 is also very OK. Good enough to keep.
I still have issues plucking near the “bridge” of the EHB1005SMS - though the neck is really heaven!!! If it were for the neck only, the EHB1005SMS would blow everything else out of the water!!! Can’t believe how great it is!!!
In terms of tone, the ESP is the best by far.
I cannot say anything about TMB35 as the setup is all over the place. (while plucking, I have terrible fret noise on all finger positions!).
WTF? I never had a bass that was so terribly setup, so I will do this today and test again. If it sounds good I might keepm it (and have some money to get another 4 string :-))
Looking at the picture, I don’t get why the EHB1005SMS does not allow me to reach the bridge position for plucking without assuming exotic yoga positions.
Why, oh why???!
There is definetely a problem here, so I will send it back, as much as I wanted to love this one!
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I really dig the ESP B-series. Just nice modern basses, very much my style. Soft spot in my heard for double-bucks, even if I don’t own one now.
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Yeah, I am quite sad to let it go. Today I had a video call with a potential buyer, and he seems to be the person I would trust to give it a good home.
Still, I played the ESP a little after the call, and lost myself in its truly wonderful tonality!
I would keep it if I did not have the strict “only two basses allowed” rule, enforced upon me by my bl@@dy dictator girlfriend!
Still fighting with the setup of the TMB35 too. I set the truss rod overly loose now, to get rid of the very prominent fretting noise. No luck.
Now I am looking at the bridge. Could it really be that the TMB35 was not setup at all at the factory??!
I hope, I can balance it out, as I am a fan of really low string action - don’t understand why this bass is so noisy!?
My ESP and Blackstar - two very different basses - can be setup to very low string action, without any unwanted fret noise at all…
Very common.
When I put the bass in between I usually “hug” the bass compare to hanging.
My issue with the ergonomic is not the plugging position but the angle of the neck. It usually tends to be pointing up and more than the flatter neck position I prefer.
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My parents wanted me to play the f#king flute! I should have listened
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One thing I know would cause me problems plucking at the bridge on that multi scale is the ‘angle’ of the bridge. When I’m plucking my hand is fairly perpendicular to the strings and as I move down to the higher strings I seem to move a little further to the right which really wouldn’t work with that MS bridge!
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My Sire U5 short scale has arrived and it is great in terms of ergonomics.
Very comfortable to play, I can caress the neck gently, and the plucking is how I like it. Don’t need a lot of “force” to play - in contrast to my Blackstar.
It is d@mn heavy though!
The colour (mint) is terrible - it looks like an old Volkswagen Beetle, but it is so ugly that I kind of like it! My girlfriend can’t stop lauging at this bass though…
Three things I don’t like
- String action height: currently it is too high. I did not have the patience to do a proper setup, cause of a heavy party weekend. But I am afraid I will have to touch the nut.
- P/J pickups: the P pickup sounds great, but the J pickup is kind of meh
- My old ESP had one knob for P/J crossfade and one for total volume. I did not know how great that is until I played the U5. This one has seperate volume for each pickup. So if I want to change the total volume, I need to fumble both volume knobs, loosing the P/J mix. If I want to be precise, it cannot be done quickly.
The U5 is a candidate to keep, as it plays really great in terms of handling. But I will get it to a luthier ASAP to do a setup (cause: nut!) and I might need to find a solution for the J pickup…
Yeah, my starter Ibanez has the blend knob and one combined volume, and I too didn’t realise just how convenient that is until I was trying out basses in the shop. As I recall all the Fenders had the two volume setup which I instantly disliked. Both the Ibanez and the Schecter I’m looking at have the blend knob and both also have the three band EQ, though the Ibanez has the mid sweep control as well.
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@HighlandBass - yeah, I remember that you wrote about it (or was it @Wombat-metal ??). I did not understand what you meant, until I got my U5, to be honest.
I can live with that, as long as I can get string action height low and solve the dreaded J tonality. Still, it’s not perfect - and I like things to be perfect…
I will miss the three band EQ that I had on my ESP, but this can be solved with effects on my DAW, so that’s something minor.
The mid sweep on my EHB1005SMS confused the hell out of me, so I won’t miss that.
Bottom line: it’s good to know that I might not be a T-rex after all, though I kind of like T-Rexes. They are the funniest dinosaurs…
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There’s a friend of mine up here (only lives an hours drive away which is right neighbourly for this part of the country) who used to be a sound engineer and she’s promised to give me a crash course sometime!
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It does feel strange to be needing a crash course, just to turn a little knob, doesn’t it?
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Well hopefully it will be on all things FX and mixing.
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Cool! Why don’t you film that session and post it here? I think, many BassBuzzers would be interested in that!
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I’m not sure she’d be happy with that!
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Once you figure it out it’s really cool.
Try about 75% P / 25% J; I sometimes go down to 15% J. There’s a nice tone around there. You just need a sprinkle of J.
And nothing is perfect 
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That’s exactly where I am now! On my ESP I had two humbuckers that both sounded great, no matter how I mixed them or if I played them individually…
I have to get used to using the bridge/J pickup only as something to add “character” to the mix, not using it in single mode.
I know why I don’t like jazz (the music)
PS I wish I could replace the J pickup with a humbucker. I don’t really know the diference between J, P and Humbucker from a technical point of view (but would likem to understand), but P sounds great and humbuckers sound great as well.
Perfection is a process…
Humbucker is really a catchall term. Technically a humbucker is a pickup that cancels noise/hum. There are many designs and forms. I have a Jazz bass with Jazz pickups that are Linear humbuckers, to coils next to each other wound in opposite directions to kill noise.
I have a 51P “single coil” with a stacked humbucker, a 51P pickup with a second coil underneath to cancel noise.
A more accurate term for what you are describing are soapbar pickups. The rectangle shape. And those are really cool because you can put all sorts of pickups in that format. You can put a P style winding or a J style winding in a soapbar configuration. Or a typical dual single coil for that “humbucker” sound. In a Jazz housing.
Soapbars are really neat and versatile. I had a Stream bass I almost regret letting go, it came with a PJ configuration, and I swapped out to EMG CS/DC dual buckers, took 10 minutes, and sounded great.
That sounds interesting!!!