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OzMike

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Posts posted by OzMike

  1. I came across this useful pack of bass cab IRs:
    https://shift-line.com/irpackbass
    ... with a 'pay what you want' pricing model. Quite handy for headphones based practice (as otherwise the Helix patches I have sound completely different without being played via amp / cab), and it's easy to load them all up and flick between them in HX Edit or on your device (I have a an FX) until you find something you like. Not sure how true they are to the original cabs, but in general the tonal differences makes sense (i.e. B15 = less bass more mids, EBS = fairly neutral, Ampeg 8x10s = fat and big etc).
     

    • Like 3
  2. On 21/07/2021 at 14:22, Woodinblack said:

    That really does sound like a Eurovision song, with a Eurovision video

    A lot of the pop music in Estonia is written to that format... unfortunately. Eurovision is seem as the ultimate goal for a lot of the pop performers here.

    Vanilla Ninja were, in the early 2000s, originally a more legit light rock band, and could / can actually play instruments and sing. Most importantly these days, images of younger versions of themselves grace the wrapper of my most favourite budget ice-cream. 😄
    photo-3.jpg

  3. Hector doesn't yet have any feedback here on BC, however I've just concluded a sale of a bass cab to him, and I can vouch for him as a good person to deal with. We negotiated a deal for both of us that included shipping between Estonia and Spain, and got into unrelated lovely conversations about bass playing and music that have very pleasantly 'used up' more time than the deal itself. I have no doubt any purchaser of his bass would find dealing with him straight forward; he was very understanding of an issue with the cab packaging that was entirely my fault.

    Hector is also a humble, yet extremely capable piano player and musician. ;) (sorry mate, had to say it).

  4. I've been working through the electric bass jazz lessons by John Patitucci:
    https://artistworks.com/jazz-bass-lessons-john-patitucci

    This starts from a very basic, practically zero ability level, and has three levels - beginner, intermediate, advanced - each with a number of lessons  I don't play acoustic but the subscription - $105 for 3 months is the plan I'm on - gives you access to the acoustic course also, plus a 4 lesson basic theory lesson. There are videos for each lesson, and PDFs (notation only, no tab) for most lessons, as well as some backing tracks. John is a good teacher, and has relaxed and friendly style. The real bonus is that you can submit several of your own videos, and he'll respond personally, providing feedback on where you should improve. I've been too much of a coward to utilise this option, but for more courageous players this would be worth the $105 all by itself IMO (as I guess he'd charged a mint for personal lessons).

    The videos are well filmed and produced. Very information-dense and no b/s, recommended, especially if you are an old-school / jazz-wanna-be.

    • Like 2
    • Thanks 1
  5. (edit - I'm all sorted out now, thank you)
    I'm wondering if there is any current Stomp owner running v2.82 that might be able to help me out. Recently my Stomp was stolen, and as I wasn't using the amp or cab models anyway I decide to replace it with the HX Effects. I have backups of my Stomp patches, but only as a 'total' backup, and these can't be accessed unless I actually have a Stomp connected. Unfortunately no-one I know in Estonia owns a Stomp,  so I was wondering if there is some kind Stomp-owning soul here that might be able to take my 'total' backup, restore it to their Stomp and then dump out around 30-40 of my patches to separate preset files? I'd be willing to compensate you for your time and effort; I guess it's about a 30 minute job from start to finish. Please send me a PM if you'd be willing to help me out, thanks!

  6. 10 hours ago, dave_bass5 said:

    Can hardly hear the effects at rehearsals, cant hear them at all on the recordings from the rehearsals.

    Try different EQ settings to bring out a distinctive frequency or two. I setup patches in a rough way at home, but then always do the next round of tweaking at rehearsals at volume using a parametric EQ block, dialing in (quite often) a mid-frequency boost that brings out the tone of the bass or FX. Without an EQ it's easy for the guitarist to blot out any tonal nuances. That's another aspect of the Helix Stomp / LT etc, one can configure it so that the EQ changes only come on with the chorus or whatever, or you can leave the EQ on all the time. Way better than the old days of buying a new chorus pedal, having it sound great in isolation at home and then have it be completely lost in the mix live. Every one of my patches has at least one EQ block and most have two (the second one being for a kind of cap sim which IMO sound better and more consistent live than the cab models).

  7. On 22/07/2019 at 15:20, Woodinblack said:

     

    I just tried the HX now on its own in my room and as loud as I turn it up I am not getting the same thing at all. So no idea what it is, but it seems to be something related to there.

