Leaderboard

Straight out of the box, you get useable synth/moog sounds! It’s not hard to dial in and I think this responds better than most of the presets I liked in my C4. Anyway, here’s my small board project.

So we have black stain and a first coat of Tru-Oil on the neck More coats and lots of flatting required ... but it's really starting to look the part - old but well looked after - rather than utterly borked. 😁

Without sounding like an immediate acolyte for many gigging bass players who need a couple of familiar sounds to nail the wedding gig/pub gig it’s gonna do a lot of the heavy lifting. It’s not gonna have the flexibility of a dedicated synth but has the accessibility of a pedal with some nice added flexibility to fine tune for folks who want to or need to deep dive. I think what MXR have offered is a pedal most of us can add to a board and have useable practical sounds that cover a lot of what we need. Calling it BassSynth will garner scrutiny from those who want a full synth in a pedal but realistically it’s a mass appeal unit serving 80%+ of the gigging player. It’s nice to see a synth pedal which isn’t just showcasing the tech wizardry and offering go to tones out of the box.

I always find it incomprehensible that folk form a loving bond with a wholly inanimate, impersonal object like, say, a car or a house, and yet here I am genuinely bereft at the passing of a loudspeaker. Strange chaps us humans. I just plugged into my hefty old 15" Trace Elliot cab and annoyed the neighbours one last time. Dreamed of owning this when I was a callow bass player with a Woolworths guitar and a head full of dreams. Now I'm at the far end of that road, grizzled, cynical, ancient beyond counting, and I can neither afford a vehicle that can carry it nor lift the damn thing. I put a solid old fashioned amp into it and cranked it beyond any level of neighborhood decency. Still sounds as amazing today as I dreamed it would way back when. It's going to a new home, for a new lease of life. I hope it will still bring joy long after I'm returned to dust. Adieu old friend, you were such a heavy ba$tard.

Is the correct Basschat response 👍

Excelent, that is on my 'buy second hand when someone gets bored of it' list!

I wouldn't worry about it until you are getting gigs. That gives you plenty of opportunity to see if the 200w is enough. 20W is twice as loud as 2W 200W is twice as loud as 20W 2000W blows up your cab way trying to be half as loud again. 500W is just a bump up.

Funnily enough my mum's piano is still with us... Her parents bought it thinking it was new from the makers (Pfeiffer) in 1932. My mum learned to play on it, then did all her practice for LRAM, I did lessons on it, my mum gave lessons on it and recently we decided it needed a good service. So we found a really good piano builder who almost fell over when he saw it! He spent a quite few hours re-felting, adjusting hammers, sorting out the pedals and putting on a couple of replacement "ivories". It cost us about £400. Turns out it was actually made between 1872-74 and had been sitting in their warehouse for 60 odd years. And pianoman said it had possibly the best bass he'd ever heard from a piano - as good as a concert Bösendorfer he reckoned. So if you can find an oak overstrung Pfeiffer, buy it! And find someone very strong to move it. I've been involved in 6 moves with it so far and 'er's a reet bugger!

Can't wait for Jools to do a Eurovision medley in the Legends slot at Glasto.

Just in! Sharing my little project board.

Seems familiar to me. How 'bout you?

we support each other. We are a team I'm lucky in that my wife adores me and also is a musician she has 3 pianos, two acoustic guitars, 2 Ibanez 6 stringers, 2 P basses, a bass collection thing me I have about 30 assorted guitars and we have rooms to put them all in I fancied a Rik recently, for the Jam tribute, she said get it, so I did we don't hide anything from each other, as we've discovered again recently Life is short (Bro-in law RIP 56 years old and dog walking friend, 63 just the other week) Be kind to each other

When I were a lad there were only two cores (apart from apple) - soft and hard. Soft was found under the Magic Porn Bush, with its pages stuck together by rain and who knows what, and hard was near-mythical - most certainly not what was shown in cinemas with titles like "Confessions of a Window Cleaner" or "Rosie Dixon - Night Nurse".

... to those of you who joined in on tonight's Live Chat on my YouTube Channel. We shifted to a new format for the first time tonight, so to then be joined by Lee Sklar of all people, for a 45 minute chat, was a little 'headspinning' to say the least. But if you watched or joined in by video or on the text chat... THANK YOU! Legends!

