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Never Miss Another Gig! Oh no! The car won't start! And there you were, just about to set off for a prestigious unpaid 'exposure' gig. What a disaster! Not if you're the proud owner of the Del Var Industries Emergency Bass Bike Kit! Simply attach the quality engineered front and rear wheel assemblies to your bass* with the bolts provided and you'll be pedaling off to fame and fortune! Impress your friends and baffle your enemies with the Del Var Industries Emergency Bass Bike Kit. Only £199.99 (exc VAT and Shipping) allow 28 months for delivery * May involve drilling and / or modification. Not recommended for use with vintage basses. Goldbrick Ltd (trading as Del Var Industries) accepts no liability for any injuries sustained during the use of this product or any loss consequent upon failing to acquire a record deal. E&OE.

Ampstack shared their album. 14 March at 17:44 · Knob tip: If you are one of those people that always runs same settings on your amp, take the knobs off and put them all on straight up or in highest position when on your favoured settings, then it is easy to reset if you have to lend an amp at a gig or whatever.

Draw a penis on your face to make people think you fell asleep at a party.

You're in the middle of a gig, the crowd are roaring for more and your bass goes out of tune. You kick in your pedal tuner and ... nothing! It's borked. What to do? Simply ask the venue owner if you can use his landline phone. Pick the receiver up, crook it to your ear and tune to the dial tone - a combination of 440hz (A) and 350hz (near as dammit F). Because it's an interval either (or both) notes will do. And because you haven't dialled anyone this hack is totally free! Hey! Presto! You're back onstage and ripping the place up with your blazing licks.

@Al Krow I don't mind being quoted, it's being misquoted that I object to. My settings are not a trade secret at all, but as I have tried - and seemingly failed - to explain that, different basses have different signal output strengths and different fundamental tones. These mean that you'll need to optimise your compression settings for each different bass you use in addition to factoring in other variables such as your right hand plucking strength (I'm somewhat ham fisted whereas you attack the strings with the angst and venom of an asthmatic tapeworm) and any tonal characteristics of your amp/cab/speakers etc. What this all means that my settings almost certainly won't work for you*. So for the record, my settings for the 160 Comp on my B3 are; THRSH -32, Ratio 2.8, Gain 10, Knee Soft, Level 88. * For example, you often wax lyrical about the aggressive sounds of your Ibanez but if you set your compressor up with the settings that work with my warm, mellow sounding Sandberg as above, you'll start yet another thread/poll/campaign to tell the world that you have once again "proved" that compression is an urban myth and the likes of @Skol303, @51m0n and myself will lose the collective will to live. Again. etc. The best thing to do is to try it for yourself and find the settings that work for you with your gear. It really is that simple. There, I've said it. I feel cleansed.

That was dub he wanted, not flobbadob.

My TB500 came home yesterday. Required lots of repairs, email from Mikko: Hi. Just to let you know your Terror Bass 500 has been repaired and is ready to be sent back to you as soon as we've received payment. There were a few things wrong with your amplifier. The front of the amplifier had suffered some damage, the control panel was slightly bent and 3 control pots were snapped from the circuit board. They were still making slight contact so the controls were still sort of functional but that's where all that crackling was coming from. There was also a filter capacitor in the power supply circuit that had snapped off the board and it was making all sorts of crazy pops when turning the amp to standby or off. I've sorted all of this out, calibrated the clock frequencies and cleaned the pots and contacts. The total cost of the repair including labour, parts, shipping + VAT amounts to £47.40. You can pay this via debit/credit card or PayPal by calling our sales team on 0208 905 2828. Have to say, what a fab experience with Orange 👍

Hello (Hé) everyone! Small new on this forum, I come from France, I am 42 years old and I play on a Jazz bass 72 color sunburst. I have also a bass acoustic EKO of 1980 and one double bass of study, a jazz bass squier vintage fretless of 2007, bass six cords of my manufacturing, Fbass style and a singlecut also of my manufacturing in 5 cords. As amplifier I have a GK RB700 II, a baffle GK néo of 15” and one baffle GK of 2X10”. J also kept an amplifier EARTH of 1978 which always works : -) See you!

Yes - I don't normally look at drums things, but the drummer in my band loves tool, and is one of the better drummers I have ever played with so when he says about things being hard I tend to listen. I like this, not because the normal 'girl on youtube thing', but its really easy to see what is going on and show the structure of the song, the concentration needed and the relief at the end!

check out EBS MicroBass II, had mine for years, rugged, super functional, drive knob for grit, EQ to dial in what you want, excellent input/output options

I can't see why anybody who was selling a bona fide item would refuse.

No all she ever says is ‘is it in yet?’

