clauster

The CS-3 as standard is noisy and will butcher your tone. With the opto mod it's a lot better (but not perfect - I'd say it now performs as well as most things upto around the £150 mark) if you want less noise, more bass and more of a compressor sound.

The sustain trick with compressors is just that - a trick - you need to compress your signal to quite a low level so that the strong signal when you initially play a note is reduced to the weak signal at the tail end of your sustain. The using the level knob, boost the whole thing to your normal (uncompressed) signal level - hey presto massive sustain. If you want to even get near to doing this and not sounding compressed you'll need to spend a lot on a fully featured comp with all the variables - level, threshold, ratio, attack, release etc etc covered.

HOW EMBARASING!...........One Blonde, one Brunette..............................both in the same outfit






Seriously, two gorgeous 3TSB Ps. Seriously considering an SX and selling on the MIM P I've just acquired

Might just pop along. Can visit some old friends in Worthing on the way. Might even drag them along too.

[quote]I would very much like to try the F1[/quote]

+1

Saw one in a shop last month (one of the Denmark Street ones, can't remember which), but due to being on an office xmas binge couldn't pop in. Have vowed to return in the near future.

I've managed most of the usuals at one time or another (forgetting strap, leads, batteries retuning after a dropped-D numebr etc) but my favourite was by my band's last guiatrist - the night before our first gig (and after weeks of rehearsal) he decided to find and learn new tabs for about half the covers in our set. GRRRRRRRR

It should work - one option I've was considering was once considering was the EBS into PA for gigs and into a BFM Omni 10.5 with a power amp built in for practice and rehearsals and any small gigs.

can I ask which Crown? Be good to see a fellow BCer in action.

PM'ed

It sounds like you may have a resonance problem - check your eq, try new strings, perhaps get the nut looked a by a competent tech. By all means get a limiter or compressor (or a comp with infinity:1 ratio at one end of the dial and an immediate attack so you've got both tools in one box). Personally I think compression is to bass what distortion is to guitar (I said personally NB those that don't like compression )

Damn, forgot to take a "before" sound clip.

I've just done monte allum's opto mod on the boss cs3. 17 components replaced and it's transformed

Much more transarency, much less noise, real squish, bass comes through (after changing about 5-6 components there was masses of bass) and the attack knob finally does something . Proper review to follow shortly, with sound clips. For less £50 all in I'm extatic (pedal was bought off ebay).

I went for the opto plus kit but the plus stage (replacing one of the chips) is going to have to wait until I've got a better pencil tip soldering iron. It's supposed to be even more transparent and quiet, but even as is I'm .

I worked out how to change strings on a Warwick without breaking the Just-A-Nut II.

I learned that I've wasted loads of time and money over the years constantly trading instruments when I should have invested in a decent amp rig (GAS resolution for 2008)

I realised that if the bassist and drummer don't gel musically then the band is never going to groove.

[quote name='BassManKev' post='112538' date='Jan 2 2008, 07:49 PM']i bought the stock one for £28, does exactly what i want, cant imagine preferring the modded version over it[/quote]

Great! You're happy with yours, I'm happy with mine

Just got the Humphrey Audio Modded Badder Monkey - its a great OD (and even better for £50)

I went for one of these on the strength of Steve's review. It arrived this morning and I've just managed to spend 30 minutes getting acquainted.

Sound-wise I'm IMPRESSED! At the price it's an amazing tone. IMHO you'd need to spend at least double to get an improvement in tone. A nice valvey warmth through the gain range. I wouldn't say it's exactly tube like but it definitely doesn't sound solid state fuzzy. The low and high frequency controls are useful too. Really looking forward to next rehearsal so I can tie down "my" tone.

Hardware wise - the Digitech case is built like a tank. I had the chassis apart this morning to look at the standard of Humphrey's work. I could spot two replaced components, but they're nice clean soldering jobs - I had to go looking for them, and they were only noticeable because the rest are uniform production line joints.

The only place where this pedal loses points is when the case was put back together at Humph's one wire was trapped in the chassis joint, tearing a bit of the sleeve (not baring the wire, but could easily have done so).

Overall 9/10.

A whole 1! Band got together in february - first gig in july - then a break for summer holidays - the drummer left, swiftly by gitarist (sic) in September. Found new bods in October - other gitarist (again, sic) went AWOL soon after. Found another guitarist - next gig booked for 8th Feb.

Badder Monkey has just been delivered - looking forward to having a play with it after work.

Another review to follow later.

I've got a Corvette, but I voted thumb.

When (or rather if) I've got the cash I'm having a 32" Thumb BO.

Right, just finished updating to opto spec (plus stage is still to be done) but I'm really happy with it as is. If anyone is thinking about doing this mod and is reasonably competent with soldering iron (or has a mate who is - DO IT!)

Review to follow when I've been able to try it at VOLUME

+1 On Peavey being heavy. I used to live in Manchester and had a TNT combo. After gigs I could leave it on the pavement and no one would try and nick it.

[quote]Pro Tools is just, IMHO, the best sequencer available[/quote]

One of the best - some of the others have caught up when comes to handling audio (unless your talking "proper" protools HD - which is peerless for recording IMHO)


Just steer clear of Cubase (unless you wanna make generic dance music)

+1 on avoiding maudio - I've not had reliability issues, but I've found the latency to be a problem - maudio seem to like big drivers.

+1 to garry's recommendation of RME - our vocalists got one of their rack units and its amazingly good.

OSD - if you've got good sound on stage, but not FOH I'm guessing you're monitoring from your amp (rather than wedges or IEMs) - that's not gonna help the sound.

Get your own soundman, drag him along to rehearsals, make him part of the band. He'll know the bands sound and be better able to reproduce it live. He'll also be part of the band and have a vested interest in making you sound as good as possible.

If you're using the venue's sound guy, his priorities are going to be the venues priorities - make the sound so that people will have a dance and a sing without shaking the glasses off tables (which is what loud bass frequencies will do).

You could also educate yourself (I've been a sound engineer in the past) - you'll get a better response if you can say "please can you cut my signal above 7k and boost around 3k" rather than "I wanna be louder". I had plenty of muso's say the second to me - you turn them up and thirty seconds you side back down again - after all everyone in the band always wants to be louder (he'll view you like we view guitarists ) . The first approach means the soundman'll think you know what you're talking about and take you more seriously - one of my first gigs on a desk was with a solo artist - a girl who played bass and sang (she was AMAZING, I mean jaw droppingly talented) - at the soundcheck she asked "have you got about 3db boost at around 10k?" f**k me I did (EXACTLY 3db @10k), after that I just made every adjustment she wanted.

Lastly, how do you know you're not cutting through the mix? A mix at sound check that has very little bass in it will be a lot more bassy once the venue is full of punters.

PM'd re the chorus pedal