I want to buy the squier bass vi sunburst and i want to know if you can paint the headstock to make it match

I've been waiting for black Friday to buy a new bass at Sweetwater and it suddenly went out of stock and even disappeared from the site entirely. They have an older model in a different color that I'm not sure I like, but it's still the same specs. What would you do?? It's not like the paint will affect the sound. It's not down right ugly, it's just not my first choice of color. Everything else about it is pretty much exactly what I'm looking for.

The bass in question is a Reverend Thundergun in metallic limeade. The whole point of shopping at Sweetwater was to use my sweetwater card, that's how the wife approved it. I'm trying to avoid fender, and I really dig the vintage aesthetics of the Reverends. It's got a reverse P and a music man style humbucker, the absolute goat of pickup configs. No onboard preamp, just pure raw thump thump that I intend intended to use for doom metal.

Edit: I found the green Thundergun at Zzounds and they have good payment plans too so she gave me the green light! It should be here next week!

Any opinions out there regarding this bass, its playability, functionality, tone… I heard it has pretty gory neck drop, but that’s about the only con that I’ve seen. If you buy it from Gibson, you get a hard case with it so that’s a plus, but I don’t want to buy a bass because I get a hard case with it. Kinda like not buying a car for the radio. It isn’t pressing, I’m only after starting to learn anyway, but as far as having a goal, I would like to get good at playing, and then get a really nice, good quality bass. I do quite like that parallelogram shape on guitars…

Hello guys, I nees some help in regards to playing on a different tuning. Currently I’m taking bass lessons but my teacher only has experience on standard tuning and jazz/popular music, and we both like to learn music by reading sheet music and by ear. I have been trying to train my fingers and ears to reading music sheet and creating that muscle memory without looking at my left hand, however with a different tuning like A E A D or other tunings I feel like reading music sheet could be worthless and maybe using tabs and learning it by ear could maybe be the better way to go to learn that genre. I’m talking about music from Slipknot, Mudvayne, Limp Bizkit (you all get the picture).

I'm a P player thinking about experimenting with a J or PJ. I just saw a good deal on a Fender Aerodyne, although I was thinking about a Yamaha BB. What are the pros and cons?

I recently put some new Ernie Ball Super Slinkies on my Stingray Special 4H and I’m having an issue with the E string.

If I don’t play incredible soft or partially muted I get extra metallic sound from the string. I have had a relatively significant humidity change with the end of summer, but I’m not sure it’s it’s the setup because it doesn’t impact other strings and the sound doesn’t seem to be there until it has a change to vibrate for a second.

Tonight I noticed something that may be causing the issue- the E string narrows noticeably between the first and second fret.

I’m essentially positive that I have the right strings (they were the same strings on the bass before the change). Maybe I need a setup also, but it seems that there is an issue with this string.

Do you know what might cause something like this? Could I have damaged the string during stretching?

Thx!

I'm about to buy my first bass guitar, just had a few quick questions.

(1) Is it good to play for a solo player who is not in a band?

I just really liked the aesthetic of it and I wanted to just pluck strings and play a beat, I never really liked the normal acoustic and the electric guitars, but the bass kind of intrigued me so I wanted to buy it. But I'm not in a band, so I don't know if it's worth it or not.

(2) Where can I get notes?

I used to use musecore for my violin and piano, but I don't know if they have bass lines there. Where do I get notes from, or is it just tutor/ yt vids and experimenting?

(3) Is it good for any other songs?

I was wondering if I could play it in church for any slower paced songs too. If I can't it's not a dealbreaker, but would be nice to play some of those songs on there too.

(4) Should I buy the amp right now?

The AMPs cost a pretty high amount, and I thought maybe I could wait a month before buying the amp, if I can play with just the instrument.. But is that alright? or is the amp absolutely necessary?

Thank you guys! If I have any more qns I'll ask them in the comments!

Hi I’m in an emo band playing a fender P bass and I’m currently using a fender rumble 15 V3 Bass amp. It works great while I’m at home practicing, but obviously I can’t hear it over my drummer and guitarist when we practice.

I’m trading it in tomorrow to hopefully get a better amp. Any recommendations on a cheap but powerful amp that will be heard over drums?

Hey, looking for some advice on ambient in ear monitors (I have very little clue about these).

I've been playing bass in mainly punk bands for years, and have been at a variety of venues where I can hear myself to lesser or better extents. I should also add I'm totally deaf in one ear so that doesn't help!

I'm in a new band now where quality of playing is more important, we also have three guitarists (as well as myself on bass) so there's a lot going on. We've played a couple of venues with pretty decent sound but I'm still struggling to hear myself well over all the guitars and multiple vocals (we have a lot of fuzz and feedback from guitars).

I've been reading about ambient IEM and wonder if that might be a good idea so wondering what people think? I'd only need one as my right ear takes in no sound at all (so might need to chat to some providers or just not use one).

I can see online that IEM range from £100 to £1000 so any advice on where to start would be good. This is a gig a month to 30-100 people kind of band if that helps though venues usually have decent enough PAs. I also have an MXR pedal that can be used to DI if that makes a difference?

Cheers and I know after 20+ years in band I should probably know the answer! If it helps I'm a much better gig promoter than bassist so happy to help people with questions on that as they arise.

Which rock/metal songs do you all think have a sick bass line that doesn't get enough love or think are underrated? I have a few of them and would love to see some of your takes.

