Ed_S

I don't tend to keep it in a Hiscox, but I've just checked and there's not very much room at all round the body of my Jazz V - it's quite a snug fit in the STD-EBS. I don't think what little room there is would translate to much actual movement in transit either, because the offset of the body takes up pretty much all the width, and the fixed cushions in the lid of the case press on the bridge and bouts. They're great cases, but if I could offer one bit of advice should you get one, it would be to put some tape over the aluminium edging above the handle. The skin on your knuckles will thank you.

Glad it's not just me who does that! I usually feel I'm being judged as a bit of a weirdo for requesting it, but I can live with that much more readily than I can live with a day of listening out for a courier, the disappointment and irritation of receiving something that's not as crisp as the cash that paid for it, a day of fending and proving via email and rejecting offers of discounts if I'll keep it, a day of falling over it boxed back up in the hall, a day of listening out for the courier coming back to collect it, and then several more days waiting for it to be 'assessed' before I get my money back. I'd happily pay a premium, which I would agree to lose if I decided to return the item under distance selling, if I could just have the option of brand new, factory sealed stock every time.

Preamps and audio sources into a mixer and then out to a pair of good headphones is my preferred setup. I favour rack mount so that everything is wired in and ready all the time. All I need to do is pick up a bass, plug in a cable, put on my headphones, flick two power switches and press play on the audio source.

I've used the Digitech Drop fairly extensively and whilst I wouldn't record with it, I've found it to be perfectly adequate for live work (in a loud band where bass isn't a solo or featured instrument) mainly to avoid having to change instruments and break up the flow of the gig. I never needed to go down lower than 3 half-steps, which is good because I felt it got a bit iffy with bass any lower than that. The other thing that I did was put a MicroThumpinator in front of it on my board, the idea being to try and remove as many unnecessary frequencies as possible which might confuse it. I have one on my live board and one on a reduced board that lives at the rehearsal space, and the one with the filter in front of it does behave a little better. Misbehaving seems to manifest itself in a slight chorusing effect, so even then it's not the end of the world - just a bit 80s! Not sure how much use they'll get when we return from hiatus, as during the last couple of years I've gone back to playing 5s pretty much exclusively, but even if I just put it in octave mode with the switch set to momentary, it could still have a use. I can't really comment on actual drop tuning and those lever thingies, as to me that's just an out of tune bass - I have no idea which note I'm playing, but I know where to get the next one I want relative to the one I can hear, so the Drop pedal was the right solution for me.

Purely my own opinion and experience, but I'd actually say there's something about the basic sound of the Fender Rumble (mine's a 500 v3 in the combo) that reminds me a bit of my old LH1000, whereas I found a Markbass Little Mark (2, 800 and 3) to be a better replacement for my HA5500. The lightweight Ashdown amps I've owned (Mi550 and RM800) didn't really remind me of either, nor did the Ampeg PF-800. All good amps, don't get me wrong, but they didn't make me think 'Hartke'. I've only ever seen lukewarm reviews of the actual lightweight Hartke amps, so probably wouldn't be headed that way on name alone - I'd want to try one myself. If I was going to offer up another amp that kinda reminded me of an LH I might actually go a bit leftfield and say the Mesa D800, but getting them seems to be tricky at present.

What is it that the singer actually finds unpleasant and objects to - is it just the 'atmosphere' of you telling the guitarist off and her not wanting to take a side? If you issued the guitarist a very firm but ultimately deserved verbal kick in the trousers out of earshot and he finally took notice, would she honestly be averse to the band getting better as a result? Most enduring bands I've experienced have been benevolent dictatorships, so if the guitarist needs a heavier hand to make him work and the singer needs not to see it happen so she can stay happy... then why not make it go down like that. After all, if it stays the same you'll probably leave, so if you try to fix it and end up breaking it in the process then you've lost little to nothing for trying.

When people at work find out I play, a good proportion say they wish they could play an instrument but they don't have the time to dedicate to it, and a fair few of those have quoted an arbitrary 'so-many-thousand hours to be proficient' figure that they've heard. I always just ask them to log on to their Steam (or whatever) account and show me how many hours they've clocked up playing Age of Assassins: Warfare and Witchcraft. You may be able to tell I don't game, but the people I'm talking to invariably do and their tally is usually somewhere near to (if not far in excess of) the number of thousands of hours they've just told me they don't have available. Fortunately I don't feel I need to achieve mastery to have fun ...and anyway, if complete mastery means playing every possible style then there aren't enough hours left until the heat death of the universe to make me want to learn how to slap 😉

Ha, thanks, I completely get ya! Im happy to report that I don’t ponk and neither does my bass 🙂

Ponky? That's a new word on me but I've got a VTDI and a VTRM so now I really wanna know if I sound ponky, too! 🙂

Same here. I'd personally be more annoyed if the support was excellent but I knew that because I had to keep using it! Back on topic, I can't fault the CMD121P for small venues and as such it gets a +1 from me. I don't do jazz so I'm not completely sure what the requirements are, but I'd bet that if I can play a power metal gig with mine, you'd be fine for volume.