I put small yellow cable ties around lead ends and mike stands etc that could be ‘confused’ by other band members who think the rock wire cables could be their’s and the Aldi special ones could be mine at the end of a gig.

http://youtu.be/bSABkZfh8-A

IMHO pups have a MUCH bigger impact on tone than the wood and perhaps the single biggest impact on tone, other than 'in your face pedals', of anything in the signal chain. So I'm in agreement with @burno70 that the P set up, with the tone dialled off, is the thing to go for here - and no surprise that your P pups are delivering the creamiest deepest lows Having said that, mahogany is just a lovely hardwood.

Agree,by John Paul jones's admission he never repeats himself so on Zep stuff i just role around the neck on the fills and get it on the important bits

It's a bit daft that it doesn't say on the website, but I think, looking at the other samples, that one is on figured, flamed, wood and the other is on straight grain. On the teal one you've chosen, you can just see the green coming out in the parts of the flame that are straight grained... Bear in mind that the samples appear to be on maple - the darker wood of your body will give you a different colour tone. Best way of finding out is to put some on in the bottom of the neck pocket. Apply with a small pad made up of lint free cloth and un-thinned. The colour when it is still wet will be indicative of both the colour tone and the depth of colour once it has been clear coated. The colour will look quite different once it's dried. If it has dried and you want a reminder of what it's going to look like, just wipe it over with a slightly damp cloth. Great job on the body, by the way!

Love your honesty (which is humbling) and that alone makes you deserve every success. Hope the PA speakers were good 'uns too.

What's the neighbour's wife's clothes rail doing in your house? Asking for a friend.

How about this for a cable tidy

Maybe the increase is to pay for the new product line?

A bit of a pain to take a door to every gig just to use it though!

I always do a receipt,either buying or selling protects both yourself and the other person, and recently if possible a picture when high value items are about

I usually colour code my low-end leads with yellow tape at each end - if ain't got tape, it ain't bass............

Ahhh.... so the only true resolution now is the old "brick through the window" routine.

Ok guys, it is no zips no metal buttons day tomorrow ! As much respect to the kit being brought as is possible , I am sure it doesn't need saying , but I will anyway , but please get permissions to pick up , fondle , and stroke the owners of the kit Ed to clarify .... permissions FROM the owners of the kit

Manual is now on Tech21's website. Curious that there's no John Entwistle setting considering what the pedal does. Unfortunately there's a McCartney setting..... euurrrgh. On the plus side there is a Cheap Trick, Muse and Yes settings. This is going to be brilliant.

I use plastic cable drums from my local hardware shop for speaker leads (all of mine are 10m, so no confusion)- the drums were originally full of chain, which they sell pretty fast - & I get 'em free (I put something in the charity box).

That's no gap. As said above, once finish is applied that will be snug.

Mine have reached the country. I’ve paid my tax so they should be here on Monday. ive got a gig next Saturday so they won’t go to the tech for installation until after that.

I've just bought myself a Makita RT0700CX4 (which they describe as a trimmer) for that same reason. The lighter weight and adjustable speed is far better for hand-held guitar building purposes. Also that particular model comes with side bearing guide that is ideal for routing the rebate for binding.

I was using the Zoom 160 comp, threshhold on -32, ratio 5 (5:1?) gain 6, soft knee and level on 100, which means is the neutral setting, mostly.

mmmm.... Nice.....

About 3k for me, but that includes bass gear, my drum kit, hardware, cymbals and cases. back in the day I was a gear whore, but I came to the conclusion it sadly did not make me a better musician. I now practice and play more, and get the most from what I have, rather than thinking a new bit of kit will make me better.

yep. As I say to the venues when booking a gig, "we both want the same thing, lots of happy people having fun and drinking lots". Coz, the more YOU drink, the better WE sound

Are you being Sake?

I remember going to a see a musical duo at the Edinburgh Fringe, a few years ago, with a friend. We were the only two people there! My friend went to the toilet and they put the gig on pause until she got back

A speaker cab laid on its front, preferably on carpet, can allow a valve amp to be 'cranked' without 'bleeding ears syndrome'.

What a damned awful racket that was!

It's nice to be conversing with a person of taste and exceptional insight. Furthermore with a person who appreciates the great ideas which have shaped our times. Like the electric light bulb, penicillin and my over the door cable tidy.

I may have a few Anthrax tour shirts in my wardrobe... which reminds me they're probably still unwashed since the early 90s

Most excellent

Great post.

