tauzero

The leads for the PA (5x mains lead, 2x 2-way extension, 4-way extension, 10-way extension, FOH XLR cables, foldback XLR cables, a few spare XLR leads) go into a wheelie suitcase. My gigbag (also used for rehearsals) came free from the Motorcycle Show one year, and holds a couple of jack-jack leads for if my pedalboard wireless dies, a few rechargeable AA batteries, a Zoom MS-60B, pair of Lekato wireless bugs, and for gigs an Android tablet plus spare, a towel, and a spare T-shirt.

15 minutes ago, nilorius said:

Robots don't care where You have been.

But androids may dream of electric sheep.

12 minutes ago, lidl e said:

Maybe we should have a secret basschat question rhat only members would know the answer to that would prove they are legit.

 

I suggest "who is @nilorious 's favourite bassist?"

Which tonewood is right for metal?

1 hour ago, stewblack said:

A new experience coming up for this old dog at the weekend.

Depping for a band whose entire set is pumped into their brains from a backing track, via earphones.

They use a metronome, some chords, and verbal cues throughout the songs. 

I can imagine certain advantages. The tempo, or speed, of each song is set, not dependent upon the vagaries and mood of a drummer. Less chance of getting lost mid song. 

But I wonder how lifeless and robotic the performance might be, how utterly unresponsive to the audience, how entirely lacking in spontaneity.

Mrs Zero is in a duo with a guitarist using backing tracks, hence playing at set tempo. Their performances aren't lifeless and robotic in the slightest. A lifeless and robotic performance will only be produced by a lifeless and robotic band.

On 04/06/2023 at 08:11, Rayman said:

If I was on a stage in front of thousands of people, playing music I loved and getting paid, with a successful career behind me

That may well be where he's put it.

I'm another happy purchaser. After measuring one or two current straps, and translating to primitive measurements, I decided that the 42" to 58" one would be right for me. After hammering a 10mm punch through it and fitting Schaller straplocks, then shortening the neck side and lengthening the body side a bit, it got used in my first gig for 18 months and worked well. I don't think I had to shuffle it round on my shoulder at all, which is something I do find myself doing on occasion with other straps. I have shortened the neck end a bit more since then as it was a bit close to running out of padding - at the minimum length of the neck end of the strap, there's about an inch more padding over my left shoulder than in the photo below.

On 31/05/2023 at 08:53, BigRedX said:

As has already been said the 2.4GHz systems are definitely to be avoided now as they are competing with far too many other devices for bandwidth (every audience member's mobile phone for starters). Right now 5GHz systems appear to be better but expect them to get less reliable as more devices start using this frequency. 

So don't throw away the 2.4GHz ones, eventually they'll be the ones using the unused frequencies.

I didn't adequately test the power supply on my pedalboard prior to the first gig in a long time and the first use of the pedalboard, so the Line 6 G50 didn't work at all. I will say that the Lekato cheapie 5GHz ones I've been using in rehearsals have been fine, although we're talking months and not years of use.

On 01/06/2023 at 14:34, lidl e said:

Charge a lot for a little piece of metal.

Possibly because it has to be a pretty strong little piece of metal. If you insist on having 1) Fenders and 2) headstocks, it does seem like quite a good idea.

There's the X Air Q app which allows the levels being sent to a selected bus to be set. I don't know if you can lock down which buses can be amended by one person though.

I've got an XR12 which I am just getting to grips with after the first gig on Saturday. Going through recent posts in this thread, I was idly curious about the Soundcraft, RCF, and Zoom offerings, and had a look at both. No point switching the XR12 for any of them - what did surprise me (and shouldn't) was that the Zoom only works with iOS. This reflects previous limitations, like the MS-100BT and the G6 which have apps only available on iOS. I asked Zoom about this back when the MS-100BT was out and they said they wouldn't bring out anything for Android, so they're ignoring 70% of mobile app users. Rant over.

Back in the 70s they were more like white noise generators than something to pass a signal down. I eschewed them from those days forth.

Being someone who would like to use his 3D printer to the full (or at least more than I do), can anyone recommend beginner-friendly software and tutorials?

Just thought I'd mention that HX Edit 3.61 is out.

I just use whichever comes to hand for both home and live.

On 01/06/2023 at 17:13, hiram.k.hackenbacker said:

Sounds like he forgot to change the amp from passive to active.

Or was foolish enough to use the "active" input on the amp for an active bass. Passive input is the best IME (sample of about 30 basses).

I forgot to mention that Mrs Zero informed me that one young lady had been jiggling along to us so enthusiastically that she jiggled out of the top of her dress. Mrs Zero was also rather surprised that I'd missed it. Must stop looking at the fretboard so much. Sorry, there is no photographic evidence.

What about a base plate that can be any number of modules long, then just bolt however many modules it is to the baseplate?

First gig for the new band, Dirty Roses (rock covers). It was also one guitarist's first gig. Not perfect, but we got plenty of compliments and the audience stayed to the end. First real outing for the GR Bass AT800 Cube combo. It was also the first outing for the singer/guitarist's Les Paul that he won in a competition a couple of months ago, and for my Ibanez EHB1265MS/Aguilar. Had some problems with the power supply on my pedalboard so had to just go wired. The only real pink torpedo-up was the encore - our last number in the set is Sweet Child O' Mine, which we play downtuned a semitone. The other guitarist does that on his Variax by simply turning a knob. However, he forgot to turn it back for the encore, Angels, so as soon as I came in there was a horrible discordant clash, unlike the horrible discordant clashes I normally do. He quickly realised and sorted it out, and it didn't stop everybody singing along.