They're alright aren't they - remind me very much of Tortex! I've used their Acetal picks for years and buy them by the hundred - I know some people have that one perfectly worn-in pick that they'd be lost without, but I only like brand new ones and as soon as the edge goes they're bin fodder. Only recently tried the Ravens myself but I'm finding that they do pretty much what's advertised - very similar but a bit less noise and not quite as bright on the attack. I think I still prefer my Acetals, and the Ravens seem to wear out at about the same rate so I can't save any money with them, but they're still really good picks 🙂

I just put a short, noticeably-coloured XLR patch cable into the DI-out, leave it coiled in the back and tell the sound tech to plug their cable into that - saves on irritation and potential damage. Pretty cool that, going by the date on the back, your amp seems to be from March next year! 🙂

If it's the shop I think it is, I've had a few issues over the years, be that couriers causing damage and requiring a replacement to be sent, or just returning something for being kinda disappointing or not quite as described, and everything has always been sorted to my satisfaction thus far - occasionally with a free strap or strings to say sorry. I don't see any reason that they'd class me as a special customer worthy of VIP treatment either. Absolutely not questioning the validity or challenging the veracity of anyone else's experiences - just commenting on my own. I did have a problem with a shop when I tried to sell my violin. They actually sold it to me as a handmade German violin, but when I stopped playing and took it back for them to sell it on commission they described it as a cheap Chinese kit violin which wasn't really their thing. When presented with the original invoice they changed their mind and agreed to sell it, but then after a significant amount of time with no news we chased them up and were told that they couldn't find it - we must have collected it back from them at some point. They eventually located it - filthy, stuffed under a bench in the workshop, case seemingly never opened since the day it was taken in, and after a less than cordial conversation they brushed some of the detritus off the case, pushed it back across the counter and suggested that we never darken their door again. Oddly enough, I hadn't planned to. I don't believe they're trading any longer.

I have a MicroThumpinator if that's similar?

SSL Labs usually gives you a fair idea of what's going on, and their tests won't complete for the BD site due to behaviour which "usually happens when there are multiple TLS servers behind the same IP". Before failing, the tests return the SAN certificate I'd expect, and also a seemingly unrelated wildcard for a shared SSL CA which seems to belong to a hosting provider called Heart Internet. The IP of the site sits under the ASN for Host Europe, but in a block assigned to Heart, so that ties up. I don't get alerts from either my home systems or our secure gateways at work, so I'll continue to look at the pretty pictures on the purely personal assessment that it's more likely a sub-optimal configuration than anything malicious in that one particular instance. Yup! And and don't trust my assessment either - you've paid them to keep you safe and they seem to be doing an alright job.

Aaah right, for some reason I thought that the 400 had a similar (just smaller) module to the 1000 and that the Mi amps had ICE modules of some variety. I’ve lost track, though, tbh!! Just as long as you don’t know something terrible that I’ve not heard yet about whatever’s in mine!! 🙂 I don’t think there was anything technically wrong with the EVO3 I had - it just had no poke! I traded it back at the shop and the lad who’d sold it to me instantly called the bassist in his band to come and buy it cheap. He used it quite happily for a long time afterwards. Long live the IV and V, and fingers crossed for that lunchbox!

What would you say makes the power modules they used in the 400/1000/2000 'not so good' compared to more recent ones? I had an ABM500-EVO3 and it was probably the most disappointing amp I've ever owned (ratio of what it promised to what it delivered) but then I got the 1000, which as far as I can tell uses the exact same preamp board but strapped to an Anaview module, and that's probably the most exciting. Consequently I've always thought of those modules quite highly and I even looked round at other amps that might use the same one - sadly all I could find was the Tech 21 dUg 1000 which always seemed to be that unhelpful combination of hilariously expensive and broadly unavailable anyway. I digress! A lightweight ABM in the CTM-30 box would be kinda cool, and for me they could happily get rid of the compressor and sub-harmonic to help shoehorn things in.

I can recommend Crown XLS power amps - light, loud, not overly expensive, don't need a doctorate to operate, and never caused me any problems. I like them for powering monitors because they have built in adjustable HPF/LPF per channel, so you can keep unhelpful frequencies off the stage, and you can also Y-split one input to both channels if you just want to use the same monitor mix for both wedges. The older (silver) 1500 or the newer (black) 1502 in particular I reckon are a great balance between size, weight and power. Like everything these days they seem to be in short supply, but if you can find one then I doubt you'd be disappointed with it for that application.

From memory, two or three 12AX7s in the pre, and a pair of 6L6s plus a couple of 12AX7s for driving and rectifying things in the power.

TB Raxx pre and Classic 60 power. Hardly ever use it, but sounds alright when I do.

Just as long as we don’t start a separate thread for those PJs with a specific set of after-market pickups installed. Not sure we need the joy of PJ and Duncans.

Nah, I get that totally and I don't feel in any way attacked for my choices - nor should you! If the kit you use allows you to feel good, so your recording / rehearsal / gig connects and comes across with some bounce in it, then that's all that matters regardless of which personal criteria got satisfied to let you feel that way.

Even if you're right and lightweight gear didn't come along because the tech was better, I personally reckon gear is better because lightweight tech came along. I want storing and transporting, loading in and out, and setting up and tearing down to be as trivial and literally painless as possible. They just aren't important aspects of the gig as far as I'm concerned, and I can't see how the audience would ever care how difficult I'd made them for myself. They might care if there's less energy and interaction on stage and I look like I don't want to be there because I'm clapped-out or injured before I even play the first note, though. Any improvement in sound that I might gain from using heavier kit is nothing compared to the improvement in performance I can give by not doing. Or to put it another way, my audience isn't there to check out my humping capabilities. Mercifully!

Good memory - he did have a bit of a malfunction didn't he! I think I was still getting over seeing Y&T for the first time at that point. But aye, that funky little repeated lick that Cass plays on Stand Up - simple but serves the song so well.

I saw him in 2003 when he was playing with Gary Moore, and he was really good. Anyone who can keep their part of a classic rock three-piece absolutely solid and never let the bottom drop out of the sound gets my vote. He's on the Gary Moore - Live at the Monsters of Rock video, which was filmed in Sheffield at the show I saw. Will have a look at the Skunk Anansie set while it's on iPlayer - I don't really know much of their material but always thought Skin had a cool voice.