Jakester

Thanks to the lockdown, I've had the chance to do a lot more practice of late, and I've noticed over the last couple of days that when LH muting a note after playing it, I'm getting very strong harmonics coming through, to the point that it's almost as strong as the fundamental note. Obviously it's worst on the 5th fret, but it's also noticeable to a lesser extent on the 3rd, 7th etc. It's even when I'm deliberately trying to LH mute, not fret a harmonic. Moving the LH away from the fret helps a little, but not masses. Now, it could just be I've got crap technique and I'm only noticing now because I'm practicing more through headphones. However, I've never really noticed it before and I've had crap technique and been playing through phones for a while... Practice setup has changed - now going into a MS60B into headphones, whereas before it was a Flyrig into headphones. Phones themselves haven't changed though. The bass has relatively new nickel round strings on it - I have a bit of foam under the bridge but otherwise nothing has changed. The strings have had a couple of rehearsals and some practice sessions but they're really only just breaking in. Could the newish strings mean the overtones are more prevalent? Or am I really just that crap at muting strings?

Just thought this might be of use to some people. With our last gig before lockdown I used the XR18 and it worked like a dream. Even a last minute decision to go with IEMs worked fine. However, I'd had it set up to record in Reaper but because of one thing or another I wasn't able to actually to trigger it to record. Afterwards, I read there's a program written that simply records all of the raw inputs from the XR18 which you can later edit in your DAW. Can't find it right now, but it's available from the Behringer forums - the downside being it only works for Windows. I filed that away for later consideration once (if!) I'm back out gigging again. However, I had an email from Audified yesterday, and in the email it said they offer a product that does the same thing for the Mac. And it's now free! It's called Re-Call and it does what it says on the tin. I've downloaded but not had a chance to use it yet.

I think my TRB1005 is 18mm at the bridge. Certainly I was struggling with a 16mm string spacing on a Spector, so chopped that in to get closer to the 19mm on my Warwick 4-string and the TRB is almost indistinguishable.

In this time of strife, one man stepped up to the plate and sold me his MS60B. That man was Jack. He is a good man. His MS60B (now my MS60B) is great, and despite the lockdown he managed to get it posted to me next day. In times of crisis, we need good men to guide us. I heartily commend Jack.

Ah, sorry! Glad you found it though.

There’s this one in the classifieds right now...

Manchester Guitar Tech?

I’m looking for recommendations for a cheap multi-fx pedal that could be used for both bass and guitar. Essentially I’m just looking for something for home practice that my lad can also use for his guitar practice. Not so bothered about the distortions but looking for things like wah, trem/vibrato, etc. Would the Zoom B1on suit?

Yep, I was in the process of putting a new project together, and not only have we agreed to put it on hold for the time being, the rehearsal studio has closed its doors for a few weeks too. I feel really bad for the studio, as presumably the number of cancellations will have had a massive effect on income. Hopefully they can bounce back.

Well, apparently both still on! See you on the other side... 😷

Our venue doesn’t open til 7, but we’re going to call and check later. It’d be a shame because it’s our first gig with a new singer, and was a short notice one so we’ve been madly getting her up to speed over the last couple of weeks, but I suspect attendance would be down even if it goes ahead. I also have an orchestra rehearsal tomorrow morning = lots of people in a room for 3 hours.

We’re playing tomorrow night - I am half expecting it to be cancelled today.

I suspect not, if only on a cost basis. I may drop Peavey a line though.

There was a lot of salty language!

I thought you might want to laugh at my misfortune. I was doing a PA gear test before our gig at the weekend, but my main mixer was in the house and the speakers in the outbuilding. I had my phone so I thought I’d just rig up the phone via my mini mixer into the PA speakers to test them (it hadnt been used since last summer as we’d used other people’s PA). Anyway, plugged it all in, fired it up - (firing up being the operative term as we’ll see). “Hmm, that’s a funny noise,” thought I. Checked all the connections, but only a low level hum that was getting louder. Then I saw it. Smoke from the mini mixer. Whipped out the power cable and more smoke emanated from the plug socket. I looked at the plug - I hadn’t? I had. I’d plugged in a 9v DC wall wart into the 15v AC socket. Basically I’ve just burned out my spare mixer. Doubly frustrating as it had a 2 channel USB interface and my wife was just getting into podcasting/audiobooks and was finding the XR18 a bit complex. A pic for your delectation:

Well, some progress - I figured out what I was doing wrong with the effects. I hadn’t twigged that you didn’t need the effect as a channel insert as well as one of the fx ‘slots’ so I was in effect doubling up on each channel with awful results. Total rookie error but at least I got a useable starting sound at last!! 😂

I’m obviously in the minority as I know two or three really good keys players that I play with. However, one of the problems is that they’re so good, pinning them down can be really difficult as they’re really busy! And no, you’re not getting their numbers! 😜

Yup, tried these as they’re just not what we’re going for. I think it’s start from flat again - thanks for tips I’ll give that a go too.

🔨⚒🛠⛏👍🏻

Thanks! I fully appreciate its operator error - my issue want I couldn’t get to the bottom of why it had happened, whereas with an analog mixer you can see immediately.

Hmm, so took it out again to rehearsal with a view to getting a rough guide vocal EQ for our next gig. I struggled to get anything even half decent - in the end we just used the studio PA which was miles better. It’s really odd - last time it sounded great, used exactly the same settings (ie saved the file) but this time sounded bum. Even resetting to default didn’t help. Only thing (absent my incompetence) it could have been was it was different PA speakers on both occasions (I basically used the house PA as a power amp) but the difference seemed more than that to me. The reverb was uncontrollable and the vocals sounded really boxy irrespective of the EQ. Its quite knocked my confidence and I’m worrying about our gig next weekend. 😬 I’m going to start again. Does anyone have a good baseline starting EQ for a female vocal using an SM58?

I suppose you could try different ferrules? I’ve bought some off eBay in the past. Or the nuclear option is fill the holes with maple plugs and re-drill? Tape’s probably cheaper though😜

Do the ferrules of the tuners you’ve take off work with the Hipshots? I’ve done that in the past. Otherwise I’ve also wrapped a couple of turns of tape around them but that is a proper bodge...