fusionbassist1

Evenin' all,
(Edit-I realise now that in my tired state i'm certainly more after a valve DI box than a pre amp as I'm relaly not after any kind of EQ features, I'm loving the look and no frills of the A-Designs REDDI Box but it seems fairly unique from what i can find in terms of 'relative products'....any ideas?)

It's been a while since my last post but I'm soon going to be doing a live studio session with some hilariously good musicians for which I would like to be on my game which, along with being vastly impressed by being shown the best dry bass sound I've ever gotten or could imagine getting out of my latest bass by having it going DI through a valve pre then out into the desk has lead me to posting this topic.

I'm looking to buy a nice, small, no frills, no EQ, valve DI/preamp that's easily patched into a mixer for numerous applications at around the £300 mark second hand.

Reason for this is the ease of using a DI type setup in the studio, not having to piss off other musicians during live studio sessions/preformances i.e. pit work at musicals and also the way i was impressed yesterday by the punchy but un-altered tone i was able to get in a studio going from my passive jazz bass (Wizard 84s) straight into the producer's rack-mounted TL Audio 5001 preamp.

Obviously buying a 4input, rackmounted, 3U unit is not convinient so I'd like a nice warm equivalent that doesn't change the sound but adds character to it.
I understand that seeing as what i'm talking about is a type of piece equipemtn where the character added to the sound will be fairly different from machine to machine but if someone could please point me in the general right directiont that owuld be fantastic.

In terms of basses/sounds I'd like to get out of this piece of equipment I'd like to be able to geeeeet.....
A nice gritty, both p'ups flat out, tone rolled to dirt sound from my jazz for a kind of pbass tone for electric country/folk stuff with a live vibe
A nice warm sound with bot pups flat out but tone rolled off for similar but more rocky stuff that DOESNT' boost any ugly muddy frequencies, something i've found prominent in low-end or non-bass designed valve equipment.
Nice bridge-heavy, barky sound.
(I'm hoping to get my hands on a pbass soon and if i do invest in one of these valve DIs i'd like to hope that it'd compliment a pbass with either a sub-heavy, fat sound or gritty, driving sound pretty damn well for the money).

I can't see how seeing as I'm focusing my efforts towards the gigging/session/studio side of things that having a valve DI i'm happy with would be a waste of money or bad thing to have ready to be used.

I haven't put this in teh 'items wanted' section as I think it would be great for anyone who has had good or bad experiences with equipment for this application to share good uses they found with them or warnings of what really not to buy as a general guide for people looking to invest.

Dissclaimer: I searched for valve DI topics and searched generally in this section for preamp information but didn't find anything specific to this cause at all.

Products suggested/found on t'web:
UNIVERSAL AUDIO Solo 110
Groove Tubes The Brick
A-Designs Reddi DI
Thanx guys,

Ben.

A pic with and without the grill.

Sorry about the delay, I've been busy with exams and stuff at the moment.

Connections at the back are 1/4" standard monuted onto a recessed panel, could get a picture if you'd like.

Cheers.

No i'm afraid not, they're grey covered but felt none the less and with similar corner protection to those, identical grill and port placement. I can try and get a picture of front and back by the end of the evening if you want, I've added some minor specs that I forgot to mention.

Thanx for the interest.

Hi guys.

I've got two Soundlab mids (?) with 1x15"driver each, 2 ports situated at the bottom of the cab and an empty hole at the top where the tweeters should be.

300watts RMS, 8ohms.

Side mounted stirdy handles.

Hole for mounting on speaker stands in each cab.

I'm guessing there was a tweeter there at some point anyway as it's a smaller hole than the port holes.

Both working perfectly, no crackling, broken sections on the cab covering, no faulty speakers/connections.

Two jack speaker connections at the back of each.

I was told they where part of a bigger PA that was broken up when it was made redundant by the band who owned it.

I'm guessing they're fairly old.

Not very heavy at all.

Sturdy, can take big weight on top of them form my experience.

Speakers are standard size/fittings so you could throw in some eminence speakers etc really easy.

I realise they're not great, they're just taking up room in my house at the moment.

With a bass guitar through them from an amp head line out they're actually really beefy if you're not bothered about them not being designed for such use.

looking for £60 for the pair on pickup...?

Really just want to get rid of them and i'm skint.

Sooner the better please 'cause they're taking up precious room in my already crowded bedroom, I'm in North Wales not far from Bangor.

