spiderjazz

After having the bass for a week now I'm still really enjoying it. Also the eq on them is very nice, I have a Tanglewater Contemporary Jazz as well, which is a nice instrument but I always found the EQ either boomy or too harsh, the MM eq seems's a lot more musical.

I tried this out a few weeks at a music shop in Dublin, couldn't get it out of my head so had to go and and get it on Saturday. It's an absolute beauty, really fun to play as well.

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Did the same myself after having used it for about 2 years, it's a bargain and a half for the price they charge.

String gauge is the important thing for this, especially if you're going to be on a 4 string neck with a 34" inch scale. If you look at the following link http://circlekstrings.com/CKSIMAGES/CircleKtensionChart.pdf you can calculate the tension you currently have your strings at with your current tension, and what you would need to increase the gauge to to get an equivalent tension in C. For example, if you're tuned to E on your low string with a 0.105 gauge string, there will be approximately 43" pounds of tension. To get the equivalent tension in C, you would need a 0.130 to 0.135 gauge string.

I have my bass tuned in drop C, and I was using the low 4 strings in a 5 string set (130, 100, 80, 60), but I found the tension in the high C and F strings quite high, so I'm currently getting the bass set up with a 0.125 set, but using the low B string for the C, ignoring the E string, and using the other strings in their respective places (0.125, 0.85, 0.65, 0.45). This should hopefully lead to a balanced tension set, with the string tension roughly the same across the strings

PM'd

Quick question for you, have you used this with a PC or Mac? I'm looking for an interface for a laptop running Windows 7, but I've read that some of the M-Audio Firewire interfaces are very picky with the type of firewire card you have.

I haven't read much about how the Kemper differentiates the amp and cab parts of the tone, when you profile the signal have you a seperate amp and cab block?

Looking forward to hearing your clips of it, haven't heard any bass clips of it yet.

Nice review. I haven't had a chance to try one myself yet, but all the reviews for it are very good. Are you running it through studio monitors/frfr setup, or are you running the patches back into a cab?

Thanks for the responses all, I assumed it was banana plugs, but as you said it was terminal posts that I was looking at to bridge the channels. I've ended up using a single channel with a speakon to jack connection, and for my current needs (playing in my bedroom), it's more than doing the job! Thanks for the help.

Just wondering has this gone?

I'm thinking of picking up a cheap power amp ([url="http://www.thomann.de/ie/tamp_s100.htm"]http://www.thomann.de/ie/tamp_s100.htm[/url])to run a preamp into a cab, but the back of the power amp has banana plug connections, which I want to use to get the full power from the amp. I can't find a banana plug to 1/4" male cable on any of the normal music sites I use, any ideas where I could pick one up?

Recorded a short clip today, nothing too fancy playing wise on the bass, was more aiming to have the guitar and bass be heard as one wall of sound rather than having a lot of separation between them. Any advice on improving the mix/tones would be most welcome!

[url="http://soundcloud.com/spiderjazz/5150chug"]http://soundcloud.com/spiderjazz/5150chug[/url]

I'm very much only learning about it myself as well, the more you learn the more you realise how little you know!

What you could try doing as a quick fix is putting a limiter over the master buss, and setting the max ceiling at -0.3, this should stop any clipping occuring, albeit at the expense of squishing your track when the big bits hit in.

[quote name='charic' timestamp='1334410258' post='1615847']
Here's the piccies, not the best (took them while phone was on low battery) but you can see the extent of the damage.
[/quote]

Do you mind if I ask how it happened? Was it purely from use or did they get physically damaged? Have a set of them myself, wouldn't be too happy if it happened!

Really like the clip and playing (bits of the solo have a real petrucci/satch vibe). The vibe from the tracks is great as well.

The only thing I noticed is that the recording is clipping pretty heavily. Could be an idea to have a look to see whats causing that, whether it's actually on the recorded tracks, or what I think is more likely is that the track's are individually a bit high, so when everything hit's together, it's clipping the master buss.

Playing this with Fat Actress, first time playing the siege, heard a lot of good things about it so looking forward to it!

Price drop to £250/€300 for this. A great chance for someone who is willing to do the repair to pick up a quality instrument for a low price.

[quote name='Gust0o' timestamp='1333115971' post='1597690']
I think I need a new laptop, as running my DI is gash at the moment - something to investigate this weekend. I'm still a little back-to-basics of mic and amp
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My laptop is old by most standards, first generation dual core, about 4 years old I think. With the right software and settings, you should be able to have no problems recording and running a few tracks. Reaper is very CPU friendly, might be worth trying it out. You could record a DI and an amp track and blend them together afterwards for the best of both!

