synaesthesia

[quote name='Mr. Foxen' post='241402' date='Jul 16 2008, 11:59 PM']Ebay is doing well, if I click your name and 'items for sale' you have nothing at all.[/quote]

It doesn't quite work like that. Ebay.co.uk listed items don't show up in ebay.com if you click on the sellers items and vice versa. You'd think it was universal but it is not; and you'd think Ebay woul dbe on to this by now. But this has always been the case, and remains till today.

In any case, the Bryston is still there but it will be sold on ebay or otherwise; it is highly desirable between two camps, the 'odd'iophiles & the mastering people. Highly accurate power amp for nearfield or middle distance monitoring.

sold

sold

Sold, thanks for looking.
_____


Dual Channel version of the 501 compressor. Great for Bass. £75 + postage.

[quote name='tauzero' post='236326' date='Jul 10 2008, 09:57 AM']NS, who you might consider slightly more reputable in luthiery terms, have fingerboard dots on their EUBs (I actually would prefer them to have rather less than they do). Conversely, Palatino didn't put them onto the VE-500 (so I stuck some on...). I don't see why the absence of dot marks on acoustic DBs should mean that there shouldn't be any on EUBs. After all, classical guitars don't have any side or front fretboard markings, so by your reasoning, nor should any other guitar.[/quote]



Don't put words in my mouth. The NS have as note markers not in between notes. Your Frontier bass did not influence the world of fretless fingerboards.

Try IEM for a while to see if it works for you, but try the full IEM, with a mix of your stage partners, as opposed to one ear bass only IEM (which IMmostHO doesn't work well).

[quote name='Johnny Wishbone' post='235161' date='Jul 8 2008, 06:18 PM']I don't have any trouble hearing drums, guitar or vocals on stage, so perhaps I should look at running the IEMs direct from the headphone socket of my amp (assuming it doesn't cut output to the speakers when in use)?[/quote]

In all seriousness, if you can hear everything else:

Step 1: Review your bass rig if that's the case, it may be your speakers, your strings, your EQ/tone settings, your pickups, pickup selection/blend settings, etc if you can't hear your amplified bass it may be because you have a freq. dip in the rig, not enough mid range, poor dispersion in your cab, etc

Step 2: turn down the rest of the band.

Step 3: feed some bass to the wedge monitors

Step 4: learn to hear yourself on stage, or dial a tone that allows you to hear yourself. Cut the low end and cut out the muddy boom. Your stage amp is more often than not a stage bass monitor, assuming you have proper PA support. You can dial whatever tone that allows you to hear yourself readily and feed a pre EQ tone to FOH, assuming your gear allows you to do this. Your situation may be different if you use efx on your bass or need a grungy tone.

If you want to go wireless IEM, feed a mix of the stage and your bass, you're more likely to play in time better than if you augmented only your bass in your in ears, and listened to everything else at stage volume and dispersion. Using one ear bud only for bass and one open - I suspect you will have problems, and you'd more than likely boost the volume so that you can just about hear your bass notes. Also, bass reproduction in ear buds work properly if you have a good seal, unlike open or semi open Headphones, and the psychosomatic completion that you get with the bass 'in the middle of your head' is best achieved with 2 ear buds, at much lower SPLs than you would with one ear bud.

If you are not expected to dance or slide across the stage, and can use a wired IEM system, buy a small mixer, take a line feed of your rig or bass, mix it in with a stage feed from your band's mix desk or FOH and you're done. I normally play in a trio where all of us are seated - pianist , drummer and me. We all use wired IEM. The performances are tighter. We use a 4 channel headphone amp (about £90), and I have a stage matrix submixer (I have several of these, so no cost to me but you could buy one for about £100 - 150) where everyone can have their own EQ'ed mix. It is the system I have in my recording studio for tracking band tracks. The outlay for the band is less than the cost of ONE decent wireless IEM, say a Sennheiser 172 or equivalent.

