fretmeister

+1 for Reaper!

I leave the B3K element active even when I'm playing clean. Drive low - about 2 ish, but with the blend over halfway. It's clean but with an edge. I really like what it does to the sound. Even in big band / motown / film score type things. Sounds great!

[quote name='Grangur' timestamp='1491937380' post='3276668'] Regretfully it will never happen. Finding enough basses that are identical in every way possible except the body wood is rather unlikely. Lozz did a similar test of rosewood and maple necks, at the Herts Bass Bash. The rosewood neck basses were consistently more punchy than the maple neck ones. But that, of course, was pure coincidence. [/quote] It's a easier than you think. Whatever you want to be the variable, just change that. Swap bodies but move over all the hardware and strings and measure pickup heights etc to be identical. If comparing necks - then even move the tuners and string retainers over and bolt to the same body for the test.

3 piece is the best. Allows space rather than a wall of sound, gives great bass freedom. In a 3 piece a shift from root note stuff to something more melodic has a far greater impact to the feel of a tune. More room on stage, and fewer people to split the money with.... but also fewer people to pay for expenses. 3 piece (or 3 musos and a singer ) is my favourite set up.

[quote name='JapanAxe' timestamp='1491728671' post='3275001'] Is it possible to have a rack-mounted wah effect (say in a multi-fx) and run a single 3-conductor cable to a controller pedal out front? [/quote] Dunlop make a rack wah. Pricey though.

Interestingly Peach Guitars are saying that Reidys are using it as a sales ploy and that the Fender Professional Series and AVRI will still have rosewood but the mex, elite, etc won't.

https://www.reidys.com/blog/rosewood-no-more-fender-cites-1901/ Pau Ferro is a lovely wood to use instead, but no doubt the rosewood ones will sell out fast now.

Turn your amp treble and mids down a bit.

Partly they wanted to get a newer lightweight design with less compromises, like poor upper fret access... And there were rumours of a bit of pressure from Fender. But there are hundreds of jazz clones so I'm not too sure about that. But the change has been really popular- they used to take custom orders but now they don't have capacity. They've installed a second production line just for retail demand! Try the new shape. It balances better, it's lighter, and just more comfy.

TBH for this use I'd just use a smart phone and the free version of Amplitude. I use a L6 Sonic Port as my interface and it works great. With an iPhone it even imports songs from iTunes to play along with. I did buy the extra B15 amp model for about £3 too. Or even one of these: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Vox-AP2-BS-amPlug-Headphone-Amplifiers/dp/B00NAUKJTY/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1491580040&sr=8-1&keywords=vox+amplug+2+bass Only 1 sound really, but sound good.

I've had 3 of them. The 4 strings went because I pretty much only play 5 strings now, and the 5 went because it was just a little heavy for me. One of the 4 strings was a white passive TT4 (jazz) with an ebony board and block inlays. It was lovely. If I had the money I'd have that back.

Old ones no longer available even as a special order.

EB have a really harsh policy about spares now. Send back the broken thing before they'll sell you a replacement type of thing.

Yup. 1 powered with a Hartke HA3500, and the other with an old red front Ashdown MAG400. It was amazing! Scared a few landlords too!!

I ran a pair of the VBC412 for a couple of years. Was amazing. Still my favourite. The closest lightweight I can find to that sound is the Retro series Barefaced. I now use them

[quote name='Sonic_Groove' timestamp='1491327045' post='3272174'] Oh that's good to hear, the website makes it sound complicated (I didn't read all the blurb) I was worried it sounded like a complete reset was needed! (If You do that to a HD500 You have to reprogram the ex-pedal, etc.) If it can do the different output to XLR or Jack (amp sims to PA not monitor) then I am starting saving!! B [/quote] Yup it can. So you can have the 1/4 inch outputs to your real amp without cab sims / IRs, and the XLR going to the PA with cab sims. The interface is brilliant. The whole screen shows your signal path. Just put the blocks in place that you want going everywhere (so FX, and amp but no speaker sim) and route that to an output, then just before the spot you'd want your Speaker Sim / IR, split the signal to the secondary path, put the speaker sim onto that secondary and then route that to the XLR. There are 2 main paths, each with a sub path. You can run the main paths separately if you want, so Path A to the 1/4 and Path B to the XLR, or if you have a particularly heavy FX load you can run path A into path B, thereby doubling your processing power in 1 long path. I have the full fat Rack and Footcontroller and it's oe of those purchases that was a bit painful when handing over the money, but there has been zero buyers remorse. I love it. It gets used every day.

Nah - it's dead easy. There's even a video walkthrough for the nervous. Install the Updater on PC or Mac. That also installs the Helix Editor. Plug into the helix and boom - does it for you. The only thing you have to remember is to back up your presets before you update. If you want to keep them. The lastest update had tons of new bass amps and fx so I started from scratch.

Price war has started - its £839 at Dawson's

There are no real rules. The only thing to watch for is that some fuzz pedals are very picky about input impedance and may have to go first in the chain. If that isn't an issue, experiment! Fuzz and wah can sound quite different depending on which is first.

https://www.andertons.co.uk/p/GHELIXLTUK/multi-fx-units/line-6-helix-lt-floor-pedal?_ga=1.12477235.60841776.1491236702

[quote name='sk8' timestamp='1491240332' post='3271500'] £1224 on Anderson's [/quote] That's the full fat version. They are now showing £849 for the LT

[url="http://line6.com/support/topic/26575-helix-lt-faq/"]http://line6.com/sup...5-helix-lt-faq/[/url] [url="https://blog.andertons.co.uk/guitars/line-6-helix-lt?utm_campaign=170403-SPE-Line6Helix&utm_source=emarsysemail&utm_medium=email&sc_src=email_1428077&sc_lid=97415431&sc_uid=PQGIQbNOFT&sc_llid=16431&sc_eh=b745c84bb083a3821"]https://blog.anderto...45c84bb083a3821[/url] Internal tech is the same. Same sounds, same routing etc. Savings made on having fewer IO options, cheaper chassis, no scribble strips, no mic preamp etc (detail is in the L6 link above) No idea about UK prices yet - but in the USA it is about a third cheaper than the full fat version.