Green Alsatian

If he refuses to sell it to the highest bid, he'll end up with a negative feedback from the buyer and will still have to pay the 9% final value fees. Could be expensive for him if it sells for £500 and he wanted nearer £1000.

He should really have covered himself with a reserve price, so that he can walk away if the highest bid doesn't meet it.

It's bloody great! I received a promo copy last week as there was a delay in MAM shipping the 'Theweekendinblack' DVD/Live CD/Giants set* and it's literally all I've listened to since it arrived. I'd recommend getting hold it.

I think it's better than Suite XVI, which I loved - my favourite tracks are Freedom Is Insane, Lowlands, My Fickle Resolve and Mercury Rising, and of course, the title track Giants. Soundwise, it continues the late-70s aggressive bass and prominent keyboards (Dave Greenfield is my favourite keyboardist) but without sounding dated. No waltz on this album, but there's a Tango (Adios).

I have to say, Baz Warne has been a shot in the arm for them as it's clear that the chemistry between him and JJ really works. I've seen them a few times with the new four-piece lineup and they were staggering each time - I've just got back from seeing them tonight and it was utterly fantastic (they ended the second encore and the show with 'Tank').

I loved them with Hugh, although he left the year I got into them properly and buying up their back catalogue but I think Baz is cool - he's not trying to be Hugh or even Paul, but he does make a lot of effort to play Hugh's parts faithfully (and sounding right), so respect to him for that.

I saw the Paul Roberts/John Ellis-era lineup a few times in the late 90s and thoroughly enjoyed them each time. I do enjoy their 90s post-Hugh albums, even Written In Red, which was a bit of an odd direction for them but it wasn't until Norfolk Coast that they started sounding like Stranglers again.

*The Weekendinblack features a DVD with the acoustic set and the playing of 'Black & White' almost in its entireity (they didn't play 'Enough Time'), so it was interesting to hear how Baz handled the songs, which he did admirably. In the interview, he said that he felt under pressure to deliver on this one, with it being such a fan favourite and that there were songs on there that they never played live even back then!

I noticed that the pole alignment was out on the bridge pickup due to the string spacing being wider down there, but didn't experience any volume drop on any of the strings.

As to whether the pickups are a large split coil - I was intrigued by this myself and tapped around the pickup casing away from the pickup poles with a screwdriver to see if there was anything picking up underneath, but there wasn't so they do appear to be large split coils.

I added a clip in another thread, along with my thoughts before selling, so here it is for convenience:

[url="http://soundcloud.com/andrew-john-durney/fender-modern-player"]http://soundcloud.com/andrew-john-durney/fender-modern-player[/url]

I had mine (butterscotch) for two months before selling recently. I posted in the other 'Modern Player' thread about my first impressions two weeks after buying it. I ended up selling as I've trimmed myself down to one bass (a Yamaha BB424x in Vintage White). Here are some quick good points/bad points for anyone interested:

Good:

- well built, feels good and I couldn't fault the finish
- plenty of bass, even with the bridge pickup solo'd
- a little more note definition with both pickups on full
- great for anything requiring the mudbucker sound

Bad:

- the bridge pickup, despite having a little more definition than the neck pickup, is still muddy-sounding.
- bad for anything requiring something other than the mudbucker sound
- might feel heavy for some (weight didn't bother me)

Here's a quick demo of it with a new set of Rotosound nickel roundwounds [color=#000000][font=Arial]direct into my Zoom R16 recorder with no EQ. You'll hear (in order) - both pickups, neck pickup, bridge pickup (tone at maximum) and then both pickups, neck pickup and bridge pickup (tone at minimum):[/font][/color]

[url="http://soundcloud.com/andrew-john-durney/fender-modern-player"]http://soundcloud.com/andrew-john-durney/fender-modern-player[/url]

1. Eat plenty of roughage leading up to the gig.
2. Have a mic hidden on the stage near you at arse-height.
3. When the guitarist is tuning up, have another bandmate visibly hold another mic near the guitarist's arse, so the audience can see it.
4. Start farting.
5. Keep farting until he's tuned up.
6. Try not to retch during the next song.

