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As expected, there's a happy ending to this story. I met up with Andy today and, having got back home and had a quick play, I can report that Rascal Mervyn-Lyte is an absolute joy. Andy's managed to retain the excellent features of the original Rascal (playability, sounds and controls) and make good the things I didn't like about it (weight and positioning on the strap); and that's without even mentioning the lovely walnut cut by my late buddy Merv. Andy's said a few times that he doesn't claim his stuff is perfect. All I can say is that this one's perfect for me.

Scandi-jazz from the North-East

my ex was the same... we shared the musical taste, but she was clueless about instruments. My girlfriend... we actually met through bass! She was a local fan of my main band. I had seen her coming to our gigs in town for nearly a year, so I recognised her in the crowd and we'd say hello, but nothing much beyond that. One night, between sets, she comes to me and tells me she plays guitar a little and has recently started playing bass... and was learning my basslines from the only CD we had out at the time. That was pretty shocking. Even more shocking was that she was nervous to talk to me because... I was the bass player in this band she really liked "omg" But she needed to talk to me because live I play a few things quite differently and she was trying to figure out what I do in one particular song... That song was the opener for the second set so I made sure to make it obvious to her what I was doing, and she was there watching me for the rest of the gig (I was embarrased by then... look, I play bass because I like the power... and hiding in the back! :D) Anyway... after that we started chatting... that led to going for a beer or 16... for walks... lunch... and we've been together for a bit over two years. Bass is awesome.

many, many people would disagree with you strongly on this. it also has absolutely zero bearing on the merit of the case

I listened to them this morning and have to agree. But then again supposedly Radiohead were sued for ripping off 'All I Need Is The Air That I Breathe' by The Hollies, so they haven't really got a leg to stand on!

The fender part no is fender 0994406000 Don't know of any UK stock but ordering from the US has been fine for me in the past. As long as you can get someone to post USPS it will be cheap. Probably cheaper than a UK agent.. if they stocked it.

If you click on your name in the top right-hand corner, you'll see a menu with Sticky Notes as the second item.

bit more progress - got the polycarbonate fitted but need some stronger magnets to hold the assembly in place. Should have them in the next day or so and then I'll make another prototype to check fit etc. Also printed some feet to screw the LT to the board (same thickness as the rubber feet so they use the same screws) also got my new Smoothound wireless fitted (just !) and am experimenting with it being battery powered (via a 5V - 9V converter) and a 5000mAh mobile phone power bank. Seems to work OK - will need to check run times etc but it means no extra power sockets on the board (not that i have room for them anyway!). Just got the XLR jump lead to solder up to save wear/tear on the Helix socket and to act as a basic line of defence if someone trips over the cable and then try it at band rehearsal into two Yamaha DBR15's we use for the drummers Drum-Tec E-Kit I'm using return 1 as my main input as the guitar input can't handle my Vigier Passion IV or G&L L2000 (even with the input pad on) - seems OK though

Is it actually Radiohead, or Radiohead's publishers? There's an important difference.

A 12" LP in a nicely designed and printed sleeve as an artefact is a thing of beauty. As a delivery medium for music it's a piece of crap. Give me a CD or a lossless download any day. Maybe the way forward for selling music is to package your CD in a 12" vinyl type sleeve which gives you the best of both worlds? Wood id still used for solid musical istruments because it is still comparatively cheap as a material and it is easy to shape and finish compared with the alternatives. Plus most musicians are far too conservative these days.

Raucous action for the South West....

'Fairlight Orchestral Hit'. 'LinnDrum'

Outstanding!

This. Keep in mind that learning to play an instrument (or learning a martial art, to give you another example) is basically enhancing your brain/muscle connections, and learning to have better control over muscles you didn't use as much or with such precision. The thing with that is that when you resort to playing hard, you go back to your most instinctive movements instead of doing what you've learnt. Control is key. Once your hands/fingers become evenly stronger, you will be able to play faster without making any effort.

