tauzero

[quote name='dave_bass5' post='93261' date='Nov 23 2007, 12:05 PM']Music Yo have these in stock amongst other things. ive got one and it sounds great although im not allowed to usee it with my band [url="http://www.musicyo.com/product_specs.asp?pf_id=053"]Spirit[/url][/quote] I had the 5-string XZ-25 and it was a pretty good instrument. Wish I still had it for microstage work so the vocalist didn't keep getting an earful of Antoniotsai headstock. Comfortable neck which felt very, very solid.

If you have a particularly small wife (both the ones I've had so far have been 4' 11.5" tall) then you might want to [url="http://warwickstore.stores.yahoo.net/minirockbass.html"]check this Warwick out[/url]. I've got one myself, in fact...

Have a look at [url="http://www.daddario.com/Resources/JDCDAD/images/tension_chart.pdf"]D'Addario's string tension chart[/url] and see if it gives you an idea as to what you'll need. If strings were solid, then a 140 tuned to E an octave down would be almost exactly the same tension as a 100 tuned to normal bottom E. If you can get a single 140, it would be worth trying that rather than getting a complete set.

[quote name='grosa' post='93138' date='Nov 23 2007, 06:21 AM']I had visions of the 'performing' monkeys being run over by a tank. pity it didn't happen. anyone got a tank?[/quote] Yes, but I'll have to put the fish in the bath if you're going to borrow it.

[quote name='s_u_y_*' post='92861' date='Nov 22 2007, 04:50 PM']I personally look at it this way. The normal Digitech Whammy 4 costs £127.09 on Thomann, so let's just assume the Bass Whammy costs the same (although there more features on the Bass version). The Digitech BP-200 costs just £94.43. Admittely I haven't tried the BP-200, but I find it hard to believe that the whammy on it would be comparable.[/quote] Well, the reason I was asking was because I was genuinely inquisitive. It's quite easy to come up with two totally opposing opinions, each of which is as valid as the other, without actually knowing the facts. So yes, the Bass Whammy might be better and it costing more could be an indicator of this, but OTOH there's the Barnum world view - to make a nice little earner, you just take the guts out of a BP-200, bypass all the other effects, stick in a switch to control parameter selection and a MIDI input port to convert MIDI bend signals to pedal-wiggle signals and then flog it for a nice little mark-up. While that may be a rather extreme way of describing it, I'd expect Digitech to use the same DSP over a wide range of products - that way they don't have to reinvent the wheel. It would be nice to actually compare the two products (not that I use the whammy to any significant degree anyway) and see if there was a perceptible difference.

[url="http://saitenkatalog.de/shop1"]Saitenkatalog in Germany?[/url] They do individual strings as well as sets - looking at the 6-string sets, the second one down is D'Addario EXL165s which have the bottom two as 105 and 135.

[quote name='s_u_y_*' post='92619' date='Nov 22 2007, 11:25 AM']Well, the BP-200 whammy is only one component in a relatively cheap multi-effects modeller. I would imagine the tone produced would be inferior to the Bass Whammy.[/quote] Not wanting to start an argument [1] - that's one way of looking at it. Another way would be to say that the bass whammy is five years older than the BP-200, so possibly the electronics from the one-trick-pony pedal have been put into the multieffects. Five years is an awfully long time in electronics - how much would a 32" LCD telly cost five years ago, for example? [1] No, really. If I wanted to start an argument, I'd go to alt.guitar.bass and ask why people still play those crappy old Fender things when there's so much better stuff out there, and then walk away whistling.

[quote name='7string' post='92445' date='Nov 21 2007, 11:17 PM']The availability of strings continues to be a problem. I have trouble getting hold of 7 string sets, so I usually get a 6 string set and get a .26 At least guitar players can provide us with strings down to an 0.008[/quote] Overwater do them, and at a very reasonable price too. See [url="http://www.overwater.co.uk/bass_guitar_strings.htm"]here.[/url] Wish I'd found that before I got a 5-string set plus an extra 2 top strings.