Cheers guys.

I've decided to go on a transcribing binge as I'm aiming to have a website of sorts up and running around this summer as a way of posting gigs, videos etc for networking/reference purposes and have come across a few issues.


--


This mainly involves tidyness but its seem that when I look at different scores in books or on lucaspickford's website that most people's grouping of notes and rests is rather lazy and it's difficult to spot a consistent rule if there is one that exists.

Ones i found odd where with 8th notes (quavers):
rhythm goes - 8th note - [8th note rest]- [8thnote rest] - 8th note

I've always though that the quavers should in this instance stand alone and not be bridged together and that the rests should indeed be individual 8th note rests rather than one quarter note rest.....am i right in that thinking?

another issue I had with bridging (what i mean by bridging is the beam that runs between any series of notes larger than an 8th note) was a rhythm that goes : 8th note - 8thnote -[8th note rest] - 8th note.

do you bridge all the 8th notes together or have a pair, rest and one on its own?

finally
8th note- [8th note rest] - [8th note rest] - [8th note rest]

(in half a bar of 4/4) I've writen that as note, 8th note rest, quarter note rest. Correct?
You could technically ahve a dotted quarter note rest but it just doesn't look right somehow.

I can read music very confidently but when it came down to writing it I just confused myself as to what's right and what's not.

---

On another point when it comes to bass charts for mainly home playing I've been debating with myself as to what layout is most useful.

The 3 I thought made most sense where

1.Each main section just writen out in it's entirety but not layed out as a flowing score that runs from start to finish
[eg 'A' section and 'B' section scored out with an approximate order at bottom fo the page]
2.A complete that score runs like one you could be handed at a gig with 1st time bars,repeats, coda etc
3.A score that does run start to finish but has little embelishments and fills actually writen in.

I'm not sure which to use but I'd like to have a universal system in all my transcriptions so they are as accessible as possible.
the first method would allow you to see the score, get the jist of the riffs for just jamming purposes and carry on with your day but wouldn't let you appreciate the little licks and tricks in the song OR have a record of the entire structure or small interludes not worth transcribing.
Second method means it could be printed out and used at an actual gig but again loses the embelishments.
The third method includes all the embelishments pretty much but wouldn't flow as well in terms of how it looks on a page and due to the little fills would be very difficult to use live although would be from a note-for-note point of view most accurate of the three.

Sorry about the lengthy rant but I think we'd all benefit from agreeing on what is most effective in transcriptions, however small these matters may be.

Cheers guys,

Ben.

Thanks everyone for the various suggestions, plenty of options there.

I think what I'll do is ring Wizard to see what they suggest could be don to my current set and for how much. If it equals the price of buying a decent second hand replacment set then I'll go with the re-winding otherwise I'll try and check out the Nordstrands and the EMGs.

Cheers guys.

I'm really not keen on flats because of their feel and I don't really do a boomy bass end (although I'm sure there's flats outt here that don't come with such properties).

As a jaco fan i do like to push out some harmonics quite a lot and I was unable to get them to jump out on the fretless I had with flats.

So first port of call should be to ring Wizards themselves to see what they suggest?

Hi everyone,

I've been using a set of Wizard 84s in my pride-and-joy-spec'd-everything-that's-in-it Jazz bass but am not quite feeling the love from these pups right now so would like to replace and get a new set.

The sound I want needs a defined, warm, mid-orientated sound that lets the bass growl and do its thing.
What's really important to me is that I don't get a lot of the sound fo the fretboard coming through, I play with high action and close to the bridge to make the NOTE the most prominent feature in the sound (if that makes at all).

*what i mean by sound of the fretboard is that speed-bump kind of vibe you get when both pickups are maxed out and you slide up/downt he neck.As an example Richard Bona nails a defined, warm, fretless sound on his bass*

I take a massive influence from jaco's warm growly sound (on his fretless recordings) and find that such a sound fits in much better when I get called in to play with folk bands as well as having the added pressence and funkyness I can get from having a bit of mids boosted on the amp.
I stand by the concept of trying to get the bass how I want it before going to extreme EQing as an option so this is my attempt at that.

If there's any specific offers I'll set up another topic in the appropriate section on the forum.

Bass has:
Solid maple neck
Alder J-Bass body
Badass II bridge
DR stainless steel strings

I use an Ampeg PB-800 for everything I do.

