mcnach

Not Halloween, but a zombie event in Edinburgh called "Deadinburgh", last year. It's an "interactive show" that takes place in the old Royal Veterinary School... several floors, old building, labs, corridors, a courtyard... The public gets in and the ticket box is made like a military checkpoint, with soldiers with machine guns, and various people with bright yellow suits as you'd use in dangerous biological research... They get ushered inside to be protected as "something" has happened... and they get taken to a lab, where they test whether they're infected (my lab got involved in this, essentially they get people to scrape the inside of their mouth and look at the cells under a microscope, stained with a dye so the nucleus is red... some of the dye bottles have a mix of dyes that turn part of teh cells greenish blue rather than colourless... that means they are infected and will turn into zombies!!! ) and they are taken away and made up applied to them and return as zombies (they're actors, the ones they give the different die to, pretending to be public)... and the mayhem starts... zombies attack, much running around... In the end, the "humans" get cornered into this large room... soldiers lock them in... zombies attack, a lot of fires are shot, alarms ring... smoke... the light goes off... people scream... then the alarm stops, and a voice announces "welcome to the end of the world!"... lights go up... a curtain falls on one side of the room: it's a bar! and we, the band, are upstairs and start to play. That's teh end of the show. The public have no idea there's live music at the end... It was a lot of fun. We got to do it twice.

[quote name='gary mac' timestamp='1414785699' post='2593391'] Ours isn't until tomorrow night. We have rehearsed Monster Mash and we are wearing make up [/quote] We were going to do Monster Mash, but we ended up doing a medley of "Battle without honor or humanity" (from Tarantino's Kill Bill soundtrack... this is a track we played, among others, once that we hosted a Tarantino themed event [1]... little to do with Halloween, but it's a great intro and our two trumpets and sax do a great job there), leading to our ska version of "In the hall of the mountain king" with a few "spooky" chords in between the Tarantino song and this, and then this leads to the "Ghostbusters" theme, but when they sing "Who you gonna call?" we don't say "Ghostbusters!" but "Sea Bass Kid" (the name of our band). People seem to like it and join in [1] we tend to do a couple of events a year or so, locally. We hire a nice venue, invite a couple of other bands to support us, and decide on a theme... We have done Halloween a couple of times already (this time we just played a local music bar, Whistle Binkies), the Tarantino one, some Sci Fi too... I can't recall, there were a few. Usually great fun. We don't make a lot of money, but bands get paid and get free drinks, we cover our costs and have some leftover (and sell CDs), and we have a really good time So on Friday we did Whistle Binkies. Prior to the gig I met one of the trumpet players for a couple of beers and a hamburger... he was a werewolf and I was a vampire. Two sets of 45min-ish (we tend to get carried away and always play a little longer in this place... when the audience is really into it, it's hard to stop ) We play originals, so apart from that medley, it's all our own stuff... except Beer (Reel Big Fish) which we play at the end of the first set hinting to the audience to get some refreshments after so much dancing before we get back on Oh, we also have our own Halloween song. We wrote it last year, for our Halloween event. It's one of the tracks we recorded for our forthcoming album... "Entropy", shortly available in all the usual online shops On Saturday we played another Halloween gig, this time at a boat on Loch Lomond. The boat was quite cool, nice decor... great idea. Unfortunately the weather was horrible and it seems a girl od'd on something, so when we arrived there was an ambulance and lots of police... and they were doing searches etc... not fun, in the rain. I was driving with our two trumpets and we stayed in the car for a while. There were some issues with the PA too, so while one room on en end of the boat worked ok, with a DJ, the end for love music was not having much luck... Everything ran very late, and we started playing over 2h later than planned. As a result, everyone was squeezed into shorter slots (it was a party that went from 4pm till 1am, with many bands)... and we only played the medley and three other songs We did leave them wanting more! So, it was quite disappointing as we expected to play an hour, but the 20 minutes we were on were fun, and it's kind of cool to leave while people is yelling they want more and thanking us as we try to make our way to the car park. Beats been booed My eyes are a bit sore from the make up/ eyeliner and the removal proces two nights in a row... but it was worth it. Halloween is great edit: in the past we have also done Thriller, a short version of 3 minutes or so. I love playing that, but a couple of members thought it "boring" and were too vocal about it, so we had to leave it out to appease the [s]children[/s] guys.