At the moment, I cannot justify paying 400quid per muso for a rudimentary wireless IEM which in truth is often , (i) mono only, (ii) limited in mix & EQ capabilities, when the wire to me or anyone else on stage, is not a bother. If we work with a singer she has wireless IEM because the punters want to watch her wiggle her hips.

I've also subbed regularly with a disco band & tribute band where from previous experience the stage monitoring was so poor that I could never hear the vocals, - I take a small behringer desktop 4 channel mixer, request a FOH vocal rich mix, and mix my own bass to it. It even feeds the ear pods. total cost, mixer approx £40, 5m IEM extension £5, ear pods - your choice, I use a Shure Ewhatever, can't remember now.

The only issue with all of this is that you don't really hear your bass cab as a monitor anymore, and if you rely on proper PA support, it raises the question whether you need to have a box behind you at all. What makes this worse is if you have spent loads of time and money in your on stage cab set up. If you need a 'speaker' tone you can use a Palmer rack unit or a Sansamp rack unit which will give that, and recently I came across a circuit using a lightbulb to simulate voice coil heating effects. I can see myself easily gigging without a bass cab.

I bought one of these overseas when I was away for a stretch, and was invited to sit in with some mates where they were performing- I'm lefty so I bought a lefty one - these were the only budget lefties in the shops - , I CAN play upside down borrowed righty for pop or blues, but not Giant Steps at 220bpm.

I brought it back here and tested some J pickups on it. They were invariably too bright for this bass. I even put Alembic Activators in it one time, and it was the first time I heard the Activators being harsh. The stock pickups match this bass to a 'T'. They are darker sounding on their own but they get a nice tone on this instrument, not a J tone, but a useable tone. The neck on this instrument is very nice, I like the profile. So far I have done all sorts to it, changed the pickups, put a badass bridge on, etc but I've found that the stock combination worked best and returned it to the stock condition. If you want something else, maybe go get a different instrument.

An Upright bass should not have side dots most acoustics don't; and Stagg - well i wouldn't say they were the paragon of virtue or tradition for luthierie. There are a couple of posters who said they have seen examples of reputable manufacture of unlined fingerboard basses with side dots marking positions as opposed to notes that were not (a) custom order, ( probably an oversight from a manufacturer not familiar with fretless instruments, if you have any examples - post them here. The world should know and after 30 years of playing unlined fingerboards, I'd like to know too.

[quote name='BigRedX' post='233245' date='Jul 5 2008, 05:18 PM']I think we'll have to agree to differ here, although I haven't seen any good quality unlined fretless basses that don't have the side dots where the frets would be. If you know different I'd be happy to be enlightened.

In the meantime I've plenty of food for thought for getting my bass side dots how I want them.[/quote]


RE: Side Dots and unlined fingerboards; the side dots are note markers, and not in between some non existent fretlines. This is the luthierie tradition in unlined fingerboards be they electric basses or whatever, you should find this in fretless basses with unlined fingerboards from Warmoth, Alembic, Fender, Rickenbacker, Musicman, Pedulla, Ken Smith, Fodera, Rob Allen, Harvey Citron, Joe Veillette, Harry Fleishman, Rick Turner etc. In a lined fretless fingerboard, the side dots are not note markers but position markers. You will see this to be true of the above manufacturers as well.

cut a strip of lens cleaning tissue, soak in PVA, lay up over tear, repeat if you need to make it thicker or stretch over a larger tear. Robert is a sibling of one of your parents.

sold.

He has been around a long time, and he was certainly an early champion of the EUB. He had a slew of records way back featuring solo bass, duos with various famous voices, trios with famous folk as well. He was the Clevinger poster boy, and he gave Willie Dixon a pink Clevinger. His recordings are OK, nothing to scream about, but I'm sure he is a fantastic live player.

[quote name='Chris2112' post='230732' date='Jul 1 2008, 05:53 PM']Also try [i]Outbound[/i] by Stuart Hamm. It's a very "mature" piece of work from him but the entire album is filled with the most glorious licks, and the slap line to the Castro Hustle is a beast.

