Leaderboard

Got a call from a friend yesterday afternoon asking if I could dep at a local social club last night. They have a rock’n’roll night on Wednesdays which is quite well attended, and I’ve depped there before. Just a 3 piece band (guitar, bass, drums), and when I arrived I found out it was a dep drummer too, who turned out to be an old mate who played with me in the same band years ago. Had a cracking gig, both musically and socially. Two 45 minute sets, nice people and well paid! Used my Danelectro Longhorn into a Fender Rumble 500 combo. Home before midnight too, so happy days. Tired today though, and got 3 more gigs this week - tonight at my local pub with the acoustic duo, then Redditch tomorrow / Shrewsbury on Saturday with the ELO Experience.

Started using a new luthier recently and he takes a while but is really great! Old Stingray looking and sounding brilliant.

Van's been found by the Police in a lock up. Gear was nearby...

Never really 'got' IEMs despite years of trying and silly amounts of money spent. Just too much bloody technology, too much wireless, too many things to go wrong, too much time spent 'tweaking', too many blank faces at sound check ... "it's not working, what's happened?". A low-volume backline on stage with all the serious volume out front through the PA works fine, and is more-or-less infinitely scaleable from a tiny backstreet boozer up to a big festival stage so the band hears a consistent sound at every gig. It's also completely obvious how to set it up quickly at any gig, all the components are easily swopped in & out when a failure occurs, and even the densest and most arrogant guitarist will eventually see/hear the benefits of not pointing their combo at the backs of their knees.

So, when Dave called me he initially said to "chuck it in the bin," which I wasn't really happy to hear. He then told me he was sending me a 'new' (returned) RM 800 as he had one that was perfectly operational but had been sent back and that it would take too long to work out the exact problem with my RM 500. I was astounded! The new amp arrived today, works flawlessly and I am one happy camper! Incredible customer service.

I had the same issue - dead spot at the 5th/6th fret on the G - on a P bass. I found the problem was a high fret above the octave. I think it was the 14th. The string was just touching it. It wasn't sufficient to cause a buzz, but it did deaden and prevent it sustaining. So the high fret needn't be the one where the dead spot is. The relief of the neck may mean the string is making contact with a fret away from the troublesome note.

Depends who you ask. Some people will be wiping the foam from their mouths. Some people (me included) will just get the popcorn out. I personally find it amusing that people would rather hang on to some crusty, malfunctioning pot in the quest for "provenance". Pots are consumables, moving objects that wear out over time. Pot codes on the casings are important as they provide a useful indication of age of an instrument in the absence of other indicators. But whether or not replacing the guts of a pot and retaining the casing is "blatant fraud" is a matter of opinion. No, that pot casing doesn't belong to that pot. But surely it's the casing that's the important part? I don't see what the problem is, personally, but I'm not a vintage Fenderhead, so I'm probably wrong.

Oh i hate that song as well

Quite a good watch.

Not mine obviously (see above!), but for anybody who's not seen it, here's Guy Pratt's board he posted on FB yesterday...

Couple of things here - Quality of IEMs and the mix in them. Some people freak out at the clarity - you thought your playing was better than it really is. Different ball game when you can hear every fk up in crystal clear clarity - and you blame the tech when it unravels the reality. Movement of air - if you can feel that amount of air, your backline is too loud to give a decent mix in most situations anyway... but most of the time, it's a myth. Stand next to an amp and put your fingers in your ears... and you feel through your jeans.... nothing. (And that cos you aren't playing any strings because your fingers are in your ears) If you want then energy, go get a KT board or something. But again, each to their own. Some people like old school. Some people like the tech. Some people like their hearing intact too. I actually like playing without IEM too... but theres always somebody in the band looking to ruin the party. Guitarists and drummers I'm looking at you. I've got to the point where I say try IEMs. Some people love it. Some people dont. Lifes too short to try and get people to come around to your preference.

That's a classic Fender bass feature, just about that exact spot too. It comes from the neck and body vibrating, that is resonating, at the same frequency as the tone you fret and absorbing the energy from the string, and thereby sound. Of course there are those people who doesn't believe in resonance, but that doesn't stop it from being a real physical phenomena that influences on the tone of an electrical instrument regardless.