Nice idea! I've been working with a folk band down here called Velvet & Stone lately, really enjoying their music! Haven't had a camera one any of my more upbeat gigs but it's a start!

This is a Chapman "The Grid" version of The Stick. The built-in Roland GK pickup senses the Melody register strings. 13-pin cable into Roland VG-99. Job done. Admittedly, it does feel odd to be triggering low register sounds from plain steel strings. In my opinion, the best feeling tracking was always the Roland GR-300. Over the intervening decades, I have had the dubious pleasure of trying numerous pitch-to-MIDI systems. I would rather use one of the Electric-Harmonix "9" series pedals.

Why they stopped making them is a question I ask every time I lift my ABM410. Surely a NEO410 should have been a market-winner in these bass-cab-weight-loss times.

Fantasticle, couldn't do it on my phone but easy on the laptop. Thanks Silvia

Yup, I use mine in a Jazz quartet. I wanted something light-weight and small footprint. I don't want to heave anything more than 30lbs about nowadays. I only use compression so it's spectracomp loaded and I like having a built in tuner. My previous rigs were a Roland CB100 and a Peavey Max160 head into an Ampeg B115E, so I did feel that I sacrificed a little bit of heft. I up-graded the speakers and posted this:

Now what can I say about Andy?? Andy is a complete gent of the top order.. After seeing a bass I wanted in Andy's back yard where the seller wouldn't ship, Andy stepped in and, firstly, helped to facilitate the sale/purchase then boxed and shipped the bass to me.. He, being more familiar with the brand of bass than I, was kind enough to give it a good working over to ensure that it did what all good basses should do...groove!! He was happy...so I know that I'll be happy. Andy is another member of this forum who make it a pleasure for me to use it too...a complete gent, an asset to this forum and a true champ. Good man...

Are you allowed holidays Blue.

To the user, they operate as standard, the top ones all turn the same way to tighten and vice-versa, same for the bottom ones. Frequently you see them strung on each tuner the same way, so you need to turn clockwise to tighten for one, anti-clockwise for the next, etc. Madness. Some pennies drop forever without ever hitting the bottom.

It's an old Swan Flightcase i bought years ago when i went through a phase of buying/using a lot of pedals !. Don't know the model number but I've removed the support under the main board and screwed it into the base to drop the height of the unit and replaced the awful fluffy carpet they supply as standard with proper 3M velcro. Outside dimensions are 610mm x 400mm x 160mm

hate gold jewellery, hate gold hardware on guitars and basses. hate the way it is used by manufacturers as being shorthand for some sort of luxury option I have had a couple of instruments with gold hardware and it always nags away at me until I get round to replacing it, usually with nickle/chrome

Am I in a minority in really not liking gold hardware on basses? There have been some gorgeous basses for sale on the marketplace that I would have been all over had it not been for the fact that they were fitted with gold hardware. Instead of approaching the buyers, I find myself researching the availability of silver or black replacement hardware. Is it me???

I guess that Radiohead’s outlook is that by accepting 40%, then they’re setting a precedent if this should ever occur again.

There seems to be a lot of confusion is this thread about how the different methods work and what they actually do. First off there is no pitch detection system that has zero latency. You cannot change the laws of physics which say that you need a minimum one full wave cycle to detect the pitch of a note. In practice, with guitars and basses because of the rich harmonic content of the notes produced by a plucked string, you actually need more than a single wave cycle to guarantee pitch stability, and the very best systems will need a minimum of one and a half cycles plus some clever programming along with it being set up the suit each player's individual style. This would normally rule out using any bass instrument as the latency for all but the highest notes is going to be easily audible. What generally happens with musicians who persevere with these systems is that they learn to play very slightly ahead of the beat to counteract this built-in latency. So what has happened is that a couple of alternative systems have been developed to try a get around the pitch detection latency. Industrial Radio use fret sensing to derive the pitch combined with trigger detection from plucking the string. The Roland V System and the Line6 guitar and bass use signal processing of the individual strings to produce their sounds, so there is no pitch detection needed. The Roland V System in particular works very well until you try and use the MIDI output to drive an external synth, at which point you end up with all the pitch detection problems outlined above. On top of that in practice all the different systems will require you to modify your playing technique to some extent in order to get the best out of them. Some more than others. The further you go from plucked string type sounds the more you will need to modify how you play the instrument, to get anything usable out of it. IME having been seriously interested in using guitars to produce synth type sounds since the first serious commercial models appeared in the late 70s, I've still to be even 75% convinced by any of them. The guitar is for me a very tactile and immediate instrument and many of those qualities fail to translate adequately to synth-type sounds. If I want to produce synth sounds I still find it easier to use a keyboard-base synthesiser. Even with my very rudimentary keyboard technique I can still get results faster and more consistently than try to use a guitar (or bass) to achieve the same thing.