    How was the HX connected to FOH? I use a passive DI box to provide a feed for the sound guy, haven't once had any troubles this way and don't need to worry if phantom power is on or not.

    My stomp is definitely saving me money; for a new project I need some delay and reverb, and the Helix has plenty of viable options. It's pretty easy to whip up a patch even in rehearsal.

    Maybe I'd be happy with some other manufacturer's gear, but the HX is what I've got  and there's no reason to change. Featherweight amps, small light and loud cabs, plus DSP boxes like the HX; a pretty good time to be a bass player.

  8. 1 hour ago, 1976fenderhead said:

    Apart from a couple of exceptions, it's like they're all the same generic amp with slight EQ changes.

    I believe that was a point that Jon made also; IME that's what a 'clean' setup on these amps gives you IRL too. The tonal and response differences seem more apparent to me at rehearsal volume as opposed to through headphones. I didn't personally find problems with volumes but this may depend on what instrument is being used to drive the Stomp and input impedance settings.  And ss posted above, these are known starting points rather than finished patches, and personally I found them much more useful than the overdriven Line6 defaults for each amp.

    One good thing about the Stomp is that's easy to do some trial and error, so if you don't like what you hear it's not much time wasted. :)

  9. 9 minutes ago, la bam said:

    Are the job Willis settings loud enough? As the drive affects volume on a lot of these sims?

    With the several presets I've programmed in using Jon's settings it seems the channel and / or master volumes are bumped up to make up for the lower drive values. Across each of the settings above the volumes are pretty much identical, and are also roughly in line with the other non-Jon patches I've got setup.

    • Like 1
  10. All of the amps on the Stomp, for me at least, had the drive controls too far up and sounded too muddy on the presets and when the amp is selected into an empty block. There is a chap by the name of Jon Willis who has done a lot of work providing bass patches and settings for the Helix series within a couple of groups on Facebook:
    https://www.facebook.com/groups/669957523419623/
    and
    https://www.facebook.com/groups/145604946038429/

    If use you Jon's settings in the images below - for which I take no credit and that are available via the first group above - the amps are much cleaner and it's possible to work from a more useful starting point. These 'clean' settings come into their own, I've found, at proper volume through an amp (via the FX return) and cab.

    53241775_2259927204268344_4830474903775870976_n.jpg

    53060140_2259927174268347_3747697422067826688_n.jpg

    • Like 4
    • Thanks 2
  11. 3 hours ago, Rollin Thunder said:

    also is the device fully by passable when no effects are in use, 

    Yep, from the stomp manual:
    "There are two types of All Bypass in HX Stomp: Analog bypass (sometimes called "true bypass"), where mechanically switching relays route your signal directly from the inputs to the outputs with no processing or A/D/A conversion, and DSP bypass, where any delay echoes and reverb tails decay naturally. By default, HX Stomp is set for Analog bypass, but this behavior can be set from "Global Settings > Preferences"."

    I use the analog / relay / true-bypass, and setup my patches so that the output volume is the same as when the analog bypass is engaged. If 'someone' trips on your power supply and pulls the connector out of the Stomp, the pedal powers down and goes into the hard-bypass mode, at which point you want to be sure that your volume is at the same level as the patch you were using, and the show can carry on.

  12. I have a G&L LB-100 tribute here that I got a couple of months ago from Thomann:
    https://www.thomann.de/gb/gl_lb_100_nat_mn_tribute.htm

    When it arrived it need a small amount of work to get setup 100% OK; the slot for the E string wasn't quite cut deep enough and made the F on the E string hard to play. There was a small amount of the clear coat that had flaked off around the 12th fret on side of the neck. I changed the supplied strings to TI flats, and also did the mod that increased the value of the tone cap (mentioned somewhere on the USA bass forum). The only other niggle is the volume and tone knobs have no indent or marker, so one can't tell by looking what the position is. That aside, it's a solid and (as are all the Tribute's I've played) very good value for money bass. With flats the tone knob is very responsive; I can go from dubby fatness at one end through to slap-suitability on the other. The bridge is a delight to work with, and the tuners seem to work just fine.

    Another point - the neck is definitely into the P-bass region for breadth and depth; the bass takes noticeably more physical effort to play with my left hand than my mex Jazz and EBMM Sterling. It also feels a bit on the heavy side. For these reasons it might not be a 'keep forever' bass, as my fingers / hands / wrists are already a bit knackered from decades of typing and bass playing. Still - a very good bass overall, and suits the blues / blues rock group I use it in nicely; it's impossible to go wrong with the basic fat and solid tone. Looks-wise, it definitely does the job too. I kind of like the 'bottle-opener' headstock, although others don't. In it's price range, and a bit above, a very competitive choice.