I switched the Booster on patch A0 'MarkBoost' for the Pitchshifter and turned off the other two effects. With the Total Balance set to 100 (default), I set the Pitchshifter to -2 and set the Balance on the Pitchshifter to 50, which as expected, gave a 50/50 mix of the pitched tone and the bass. I then set the Balance on the Pitchshifter to 100, for a purely wet signal and the only sound produced was the pitchshifted tone, two semitones down - ie. a 100% wet effect signal.

Leaving the Balance on the Pitchshifter at 100, I then turned the Total Balance down to 50 and this brought the bright signal back in. Setting the Total balance back up to 100 again brought back the 100% wet effect signal.

I had another look at the flangers - on some of the patches Total Balance was 80 or lower in some cases, so raising this does make the flangers more prominent but I feel that they're still a bit restrained. However, they're okay with certain settings and you can still get a usable flanger sound out of them in the chorusy-range, but they're definitely no match for an analogue flanger or the Line 6 models (I'm going from the MM4 flangers). Your M5 will still trump them.

No probs! I've just fired it up and the Balance settings in the Total menu are as follows:

A0 'MarkBoost' - Balance 100 (maximum)
A1 'Polytone' - Balance 100 (maximum)

If there any other patches you remember and want to know the Balance settings, just give me a shout and I'll have a look for you. I'm off for another crack at those flangers, to see if the Balance control was less than 100 on the patches I was tinkering with.

Nice one to Dave for pointing the Total Balance out, as I wouldn't have twigged about the Total balance until having the time for a proper tweaking session (I'm still dabbling with the sounds already on offer). Or getting around to reading the manual, which I usually do first on getting hold of a new toy. (note to self - RTFM!)

I owned a 1998 AVRI '62 Jazz (black/tort like JMT's) for 8 years and it's the best feeling (I like glossy necks) and sounding bass I've owned. I paid £999 for it new at the time and sold it to pay for an MOT/road tax after I left the band I was in at the time.

At £750 - JMT's is a bargain.

[quote name='1976fenderhead' timestamp='1328754101' post='1532301']
Sorry Dave, or anyone else with the unit, can you tell me also about patch A1, what the default mix is? So [u]A0[/u] and [u]A1[/u], I think those are the ones I tried, would really appreciate it as I don't want to put people off with my review unfairly, which is the case if it was at 50% or near...[/quote]
I'll have a look when I get home from work tonight and report back.

I have that very bass - the fretboard is curved, but I don't know what the radius is off the top of my head. The width at the nut is 39mm and it's a thin neck from back to fretboard - more Jazz than Precision. Here's a pic of the end of the neck, so you can see:



It's a great bass - I was missing my cheap & cheerful BB414, so this one caught my eye. The split coil is pretty beefy sounding and does a great P-sound but special mention to the bridge pickup - it's a [i]hot[/i] one.

On the subject of the Line 6 M5 - is that just one effect at a time? ie. you can't form chains of effects like dirt > modulation > delay > reverb? I've owned the Line 6 MM4 (Modulation Modeller) and the DD4 (Delay Modeller) in the past, which I mainly used with synths and they were both 'one at a time', which was a pity, especially on the MM4 as I like to run a slow phaser into a rapid flanger for a pseudo 'Ensemble' effect from the 70s string synths.

For the most part, the effects were really good and it was nice that Line 6 'played with history' on some of them by going beyond their original functionality (eg. adding depth and resonance control to the Phase 90 model). The DD4 was also a lot of fun, in particular. I imagine the M5 models are an advancement on the old modeller series.

Back to the B3, watch out for the 'Bomber' effect on the B3, folks - it's literally an explosion effect, triggered by playing! I nearly jumped out of my skin with the headphones on when I belted a note with it on!

A swish?

I've had further dabblings with the B3 tonight, and after reading 1976's comments about the flangers, I delved deeper than my cursory preset checks the other night.

I'd concur that the flangers are very subtle and I've found it tricky to coax a decent 'jet' sound from them - it's more geared towards the chorusy sounds you can get from a Flanger. It's like the mix doesn't go fully wet, even turning the mix up to 100%. As others have said, it seems clear that this is to preserve the bottom end, which is understandable. I certainly found them usable and you can yield better results by tweaking them, but when I plugged in my Ibanez Airplane Flanger (my all-time favourite flanger of all time), it's like night and day!

