Yeah man! Indeed, the new sonic series is a big step up from the previous generations of broncos. There’s nothing one ‘needs’ to do to it! But I’m also an endless tinkerer in the pursuit of tone, so here we are! Thanks for watching and commenting! Enjoy being a bass player!!

@@jonathanwong458music thanks for your reply. Just wondering are high end pickups night and day to a novice player like myself?

Despite what this series might be implying, the honest answer is ‘no’ . I don’t think you need high end pickups. I think a lot of tone comes from how your fingers fret and pluck the strings. In short, playing technique. I’ve seen lots of monster players gig with $200 squiers and sound great, and players with several thousand dollar basses who don’t sound nearly as good. So I would definitely invest the time for developing good playing technique. Afterwards, there’s tons of time to tweak your instrument to your taste. Cause that’s really what different pickups ultimately do. Fine tunes the tone to one’s liking. And everybody’s tastes are different! Hence the bizzillion aftermarket options out there. For me, I can’t stand noise and hum, so pickups have to be quiet.

Thanks so much for watching! Yeah, there are so many factors when it comes to noise, unfortunately. More mods to come!

Thanks for watching! Much appreciated

Thanks for watching!

Thanks so much for watching! More mods to come!

I agree! That’s one of the reasons I used some of my other basses as a reference in the beginning. Thanks so much for watching and commenting!

Fair enough! There was, however, nothing around the pickup area, nor in the cavity. But yes, there was a small stick on sheet around the pots. Good eyes. Thanks for watching!

Thanks so much!

Thanks for watching! Hope you’re enjoying the series.

Did the topic suggestion post? I don't see it. About Bass VIs

I think how dramatic the effect of shielding is going to be dependent on the room and its noise floor. I think my place is just quiet (which is a great thing!). Thx for watching!

No, I don’t see it either. But I also don’t have much experience with Bass VIs..

My question is, how does the new Fender Bass VI compare to the Squier Bass VI which, to my knowledge, is still available. The Squier had a number of QC/setup problems, as described in numerous KZfaq reviews. When I ordered mine direct from Fender a year ago, I asked them to examine the guitar closely, correct any problems, and give it a setup. Much to my appreciation, Fender obliged, and it is wonderfully adequate for the few use cases I have for it. But the introduction of the new, more expensive Fender model has me wondering if they corrected all the bugs and raises the perennial question, is it worth the upgrade. Meanwhile, another cheaper VI was on my radar from Harley Benton. I opted for the Squier VI because of sale pricing and my preference for a Fender brand. So I would like to see a comparison/review. For any who are not familiar, these short-scale, six-string basses are tuned E to E like guitars, and are preferred by many making the transition, even if part-time (see "Get Back"), from traditional guitar.

Good question. Unfortunately I haven’t played either. Sorry I can’t be helpful here.

Good question. I am far from being an electrician or engineer, so it would be wrong of me to hypothesize. We have all either experienced it ourselves, where our amps hum more when we go back to it to adjust knobs (or have guitar players who do this!!), so I used the amp as a 'real world' type noise-generator. Thanks for watching and commenting! Please let me know if you have ideas or suggestions.

Where the source of the interference is a magnetic field (as opposed to an electrostatic field) the advice is generally to avoid 'earth loops'. To appreciate what an earth loop is, you might remember from school days that a changing magnetic field can induce a current in a closed loop of wire, which is basically how a pickup works. We envisage the loop of wire being threaded with the magnetic field. Move the loop, or change the field strength, and a current is induced. Let's say you've got a pot (volume control, maybe). You connect its metal case to an earthing point on the foil. Nearby you have another pot (tone, maybe) and you connect that to the foil at the same point as the first (which would be good practice). Now you think 'just to be on the safe side, I'll connect the metal cases of the pots together with a wire'. This third wire creates a closed loop with the other two and could potentially have a current induced in it by a varying magnetic field. That arrangement of wires has created an earth loop. @@jonathanwong458music

@@acj2789 that's so interesting! As the copper foil tape is continuous, could it in effect, create an earth loop between those pots?

If I understand correctly what you say (maybe I don't), I think not. You have to ask yourself whether there is a closed conducting path that has a cross-sectional area through which a magnetic field can be threaded.@@jonathanwong458music

Yeah! I love that amp! Nothing modern (especially Class D) really sounds like it, so I've kept it all these years. Still truckin'. I modelled my Line6 patch after this. Always nice to have the real thing to A-B it with. Thanks for watching!

​@@jonathanwong458musicGK, Sunn, Acoustic, Peavey, Trace Elliot...lots of good analog solid state amps for bass...not so many good ones for our 6-string friends...not our problem lol

Haha! My guitarist music partner recently ditched his 30w tube amp for a Boss Katana. At half the weight, he’s quite happy with it. From my half of the stage, it sounds pretty good!

@@jonathanwong458music Quite a few people making a switch to modellers like the katana these past few years...as for myself, I tend to avoid modern amps because of questionable long-term reliability, and they often use cheap transformers and lousy power supply filtering...heck, fender is trying to gaslight the public that amps are supposed to have an audible hiss because of all the complaints among the online community about their late-model products being noisy like those new fr cabinets they recently released

I was a recent convert to a Line6 & QSC rig. But I’ve had enough of unreliable pedal boards. Now I have a single rig for both bass and electric cello. It’s made my life so much easier!

Thanks for the feedback.

Thanks for watching! In browsing the forums, there are many single coil playing guitar players who have attempted shielding their guitars to mixed effect - some who claimed they had good noise reduction and some who did not experience any significant change. Same thing with single coil equipped basses. The purpose of this episode was to demonstrate the effect (or lack thereof) in a bronco bass with some objective measure. I think it was worth showing to viewers of all experience levels even if the end result was predictable to more experienced players/viewers.

Absolutely. I wonder why your Bronco is not shielded when mine, which has objectively worse hardware, is well shielded. Did yours buzz whe you were not touching the strings? I noticed an aluminum pickguard can reduce single coil hum a bit because it has so much metal mess. Shielding paint/tape is too thin@@jonathanwong458music

Some ground noise was reduced when grounding out with a finger/palm/touch. Insignificant reduction though, so noise was multi-factorial. Big companies are all about cost savings unfortunately so that’s likely the reason for the lack of shielding. I assume they feel that most students or beginners, the demographic target, would not know better or care?