If you're going to leave the headstock on, I think that natural finish looks better than a painted one.

The 70s, starting in 1970 as Hendrix was still alive until later that year, through much prog, glam, punk, and new wave. Plus some classic disco and most of Abba's existence, and Queen and Pink Floyd's best albums.

15 hours ago, JottoSW1 said:

I was under the impression that running a 4ohm Valve Amp into 8ohms wasn't good for them at all

Calling @agedhorse

I think that's right - running a valve amp with no load is very bad for it. ISTR (but I could well be wrong so check with an expert) that you ideally should match impedance but that it's possible to run into a lower impedance than marked, so you could run a 4 ohm load from the 8 ohm output.

Some time ago, I bought a handmade 6-string headless bass off Ebay after somebody mentioned it in the marketplace. It had generic Chinese pickups in it, with two volume controls with pull to switch between serial and parallel coils on each and one rotary switch to select bridge, neck, or both. As someone slightly unkindly remarked, the knobs looked as if they belonged on a cooker rather than a bass.

After getting an Ibanez EHB1265 with upgraded Aguilar DCB pickups, and having seen a pair of DCBs the right size for this bass in the marketplace, I decided to upgrade it with the DCBs and an Aguilar OBP2 with stacked bass and treble (just hoping that the OBP2 isn't too overwhelming). This allowed me to keep the three-knob setup.

The pickup holes were marginally undersized for the Aguilars so I had to do some filing to get them in.

Obviously I didn't want to start drilling other holes in the front so I was rather constrained by the positions of the holes already drilled. This did present a problem as the position of the barrel jack socket would interfere with the bass/treble pot, so I took a different approach. My initial thought was to put the jack socket on a plate mounted on the outside like a Les Paul, but the flat section of the perimeter was too narrow and I didn't want to start carving flat bits out. So instead I got an oval metal jack mounting plate and bent it to match the inside of the control cavity, then enlarged the jack socket hole slightly and mounted the plate on the inside.

Next stage was wiring everything up. I wired up the tone control to the OBP-2 (ran the wires for the tone control through some heat shrink to try and keep things neat), then the volume control, and finally wired the blend control, jack socket, and PP3 battery holder in. Initially the volume control didn't work - that was because I'd connected the grey pickup wires to the volume pot body and the black wires to ground, but the two weren't connected. A short bridging wire on the volume pot sorted that out.

There was just room for the 9V battery holder - I didn't want to put the battery in loose. Volume is at the top, blend to the left of the battery, OBP2 is nect to the jack socket, the oval plate holding the jack socket is visible, and the stacked bass/treble pot is the other side of the jack socket. As can be seen, there's not a lot of room.

The last remaining piece of the puzzle was the rear cover, which I wanted to change to magnetic closing. The control cavity has a very narrow margin which wasn't very satisfactory as the screws that were holding the cover on were barely gripping and they were also really tiny. I took a couple of short lengths of wood and glued neodymium magnets to them, then glued them in position inside the control cavity. Then I glued a matching pair of magnets to the cover, and all was well.

16 hours ago, Downunderwonder said:

Try it. I bet you wind up with a slightly lower output knob position.

Surely that would depend on which end of the combo he puts on the ground.

59 minutes ago, owen_87 said:

I'm driving myself bananas here and I've searched here and on Google and can't get clarity on what I'm after so here goes.....

 

Anyone using the HX Stomp for their IEM mix? Currently I have this setup:

 

Bass -> HX Stomp -> Behringer BDI21 -> Mixer -> Headphone amp -> In ears

 

I'm hoping to get to get to a point where the Stomp becomes the all in one so that feeds to the mixer then I take a feed from the mixer to the Stomp, rather than a headphone amp, and use the headphone output from there for my IEM mix. Any suggestions on how to set up the sends and returns for this?

Could you use the 4-cable method (page 9 of the manual) with the amp return and send being the mixer input and output? There's a setting in Global Settings | Ins/Outs for Phones monitor - not sure if you could use that to divert the Stomp's Send to the phones, otherwise you could send it to the headphone amp (so you don't get to do away with that). Using that method, the Stomp's output (TRS) can go straight to the mixer using a TRS to XLR lead, so you've got a balanced feed (which you can do anyway with your current setup, losing the BDI21).

One guitarist uses a pedalboard with multiple single effects, going into a Line 6 head and cab, and the other uses a pedalboard which is mainly a Boss multifx (can't remember which one but I think it's the ME-80) and a Darkstar pedalboard amp. His cab is a ludicrously heavy Peavey thing so to avoid having to get it out of the car, he's running the Darkstar into the PA. This has all yet to be tried out, first gig is on Saturday, though we have had a dry run with my PA to make sure it all worked. If I had to switch to guitar, it would be through an HX Stomp into the PA.

7 hours ago, binky_bass said:

Hoping once the Bongo arrives (tomorrow if I'm lucky) my current feeling of sellers remorse will subside!

 

The gap needs filling!

 

I was going to suggest you cut that ugly headstock off the Bongo but then you wouldn't be able to hang it up.