Leaderboard

Private party in darkest Somerset. Usual thing, enthusiastic crowd, dancing and singing. I used my Trace head and Barefaced cabs and jolly good they sounded.

Punk gig with Emergency Exit at The Riverside Bar in Dumfries. As always it turned out to be a great wee night. Was reasonably busy from the word go, lots of dancing and lots of vids being taken. Hopefully i'll get to see some of the vids. Used the Sandberg MarloweDK fitted with D'addario XT's but i've gone off these strings. They just dont cut thru the mix. Tomorrow i'll fit a set of the DR Black Beauties same as fitted to my VM4. Love them on that bass so hopefully they should sound amazing on the Marlowe too. Lots of good comments at the end from both guys and gals which is nice. Few said they were arranging a bus to come up to our Dreadnought gig in Bathgate in 2 weeks. Lovely. Just home and had my coffee and biccies before beddy by bo time. Night night Dave

Played at the wonderful Harrogate Royal hall last night. Capacity crowd of around 950 in a beautiful room, probably the most impressive theatre we regularly do. Had a good soundcheck but once the show started there were some sound issues for us onstage, which our new engineer did a great job of battling with and eventually winning! This may explain my rather serious face in the pic below - the booming was around a 'C', and you've guessed it, plenty of the stuff we do is in that key! The other picture shows a guy who came to our Sheffield gig the week before - he's a professional Ringo act from Detroit called Michael, and he's seen here chatting with our guitarist Jan after the show.

Had an absolute flippin' stormer! Pub venue that is very local to me that has taken ages to get booked with (new management = interest in new bookings). It's always busy in there and it was no different last night. I think we went down very well (covers band with a good few unexpected ones in the mix) with the very mixed age, packed audience. I used my usual Ashdown set up and pedal board with my SansAmp and my bitsa P bass. The on stage sound was hard work with half the stage area surrounded with sound deadening curtains and deadening foam on the low ceiling above. My sound was a bit too thick for my liking and my top end aggressive edge was hard to pin down. The drummer's sub was squeezed in behind my amp and him and I think that may have unbalanced things for me. Anyway, soldiered through as you do We;re back there again in April, which is nice. My usual squeeze - from a previous gig. Please ignore the settings!

Lobster savages this - hope Fender listen

Love this Ashdown Studio 15 for my needs, especially being 72!

Had a trek to the seaside yesterday - a venue in Rhyl... We were headlining, but wanted to be 2nd on as all of us had a combined age of around 250 and needed beddy-boes at some time before 2 am. So we went on at 2130, which, as is the way with music venues actually turned out to be 2220. There was only a vocal PA, which I discovered after turning up with a Markbass 2x10 and Marshall Jubilee head; our other bassist had brought an 80s Trace and enormous 4x10 so I thought there might be issues with being heard. As it was, all was just as loud as with a PA, but without that artificial bass drum thump, but still clear sounding (at least if you had ACS plugs like I did! Audience was very appreciative, only a couple of c0ckupses (both by guitar man) and Mr Drums did fine despite having dragged himself out of a flu-ey deathbed in order to infect us all as well. And managed to get home in 1h45 beating Mr Google's claim of 2h20! So in bed by 0130, despite a wind-down glass of Edradour. Sparkley trousers went down a storm too.

If only they had thought to put a pickup guard on it to hide the shoddy alignment... ... it probably would have ended up like this:

As pointy as I dared go in the 1980s. All points rounded tastefully to avoid having someones eye out. Still pointy enough though not to be able to stand up straight when leaning against a stack, or a wall etc.

Hour House - Madness

Online retailers should take a few minutes to setup a bass before posting promotional pics...

The string location relative to the pup looks ok. However, the E string looks too far away from the edge of the fretboard - the opposite of what Lobster had to deal with.

But yeah, that one in Lobster's hands should never have left the factory.

Yes, I got some of this from B&Q and it conducts just fine. I tested it with a multimeter.

That’s a lovely sentence, Dad and I agree wholeheartedly.