[quote name='Gust0o' timestamp='1333113863' post='1597634']
I enjoy how this lad makes it look easy

[media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mol6awk_aDo[/media]

Ola's stuff is great, all his tutorials are great starting points.

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[quote name='Gust0o' timestamp='1333114077' post='1597639']
That's very nice Spider - what are you recording/mixing with?
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Thanks. I'm using Reaper as my Daw for recording. I use a lot of the plug ins that come with it, the EQ's and compressors aren't bad at all. I some other VST's as well, I like the Stillwell Audio Compressors, and I use a couple of free compressors and saturators that I got from [url="http://www.kvraudio.com/"]http://www.kvraudio.com/[/url] as well.

For Drums I use Superior Drummer 2, sometimes I use the plugins in SD, sometimes I use external plugins, it's a mix of both in the clip.

Bass was a DI and an Ampeg sim from an Axe FX. I also used a free amp sim for the distorted bass track, it's called Juicy 77. Used my Overwater in my link to record the track.

Guitars was my les paul copy into the Axe FX.

I must give a trip to a good bass shop at some stage in the near future to try out some different models of basses. If you're not looking for a Squier or Fender, the local shops aren't much use!

Got a new book on mixing the other night (The Systematic Mixing Guide, well worth a purchase if you're into mixing Rock/Metal, nice to have a guide for every instrument in one single collection), and I've tried some new bass processing. I found rather than compressing the clean and distorted track seperately, that compressing them altogether helped glue them into one tone.

[url="http://soundcloud.com/spiderjazz/clippity-clop"]http://soundcloud.com/spiderjazz/clippity-clop[/url]

I currently have a Fender Mexican 5 string Jazz bass, with a threaded truss rod. I've went looking for repairs locally, but they're all saying that they need to take the truss rod out from the back by taking the skunk strip out, which is going to be very costly. I see that Stewmac have a truss rod repair kit, [url="http://www.stewmac.com/shop/Truss_rods/Special_tools_for:_Truss_rods/Truss_Rod_Rescue_Kit.html"]http://www.stewmac.com/shop/Truss_rods/Special_tools_for:_Truss_rods/Truss_Rod_Rescue_Kit.html[/url]

[url="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Dm_5GDHT2A&feature=player_embedded"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Dm_5GDHT2A&feature=player_embedded[/url]

which would do the job for what I need, but nowhere near me seems to have the equipment/heard of it. Is there anywhere around that people know that I could send the neck to, that could perform this task for a reasonable price? I am based in Ireland, but would send the neck to England.

That sounds really cool, just listened to the first song, I get a bit of an Extreme vibe off it, which is always a good thing!

I think it sounds great for a first effort to be honest. I've only been recording stuff for a little over a year, but here are some tip's I've picked up which might be helpful.

1. You could try hi-passing and lo-passing the guitars, which is using an EQ to get rid of the low lows and the high highs, for guitar you could safely get rid of everything below 65-70hz and everything above 12-12khz without chaning the fundamental tone, but it will get rid of some noise you won't necessarily hear, but that will muddy up the mix. You could use ReaEQ in reaper to do that, most EQ's have the option though. Same with the bass, though I would normally take more lows from the guitars, and take more highs from the bass.

2. I'd drop the gain a bit on the guitar, I find by the time that you have everything layered up that you don't need as much gain as you think you do. That should help with some of the squeaks as well on the strings.

3. I'm not familiar with hydrogen, but can you send on the separate parts of the drum to separate tracks in Reaper/Audacity? If so, you could try replacing parts of the kit with better samples, which can be found for free online. I think the kick and snare need to go up in volume as well (or drop the guitars down), so that might solve the problem.

4. If you wanted some different tones, you could use the Behringer or the Boss to record a DI signal, and use some free amp plugins on your computer on the signal. LePou has some good ones for guitar, and there is a great sansamp plugin called TSE BOD.

Hope these help!

Bump.

I'm willing to consider any offers on this, so feel free to offer!

Did a bit more tweaking (less gain, more fundamental) and made a short clip. There's a clip with guitars, and without, to let you hear the bass just with drums

[url="http://soundcloud.com/spiderjazz/chug"]http://soundcloud.com/spiderjazz/chug[/url]

[url="http://soundcloud.com/spiderjazz/chug-noguitar"]http://soundcloud.com/spiderjazz/chug-noguitar[/url]