tauzero

22 hours ago, Cliff Edge said:

Control a Stomp and an iPad using MIDI?

 

May have been discussed already but before trawling 96 pages here I thought I would ask. 
I use OnSong on iPad, each song in a set list has BPM and elapsed time. I select the songs using a bluetooth page turner pedal and then select the Stomp patch I want using buttons on an Ampero Hotone. It’d be nice to do all this with one button push on something, possibly using MIDI as the Stomp doesn’t do Bluetooth?

According to the blurb, OnSong does MIDI, and you can get Bluetooth MIDI (eg https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005008408092026.html) so maybe select the song on OnSong and have it send the MIDI PC signals to select the patch and mode (if you want to be in stompbox mode for some and snapshot mode for others).

12 minutes ago, Mickeyboro said:

The explosion of open mic nights has certainly helped venues to mount cheap entertainment at the expense of bands. 

The open mics I go to are on Tuesdays and Wednesdays - not at major music venues either. The Tuesday one does sometimes have bands in, on a Saturday. Are you seeing a lot of Saturday night open mics in Bournemouth?

1 hour ago, FugaziBomb said:

I had the same theory - that maybe by designing a pickup with it's resonant peak either down deep into low-mid territory or up into the high mids, it creates the sonic effect of a "scooped" EQ to our brains.  I wish I would have delved into the science of electric guitar earlier in my life as I'm finding a lot of what I took as fact is really myth.

There's an interesting article on the subject here. The resonant peak is also linked to the frequency that the 2nd order low pass filter takes effect and cuts treble, so presumably if you wanted to retain treble you wouldn't want to drop the resonant peak too far. It does make me wonder what the difference in effect of cable length would be between an active and a passive bass, as the pickups are isolated from the cable in the active bass but not the passive one. While the capacitance of the cable would be the same, there would be no interplay between that and the pickups on the active bass, but presumably it would directly affect the resonant peak on the passive bass.

3 hours ago, BigRedX said:

I had exactly the same experience with another Washburn. I swapped out the stock pickups and pre-amp for a set of very expensive EMGs that were about half as much as the bass originally cost. I couldn't detect any difference in sound before and after at all. So either the original pickups were very good or the difference in sounds between pickups or the same form-factor is less than the manufacturers of after-market pickups would like us to believe.

I put a DiMarzio pickup in my Precision. I couldn't hear any of the much-vaunted difference.

45 minutes ago, Jay2U said:

Dread Theater

Prog metal reggae?

2 hours ago, stewblack said:

Always heartwarming to read such supportive posts towards fellow musicians.

Amplified busking means that people working in the vicinity are having it thrust upon them regardless of the merits of the busker in question. I'm not opposed to unamplified busking, I've done it myself.

There's a variety of Ibanezes to be found at that sort of price, and a few Corts. Sub Ray5 HH on your list is also good, nice neck. Could you elaborate on "ergonomics" as judging by what you've said about the Ray5 you actually mean compact. If that's what you're after, have a look for an SGC Nanyo Bass Collection eg https://www.facebook.com/marketplace/item/1865927017481227/ - small body and headstock, nice players.

Duran Durin

Fluidsynth? Available on Android, not sure about iOS.

2 hours ago, Wombat said:

Push Fit Copper? Is that a good name for a metal band? 😂

"You'll never push fit me alive, copper".

Prohibit amplified busking. Also, when buskers are being prosecuted, tell the judgethat they were protesting for Just Stop Oil and their sentences will start at five years.

16 hours ago, SteveXFR said:

Every cover band does Paranoid (badly) and Iron Man is a bit over played.

I want to drop Paranoid (I have problems playing it due to a damaged right hand which means rapid alternate picking is problematic). However, the drummer is a Sabbath fan so for now it stays in.

2 hours ago, Wombat said:

So what's best? Push fit or copper?

Whatever's good for metal.

A bit more on the app and the Spark NEO device.

When you switch on the Spark NEO, it goes looking for the last Bluetooth device it connected to, and then other paired devices if it doesn't find it. This is regardless of whether the Spark app is running on the device. So if you want to change the device you want to run the app on, or which you want to play music on, you have to mess around with the Bluetooth settings connecting to the headphones. This is unlike the Boss Katana:GO which will happily play audio from any device that it is paired with. The main purpose for me is to play music on a device and play along to it, so this is, while not actually a deal killer, a significant inconvenience.

Further news: it's now working and paired to both my phone and tablet. Positive Grid responded to me with some suggestions, the last of which was a factory reset. Did a factory reset and was able to pair with the phone. Then had another go at pairing with one tablet, making sure that the phone bluetooth was off, and it succeeded. I'm not going to try pairing with the second tablet, I've had enough stress already.