All very well, and it's The Truth, but it's not necessarily The Whole Truth. There are many aspects of Music, as with Life in general, that escape from the clutches of Competition. Whether that's a Good Thing or not is for individuals to appreciate; for my part, it's those elements that are the best bits. The sheer joy when it all comes together, either playing solo or in any ensemble, there are moments (often no more than moments..!) where one is uplifted, charmed, untouchable, and far above tawdry concerns of competition. OK, if there must be aspects of competition to be taken into account, at least on occasion, it would be a shame, and a waste, to only see the competitive side of things. Some are fine with this, of course, and maybe, for them, vying for the Top Spot is a goal in itself. It's not so for many; Humility can be a virtue, too (or does that compete with Ambition..?).

Pic of the rest of the band who are always "blurry" because they are not bass players!!!!!!!!!!!

You mean, that’s not the correct way? *sidles from room to spend rest of evening restringing basses*

I created LoopTube https://looptube.xyz as I wanted a web app to be able to quickly load a song and select a segment to loop, slow it down and move the loop around different phrases as I'm learning it. It needs a youtube ID or Link to load the song you want then you can control the loop length to focus on the area you want. Still working on it so let me know if you have any suggestions. You can also embed it in your own site - see the About page for iFrame embed code.

Yep, been going on for a very long time, certainly most of the time since I’ve been on Basschat so well over 10 years

ive just posted the video on Fender Germany's Facebook page. Let's see how they react...😬

Rod Stewart is what you get if you try to buy Steve Marriott from Lidl

Not particularly, if you look closely.

Throw in some Roquefort and I'll join in and bring scissors to cut the tape.

Is it just the HX Stomp though? I play in a three-piece metal band, both the guitarist and myself played on Helixes. At our first shows, people regarded our sound as 'thin'. After (another) hundred hours of adjusting tones we even obtained 'great tones' kind of feedback. However, no matter what I did, I felt the sound to always be somehow...unsatisfying. I completely agree and understand those who say there's something wrong with it, something you can't 'really put your finger on it'. And don't get me wrong, I'm not some valve purist, nor am I a great audiophile, tone guru or audio engineer. Quite the contrary, actually - I am not very picky. All I wanted was a "normal" sound, which I heard whenever I connected to a guitar or bass amp, a simple, normal and yet satisfying sound that somehow I never managed to obtain with the Helix. I spent hundreds of hours trying various effect combinations and setups, online presets and IR's. Every time I spent more than 20-30 minutes setting up an effect, my ears would get tired and I started perceiving the preset as being 'good'. Next day at rehearsals, my ears would bleed with disappointment and desperation, as it always seemed to me as if the effect is some sort of joke, a parody of what I thought I obtained the previous day setting up the preset. What I found strange was that the the more unnatural and illogical the preset, the better it seemed to sound. Sometimes placing a cab before the amp or having a split signal from the amp that bypasses the cab and goes in the output through a distortion pedal seemed to actually make a desired effect. The simple presets sounded rubbish. And it was those that I wanted to sound good - I didn't want any intricate signal chains. Just a simple, plain pedal > amp > cab thing. But something always seemed to be off... My rehearsal room setup was guitar/bass > Helix LT > mixer > PA. And that was the problem. Just because you can simulate the sound of an Ampeg or whatever, it doesn't mean it will sound like an Ampeg. If you don't have a high end mixer/PA, it will absolutely, and without any doubt, not sound like one (maybe even sound just plain bad, like it happened to me). So no, your guitar will not sound as if you actually own a Mesa Boogie, if you have a major bottleneck. It is not 'ignorable'. It is not 'secondary'. If you think you're getting a Helix and you're gonna sound great no matter what, then you might as well buy some subscriptions to 'how to play guitar like a pro in 30 days' programs. And in the next month maybe 'become a programmer' and 'build muscle like a bodybuilder'. Hope I'm making myself clear - the Helix alone is not a shortcut, not in the way that it seems to be when you put it into words such as 'it simulates a darkglass connected to a valve markbass and a 8 x 10 cab'. The tone might sound great at some venues (or, of course, open-air festivals where they have high-end equipment), but the sound might vary greatly between the rehearsal room and live sound. I had times when on certain mixers and PA's I was surprised on how well it sounds, and times when I just wanted to smash it with a blunt object. I made the mistake of thinking that if I buy this rather expensive piece of equipment, I could get away with it but I learned the hard way this is not the case. I found it to be too much of a struggle for me, and that it implied other investments to make it work the way it makes you believe it should work. To me, it was too much of a headache. But as a conclusion, to anyone struggling with the tone and having the same experience I do, consider the other equipment in the signal chain - are they of equal or higher value, worth thousands, or are they cheap stuff bottlenecking, giving you nightmares? Maybe this is 'that thing on which you can't really put your finger on' - the hope that a thousand dollars (or whatever version of Helix we're talking about) piece of equipment, will sound as good as a $5000 setup. I think that no one will ever buy a real amp and cab again if somehow this promise (if I may) of "simulating other amps and cabs" would work as intended, without requiring other high-end investments. I hope that day comes.