    • Like 1
  13. Thanks very much for posting all of this. I've only had a quick look but the code (with comments! top stuff!) seems quite understandable to me and all the details provided makes it look like a relatively painless build; you've done all the research, hard work and development, plus have something that actually works. As someone who was (reluctantly) looking at buying the Morning Star controller, but also someone that has some DIY skills, this is a tremendous head-start. Kudos, and it's much appreciated.🤗

    • Like 1
  14. On 02/03/2019 at 20:47, stoo said:

    More than happy to share wiring diagrams and the code I used, and can guide people through how to tweak them for different configurations.

    I know I'd be definitely interested if you would be so kind as to share the code + details of the micro board + screen that you've utilised. If you did want to do this, do you want people to contact you privately?

  15. For me the Stomp has been quite the revelation, and like others I've been offloading most of my individual pedals. The stand-out points IMO are:

    • sound quality; most of the amps / cabs / FX sound 'real' and 'musical'. My separate bass wah and fuzz do sound a bit 'better', but seeing as I hardly use these pedals I'm fine getting rid of them and using the Stomp / Helix equivalents. No more schlepping around a pedal board and some pedals that take up space and weight and only get used once in a blue moon.
    • experimenting with different blocks, especially 'bread and butter' items like compressors and EQ, is very easy; there is no cable swapping to try different FX orders or combinations
    • a lot of the FX offer 'blend' capability, so even without using a parallel processing path (which is possible too, of course), it's easy to retain bottom end or some of the natural characteristics of the instrument (which especially with compressors is very handy)
    • lower maintenance risk / concerns; if you have 5-6 pedals you are talking about 5-6 chances for a footswitch to fail and need replacing, or 10-12 chances for an audio socket to become slightly dodgy, or a number of chances for inter-pedal connections to have issues and need diagnosing
    • the stomp can be used alone (making it easy to throw into a gig bag), or it can be expanded to varying degrees at varying levels of expense (going from simple single momentary switch -> dual momentary switch -> switch / expression combo -> simple MIDI controller -> complex MIDI controller); if cash is tight it allows you to 'get going', and then enhance your gig as money and circumstances allow
    • 'bonus' functionality; I used the Stomp with an iPad and headphones for 'away from home' practice, and have tested simultaneous four-track recording (using the aux-ins as well as the standard inputs) - works well
    • huge amount of community support, with advice, recommendations, patches etc all available for free; and Line 6 seem committed to updating the firmware for extra amps / FX / etc. There are also a number of sources of 3rd party IRs.

    Many of the above points apply for other multi-FX units, but the Stomp IMO has hit a real sweet spot. I used to build FX commercially, and one reason I stopped is that I realised with Helix (and other manufacturer's solutions) it's kind of silly to be selling individual pedals any more when the DSP ones sound as good (in many cases) or almost as good, and are - effectively - far cheaper and more convenient. It really is a golden age for modelling and the convenience it brings, even to 'serious hobby' bass players like myself. And no more building pedal boards for a particular type of band, and then selling them off again after getting shafted and kicked out; now one can just delete all the patches and efficiently move on. 😉

     

    • Like 5
  16. I think there's a config option that determines whether the external connections operate as a switch or expression pedal; perhaps the second one is set to 'Expression' instead of 'Momentary' (or something similar)?

  17. 11 hours ago, tonyclaret said:

    Yes, in fact I had a look and someone seems to mention using exactly this dual switcher on TGP:
    https://www.thegearpage.net/board/index.php?threads/line-6-hx-stomp.1981420/page-154

    Anything with normally-open momentary switches should be fine. So far I've stuck with using an expression pedal + single momentary switch (for enabling / disabling the tuner) with my Stomp, and just switch presets by hand (as I only use a few per rehearsal / gig anyway). The next level up for me would be a MIDI controlled switch + expression device, but that ups the $$$ stakes considerably.

  18. That is pretty damn cool. I played around with using the preset samples on a few pedals, and then uploaded one of my own (which was actually an entire 3 minute song) to try with a TC delay pedal. It all worked perfectly, and it was quite interesting to fiddle with the controls and listen to the results in real time. This would have taken some effort to setup on their side; it makes me wonder whether they looked at the statistics of "what are the pedals that are costing us the most in terms of returns because people don't like the sound?" and then provided access to these first. :) Jokes aside, this really makes sense for Thomann to setup for their customers, as it would reduce returns and some pedals would then be an 'instant sale' to some people who like what they are hearing.

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