The Spark app is a lot more sophisticated in appearance than the Boss Waza Air one (I've not had a Waza Air but did load the app to have a look at it). Not unlike the HX Edit program or Tonelib's Zoom editor, with pretty pictures of the components of the signal chain. I'll do more of a delve into it in the next few days. There's also an AI preset generator.

Headphones are comfortable to wear, with the cups going fully over my ears. They're a bit heavier than the Boss ones (from reading the specs) but not enormously heavy. Sound quality is fine.

Further to this: the Warman pickup was for the narrower string spacing of a Ray5 (and coincidentally I have a Ray5 it can go onto). I found an Aguilar AG-5M for a very reasonable price, and installed that and a blend pot (dual MN500k), and it produced sound entirely as planned and not (as I was half expecting, given my rate of success with electronics projects of late) messages from Alpha Centauri at one end of the pot's travel and whalesong at the other.

And while I was there, as the original control plate has been drilled for a parallel/series/single coil switch and I wasn't bothering with that with the Aguilar (which is wired in parallel), I got a rather pretty replacement. Engraved and multicoloured. Now what do I do about that scratchplate?

On 04/04/2025 at 12:24, neepheid said:

 

Dunno.  I paid by debit card, so I'm boned.  Thankfully in my case it was <£100, paid back in September last year and I'm over it already, but others may not be in a position to be so glib about it.

You might (emphasis on "might") be able to claim it back - https://www.moneysupermarket.com/credit-cards/what-is-chargeback/

Cad

Mad

30 minutes ago, Freddi375 said:

I'm using an EBS neoline 112, which is loud enough, it's more lacking in the low end with the elf certainly compared with my much more powerful streamliner (understandably so). But then I was thinking, is this to do with the cab being 8ohm. Or will a more sensitive 8ohm do a better job of pulling through the lows. Forgive my lack of knowledge!

Do you mean you get more lows using the EBS cab with the Streamliner than with the Elf, or using the Streamliner with another unspecified cab than the Elf plus EBS? If you're using the same cab for the comparison, then the difference is the amp, in which case why not just use the Streamliner?

Note: this is now outdated, see later posts.

A bit more on the Positive Grid one, seeing as I've just got one.

So far (and this could be user error), it's completely and utterly useless. When I got it, I downloaded the Spark app onto my Android phone (Google Pixel 8 Pro) and initially paired the Neo. The Spark app recommended a firmware update, which I did via Windows (note: you can only do firmware upgrades with Windows or Mac) which was successful. I then tried to pair the Neo with a second Android device, a Samsung Galaxy Tab A9+, which was unsuccessful. I tried with another Android device, a Nokia T20, again unsuccessfully. I tried these pairings both with the Bluetooth on the phone turned on and turned off, which made no difference. Following Positive Grid's suggestion on their website, I went into settings on the phone and forgot the Neo Audio from the paired devices. I tried again on each of the tablets, also unsuccessfully, and was also unable to re-pair from the phone as it gives an error "incorrect PIN or passkey". I've tried doing the pairing both from within the Spark app and from the Android Bluetooth settings. So now, with no ability to connect via Bluetooth, it is completely useless to me.

I've put in a support request to Positive Grid. 

Unlike Peavey, Peavy were very good at concealing their second pickup.

4 hours ago, SteveXFR said:

Not natural finish.

That eliminates most Warwicks, Seis, Overwaters, ACGs, and Shukers. Who in their right minds wants paint covering up lovely wood?

23 hours ago, Suburban Man said:

If it did, I missed it; possibly my error. just got a message saying I should have ‘opted out’ when I listed - which is no longer possible.

It could be that it's a bit too easy to just click through the option to confirm size and weight.

It's worth having a look at Glenn Fricker's Spectre Sound Studios videos on Youtube. They're from a metal perspective but should still be relevant across a broad spectrum of rock guitar. He's very complimentary about the Harley Benton cabs, mainly because of the drivers that they use.

4 minutes ago, Crusoe said:

I can remember a duo in a bar once, one on keyboards, the other singing and possibly playing guitar, doing Oasis covers. The singer made Liam Gallagher sound like Pavarotti by comparison.

I was on a cross-channel ferry in 1997 from Newhaven to Dieppe, and entertainment was provided by Sid and Doris Bonkers (© Private Eye) on guitar, bass, drum machine, and dubious vocals, including a ground-breaking rendition of 'Delilah' in 4/4 instead of the more conventional 3/4 time.