If all else fails a rubber O ring slightly oversized may push in and hold it there or you may have to tape just around the edge.

My entry to the February 2023 Basschat Composition Challenge, Inspired by the picture chosen by the previous winner Wolfram. The picture evoked memories of the computer games of my youth, so I tried to cast my mind back to the kinds of soundtracks those primitive programs would have. I have covid at the moment (for the first time) so I've had plenty of time on my hands, hence the early submission. 🤣 Tech Stuff - This is a bit of an experiment, composed entirely on Cubasis 3 on my tablet, as I wanted to know how viable it is as a tool for composing bit on the go. It's a bit laggy when inputting via the built in keyboard, requiring a fair bit of moving parts around, but it's useable, particularly when drawing parts in. I transferred it to Cubase Elephants 10 to put a fade on it using the Steinberg project importer, and it did a decent job. Although the drums didn't map properly, so I replaced the tracks using MT PowerDrums. Everything else is the proprietary VSTs.

Liberation Group, Namibia:

This is what I recall,from having the Kramer catalog on my wall at 13 years old 😆 They were made in Japan! (1&2 maybe 3&4 poss Korea) 4 models Forum 1- neck through,Carved body, EMG pickups and pre, Spector Bridge, shark inlays (effectively MIJ pointy Spector) My dream pointy bass Forum 2- same but bolt on and flat body/top Forum 3 - Neck through, Flat body,Spector branded pickups and preamp (As per the Korean Spector NS2a) and spector Bridge, diamond inlays . Available in a few garish 80s colours. Forum 4- same but bolt on Deep cutaways on all 4, and lots of wacky colours, I've never seen one in the flesh, only the guitars when I was a kid. I'd love a Forum 1 in white 😍

I did a session for a producer about 10 years ago who wanted me to use one of his basses (a Japanese Jazz copy that buzzed like crazy) and he had a long wire coming from the bass with a teaspoon attached to the end of it tucked into my sock. I found this pretty weird, but it worked as the playing ended up on a release. Would prefer a non-teaspoon solution if possible

Mine arrived tonight..... Really nice finish, smooth neck but the Pao Fero board looks like milk chocolate and the 12" radius will take a bit of getting used to. Haven't plugged it in yet (can't get near my amps).

Playing music is not a competition. IMO instrument ability and technique is only important if the lack of it gets in the way of being able to play the songs. Ultimately it's the songs that are important, not any individual musician's technical prowess.

NBD! (I'll probably post on that thread too, but here's the stuff you've - well I've - been waiting for) 😉 I finally picked up the bass from Jon on Thursday, but haven't had time or the pix to do anything about it until now. It's awesome! It oozes quality, the action with the brass nut is superb, the tonal range from the John East pre-amp is incredible - everything from a Stingray clank to a Jamerson thud - and it weighs... 7lb 6oz!! Jon was quite apologetic - he'd been aiming for 7lb, I think - but the Hipshot detuner I added to the spec took it over the top. Anyway, here are some pix. Enjoy!