All Activity

Bought an Octaver. Just the job, no hassles 👍

Done. And there's me posting in the very megathread I was grumbling about being hard to mine for info! 🙃

Reposting here from the MXR thread at Peter's request, where people were discussing the relative merits of the two pedals: OK I am breaking a self-imposed decade-long exile from posting to chime in here, because I just got the Future Impact VIP that was up for sale and I'm so bloody impressed with it as a product. You guys are absolutely right - in fact, I'd said something eerily similar to Peter earlier today in a private chat where he was very kindly giving me advice on a usb-midi converter. First up - tracking on the VIP is stellar. I don't have the MXR, but I own the Source C4 and used to own the original Deep Impact. This feels both immediate and accurate, it gives me that finger-ear connection that makes me believe I'm playing an instrument. Feed it clean bass with clean technique and octaves jumps, slides, ghost notes, bends are no problem. The only thing that might improve it a little bit is some kind of training mode with AI or similar to give even better, context-dependent note-on/-off triggering. But it's already really, really good. If you're competent enough to play in a funky covers band then this pedal will do what you want with minimal adaptation to your playing style, you can play it and still feel like a bassist. Sonically, I only needed to play through a few presets to hear very clearly that this will do anything that is showcased on that MXR demo, and more besides; including stuff the MXR can't do to the best of my knowledge but that's still useful for actual real-world bassists. E.g. some of those classic bass monosynth patches a la MJ or Herbie rely on mixed waveform voices and/or pulse width modulation. The MXR 'voice' button is a bit of a black box that sort of kind of maybe covers these a bit but definitely not to the extent the FIV4 does. The FIv4 filters and associated envelopes sound great in a way the C4 can't manage; the sweeps are smooth, the tone is fat and pristine in a good way, that'll dirty up nicely if desired. In particular the very starts of the notes are the first time I've been convinced by a bass synth. Ergonomically, the VIP makes this much pedalboard friendly and the metal finish looks good, better in real life than on-screen. In an ideal world a future hardware revision would include LCD screen, USB interface and either rotation of the VIP casing 90 degrees while retaining top cable entry, or an additional footswitch for separating patch up/down functions. At the moment fast-pressing moves you down a patch number instead of up, it is ok when you get used to it. As other users have said: The big but very solvable problem is that the v4/VIP presets showcase the power and quality of the pedal but by and large aren't at all useful for the average gigging bassist in a band. All it needs is slots 1-10, or better 1-20, to be filled with a range of presets chosen to mimic synth bass in classic tracks a la the MXR, and it would elevate it to the undisputed top of the pile. It wouldn't matter how easy it is to edit beyond the basic level and dynamics controls on the front, because the users that feared the editor would never need to touch it. That'd probably also help with the dearth of decent Youtube demos, since bass reviewers wouldn't have to gain programming expertise first. I think part of the issue for the FI is that the people developing it are way more adventurous and forward-looking than us bassists! As it is, for now we just have to accept getting our editing fingers dirty or at least downloading some of QM's excellent patches. Hence my question to him about an appropriate MIDI adaptor. A secondary problem is that a lot of the useful online info about the FIv4 is buried in this gigantic megathread here and at the Other Place, that are hard to search or browse efficiently. Honestly I love the MXR demo and am still keen to try one, but I think once the hype has died down the FIv4 will emerge as still being current best-in-class for synth bass. It's not just powerful, it's musical and fun. Right I'll climb off my soap box now! Be interested to hear people's takes on which classic synth bass tracks would make the cut for a preset top ten or top twenty...

So this board saved our gig on Sunday when my Ashdown Head of Doom decided it had retired along with Black Sabbath. I’m really getting to grips with the Capo now, for me, the secret is in the blend control 😎

I had tickets for their last tour but it got cancelled due to "visa issues". I hope I get another chance to see them for the first time but this is definitely a strong second best.

Let's pimp my originals band - The Inevitable Teaspoons We're a five piece band based in NE Scotland (Aberdeen city and shire). We have no guitarist - we're not anti-guitar, that's just how it ended up. Instrumentation is drums, bass, keys, trombone, sax. We formed when some of us quit another band but still wanted to play with most of the rest of the old band. Frankly I don't know what pithy 1 or 2 word genre name can be applied to us. Not trying to be obtuse, but I genuinely die a little inside when I get asked "what kind of music do you play?" Umm, spoony music? Sorta ska, but played kinda straight like rock? I dunno. We gig very infrequently because we're shy and lazy. We usually play the places in Aberdeen which do originals bands - Cafe Drummond and Krakatoa, but have gigged further afield before - I think we've played in Perth a couple of times. Right now we're doing some DIY recording in our rehearsal room, hoping to put an album together this year. We have one EP and one album already released. Here's a very old video.

Guitar lemon oil and it really needed it ! I think it’s Dunlop lemon oil for guitars Rosewood goes nice and dark if you apply it, let it soak in and then wipe it down it really makes a difference and protects the wood too

Is there no upgrade? If it needs rosetta it must be a pretty old plugin?

Looks lovely that. Out of interest what did you use on the dry rosewood?

Funny you should say that; I’d made a similar suggestion during FI v4 development. One of the next things in the pipeline is a neural-net trained tracking system which will improve things further (using real-world playing clips). During testing, we got a taste of how fast this could be but it was causing crashes. Once those wrinkles have been ironed out, it’ll be fantastic. @LawrenceH please duplicate your post in the big FI thread.

Recent convert to Dragon Skin also. I use them both on 4 string J bass and 5 string multiscale Dingwall. I believe they are coated Hi Beams. Great string with plenty of bounce and life!

Staying "in house" with Logic makes a lot of sense. And I am sure that, for my purposes, the plugins are more than ample. I have messed with the Logic guitar amps but the Waves one just seemed to make eveything soung nice without me trying. And that is my favourite thing.

At rehearsal last night the lead singer shared my stereo mix on the 2nd receiver and was blown away at the portability and audio quality for the price. The XVive U4 is a little to heavy for her performance style, mono and relatively pricey, given we are just starting out getting paid gigs. I cautioned that multiple sets together might well have issues (being able to purchase extra receivers and they only have a scan button, no select, I reason makes that likely) but she wanted one anyway. I guess as she can always use it with her other bands and it's not breaking the bank.

An absolute gent, Richard. Sold me a book, prompt delivery and well packaged. Deal with confidence!

Government Cheese - Keb' Mo'

Just sharing an idea others have no doubt had, but I could not find when searching here. A simple addition to my gear to make any instrument cable silent (and right angle). * Neutrik silent right-angle jack * Sommer Spirit XXL instrument cable * Neutrik locking jack socket I got to this point having gone down the rabbithole of switching to IEMs for myself and one or more of the bands I play in. Specifically assembling dual cables into one: instrument out, mix to IEMs back. This adds a bit of effort initially but pays off with reduced cables and keeping them as a set (I have a similar cable from my multi-pedal to the personal headphone amp, so the wired IEM signal flows alongside the instrument signal route).