she has great taste in men too, apparently

I don't think a rotary emulator is strictly necessary - I used an EHX Pulsar and it sounded very similar to my ears.

True, it might be irrelevant as you describe but Pop Music is full of very similar (in this case very DULL) chord sequences and near-identical tunes. The more unremarkable and unimaginative the material combined with the sheer amount of material introduced to the market every year, the more you're likely to get stuff that sounds like other stuff and musicians squabbling over copyright.

I got mine within a week of ordering, nicely packaged and arrived in one piece. Disclaimer - I'm not really a 'chorus pedal' kinda guy (I used an old Boss delay as a pseudo-chorus) so can't really make any direct comparisons between the Eden Bass Chorus and any other dedicated bass chorus pedal that is currently on the market. Firstly, it looks really nice. I love the 'brushed aluminium and black' look, really classy. It's a bit bigger than a typical Boss unit (roughly the same size as my 3Leaf GR2 - see image) and the layout is horizontal with jacks mounted on the side. The controls are self explanatory - Speed, Depth, Low Cut (I'll talk about this in a bit) and Mix. When I first plugged it in I set everything at noon and went from there. I used both active and passive basses and found no issue with either. I also ran it in my chain with various other pedals (OD + fuzz, octave, filter) and found no issues to report. It seems to play well with other pedals adn both passive and active instruments. I quickly found a really nice, usable sound that works well for both fretless and fretted (as well as a bit of slap) - Speed at 8 o'clock, Depth and Low Cut around 9, and Mix at noon. Added a very nice subtle chorus shimmer to the proceedings, though while experimenting I found that setting Speed above 9 o'clock and Depth above 10 or 11 was not very usable (for me at least) but may be just right for someone else. I mentioned the Low Cut knob earlier - the user guide that came with the pedal states: 'Control the amount of bass frequencies chorused by the effect, turning the control to the right reduces the amount of bass frequencies chorused.' However I've definitely found the opposite to be true; turning the Low Cut knob to the right definitely increases the amount of bass frequencies affected and the user guide on the Eden website confirms my theory: '4. Low Cut; Control the amount of low frequencies chorused by the effect, turning the control to the right increases the amount of bass frequency chorused.' I guess there are two versions of the user manual but the Low Cut knob definitely increases the amount of bass frequencies affected! I really like the Eden, am very happy with the range of tones you can get from it - it can go from really subtle chorus to trem-style to lush trippy OTT chorus. It's completely idiot-proof, the controls are self explanatory, and it looks great. The fact it runs at 15v doesn't bother me either, it comes with its own power supply and I had no issues with my Diago PowerStation powering various other pedals and the Eden power supply in the same 4-gang. Another plus is it works really well with guitar too and the only 'con' I can think of is the fact the jacks are side-mounted. If they had been top-mounted it would have been totally perfect, but that's a minor inconvenience for such a good looking and sounding (and cheap!) bass-specific chorus. I like it a lot - buy one!

Not the cleanest of techniques, or the best of recordings, but it's good fun Two on DB, one on EUB

I suspect a standard Fender reverb driver transformer (22K:8ohms) would work acceptably in that circuit, though not identical to the original. Worth a shot, anyway.