Passive is the only way I want to go please; bit of a vintage vibe would be nice.

Slap/tap sound etc is not important as I only gig fingerstyley and I always have Bridge on full and neck rolled on a tiny bit, tone knob adjusted accordingly.

Note : I previously enjoyed the Dimarzio UltraJazz pups I had in one of my basses but then again it was a different bass and various different amps so who's to tell....*sigh* it's always the way.

List now looks like this....kind of:

Blues - Real Folk Blues (Muddy Waters), Couldn't Stand the Weather (S.R.V.), (Jimmy Reed)
Reggae - Exodus (Bob Marley and the Wailers), Babylon by Bus (Bob Marley and the Wailers)
Latin -
Country - (Patsy Cline), Further Beyond nashville (Compilation)
Folk - Tea for the Tillerman (Cat Stevens),
Pop - Gold (Abba), Sergeant Pepper (Beatles), One step beyond? (Madness),
Modal Jazz(?) - A love supreme (Coltrane), Kind of Blue (Davis), Tutu (Davis)
Hip-hop - Black Sunday (Cypress Hill)
Drum n bass - New Forms (Reprazent & Roni Size)
Metal - Master of Puppets (Metallica), Reign in Blood (Slayer), Black Sabbath (Black Sabbath), Paranoid (Black Sabbath), Ride the Lightning (Metallica), The Real Thing (Faith No More)

Rock - Highway to Hell (AC/DC), Appetite for Destruction (Guns 'n' Roses), Led Zeppelin II (Led Zeppelin), Exile on Main St (Rolling Stones), Sugar (Copper Blue), American Idiot (Green Day)

Funk - Uptown Rulers (The Meters), Mothership Connection (Parliament),
R n B - Songs in the Key of Life (Stevie Wonder), Hitsville USA (Motown Compilation)

Thanx guys. Please keep the debate rolling to see if the list narrows down or expands....I'm guessing It'll be the latter. This is really helpful but I can already see it's going to be expensive.....

[quote name='gilmour' post='265572' date='Aug 19 2008, 03:12 PM']Exactly my suggestion, every bassist should have some Parliment They're playing at Bestival this year and I can't get a ticket

Also for Funk I'd also add - The Meters, completely different thing to Parliment but sill funky as hell.

For Drum n bass I wouldn't look any further than Ronnie SIze & Reprazent's first album. I think that they too are playing a Bestival and I still can't get a ticket![/quote]

ANy particular meters album? I own a Parliament best of already but I might aswell get a propper album ....I have something against best of's and compilations.

[quote name='wateroftyne' post='265506' date='Aug 19 2008, 02:00 PM']I'd be one of them (amongs other things).

I'd suggest some albums, but I'd need you to be more specific. They're huge genres.[/quote]

As an introduction to country music then, if you wanted someone to see various areas of the style through some well known artists what albums would you lend someone from your collection?

This is why I came to the BC forum as I don't like buying 'best of' albums due to me later having to buy the actual albums if I decide i like a certain artist or whatever.

I can't at this point be more than specific than just 'country' or 'folk' as I don't know how to yet.

Without using this as an excuse but I'm still in my teens. I aspire to do as much session work as possible and I've already done some international gigs on a purely session basis in various styles and settings but to further this I'd like to get to learn the basics of genres i'd normally pay no attention to and by getting suggestions from people who know these genres in and out the learning process should be far more enjoyable and valuable to me.

EDIT : on the Punk issue. I started out on punk and would love to hear what albums the punks suggest. My cd collection currently rocks the clash - the clash + london calling and the stiff little fingers - inflammable material to name my past favourites. I also have an LP of nevermind the bollocks and a live stiffs album. There's no time limit on how long we want this genres project but we did try our best to prioritise the genres we know least. sorry if i offended any mohawk clad BC'ers

[quote name='thedontcarebear' post='265465' date='Aug 19 2008, 01:24 PM']All those are sub genres, which originated in Metal, it doesn't need to be more specific.[/quote]

THANK YOU!

I'm not trying to make a definative guide to the genres of music. Just a place for me to start with music I'd like to elarn more about. Surely people could only benefit from this?

It doesn't seem there are many country, folk or reggae people around......or are there?

Thanks very much for the suggestions. I'll post a lsit fo what we've got so far once there's a rather comprehensive list.

Cheers.