What does the Digitech Bass Whammy do that the whammy in the BP-200 doesn't?

[quote name='tylerlangan' post='92302' date='Nov 21 2007, 07:17 PM']The band I find myself in currently is far more laid back with a female lead singer with a very soul voice and a single guitar and drummer... during the last practice I found myself torn between playing some more complicated runs and so on or simply trying to find a good simple groove and supporting the song. Every time I found myself doing a difficult run I felt insincere and as if I was showboating akin to the 'every song must have six solos' guitarists that plague music. Yet every time I simplified to just grooving along I felt like there was so much more I could be doing...[/quote] Nowt wrong with doing something complex if it's adding to the song. Avoid tangling with anyone else, especially the vocals. Consider each song in isolation, don't just take a decision always to play one way or the other, and consider varying within each song to add dynamic to it. Listen to the drummer - a bass fill where there's no drum fill can sound a bit empty, drum and bass filling together makes the band seem tight. Don't be afraid to experiment.

With the ME6B what I've just sold, I programmed bank 5 programme 5 to be silent. It would hardly be a problem to have set it up as a neutral patch instead.

I had to get a Maplin replacement for my BP-200 which is also AC but can't remember whether it's 12V or 9V. It was one of these: [url="http://www.maplin.co.uk/Module.aspx?ModuleNo=96964&criteria=power%20supply&doy=21m11"]Maplin AC/AC power supplies[/url] which are pretty reasonably priced.

"Dolly Parton's Tits" by Roy 'Chubby' Brown. At some benefit gig for Lichfield feminists. Funnily enough, the only heckler was a bloke.

Described as "needs work" [url="http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=300171751299"]Double bass needs work[/url] Exactly how much work can be judged by this photo: What an interesting shape...

[quote name='hogman' post='92031' date='Nov 21 2007, 10:33 AM']Sad fact of the day the wavelength of 20.60Hz is 54.6276 Ft or for the younguns 16.6505 Meters Thats one big wave[/quote] Make sure you leave a window open then, otherwise you'll have to fold it up to fit it into the room.

[quote name='stewblack' post='91675' date='Nov 20 2007, 06:26 PM']Funny, different folks I suppose. Ours can't speak to them to save his life and I feel it alienates them, causes an 'us and them' scenario. I end up filling the gaps and that just looks wrong. Maybe somewhere between the two lies the answer.[/quote] There's talking to the audience and there's being in love with your own voice. On a really bad night, he'll introduce the band three times, ask for birthdays in the room four times, ask if there's any singers in the room twice, and ask for requests several times. We can cope with 1 and 2 because we all know our own names, even the drummer, and we can manage "Happy birthday", but 3 has led to a variety of drunken audience members doing a song or two (which doesn't go down well with the other audience members - they're there to see a proper band, not some pissed-up fart singing tunelessly), and 4 is hideously embarrassing because we've only ever managed one request (particularly stupid as the vocalist doesn't even know the words to the songs in the set). I think I'll just have a little lie-down now.

Eee, they don't come much better than this... Midday till 2 PM at Dudley Beer Festival with the ceilidh band [url="http://www.newcoronaband.co.uk/"]New Corona Band[/url] - and to put the icing on the cake, it's my birthday and I'll avoid having some party that I won't be able to cope with So if any BCers are in the vicinity, it would be good to meet you. Just look for the bloke with the WAV-4 upright who hasn't mastered that 3+4 finger thing yet.

I think I must be going mad as I just clicked on "bolt-on" for some reason, when I meant to say "neck-through" (I don't normally have this problem...). There's some bolt-ons which have quite a smooth heel, and I am making a bolt-on out of some bits and pieces I have hanging around, but I prefer the feel of a neck-through bass to things with clunky heels like Fenders.