[quote name='thebassist' timestamp='1414929496' post='2594696'] Again couldn't agree more. [/quote] couldn't disagree more J-Retro FTW!!!!

I had you as a maple fingerboard kind of guy... but that one looks nice indeed Nice one!

I bet it's another Stingray!!!

[quote name='BigRedX' timestamp='1414761634' post='2593041'] You probably lose more string energy in the neck than any other part of the bass, hence deadspots and the fact that you can move them by adding mass to the headstock. [/quote] +1

[quote name='xgsjx' timestamp='1414762032' post='2593046'] You make a good point, but that's the difference between a bridge that is floated on some springs & rubber gromits & a bridge that's fastened to the body, which in turn I suppose saves having to try out my foam test. Now, not being a geetarist (I play an electro acoustic, so different bridge (made of wood & plastic/bone), if you get high mass & bent tin floaters, is there any difference between them re: sound? [/quote] My point, which I did not quite finish, was that you *can* tell the difference when a bridge is allowed to vibrate a bit vs. being rigidly anchored... but the difference is not that great. A BBOT bridge is a lot more rigid than a floating bridge, so I suspect the difference is smaller. Some people may hear it. Some people may THINK they can hear it (which in the end amounts to the same). I quite like the BBOT bridges, with threaded saddles, personally.

[quote name='xgsjx' timestamp='1414759891' post='2593007'] ET's theory is good, but I can't help think that to dampen a string, you put something against the string, not the bridge. It might be worth trying a test using a bit of foam between the bridge & the bass to see if there's any noticeable difference. [/quote] Try a Floyd Rose equipped guitar! The bridge is connected to the springs which allow it to move relatively easily up or down. It's not so bad it kills all sustain, but it's easy to tell the difference if you have a floating bridge (I refuse to call it "tremolo"!) that can be locked in position, like the Wilkinson one. If some string energy is used to make the bridge vibrate, that's energy lost from the strings, reducing sustain. As HowieBass says, rigidity is the main factor. Of course, a massive bridge tends to be rigid...

dunno, neck looks fine to me, and so do the tuning pegs...

[quote name='Raslee' timestamp='1414608088' post='2591327'] Glad you guys see the difference between Tube & SS. In my research before getting mine i often read that there was no difference...i can hear the difference and i'm allegedly deaf. Great amps the LMT's, it's definitely in the good books with me at the moment [/quote] It is indeed a subtle difference. I found I liked mine best with the mix control set at 50-50 (where it gets louder too!), or a little more towards the "tube" side. But I also liked what it sounded like with the knob fully anticlockwise on "solid state", where it sounds a bit "muffled" perhaps... I don't know, hard to explain!

[quote name='Mexicola' timestamp='1414584709' post='2590921'] I was wondering if there is a pedal that 'dirties up' your tone a bit by adding upper harmonics. Not necessarily a gain pedal but a pedal that specifically adds extra harmonics and overtones to your sound? Does such a pedal exist? [/quote] Ibanez PD-7 Phat Hed. It is an overdrive and distortion pedal... but forget the OD and Dist modes... if you use it in Clean mode, the drive won't have any effect, but you will be able to use the 2-band EQ *and* the Attack switch. The Attack switch adds this kind of dirty overtones and it's really cool. Try it! Pretty cheap pedals too.

[quote name='uncle psychosis' timestamp='1414235102' post='2587326'] [i][color=#000000][font=Verdana]Picture the scene. Sicily, 1947. A monkey. With a volume pedal. He has tinnitus, so he doesn't like loud noises, but needs things to be a certain volume level in order to hear them, poor little mite. He is wearing headphones. When you play, if it's too loud, he turns the volume down a little. If it's too quiet, he turns it up. He can do this quite quickly if he wants, but there's a big dial in front of him, telling him how fast he's allowed to turn the volume control. [/font][font=Verdana]There's another control that determines how loud his headphones are compared to your guitar.[/font][/color] [color=#000000][font=Verdana]Pop the little chap in a box and paint it (traditionally) blue and off you go. Oh, it might be a good idea to replace him with some sort of electronics gubbins, to save his poor hearing.[/font][/color] [color=#000000][font=Verdana]Some compressors allow you to have a little effect loop in between your guitar and his headphones, so that you could (for instance) have him only listen to the bass part of your guitar sound, but work the volume control according to that.[/font][/color][/i] [color=#000000][font=Verdana]Can't take the credit for that---it was written by Andi Allan at MonkeyFX. [/font][/color] [/quote]