(We're re-considering the 'electronic' genres)

indeed.a silly task it is.

i'll try and phrase it this way then. If you had to suggest 3 albums that fall under genre 'x' that are considered important to that genre what would they be?

to try and narrow down some of the genres (remembering for a lot of these genres I'm coming from a no experience zone) we came up with a few names to go with what we consider stereotypical sounds for various styles.

first thoughts were :

blues --bb king and buddy guy (as I've seen Buddy live and BB king is just a name I hear batted around quite a bit)

country - youtube search brings up john denver but I have no idea without listening (i'm at work) if that's correct. I've been exposed to rather a lot of the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band and I'm told they're country but yet a gain, not a field i'm familiar with.

I play in a traditional folk band who play very old welsh and other celtic melodies but as i'm there on a purely read the dots basis I don't know what else I should check out. We may settle with getting in a fiddle player and doing one of the sets I've previously done with the folk band.

I listen to a fair amount of Jazz and absolutely love kind of blue and I think we'll go for that sort of sounds as is pretty chilled and won't strain our theory muscles. I guess that makes our 'jazz' genre more specifically modal jazz?

Thanks for the suggestions so far. keep the discussion coming

on a further note I also had to write a 2,500 word essay on the evolution of popular music through the 20th century and the subsequent spider diagram showing the bridging and development of genres was one of the hardest tasks I've ever had to try and complete.

Hi guys,

Myself and a couple of friends have decided to do up a barn in the middle of nowhere for personal recording, mastering and sequencing purposes and thought it would be a great idea to have a target to aim for recording-wise once we got the place up and running properly.

The aim is this

"compose and record/sequence a single song for every genre we believe our musicality would benefit from learning about."

the list of genres (after much debate) go like this........

Blues
Reggae
Latin
Country
Folk
Pop
Jazz
Hip-hop
House
Drum n bass
Metal
Rock(we decided two genres from 'rock' as it's a bit of a umbrela term,we decided on a heavy 'metal' song and a light,general 'rock song')
Funk
R n B

As research for each genre we believe we should buy (not illegally download (Y) several albums that defined or that live up to the stereotypical image people have of that particular style of music. I'd like the people who believe they specialise or have a particular intrest for any of these genres to try and narrow down the 3 albums you find most important to defining that particular style you like. Both the list and the albums suggested are/will be purely opinion based so I'd like to try and avoid a war of words that enters the realm of genre philosophy.

I personally will probably find this experience more useful than the others as someone who wants to get very much into a wider variety of session work in the future so i'll really appreciate any feedback BC members can give on any of the genres.

By all means tips in what define the specific sound in terms of live,multitracked or sequenced instruments are welcome as well are multiple suggestions as to what albums corespond to what genre, either agreeing or disagreeing with each other.

We decided not to include any genres that have a 'fusion' element such as 'folk-rock' etc and also decided against putting a era to each genre ie '50's blues' so this may make the task all the more difficult to help with.

Sorry about the long post but this could be a really good thread that could prove really useful in the future for people's research purposes.

Thanks a lot,

Ben.

Mornin'

Yesterday I decided to play through the Michael Jackson album 'Off The Wall' and remembered just how good of an album it really is. Louis Johnson is absolutely astounding on it and the various people who arranged and composed the songs (MJ is credited with 3 of 10, Rod Temperton has quite a few and there's also a stevie wonder track as well as a mccartney composition) really knew what they were doing to pump out some funky, cheesy,disco, 'of it's time' wonderness.

a good 9/10 for playalong ability.

anyone else share an opinion on this album?

there's some cool bass sounds on the album i think, he doesn't quite just stick to one signature tone on the album.

any comments?

____
Ben

drummers because the best drummers i've encountered and played with have made ME look good and in my eyes a drummer is the other half needed to complete what my job should be.

and prurelly because my hands are too big to play them -fiddle/violin. had a go on a mate's fiddle the other day and it wasn't pretty.

[quote name='silverfoxnik' post='257667' date='Aug 7 2008, 10:59 PM']I think from looking at the headstock shape it was a Wal Custom..

Is it just me, or is the singer in the clip really, really irritating??[/quote]

i know nothing about Wal's but yes.....yes he is.

I always set the gain perfectly, so that I can really wack a string hard with the peak light just about coming on. Passive bass, in the passive input.

I'm hopefully going to get another matching cab to get 550watts @ 4ohms out of the head. That should be enough headroom.