Naturally, I still haven't fully tinkered with everything - that will come in time. I'm also still running through headphones as I haven't had the opportunity to run it through my amp (albeit only a Marshall Bass State B65). I'm still very impressed with the B3 - probably the first multiFX I've owned that isn't a chore to use!

I can't believe it's been a year already! I was quite shocked by the news last year as Gary's my favourite guitarist and was part of my favourite Thin Lizzy lineup. I wish I'd got to see him in concert.

Go and see them - my uncle loves Floyd and has seen them with and without Roger several times. He's also seen the Australian Pink Floyd several times and thoroughly enjoyed it each time.

You'll be paying £33 to see a good band playing songs you love well - it's not like they just slap a Pink Floyd set list together and blast through them:

[url="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lhXLaoelqKI"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lhXLaoelqKI[/url]

I'll add some first impressions too. I spent an hour or so with just the bass (Yamaha BB424X), the B3 and a set of headphones.

Construction is solid. The rotary encoders are stepped and are velocity sensitive, so you can give a quick twist to rapidly reach higher parameter settings. The stomp switches feel sturdy and this is reflected throughout the unit. The inputs/outputs on the back don't feel cheap.

Navigation is clear and I couldn't believe how simple it was to swap the three virtual stompboxes - I was expecting menu-diving, but it's a simple up/down button above the screen to select the next/previous effect in the list. In addition to this, you can also change their order in the menus. Speaking of the menus, these are well laid-out with all three screens used to display them - each screen may have up to 3 pages, which are cycled by the 'Page' button.

Editing the effects is as simple as using a regular stompbox, thanks to the three knobs. Where there are more than three parameters, you simply press the page button and the next three parameters are assigned to the knobs.

Coming from the Zoom B1 and Zoom B2, this really is a diddle to navigate and edit.

I've only cycled through the preset patches so far and tweaked each of the effects/amps used in each one, so I haven't sampled all of the effects yet. Here's a little rundown on my thoughts of the effects I've encountered:

Amp Models - I haven't owned any of the amps modeled, so I can't vouch for their authenticity. I have owned the SansAmp VT Bass, which I was itching to buy again, but the SVT model in the B3 has staved off my desire to pick up another as early tinkering has revealed it to be very much of that character. The Fliptop model sounds quite 'plummy' and warm. The Hartke sounds very clean (I've only owned an A35). In short, there is plenty of tonal variety on offer.

Dirt - I particularly like the Fuzz Face, which sounds suitably snarly without being muddy and likewise for the Big Muff. There's a Tube Screamer, which is good for adding a bit of grit. There is what appears to be a model of the Rat and the DS-1, which cover the gamut of distortions.

Chorus - there's what appears to be a model of a CE-1 which is suitably subtle and another chorus whose name escapes me right now which can go quite deep and lush. The Ensemble effect has impressed me with its gentle stereo panning. All good and usable with no murkiness at the bottom end.

Flanger - I've noticed two flangers so far, one of them being a 'Vintage Flanger', which reminds me of my old MXR Flanger. The other Flanger sounded a little more metallic - the Electric Mistress, perhaps. Either way, you'll have no problem playing 'Waiting For an Alibi'!

Phaser - there are 4-stage and 8-stage phasers. The 4-stage being of the vintage type (my preference) - like a Boss PH-1R or a Phase 90 (albeit with extra control over depth and resonance). The 8-stage is naturally richer-sounding and sounds great on low-medium rates. In addition, there's a model of the Roland Jet Phase, as championed by Larry Graham, which has several modes including a distortion & phaser, which sounds ace!

Filter/AutoWah - there are numerous filter and wah onboard, and I have to say that usually, filter/wahs sound nasty on a multi-effects, but they sound great on the B3! The Q replica is suitably funky and there's even a sequenced filter, for step effects. With an expression pedal, you have a couple of wahs, which I haven't yet tried.

Delays - there's a great Memory Man replica which murks up the repeats as they go on and another delay whose name escapes me which has the option to ping-pong in stereo, which is a lot of fun. Naturally, they don't go into self oscillation like an analogue delay would, but they're fun to play around with.

Reverbs - the Room is quite nice and useful for subtly livening up a sound. The Arena is at the other end of the scale and does give a good impression of space.