[quote name='Astronaut_Abort' timestamp='1414623330' post='2591643'] I see.. always been told to be careful with the truss rod adjustment.. [/quote] Nothing to be afraid of, just be sensible: if it is too hard to turn... don't force it. That's all. If you tighten it (clockwise) you'll go against the pull of the strings, decreasing the relief, flattening the neck. If you loosen it, you let the string pull bend the neck adding relief. So, if you change strings and you use a set that reduces the pull, you may find the neck loses relief and the strings buzz against the frets. In that case, turn the truss rod anticlockwise, to let the strings pull the neck a little more. How much? I'd probably do a quarter or half a turn at the time, and see how it goes. Contrary to what some say (probably the same ones that tell horror stories and warn against touching the truss rod), the neck changes shape pretty fast... so you'll tell straight away. If you think it needs more, then another half turn or so... and repeat until happy. Small adjustments and check often. Once you are done, you may find that after a few hours, or the next day, the neck has changed a TINY bit. That can happen, so don't worry. You just might need a further fine-adjustment, but that should be it. Don't be afraid of the truss rod. The neck often changes with the seasons: humidity changes and temperature. It's not unusual to have to do some minor adjustments to an instrument once or twice a year. If you were happy with the setup before you changed strings, you will not have to touch the saddles. The truss rod is the correct tool to adjust relief changes brought about by string tension changes or humidity changes... Changing string gauges won't affect the saddles! All you want is to restore the nect curvature to the way it was before.

YES!

[quote name='JTUK' timestamp='1414619927' post='2591586'] I like a solid mass ..as opposed to a cheap plate but not sure how much difference in sound you can hear, but I think it could help the string speak a bit better... But... this is just a small part of the chain and it also depends on the quality of the rest of the components, IMO. Great bridge but pretty poor wood or anything else ... means a waste of time and money, to me..!! [/quote] +1 Would it make a difference? Possibly. Will it be an improvement? I don't think you can predict the outcome. As long as the bridge functions as it should, I would not turn to it in order to change the sonic qualities of a bass. There are other more important factors. But most of all, you can't predict that *if* you hear a difference, it will be for the better. So I'd say change it if it doesn't allow you the adjustment you want, or you prefer a different look, but don't expect a bridge change to turn your bass into a vastly superior instrument.

"barely noticeable" yeah, barely noticeable in the fog at 50 metres!

dreamer!!!

[quote name='Kevin Dean' timestamp='1414615553' post='2591488'] I have a TC 250 & it sounds thin sounding compared to my Little Rocker this does have a [b]Mute pull on the master volume[/b] ...But in my opinion it is a daft idea because when gigging if you have sweaty hands like I get trying to pull the master knob isn't that easy & it's too easy to change the volume . I also have a MOmark but only the 250 frame & I think this is under powered , [/quote] My LM Tube 800 also has a mute, the same type: pull on the volume knob. I don't find it hard to grab and pull at all... but then I don't get sweaty hands during gigs, so I don't know how it performs "in the wet" However I did find a bit annoying the fact that you have to be careful not to alter the volume while doing so. Silly design, it should be a separate button. But still, I'm glad it has a mute, rather than none at all (where I would just turn down entirely, so the volume knob also would be altered )

[quote name='Guinness21' timestamp='1414610515' post='2591368'] I don't understand how so many people use TC when they've lied about the power output of their amps?! [/quote] Because they like the sound and the thing really is loud enough for many? I owned an RH450 for a while. I liked it when I bought it and it didn't suddenly sound weak when I found out it wasn't 450W In the end I sold it because I discovered I liked other amps better (MarkBass in particular, then Genz Benz too). But I'd agree it was a pretty silly move by TC Electronic. Or was it? When I was looking for an amp, if I had read "236W" (or even 250!), I admit I would have not considered it. So they got my attention through that lie, and I suspect the attention of many others. That led to a sale. But the sale was made through my trying it and liking it. I was allowed to take it to rehearsal before making up my mind... and it just seemed to work great. I like other amps better now, but it doesn't mean the RH450 is rubbish.