The symptoms I describe suggest that the top half of the master volume knob are redundant until you've got a cab setup that is at an impedance to get the full wack out of your bass head ie 2ohms mroe often than not.
correct?

Morning all.

I've been gigging for some considerable few years now for my age but have only recently broke into decent amp setups. (Bear with me, a short story)

When i first wanted a big amp i though "start at the bottom of the pile" so I got a Behringer BX4500 (gasp) with one of their 1x15" speakers. I found with certain eq's dialed the pretty red light underneath the word 'limit' would flash with the master volume around half way. I normally take red flashing lights as an omen of bad things to come so I'd have to back off the volume and try to get the drummer to quiet down.

I now have a (now discontinued) Portabass PB800 going into a GK Neo212. The limit light, without fail WILL light up if i exceed half way on the master volume knob.

On a similar thread I've also had an Ampeg V4B. Granted this is an all valve head with around 100Watts of beef but I laso found past half way with this amp to be a distortion nightmare.

I don't play in very loud bands but both the solid state amps I've described pump out around 300watts at 80hms which should be mroe than enough shouldn't it?

What with there being so much manipulation of figures when it comes to handling power, RMS etc I've just resorted to using my ears. But when an amp starts 'limiting' and flashing I get worried. My understanding of limiting is from an amateur engineers point of view - Where a compressed signal is pushed up to as close to 'very loud' (0db?) as possible during the mastering process and when i think of that in a gigging situation it doesn't sound like a desirable process to take place.

Could someone please clear up my worries as I'd like not to destroy an amp or speaker any time soon.

thanks a lot guys 'n' galls.

Ben.

P.S. I think I'm going to hop over to the introduction page as I never filed a 'hello everyone' post and I think it's about time i did so.

evenin' all,

I'm playing quite a few sets at this festival and it seems like quite a big event.

[url="http://www.festival-interceltique.com/index_en.php"]Lorient Interceltic Festival[/url]

I was wondering if anyone's been before or will also be playing at the festival this year.

As far as I know it's to promote and celebrate celtic languages and traditions with music and everything else you could think of. Being a welsh speaker myself and being in the loop with people in the local folk circuit I've been asked to go along to play with a approx. 60 strong folk 'orchestra'. Not at my own expense of course. Folk's never been my thing but I've had a suprising amount of fun and experience from the rehersals and gigs I've done with them already. it's the first time I've been abroad to play really so it's a step in the right direction for me. bit of a reading gig aswell *shock horror*.

Any feedback would be much appreciated.

Ta,

Ben.

I always liked Head For Backstage Pass by Jeff Beck. Really underrated song. Wilbur Bascomb on bass.....very cool.

also

Do you know Squarepusher? by Squarepusher.......IDM...you got to love it.

finally Reza/Giant Steps/Reza (Reprise) by mr Pastorius himself from the Invitation album. SOme awesome moments on that album especially his furiously chainsaw-like fuzz at the end where he has a few licks then plays the folk kind of riff with the entire band....absolutelly breathtaking.

the black one.....classic but kinky

PM'd

I've seen plenty of threads about with people suggesting replacment pickups and I know there's loads of different people, manufacturers and suppliers that we can get replacement hardware from but what about decent smooth necks and solid bodies with decent sustain and tone?

I'm planning on doing one of 'those' projects. Building a jazz bass very very slowly over a long stretch of time until it's got everything I could want in a sturdy workhorse of a bass.

As I'm in Wales Wizard 84's are a must.
I'm really really contemplating Kahler 2400 bass tremolo..........(anyone had a go?)
And just some decent tuning pegs, pots etc.

I'd like a jet black body and a whiteWHITE maple neck with no pickguard at all. A bit different but it looks sexy to me.

So far I've only really come across allparts and WDmusic but both are in the states and I honestly have no idea of the quality except that my local shop said that allparts were 'fine'.

There MUST be people in the UK that i've totally overlooked who'd be happy to sell me a JBass body and neck....(?)

Any ideas?

Ta,

Ben.

I bought an Ampeg head from the states, no switch I can see so I popped to Maplins and payed £25 or so to get a transformer. It's small, bit of a nightmare if you forget it but is far more straight forward than trying to get someone to change the amp's transformer it's self.

now that people are bringing it up though I think I'll contact Ampeg's tech support to see If I can change some switches round to save using the wee li'l' Maplins box.......