And, and Jeff Berlin's [i]Champion[/i] might be worth a listen too...wait, that can't be right, a bassists solo album without a note of slap on it? [/quote]

Oh Mr Berlin SLAPS. He doesn't do it on record much though. I went to see John McLaughlin with Trilok Gurtu and the bassist supposedly was to be Kai Eckhardt. Mr Berlin was on stage instead and I wasn't complaining, he did a most marvellous slap solo that was a few minutes long and at the end of it he grinned as if to say "FXXX THAT".

Talk to the protection racket people.

[quote name='Finbar' post='224628' date='Jun 23 2008, 12:00 AM']I did find that Duracells wouldn't fit in my Conklin, and then when I decided I may as well put them to use in my wireless isntead, they had no juice in them! I've been put off Duracells ever since ¬_¬[/quote]


?? I have a Conklin and I feed it duracells or procells. What model is yours?

[quote name='backwater' post='224263' date='Jun 22 2008, 04:50 PM']I use the procell PP3's for most things - radio systems, basses, effects etc and find them pretty good as they are rebranded Duracell.

Expect to pay around £10 to £12 + Post for £10. I usually get mine from CPC (www.cpc.co.uk) when I'm ordering other bits

Andy [/quote]


++ to procells. They work out to about £1 per pp3 and you just pick up boxes of them at electronic wholesalers or Ebay.

Maplins has a similar product at £4 - 5. LEDs similar to above, in their clearance bins in Derby last week.

Here is another useable Maplin product:
[url="http://www.maplin.co.uk/Module.aspx?ModuleNo=31824&criteria=reading"]http://www.maplin.co.uk/Module.aspx?Module...riteria=reading[/url] light&doy=1m7

Compression is simply an audio process where an electronic signal's dynamic envelope is altered. The consequence of doing this is that your signal is altered, and the audible consequences are appropriate or inappropriate depending on your situation. It has no bearing on technique, or lack thereof. The world's best players have been compressed, and several players have also performed or recorded without compression or limiting. Compression cannot improve your playing or tone, and using compression does not mean you have no finger technique.

Compression can be used to tame audio spikes, passages or instruments that would otherwise jump out or overwhelm other sounds going on. If you want to hear compression on electric bass, check out Dee Murray on Elton John's "Teacher I need You" (don't shoot me album), or Macca on "You never give me your Money" (Abbey Road). There are passages where you have clear distinct compressed bass notes.

The tonal and dynamic balance is perhaps more critical in a recording. Having said that most pop records are limited or normalised (i.e. compressed enough to make the audio as close to 0dB as possible without distortion). This has an effect on the overall audio's perceived loudness and has little to do with compressing an isolated tone, e.g. the bass notes in the examples mentioned.

In a live situation, if you are after a specific tonal effect of compression, or if you vary your playing a lot with slapping/popping and fingerstyle diferent passages of tunes such that your overall level is wildly fluctuating, you might consider a compressor in your chain. Otherwise, in live playing, if all you do is play fingerstyle fast or slow, and you do not need to alter your signal envelope, there is not much point in having a compressor in your chain. It can make your notes, tone, sound very indistinct on stage. 99% of the electric basses in the world will hold a wholenote and a tie at 50bpm,- compression will not improve your ability to play a whole note tied over two bars, or for that matter a half note or your ability to choke a 16th note. Sustain is a notion too often misapplied to the electric bass guitar, and sustenance via compression for bass is like squeezing a beef sandwich into a meat pattie. Live, the FOH could limit your DI signal and a good PA will have some limiting to protect the amps, speakers etc. If you need limiting on your backline and it is not an audio envelope effect you consciously want, you are either playing too loud, don't have adequate PA support or have a gear mismatch in your setup.