Irrespective of method - if the band don't look like they are enjoying it then the punters won't either. I don't think that comes down to the PA. Mind you - for some genres, like rock, a live gig can sound too perfect. I want to hear the pick scratches on the strings and that sort of thing that makes it different to just staying at home and listening to the CD at a louder volume. IME bands live or die on 2 factors (ignoring basic musical capability) 1: Band enjoyment / entertainment level. Bored band = bored audience. 2: The FOH engineer. Always either a genius or a cretin. Unfortunately most seem to be the latter. Excessive kick drums and muddy bass, very little anywhere in the mids, and eye gouging top end where only the cymbals live.

if we're talking fancy

That ones even worse than 'please ignore', a real ear worm..... 😉

I've never cared for IEM or going amp less. I've always put everything through the PA, including the monitors. We've always played at comfortable stage levels, where we don't have to raise our voices to speak to each other. And what's key to that is never having a guitar player who uses more than a 1x12 combo. What people lose sight of is the original intent of IEM: being able to hear yourself over too high stage levels. IME when your stage levels are reasonable you don't need them.

completed the other bass have made a thread on here about that one tho!! so now onto the main event and the pickups are in pre amp later tonight! im liking the no pickguard look aswell

IME not being able to "feel it" when playing live, normally means that either the songs aren't very good or that they are simply not to the musicians' tastes. Everything is a lot more exciting when played loud. I found in the past that I have been a lot more forgiving about the material I have been playing in rehearsal and at gigs simply because of the volume it's being played. With the band I played with in the 90s and with one of the bands I play with currently we rehearse at what I would term "slightly louder than normal hifi volume". This way the songs have to feel good/exciting at a bit louder than our audience would listen to them from the CD or record at home. My thinking was always if we can enjoy playing the songs at reduced volume then they are going to sound awesome at a gig. I don't know if that helps or not, but from my experiences of playing covers, I found a lot of the material tedious and the excitement that comes with the band being loud was the only way to keep me interested. Of course once I had realised that, it was became another reason to stop playing covers.

Latest addition to my Ashpeg / Ampdown board is an Ampeg Liquifier chorus, courtesy of @Berserker. Rather a restrained board compared to a lot on here, but does what I want / need.

Joking aside, as much as I love Nate's playing, his bass demos are actually entirely useless for this exact reason. Everything sounds overwhelmingly like him, and the techniques he uses overpower anything unique about the bass itself. I just wish influencers would just stick to playing the most basic riffs, or recognisable riffs, so you can really get a feel over what the bass can do, not what they can do.

Arrived! First impressions are good. Sounds good. lightweight at 3.64kg (although I think my Ibanez EHB 1005 MS was even lighter at 3.4kg). Perfectly balanced (can sit with it on the lap and take hands away and it'll stay in position). Low action without fret buzz, no noticable things like dead spots and the strings all feel part of one instrument (I've had 5 strings where the B feels quite separate). Nice neck - satin rather than glossy, quite shallow but quite wide, some might find it a bit too wide but I like it (19mm string spacing and a bit more space on the edges than some fretboards give) Nice colours, it's a dark purple on the backk and there's more purple blending through on the front than pictures pick up (it is matte that seems that it'll scratch and dent easily though). Seems decent quality control throughout. Decent gig bag (weak point being a bit of a flimsy feeling zip). If I was being picky (which I am!) One thing I'd check if you're getting one: The bridge saddle for the G is pretty much as far forward as it can possibly go (less than 1mm forward movement left), so very little room for manouver if it needed going further forward for intonation. But that isn't an issue on mine as all the strings are intonating correctly without me adjusting anything. There seems to be no tone control in Passive mode. It'd be good if the volume and pickup blend knobs had white position markers on them (like the EQ knobs have). I would prefer more rounded edges where your forearm meets the Bass body. I'd prefer EQ with sweepable mids like on the Ibanez EHB or at least being able to internally switch different EQ points like Lakland do (perhaps there are internal switches for this - I haven't checked yet). Those plastic covers for the Battery that lots of manufacturers use seem like they're from a cheap toy, they could at least be flush with the back, I think I was spoiled with the Digwall system for that though. But these are picky/personal preferance things and comparing with Basses double or 3x the cost. Overall, it seems a great Bass, especially for the money. But even if money wasn't an issue, I think it gives the Ibanez EHB series a good run f

Trying out a new drummer last night, I took my JMJ along as the guitar player had said how much he liked it and I’ve been playing my P bass almost exclusively since I acquired it, last year. I’d forgotten how easy the Mustang is to play, especially around the first position. Looks like the P will be taking a back seat for a while now.

You are talking miles apart in quality and price if you are comparing 90's German made basses with 'new' Chinese models!

Hadn't heard anything about these at all until an add appeared on FB... https://www.gak.co.uk/en/boss-katana-500-bass-head/973430 Some interesting features. But as with most things boss I'll wait for a used one!

Putting everything through FoH and using IEMs (or some using IEMs and one using a small stage monitor for guitar) = great for a balanced, articulate audience sound. Minimises feedback and doesn't overwhelm the IEM with stage sound. But I'm finding bandmates commenting that they're not "feeling it" at gigs. In particular the guitarist (and the rest of us tbh) missing the richness of sound that comes from hearing a quality guitar amp. Not missing the mushy wall of sound that comes from just relying on the guitar amp at full audience gig volume though! Is there a best of both worlds where we use backline at moderate stage volumes, but DI / mic up the kit to go through FoH and let the PA do the heavy lifting? Have any of you gone back to using a combination of backline and PA support after trying the silent stage approach and found that it improved your gigging experience?