When you're playing a barn dance, every number is a floor filler. Well, it is if the caller goes round and drags them all off their arses and onto the dance floor. As for the covers band - WMC audiences have no taste whatsoever when it comes to what they dance to, so "Red Red Bloody Whine" gets them every time, not to mention all the other crap that UB40 came out with after they'd stopped whining in Brummie accents about being unemployed because turning up in a Rolls to a gig damages your unemployment cred. And breathe. "Mustang Sally", that's another one, and it's the law anyway. And I enjoy playing it. "Dance the night away" - dreadful song, but you can have fun seeing how many octaves up and down you can go before anyone notices (you'd probably not use a bass any more ER than a 5-string though). "Hey Baby", especially with the "boobs, arse" version of the backing vocals. It can make for good watching. "Build me up Buttercup" (used to be my mate Buttercup's theme tune for his disco until he pegged it a few years back). "I love to boogie" by T Rex. Preferably without your vocalist going "waaaa-aaaay" and "oggy oggy oggy" over the intro. Grrr. "Be my baby" is another elderly number that they sway along to. "Hi Ho Silver Lining", an unappreciated classic. Doesn't necessarily get them up but the arms wave and they all cry out "Aston Villa" or whatever thugball team they support at the appropriate point. "Music". We do this as our last number, and of course it's in the bum-squeezer slot, so when it starts up we get a fair few couples who have short memories getting up. They normally realise their mistake about two bars into the second section, although we do play one club where they've line-danced all the way through it. Fantastic. Getting your vocalist not to go on and on between numbers so everybody sits back down - priceless.

[quote name='Marky L' post='91300' date='Nov 20 2007, 10:00 AM']What I always remember is in the 2nd series (there was a 2nd series wasn't there??) they started to get a bit more techno and began using gadgets, except the drummer who was seriously against drum machines, electronics etc.. it was obvious he was worried that a black box with lights and beep beep sounds was going to put him out of a job![/quote] I thought that the drummer showed a MIDI kit, using it to play a melody on at some point, and either Deidre Cartwright or Henry Thomas used a MIDI guitar/bass to play drums.

I have sung lead vocals in the past (not a good idea really). I don't do backing vocals with the covers band because the vocalist and guitarist (who was the vocalist until we recruited, er, the vocalist) are very tight and I have my work cut out forgetting the notes anyway. I do with the acoustic duo - I find that playing guitar (even fingerpicking) and singing is easier than playing bass and singing.

"Dance the night away" by the Mavericks. Because I'd slit my wrists if I had to play it as per original, all the way through the song...

[quote name='ergon' post='90342' date='Nov 18 2007, 04:41 PM']Ok, there's beeen a miss understanding, i didn't mean that if you used a amp lower than the rating of the cab it would blow up, of course it woun't!, i said it would be innefficient, also i never said that using and amp rated higher than the cab that it would definatly blow up even at low volumes! What i was saying is that to use a cab of a certain value of watts with minimal risk of it being damaged and without it being inefficient you would have to use the right value of amp. It obvious that underpowering an amp wont do any damage, but for using the speaker with maximum efficiency a 30watt amp just wont do! I'm pretty sure a man with over 30 years experience in industrial and electrical engineering who runs his own business where he works for and advises other people on how to design and build furnaces and gasifiers using very high voltage power circuits etc. is not going to be talking out of his behind when it comes to physics.[/quote] How frequently does he drive a furnace into clipping, and has he done any Fourier analyses of the resulting waveform? To add a bit to what Jack said - if you drive an amp into clipping, the waveform you're pushing out changes from a sine wave to a square wave (the highrer the clipping, the more square it gets). This is a Bad Thing because: A square wave is actually the combination of all the odd-order harmonics of the fundamental frequency, and so will sound rather nasty A square wave transfers more energy than a sine wave of the same peak-to-peak amplitude (which is the actual limiting factor to the amplifier) And quite possibly it's less kind to speaker voice coils because they get cooled from being in motion, and a sine wave propels them gently from one extreme to the other, while a square wave smacks them all the way out and then all the way back in again, with a lot of time spent at maximum excursion with a lot of current going through them Incidentally, Roland seem to think that the Cube-100 puts out 100W (although they don't actually state that it's RMS). Where do you get the 28W figure from?