Other rotary options: EHX Lester K / Lester G Pigtronix Rototron Keeley Dyno My Roto Strymon Lex Boss RT-20 Tech21 RotoChoir DigiTech Ventura That Ventilator sounds awesome, I'm gonna have to see how it compares to the others. I really liked the Destination Rotation I had except the drive circuit dropped too much low end, but I could deffo see one of these replacing both the phaser and chorus on my board if I found the right one.

Absolutely this. Dates a recording in the most unfortunate way and renders it unlistenable for me.

Crosspost from the White Bass Porn Thread, so feel free to moderate accordingly if I'm not supposed to. Here's my white Status S2 Classic, with beautiful Buzzard-style white epoxy Roman numeral inlays, and a black sparkle S2 Classic 5-string. Both have bolt-on necks. The white one is an older model, with the old Hyperactive pickups and a board 300 preamp (which is wickedly LOUD, and the pickups have a brilliant sizzle to them). The 5-string has a board 303 with a small trimpot in the back to temper the output level. Both basses have belonged to other Basschatters before, the white one was Alan's (Whynot?) and the black one belonged to Rob (Bonin-in-the-boneyard), with whom I traded my Stingray 5 for this beauty. He has owned it from new since 2012 I believe, and I've had it since last August. The white one appears to have a small issue with the balance pot or the pickup wiring. With one pickup soloed, it has massive amounts of treble and top-end sizzle. However, with both pickups combined, it is a good deal less loud and loses most of its brightness. I'm not sure why this happens. Wrong pot value? Pickups connected out of phase? Has anyone else experienced this with Hyperactives and the Board 300 combination?

Good evening, Caretaker, and ... Plenty to read and amuse you here, and lots to learn and share. @Funkfingers Innuendo..? Can't think what you mean. Reminds me of a little tale, though... A doctor made it his regular habit to stop at a bar for a hazelnut daiquiri on his way home. The bartender knew of his habit, and would always have the drink waiting at precisely 5:03 pm One afternoon, as the end of the work day approached, the bartender was dismayed to find that he was out of hazelnut extract. Thinking quickly, he threw together a daiquiri made with hickory nuts instead, and set it on the counter. The doctor came in right on time, as usual, took one sip of the drink and exclaimed, "But this isn't a hazelnut daiquiri..!" "No, I'm sorry," replied the bartender, "it's a hickory daiquiri, doc."

The original plastic covers have the larger 'ears', yes, and buying a set on eBay with the smaller ears solves that... and they are available in a variety of colours! But they are also taller. The polepieces are longer than normal. Not crazy long, but they are longer. As I said, I didn't have to remove wood or anything in the basses I've used them on (3 basses by now), but you may have to use less foam... and if the routing happens to be shallow to start with I can understand how in some rare cases it may need a little work with a chisel. It's a bit like the J-Retro preamp. It fits most Jazz basses... but from time to time you find one where you need those extra 2-3mm or something... and it becomes annoying if you are not handy with a chisel. The vast majority are ok, more or less tight, but ok.

This will get you very close, best Leslie simulator on the market. They also do a mini version with less controls - add a bit of gain and you're there.

I inadvertantly picked a 73 Fender P neck and body on here years ago and it had a Jazz width nut on it. It also has the bigliest 70's brass nut on it. I do sometimes wonder about flogging it and getting a Bravewood sunburst to match my Jazz again but then realise that I need to get a grip becaue I don't actually play either of them anyway!

I have to agree when it comes to basses and guitars, however as a violinist and bassist myself i can say that you certainly do know the difference between a good violin and a bad violin if you are any sort of musician ben

Aye. but I got those weights wrong think 68g & 75g are closer,battery is 20g. A right heavy preamp is my Noll at 200g inc 2x 9v batteries. Think the 3 concentric pots and ribbon cable account for most of that. Pots are huge

Surely the worst sound is what they refer to as the 'orchestral hit' that keyboards were over using throughout the 80s

Sold some pickups to Andy. Easy deal, great comms, THanks mate !!

Matamp GT200MK2 Green.