We had just a drum'n'basses rehearsal on Sunday... I think I've convinced them this is a good way to go as they're all learning exactly what everyone else plays without just relying on a particular cue - means we'll be tighter and clashing parts will be ironed out as you can't hide so much. Last week was basses and guitars, so hopefully next weeks rehearsal for full band will have everyone knowing exactly what to do for gig a week Friday. So new drums and guitar will be tight as after only 4 rehearsals, including getting guitar and drums to occasionally follow me to bring out the progfunk part of of our punk!

At some point the Jools Holland and Glastonbury threads will merge. How many years of complaining about the mix or the acts do people endure before they realise it's not compulsory or legally binding to watch either of them?

Rehearsal on Mon night with Blockbustarz Glam band to run thru a few new songs for this Sat show at Dreadnought Rock venue in Bathgate. Also ran thru some songs we've not played for a while. Found a discrepancy in one song where guitar and bass was slightly out of sync. When i mentioned it and found guitarist was missing one note in a sequence he maintained that he's "playing it correctly because that's how the song is." and was adamant he was not at fault. Tried listening on a mobile but couldn't hear it clearly enough. Rather than make things worse i agreed to play it his way. Got home and following day it was annoying me so i checked my notes from 6 yrs ago and sure enough i was correct. I checked a bass tab and again my version was correct. I raised it with him again on messenger and hey ho he finally admitted he was wrong. That's what rehearsals are for but it was just the adamant "I'm right, your wrong" attitude with no compromise that took me aback. I'm one of those bassists that learn a song by ear and then looking for a bass tab or transcript to verify it and if a difficult part i'll use Youtube clips. Once i have it i write it all out myself for future reference. I rarely get it wrong because i spend the time researching it first. The original band members have always been aware of that fact and if i raise an issue they will stand by what i say but in 3 yrs the guitarist and myself have never had a difference in what was played. I think he'll listen to me if it happens again. Other than that we sorted out set list for Sat night as its a different type of venue to playing the clubs. More rock than dance songs. Drummer also brought some outfits that his mate from Glitter Band days had made and were not sold yet to see if we wanted any of them. We get a reduced rate. All bought from the guy. Rehearsal turned into a fashion show. 😂 Dave

It’s gone for simplicity and accessibility, I guess if you want more presets (plus more options) you would be looking at a Fi4, C4 or EnzoX rather than this. The accessibility means it wouldn’t surprise me if this MXR outsells those three combined!

You'd spend more time plugging and unplugging the USB lead than replacing a battery once a year.

First rehearsal for a while - singer has been quite busy rehearsing for his part as the monster in Young Frankenstein (at the Core Theatre in Solihull from 22nd to 26th July). Successful run throughs of three songs that we're putting in the set (we've played two of them live once apiece but wanted a further brush up) and then we had a go at Hotel California, which our singer was a bit reluctant to do but after we'd run through it he was pleased with it. Seeing as we hadn't planned to do it and were doing it unpracticed, it was rather good. Guitarist had had the bridge replaced on his Variax JTV-59 (the Les Paul-ish one) and only just got it back, and we're not sure if this was related but he broke the top E twice. Feeling pretty ready for the next gigs, successive nights in Polesworth and Gloucester on 11th and 12th July.

Was about to say that his granddad must have owned a DeLorean, but went in the wrong time direction... 🤪🤦🏻

Rise ... if s/he still can with a triple hernia and some broken vertebrae... 🤔🤪😂

Here we go. The top-hat is unobtrusive, albeit non-reversible. W for the win.

A small but extremely discerning club I like to think 😉. I know the Starstreams are a bit Marmite-y but everything about these basses is as good as the best I've ever experienced. I don't 'need' (?!) another bass but if I see a nice used A1H, I don't think I'll be able to resist buying it to keep my A2S company. The fact that heavy discounting by Vox has undermined their second-hand value makes them a steal too. It's my practice/back-up bass and much to my surprise my band-mates love it too - the sounds AND the look.

You could try the new TE-1200, but it is very expensive. You could also try some of the older Trace Elliot gear which can be found for relatively cheap second hand, but they are very heavy. However, 200 watts at 4 ohms should be plenty loud enough, if it isn't ask the guitarist to turn down.

Buy a second P bass, Simples😁

I think if you are needing a synth bass sound for just a few songs in your live set, this looks great! 2 or 3 very usable different synth sounds which track tightly, together with a usable filter, would certainly meet the needs for my covers band in a given 2 hour live set for filter/synth, I certainly won't ever need more than 8 at any one gig. I guess in the same way as a couple of dirt/drive/fuzz options are plenty for many of us for live use; we don't need loads - just a few really good ones.