Well maybe not making more modding a squier to become one new turner pickups and a underhill tone circuit ( based on what’s in a mk1 wal ) dong have a pic of the circuit yet as it’s on it was from the us

This is an interesting one. Most of my pedal purchases have been tone or dynamics related rather than crazy noise related. I'm sure the phase will pass, however it's fun. Latest arrival is this Turns a dull sound into a huge thumping rattling racket. Don't know if it's supposed to not how it will sound live. I'll find out tonight.

The pedals I was waiting for (two compressors) arrived so I've now put my main board together. There's one more board to go; a certain sci-fi film series themed board but there's one pedal I'm waiting on which will hopefully be here in the next couple of weeks or so. I've finally got a board where I have an octave, fuzz, octave, fuzz chain (I actually quite like fuzz into octave even if logic suggests I shouldn't but now I don't need to choose). It's power-hungry (it needs three IEC cables) and the settings pictured reflect those decided by my bedcover when the pedals were upside down while I was wiring it, but after some twiddling it sounds good! The chain is: BP1 > BP1 Loop Send: Strobostomp > Opti-FET > Octabvre > Doom 2 > Subsonic > TAFM > Frantabit > MBD3 > Cave Bear > XD > Type Two > AFG-1 > ADG-1 SE > Slow Loris > DLA-2A > Nimbus SE > BP1 Loop Return > Element (underneath board)

It’s hard to explain but we see it loads in my job. AI writing programmes don’t really “write” anything, they spin existing content (essentially reconstituting in a new way so it reads like original content but isn’t). So it will copy and subtly change whole sentences from publicly available websites. Heres one I asked GPT to write and it’s strikingly similar. What it lacks is the care and attention of a real human being/bass player. “As an American musician renowned for his prowess on the electric bass, Pastorius’s style revolutionized how the bass guitar is perceived in jazz music. His tenure with the jazz fusion group Weather Report from 1976 to 1981 solidified his reputation, but his contributions extended beyond with collaborations with artists like Pat Metheny, Joni Mitchell, and his own band, the Word of Mouth. “Pastorius was known for his innovative techniques on the fretless bass, which included lyrical solos, bass chords, and the use of harmonics. His approach combined elements of funk, R&B, and jazz, creating complex bass lines that were both intricate and rhythmically powerful. Despite personal struggles with mental health and substance abuse, which affected his career and eventually his life, Pastorius’s influence on music and bass playing remains profound. He was posthumously inducted into the DownBeat Jazz Hall of Fame, a testament to his lasting impact on the music world.”

I would try pauls suggestion above, and have a close look at the frets snorkie, I’m guessing it’s something minor, I’ve had so many jazzes and precision’s over the years and none have had any dead spots ,despite what some may say it’s not common in my experience of them

This is gorgeous and now I need more pictures of it.

@snorkie635 you checked the neck screws are nice and snug?.. maybe slacken and re-tighten.

As a punter, I hate it. I saw several tribute acts recently at a medium sized venue, who all played direct into the PA. I was stage front, and it was strange and lacking in Energy. As a musician, I like to feel my clothes flapping in the air coming off the cabs. It's ROCK AND ROLL! I'm a recent returnee to playing though and haven't arrived at the point where I need to decide on this approach. I might feel different.

I agree about focusing on the sound of the bass/gear and not the sound of the player. I sometimes come across the channel Bass Bonedo when looking for reviews. His USP is no talking and (relatively) simple playing, but shockingly he has over 250 videos and only 12.5k subs. While the flashy boys have far more subs. Shows you what works on the internet just now.

It's a crack. I got it for £228 as it was b stock but they've offered to replace for new and they'll take it up with DHL as the box has a great big hole in it!

Holy moly, that looks useful. And the new Katana bass head looks incredible and totally unexpected. Boss have really started to raise their bass game lately.

So cool. Love BOSS. €408 at thomann

Boss don't mess about. I imagine this will be pretty much bulletproof. If I was thinking about a new bass amp I'd try this.

Since when on basschat does having exactly no horse in the race prevent anyone from speaking their mind about those horses loudly ?

Our guitarist doesn't use IEMs for that reason, but for me, IEMs are a revelation. The band are too loud to not wear hearing protection anyway, which means you already have to jam something in your ears and with the IEMs it gives me the confidence to sing properly, can't do it without them, it sounds terrible (not that it is great with them!)

1 month to go...

Here a comparison video of my S2 and the S23 that I slung together - the usual rambling and aimless noodling, but hopefully it’ll give an idea of the tonal possibilities.