[quote name='steve-soar' post='224653' date='Jun 23 2008, 12:32 AM']Memrees, like the co....[/quote]


Memrees indeed, I met Keith in the 80s a few times. I think he routed one of my basses or an extra P pickup and he used a Select P for a template. Went back as it didn't fit the EMG and it was then when we discovered that they weren't the same size. Did the adjustments FOC.

Top bloke.

Get this if you are wanting to learn Latino bass:
[url="http://www.shermusic.com/latinbassbook.htm"]http://www.shermusic.com/latinbassbook.htm[/url]

It covers most of the popular styles and tells you what the rhythms are, but.... if you really want to know the music, get a few drum books: there are a few about that cover the variations of Afro-Cuban, Afro-Carribean, Brazillian, Tango etc. The ones written for Drumset you have to understand are often modern interpretive amalgamations of what one bloke can imitate on kit, in effort to mimic what a whole Latino percussion rhythm section can do. But if gives you an idea of where the accents are nonetheless.

Another good place to start, and many people will have such a gadget, is your digital beatbox or drum machine. Most of those have one or two variations of each popular style, but at least you can start to tell the difference between Songo, Samba, Bossa etc.

More misunderstood than Jazz in this country for sure. Not enough Latino culture around for even schooled jazzers to know what's what. Auditioned a guitarist once as musical director for a named vocalist's tour, told him we were doing Mas Que Nada - he said he needed to brush up on his flamenco. Even with drummers you 'd get problems, gigged in a trio with a drummer who fakes his latino by banging a syncopated beat on toms, whether it is samba or bossa. Another schooled drummer told me the bossa was essentially just a clave thing....

Most of what is referred to as Latin music is Latin American Music, and Latin America is a large geographical expanse with many many styles of music as there are countries. Spain and latin America are related through language and culture, there is some cross fertilisation but Spanish music and Latin American music are not quite the same, as Portugal is not the same as Brazil. Within "Latin America" you have much diversity, and the rhythmic accents are not the same in the different genres. It does not matter much in the UK, for two reasons - the UK has no real relationship with Latin American Culture, and cultural ignorance will continue to be the norm - so you can play any syncopated beat and it must be 'latin'.

In Latin America, the music is played from the cora-Z-on, whilst in Spain it is from the cora-thz-on. Close, supposedly the same heart but not quite the same.

[quote name='PauBass' post='225698' date='Jun 24 2008, 10:20 AM']

I know this may sound silly but, just in case, I wanted to confirm with you guys.

To power my pedalboard I'm using a Dunlop DC Brick, which has seven 9v and three 18v outputs.
Well the thing is that I'm using all the 9v outputs and none of the 18v is being used. Since I'm going to need two more extra 9v outputs I was just wondering if it would be possible to use the 18v outputs to power some 9v pedals.

I know that if the pedals says it needs only 9v that's what you should power it with but I think I've heard before people powering some pedals, I think ditortion/overdrive/fuzz mainly, with 18v instead of 9v, am I right?

What's your advice?[/quote]

With distortion devices, you probably want minimum voltage as opposed to maximum voltage, most typical circuits clip; i.e, distort more easily as the headroom is often lowered with lower operating voltage and quite often with more desirable audio consequences. Some more controlled designs of distortion devices have voltage regulators to fix the voltage at say 5 V to get a consistent distortion waveform - as opposed to the old school on the fly technique of using old batteries, which give out lower voltage. Back in the day, several musos used to keep a slew of used 9V batteries as the tone for example from a TS808 or TS9 was actually 'softer and rounder'. Even some big names like SRV also resorted to doing that. Tricky though to use a dying battery.

Raising the voltage is possible with several distortion devices but you are likely to end up with more headroom, and consequently less capacity for distortion.

[quote name='Musky' post='224635' date='Jun 23 2008, 12:06 AM']I read somewhere or other about a repair involving the material from a pair of tights and something like nail polish. Or maybe superglue. Never had to try it myself though.[/quote]


Lens cleaning tissue soaked in PVA applied over tear will work.