I arrived home to a package 😁 Beautifully presented and arrived lightning fast once shipped from Greece, though lead tine was a month. The steel pick made from an offcut used to make it is a very cool touch Very happy with how it looks and feels, just need to strip the bass down and get her started...

Time To Rock Festival in Sweden with Stray on Saturday. Got a great slot at 8.30pm!

Indeed. It would be a shame to see such innovative and iconic instruments disappear like Vigier, Pedulla and others.

Following this post. I'm big fan of building synth sounds with pedals, also have IMA's HX Stomp synth packs (pretty awesome btw). I also own an EHX Microsynth and a C4 that I have used a lot in the past, alongside other pedals, in order to create landscapes and sounds, plus I own several synths too. So I am familiar with what you can achieve with a bass and pedals. I do like what the MXR Synth does, but I am not fully sold on it yet. I'm hoping for more videos to come out and to hear real world bass players talk about it, not the usual marketing videos that are currently flooding YouTube since its release this week. IMA's video is really good, he's a great educator when it comes to pedals and creating sounds. The tracking seemes like a great selling point, plus the preset option and no need to connect to a laptop to edit or enter submenus. And the size... perfect for a small board or as a one-stop shop on a bigger board if you need a few synth-like sounds at he gig. Looking forward to everyone's experiences with the pedal!

I knew it wouldn’t take long for this suggestion!

One band plays Milk and Alcohol with a different timing on the signature riff. It's hell for me as I've bought that single when it came out, and it's ingrained in my soul...

I do actually have a Jamstik Studio guitar which has a USB-powered rechargeable battery, but that also has a MIDI converter in it which takes a fair bit of power. I've also got some Variaxes (Variaces?) which also have large current drains and use two different types of battery. The older ones use a 9V supply (generally in the form of 6xAA batteries), while the JTV ones have a slide-in battery like a smaller version of the battery pack powering cordless power tools. The latter is more convenient, and would be more convenient still if you just plugged a USB lead into the battery pack. One day, all basses will have an on-board computer. Except Fenders, obviously.

I noticed he was using the Ibanez at Glastonbury at the weekend. It was a great set.

Believe that's a Yamaha RA200 rotating speaker cabinet for DG's guitar.

Sorry for the lack of TE relevance, but I would like to add weight to the argument that watts is just a number beyond a certain point. I use a modular system (Markbass Mini CMD121P IV + Markbass New York 121 cab) and I have a backup head - a TC Electronic BH250. All of the following combinations (in order of wattage) are loud enough to be heard fine with a full band IMO. Markbass full rig - 500W into 4ohm 2x1x12" Markbass combo on its own - 250W into a single 8 ohm 12" TC Electronic BH250 into a crappy rehearsal room Behringer 4ohm 4x10" (250W) TC Electronic BH250 into 4ohm 2x1x12" (250W) TC Electronic BH250 into single 8 ohm 12" cab (so providing a nebulous amount of watts less than 250W - TC shy with this info but I guess it will be less than 200) At its most powerful (500W), I don't need the master up on my rig more than about a third in general when playing in the same room as a drummer, guitarist and singer or a drummer, singer, backup singer, keys, sax, trombone. Even with the lesser powered stuff, it doesn't need to be cranked to be heard. TL:DR - try the Elf with your 2x15" in the full band setting (and play with EQ) before you even think about buying anything.

To complete the set, just wait for Eurovision to come around again so people can tell you how many years it has been since they watched. It seems to be very important information for everybody to be aware of 😁

So this is what I made for the Yamaha HS7 speaker. As its printed in black with black extrusions, its rather difficult to see So here's the Fusion design. It's all parameterised so angles and sizes are simple to change. And this is the mixer holder. There's a lip at the front to hold it in and rubber strip at the bottom to stop it slipping and protect the speaker. The angle is more than the speaker support so it tilts back. Also the mixer is screwed into the stand using the holes in the back. It's an M5 from memory. Happy to print them out for the cost of filament and postage. Black extrusion costs me between £15 and £19 per meter at the moment, silver or raw is cheaper It's a volatile market sadly Rob Here's the F360 design to hold the mixer

Manual is up: https://www.jimdunlop.com/content/manuals/MB301.pdf

Actually last week but… First full rehearsal with new singer. She is great, easy to work with, and sings in a positive way that’s nice for me to harmonise with. Mostly on IEMs (drummer has electronic kit) but ran a mix through the PA too and someone made a phone recording that I listened back to today - this is a band with potential methinks.

@Buzzy Absolutely genius Sir 🤣🤣🤣 I nearly choked on my Werther's Original! 🤭