I am an expert here on compression, and I can categorically say that sometimes I cant hear it, out of the context of a mix. Because you just cant, not a 'transparent' compressor with a soft knee set to just pull everything up a couple of dB on the softer stuff especially in parallel. Good luck to anyone who can, you're definitely not normal. But put that in the context of a mix and if you know what to listen for you can hear the difference the compressor makes. So why bother if its that hard to consciously perceive? Because perception isn't conscious, psychoacoustics are hugely important and influential and definitely can make a band sound far more pro than the level of the venue they are playing in. Lets put it another way, would you rather an expert live engineer use everything at his disposal to make your band sound as brilliant as possible regardless of the venue, or would you prefer him to keep some of his tools in the box? Do you think your punters would tell the difference between Dave the drummer throwing some faders up on a shitty 6 channel Behringer desk and Wes 'The Wesernator' Maebe with a Midas Pro One and some choice outboard? What about Wes using the same desk as Dave and a few choice dynamics tools? I reckon Wes could make my band sound better live than I can with the same gear literally anywhere, he's the absolute canine undercarriage at his job, so I'd be some kind of an idiot if I didn't feel that. What does he use to achieve this? Simple, the basics that every sound engineer understands: good mic placement, good gain structure, good dynamics control, good spacial and additive effects, great musical understanding, great ears. He will use compression all over your bass to make it work in the mix better, think I'm kidding, check this out and especially this where he daisy chains two 1176s, the man is a master of compression, its his bread and butter. So what does this have to do with the OP question? Its simply the wrong question. It actually shows why most bassists probably shouldn't be trying to use compression, because it breaks down like this:- The audience should not generally be able to tell that a compressor is being used per se, but they will know that something is different if you turn it on and off. It depends on what the compression is for. A transparent gain riding compressor is going to work at a psychoacoustic level. On the other hand if you are using a compressor to drastically change the envelope of your bass sound then every single punter will hear the change as you swap it in and out. Its just a daft question really. Think like a bassist and you cant tell what its for, think like a sound engineer and you cant imagine a world without compressors on nearly everything.

Hmmmm... I think you are taking a small and pretty unrepresentative selection of popular music history. In fact, other than the over-earnest late sixties protoprog noodlers (think the early Floyd or Dead head type happenings) or the shoe-gazing miserablists of the late 80s/90s and so on I can’t think many other eras/genres where your thesis holds true. OK, maybe some pretentious chin-stroking bits of jazz... Most people in most audiences in all genres have gone out to be entertained. Show business is, after all, the business of show - and whether you like it or not, bands are part of the entertainment industry. And anyway, I think you’ve also set up a false dichotomy. It’s never been an either/or. It should always be both. And even those bands like the Genesis, Yes and Floyd type (at stadium or local venue level) who needed to concentrate on stage on their complex musicality tried to add visual interest through lights and other stuff... So a good band can have the chops, a good band can put on a show. A great band who really entertain their audience will tend to have a good balance of both. For me, if I go see a local circuit band I want them to have at least better than average musical ability. However, I also want them to connect with the audience in some sort of meaningful, genre-sympathetic, venue-appropriate manner. BOTH! A rubbish band is still a rubbish band no matter the show. A dull band is still a dull band no matter the chops.

I'll be adding to this! After lots of uhming and ahing, I saw a post on their Instagram which had me going to see them at first given opportunity. Went up to Alpher HQ for a few hours yesterday, and this morning I ordered myself an Alpher. Words can't describe my excitement! It'll be a 5 string Mako Elite 5, with a crazy burl top and matching headstock. Ebony 'board with a birdseye maple neck. Body is single piece maple (it looks amazing), pickups will be three Aguilar Super Singles, and an OBP-3 pre amp. 33" scale (because I'm a short derrière), not much weight. Oh, and some of the offcut from the cap (the electric blue bit) will be going into a 12th fret inlay. Untitled by Dave Butterworth, on Flickr Untitled by Dave Butterworth, on Flickr

Here's the update ... The head went back to Orange and I've just had an email from them saying that they've fixed the issue. Here's what they've said (I'm assuming that the issue would have required a little soldering and wasn't just a badly seated valve as I'd tried switching them out/reseating them a few times before I sent it to them): I've paid them for labour and shipping but so far this seems fantastic customer service. I'll post another update once I get the head back.

Well, I did tell some already. But to sum it up: My goal was to build an acoustic bass that would be loud enough to compete with an acoustic guitar without amplifying. So I gave it a very big body (wide and deep). I used a bass bar and a staple, just like a Cello. The sound holes are actually built as bass ports. In this pic you can see the construction. Body sides and back: Maple Top: Spruce Neck: maple-rosewood-maple Fretboard: ebony with mahogany fretlines Bridge: ebony Tailpiece brass and ebony Tuners: Gotoh lightweight Scale: 30" I also gave the bass an inspection hole. Initially meant to be able to (re)position the staple. But it also comes in handy as a sound port, because it reflects to the player while being played. Here's a shot of the back Like I said: The experiment failed. The bass is not loud enough. But it is pretty! ;-)