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I'm Gonna Wash That Man Right Outa My Hair - South Pacific OST (Rodgers & Hammerstein)

Honestly, I don’t think I’ve ever had a better sound than this combination gives me. I’m a huge fan of gentle compression when playing live and the Empress just gets the job done. The nerve centre of tone is the Jad Freer Capo which is just lush to play through, and then the Phil Mann with bass in mind version of the SushiboxFX Finally DI pushes out a lovely fat warm valve DI to FoH. The Thumpinator is there to protect my amp (I love this little box of tricks) but as I’m now almost always using IEM’s the amp is almost becoming redundant.

Back at the Old Fox, in Felling, a small town just south of Newcastle upon Tyne. This is one of those gigs you look forward to, a live music pub with an audience who appreciates your efforts. We’re all using IEMs now and that’s been an absolute game changer for us, and as one well respected local live music aficionado has just posted on FaceAche “Southern Incorporated were tighter than a nuns chuff”. Loads of folk we know out supporting us too, and a very happy landlady who stuck an extra £30 in the pay packet at the end of the night. Job done!

Wash It All Away - Five Finger Death Punch

Great looking setup, he’s bypassing the Markbass pre and using the Caveman BAS-1 for tone shaping though 😊

I probably didn't explain very well. I use a shelving response rather than the more usual bass tone control which rolls off the bass increasingly as the frequency drops. A shelving response acts like a volume control for bass cutting it all by a set amount. Like this but I only cut by a couple of db not 6db as in this example. I chose the 160 point as that was what was on my mixer at the end of the last gig. I ws surprised it was so high myself but it sounded good on the night. It wouldn't suit every bass or every bassist and Al makes a good point about weight. I suppose what I wanted to say ws don't be scared of equalising around a higher frequency and if you have a shelving response available on your mixer then explore using it. I find it quite a pleasing way of removing some of the boom whilst keeping a little deep bass and way better than using the conventional bass control on my active bass or the bass amp. You have to use your ears and of course we are all aiming for different sounds. Perhaps the other advice would be to make small changes and go back to a flat response from time to time whilst adjusting so you can be sure the changes are genuinley improvements. more here

If you’re practicing to improve it’s not always going to be fun. If it’s a tricky passage then playing it slowly and repeating while speeding up can be tedious. Learning theory and practicing scales up and down the neck isn’t always musical. Sight reading practice can be fun if you get a good tune but to be effective it should be something you wouldn’t listen to or from an exercise book. The point being, practice inherently won’t always be fun if you’re doing it right, but when you get it all together and your performances improve, it is worthwhile.

Yep, I have a 5 and 4 string. Love them both. Bought due to neck and shoulder issues. Just home from gigging the 4 string, will play the 5er in the morning. Highly recommended. I usually play them full bass and treble and adjust mids as necessary through my Markbass CMD 12 set fairly flat. Seems to work with my current 5 piece.

Eh???

I have one of the 25th anniversary ABM 400 as well. I called Dave Green to ask some other questions about different amp options and when we got to talking about the 25th anniversary 400 he actually told me that although it's labelled as an ABM 400, it's actually a 500 watt power section. The amp is apparently based around modern pre amp and power sections but with the original EQ section from the original ABMs from back in the day. He also confirmed that the compressor can only be engaged by the footswitch and that the compression settings are fixed. I absolutely love the amp and really appreciate how solid the custom case it comes in is, the amp is well protected that's for sure!

I’ve seen some lovely Pau Ferro boards - like the one on the ACG build on the first page of the thread, on some of the MIM Fenders (among others) it can look & feel a bit dry, I got some of the Montypresso relic wax which darkens the wood as well as conditioning it and it came up lovely for me, if you don’t want to darken it then just get the normal one. As for how it plays, I thought it was a bit snappier than rosewood if pushed for a difference but nowhere near the difference between something like maple and rosewood (and even then the differences are overstated a bit IMHO)

When you put it like that, then that does put a different spin on it. I also have a fairly good body of work, I've written music that's been in adverts and used on TV programmes, my music was regularly played on the radio and I've done two John Peel sessions, Radio 1 roadshows and a Virgin session. I've had CD's, vinyl etc. for sale in shops like HMV and I've been on the front cover on a magazine, been in the music press, in books and even have a Wikipedia page. It's even been my full time job. I'm still a musician in my head though 😂

Perfumed ponce...

It was a Squirt.

They must've misspelt the name.

Aye, but I don't think anybody did.

As it should be.

Absolutely this!!

Dirty Boy - Cardiacs

I had a custom Roscoe LG with a Pau Ferro board. I picked it over Rosewood as I thought the colour and subtle grain was gorgeous. Performance wise, I didn’t find much in it next to rosewood boards that I had on similar instruments, but personally, I found the colour of it more pleasing to look at.