For £150, this is a steal, and that's without delving deeper into the unit. I'll also applaud fxpedals.co.uk on their usual high standard of services!

Ordered yesterday, arrived this morning. Looking forward to getting to grips with it when I get out of work.

I got to spend the night with an Aerodyne Jazz when I replaced the output jack on my friend's. A lovely-looking and sounding bass - the neck was particularly nice on it.

Did I want to keep it? Yes, I did!

Too many! Loads to choose from my personal faves - Phil Lynott, JJ Burnell, Bruce Foxton, Steve Harris, Colin Moulding, James Jamerson (to name but a few) but I'm going with Norman Watt-Roy's P-bass tone and fantastic line on Ian Dury & The Blockheads' 'My Old Man'.

[url="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ooPVuG8ZbNE"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ooPVuG8ZbNE[/url]

A fantastic band - their song 'Mars Bar' should have been used on the adverts!

[url="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f-81U4vLa_I"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f-81U4vLa_I[/url]

When my car was robbed a 12 years ago, used as a getaway car in a supermarket robbery and consequently burned out, I was even more gutted that my Undertones tapes were in the glove compartment!

This thread needs some Thunderthumbs!

[url="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tPBDMihPRJA"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tPBDMihPRJA[/url]

Outstanding.

This one depends on whether you want to program your own sounds or not, or rather, how [i]easily[/i] you want to.

If you've taken a shine to the Gaia for an easily-tweakable hands-on synth and still want piano sounds, you could do a lot worse than to hook up an Alesis NanoPiano to the Gaia via MIDI.

The NanoPiano can be had for around £100 on eBay (I recently sold mine for £120 in a clearout) and the pianos (and EPs/organs) are very good on it, being based on the Alesis QS8's pianos. Best of all, the NanoPiano is smaller than most stompboxes and wouldn't take up much room.

I've owned several Roland Workstations from the XP-50 to the Fantom, their JV and XV-series modules and the Juno-D and while they are a great source of sounds they are fiddly to edit. The Juno D locked out most of the parameters for a patch, making it a lightly-tweakable box of presets. The Juno-G follows suit (or keyboard player has one), but with better quality samples on-board and extra useful features such as a song recorder for jotting down ideas. There are numerous synth bass sounds on the Juno-G, but I didn't think they were particularly interesting, but then I prefer using analogue or virtual analogue synths for bass.

If you're not fussed about programming/editing but have pianos and loads of other instruments on tap, the Juno-G will give you what you want.

If you want more control over the sounds, creating your own, the Gaia should suit you, but you'll be needing a separate module (or software) for piano sounds. If you go for the Gaia with external piano sounds, will 49 keys be enough for playing piano for you? (the Juno G has 61)

Juno G synth bass sounds from 3:40 in this demo:

[url="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lAd0QKoSoA8"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lAd0QKoSoA8[/url]

On the subject of bass synths, this has recently caught my eye:

[url="http://www.arturia.com/evolution/en/products/minibrute/intro.html"]http://www.arturia.com/evolution/en/products/minibrute/intro.html[/url]

I had one for a bit and it'll do you a great P-bass sound. It felt well-made and was comfortable to play - mine was a sunburst with a rosewood fingerboard. For under £100, it's a great bass.

Here's a quick demo I recorded of mine before I sold it - it was strung with a set of Fender flatwounds. I used a Sansamp VT Bass set flat for recording purposes with no other effects. I played with the tone fully open first and then fully closed.

Ignore my playing

[url="http://soundcloud.com/andrew-john-durney/vintage-p-bass"]http://soundcloud.co.../vintage-p-bass[/url]

[quote name='paul_5' timestamp='1326329069' post='1495693']
Looks like Green Alsation has just outed himself as a 'chorus-whore' .
[/quote]

And they're just the Boss pedals! I've never had more than two chorus pedals at once though, and [i]never[/i] ran them simultaneously - that'd be like crossing the streams!

I forgot to add the Boss CE-300, which is a rack chorus - well worth seeking out as it works well with any instrument and sounds fabulous, especially in stereo!

Outside Boss units, other choruses worth checking out with bass include the EHX Small Clone (not the Nano), the MXR Micro Chorus and especially the Voodoo Lab Analog Chorus, which is based on the CE-1 'Chorus' mode (it doesn't have the Vibrato mode).