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You must see it!

Sad news but a life very well lived. A truly astounding musician. I had the privilege of hearing him play in an amazing concert at the Barbican in 2016. If you haven’t yet heard him, please do yourselves a favour and have a listen. https://www.theguardian.com/music/2025/sep/14/hermeto-pascoal-brazilian-jazz-musician-the-sorcerer-dies https://youtube.com/@hermetopascoaloficial?si=F21_RUHpWbcsI6uH

No worries. I did try it without cab blocks, but felt it lacked a certain “Je ne sais quoi”, it’s diffult to put your finger on it. That said, I notice most of the effect and/or the amp blocks seem to have a smooth response at the top end, almost as if they have a high cut already applied. I’m glad to hear I’m not the only one scratching my head over the I/O gain. I kinda feel the input needs to be pushed a little more - it would certainly explain why the compressors seem a bit unresponsive - I’m having to crank the input on hte luminal FET compressor. I never really though about it with my Helix, I just added blocks to get the tones I wanted. The resulting signal is bit hotter than going in, but that's just the way they turned out. The Anagram blocks seem to naturally sit at unity gain. Furthermore, the main volume knob on the helix is cut only. I have detached it from the XLR outputs so that FOH get full volume. I'm a little confused with the Anagram's mixer block. I would assume leaving the XLR outputs at 0db would be "unity", but it also has a master volume control that I don't really see the point of. I notice you can unlink the different output from the master volume. I assume that unlinking will achieve the same as disabling the Helix's volume knob. Like you, I need to investigate this further. I haven't been able to A/B these at volume yet, and I'm not likely to before the next gig.

Perhaps, Perhaps, Perhaps - The Pussycat Dolls

Then your setup sounds ideal. My backup board is kind of similar and works great.

Yes one is qty and one is quantity. Not dodgy at all 🤔

Looking and sounding very smart, sir. Nice job!

So that could vary from just a DI box to tone shaping and effects to all of that and I want in ear. However, none of that in essence is difficult. If you like the sound of your bass and need nothing else, buy a DI. If you want tone shaping you'll need a Zoom/Stomp/pedals then DI. If you want one of those and IEM then you'll need two outputs, DI and IEM, and it's more complicated and more money. Btw, a cheap and reliable way to do iem.. instead of using a wireless system (expensive, flakey, black magic), I use a wired system (cheap, reliable not voodoo). I run a physical cable to a headphone amp on my belt to my in ears.

It lives!

Not a bad show that, if lacking in bottom end generally - thanks for showing your wares, quality over quantity! And yes, one hell of a bassist you had hanging around the stand - definitely hankering for a mustang now…

I have Kay basses and a Kay guitar. Curiously they are all cheap construction but sound great!

Depping and jamming are excellent ways to improve confidence and ability. Deps force you to learn new stuff. I'm sure this insanely busy summer has made me 'level up'.

If its good enough for Steve Harris..... https://www.thomann.co.uk/tech_21_sh1.htm?srsltid=AfmBOoq6G8Gw2qdTyexCgK7B8neKOQorH7cBLPsq0PwU2n4yXAyOD88ddVU

Saturday: Fortunate Sons (not a tribute) at Barry Football club. Someone asked me 'where are you from?' I said over there... I was born a stone's throw from the far end of the stadium. First half I was a bit rough... still recovering from a brief visual migraine, no headache but leaves me washed out. By the second set I felt better. Stuck in a few little fills of my own, some of which madevthd guitatist crack up. Keyboardist is a lapsed bass player (😯) which meansvhe doesn't compete with mycfound so the mix was excellent. Monitor with my own mini mixer worked well. Good numbers, lots of dancing, lots of handshakes afterwards. Sunday: My first Bluesfire gig for months and the setlist had evolved a bit. New songs but not complex, three or four we hadn't played begore, but I had gone through earlier. A few key changes but only one that I didn't get tipped off about! I know blues isn't everyone's cup of tea but we have very wide idea of what goes and on many songs there's space for improvisation. I found being away from the band playing other stuff gave me some interesting/unusual ideas. We felt the break got us out of a rut and we were paying more attention to each other rather than playing from habit/memory. Had chances to get up the dusty end too. An encore was demanded so we did a randomly arranged Superstition about 30% faster than normal. At one point I was slapping the riff from Play that Funk Music... strangely it all came over as pretty tight. Audience was a bit thin due to torrential rain, but all three of us were on fire and we played a good two hours. Felt shattered afterwards but in a good way. Same gear for both gigs. Unashamed Fender lover. Sound was great IMHO. My udual cheap quecha trainers as they are the best thing for my dodgy ankle (podiatrist and physiotherapist approved!)

If they could just replace those switches with reasonably sturdy pushbuttons (and add a mute switch) that'd be half the battle won, right there.

Very misleading, as the dropdown says it's quantity.

New venue for us at The Winged Horse in Basildon. Pretty much your usual community pub in a busy resential estate, with an array of lively, colourful characters. We were also joined once again by one of our dep singers, Hazel, who did a fantastic job once again. Initially they wanted us to set up in the main bar area, but there's barely space for a duo, let alone a 6 peice band, so we set up in the secondary room. It did however mean we had to compete with the football on the screen in hte main bar. Nevertheless, we played well and had a decent crowd who came through to watch, sing and dance. Only real downside is no body told us it's payment via "Just Pay", not cash. So that's that's going to take a while to come through. Oh well. Next stop, The Sarah Moore in Leigh-on-Sea.- about 15mins walk from my front door.

It's good, it's fun, it's worth a punt. The McCartney cameo is odd, but doesn't spoil it. More constant smiles than big quotable jokes, but came out happier than when I went in. Count the number of Derek Small's ( identical ) basses. And the new drummer is great.

I used to use TI jazz flats on my first mustang. When my mustang collection expanded I tried various outher strings and found that I preferred d'addario chromes. I didn't rate the LaBella MUS set as the set I bought had so little top to them straight out of the pack that the tone control on the bass had hardly any effect.