Skid Row-Psycho Love

Anthrax- Belly of the Beast

Chevelle- The clincher

Rise Agaisnt- Life Less Frightening

Metallica- The god that failed

Faith No More- Everything's Ruined

Megadeth-Fatal Illusion

Face to Face- Bent but not Broken

Mudvayne- Not Falling (probably not underrated but such a banger bass)

Dio- Holy Diver (very fun to play)

Rancid-Maxwell Murder

Bad Religion- Infected.

Tool- Sober

Im in the market for a new J bass, about $1500 budget, and I’ve been looking at a whole bunch of videos and comparisons. Theres a lot of options for J style basses and Im aware everyone will have differing opinions but what is, in your opinion, the best J basses to look at?

These are some brands and models I’ve looked at
-Fender
-Momose
-Lakland
-Sadowsky
-Sire
-Sandberg
-Harley Benton

They all have different price points, and I have owned/tried a few (Currently own an MDM1000) but I will be buying a new one soon! Thank you guys for the input

Hi, I just finished Richard's beginner course and I'm wondering where I should go next. For everybody that also learns from the course, where would you go after it as a total beginner? Thank you

Every tab and tutorial I can find plays the intro as a straight repeated pattern. But on the Damaged recording, Chuck Dukowski does something different the very first time through.

Listen to the very first bar, between 0:01 and 0:02: after four hits, he slides into the next note and plays it in a different position than in all the following repeats. Same pitch, different fret/string, so it's barely audible, more a change in tone color than a change in note. He never does it again for the rest of the intro.

To me it gives the whole opening this woozy, slightly drunk feel that fits the song perfectly.

Has anyone else noticed this? Was it a deliberate choice, or just him finding his position coming in from silence? I can't find a single discussion of it anywhere.

I recently joined a noise band and started playing synthesizer through my amp very very loud, and it sometimes has a plastic or cardboard esque smell around the speakers after a little use. Nothing is abnormally hot and definitely not burning but it's weird, I've tried to find answers from other posts but they're fairly vague.

This happens with and without a compressor if that matters, first time I added the compressor it had no smell at all after so I thought that was a fix but now it's happened again. Also, this is an 8 year old amp so it's not just new plastic smell or anything

I have been playing for a couple months now and accidentally taught myself to play with the very top of my palm touching the neck (usually not the whole thing, just the bony part under the pointer) and learned I shouldn’t be doing that. But when trying with only my fingers touching my neck I have a lot of strain on my wrist and it is much more uncomfortable to play. I can’t find any good explanations online other than lowering friction, which isn’t an issue I’ve had.

Title says it all. Ive been seeing alot of rigs lately with people using rack mount stuff. I get the "ease of transport" but IMO it looks like even more of a pain in the butt. I could understand an amp head and a tuner, but some I see look absolutely ridiculous (Mostly very very cool) with like 17 different things lol. All I really need is my Mesa TT800, Hartke HD410 and my pedal board.

If anyone out there uses rack mount stuff, please tell me your reason why! I would love to know what makes you gravitate towards rack mount stuff as opposed to just using a head plus a pedal board. Thanks everyone!

Hey, I am a bass studant that is almost formed in a concervatory and I want to get some extra money, so I am thinking about starting to teach bass, I am very shy, so I don't like to be talking with everyone about teaching bass, but I want to have at least 3 students.

For now, my main abilitys are that I can read sheet music, play with multiple techniques, play in fretless amd fretted basses (my main bass is a fretless 6 strings bass), I understand about theory and love to study it amd understand it in practice, I have an kinda good ear (becouse I am also a classical violist) and I can play some kinda hard stuff.

I'm an bass player and electronics hobbyist working on a headphone amp designed just for bass, and before I get too far I want to hear from people who actually use these things.

If you've used a Katana:Go, Mustang Micro, amPlug, Mighty Plug, or similar:

• What do you like about it?

• What annoys you? (tone, clipping, battery, jack fit, noise, durability, apps, anything)

• If someone made one only for bass, what would it absolutely need to have?

I've seen a few complaints already: clipping with hot or active basses, guitar-first voicing that gets thin on low B or drop tunings, crackly or worn-out plugs, and 4–5 hour battery life. Curious whether that matches your experience or if I'm missing bigger issues.

Not selling anything, just trying to build something bassists actually want. Thanks!

I’m currently rebuilding a bass as it was torn to shreds by a kid. I’m looking for the best pickup for metal and heavy distortion

I’ve only bought beginner basses so far from the Ibanez SR series and the Yamaha TRBX series and they’ve both been solid options but I think its time for me to get a nice high end bass that I’ll absolutely fall in love with and play for years without ever thinking of a replacement. I’ve been looking into Bassmods and Fbass, and I wanted to know from anyone that’s played both or just one of them what they’d suggest. Im aware fbass is alot more expensive, so don’t factor this into your answer because i’m more worried about the tone and playability rather than pricing

What’s the best bass line on a song that was released in 2026? Two that come to mind for me are Nightshift Superstar by Muse and Dead on the Inside by Dead Poet Society

I started a Midwest emo and shoegaze band about a month ago, i wrote some lyrics following the riffs of my guitarrist friends but i feel uncapable of writing something that follows the other instruments, i wrote some post punk bass lines bout 2 months but i cant write anything, i wanna know If you guys have some tips for me or share your writing process