JPJ

My Overwater Original 5 string used to belong to @BigRedX and is indeed fitted with the filter preamp although sadly this is a bit temperamental at the moment - probably due to me removing it to fit a John East Uni-Pre then reinstalling it when all the chat started on here about Wal’alikes and filter pres. It’s also a 36” five string with an almost piano-like B string. The pickups are the later Kent Armstrongs under wood covers.

Sorry, no photos but a good friend of mine used old solid wood chests of drawers and cupboards he got from a local charity shop for under bench storage. They worked out about a third of the cost of building his own and were a robust solution. I’ll be doing the same when I build my new workshop (shed) next spring.

As I understand it, Yes analogue should always be lower latency as there is no analogue to digital followed by digital to analogue conversion, but there’s then the issue of legal frequency and the old picking up the passing taxi if you’re on the same wavelength.

The only one I’ve had any experience with is the Xvive U3, which worked perfectly and played nicely with two Xvive IEM systems but is £170 so might be considered pricey.

Cheers John, I’ll certainly take you up on that coffee, but I’ve spoken with the venue and they can provide either a split or individual IEM mixes from their desk with personal control so immediate problem solved 😎

Hi Phil, In answer to your questions, insert leads won’t work with the Behringer XR18, or at least not to the best of my knowledge. Based on our usual setup, I’ll need to split 12 channels so I was going for 16 simply because it seems to be a popular format and would work with two of those MS8000’s for a passive split. Because the venue hosts up and coming touring bands I will check with them to see if they can provide a split from their stage box before investing but I think the MS8000 route is the way we’ll go.

Wow these look great. Any idea of finished weight and recommended crossover frequency, or is that covered in the download?

So, as we’re all using IEM’s and we have a gig coming up at a venue that has in-house PA and engineer, we were thinking of adding a 16-channel splitter so we could run our IEM’s from our XR18 leaving the house engineer free to do his thing with the FOH sound. But these things are bloody expensive in the UK with most we can find coming from the USA. Yes we have considered the MIDAS unit but that leaves control of the analogue gain with us, potentially getting in the way of the in-house guy. We’re now thinking of a couple of Behringer MS8000’s and a short loom to hook these to our XR18 for a full analogue split. My question, is anyone here doing the same or have a source for a reasonably priced splitter here in the UK?

Honestly, I don’t think I’ve ever had a better sound than this combination gives me. I’m a huge fan of gentle compression when playing live and the Empress just gets the job done. The nerve centre of tone is the Jad Freer Capo which is just lush to play through, and then the Phil Mann with bass in mind version of the SushiboxFX Finally DI pushes out a lovely fat warm valve DI to FoH. The Thumpinator is there to protect my amp (I love this little box of tricks) but as I’m now almost always using IEM’s the amp is almost becoming redundant.

Back at the Old Fox, in Felling, a small town just south of Newcastle upon Tyne. This is one of those gigs you look forward to, a live music pub with an audience who appreciates your efforts. We’re all using IEMs now and that’s been an absolute game changer for us, and as one well respected local live music aficionado has just posted on FaceAche “Southern Incorporated were tighter than a nuns chuff”. Loads of folk we know out supporting us too, and a very happy landlady who stuck an extra £30 in the pay packet at the end of the night. Job done!

After much humming and haa’ing, I have taken the plunge and ordered a set of ACS Engage custom moulded IEM’s. Probably going to receive them after my last scheduled gig in 2025 so you might have to wait a while for a review.

Love it, great bass sound/tone. interesting to see he’s playing that with what might be considered to be an electric bassists right hand technique.

They may go down to 60Hz but the power will drop. Some speakers quote -3dB some even as low as -6dB for their low end figure. Personally, I cross over at between 80Hz and 100Hz depending on the system.

Give Chris or Martin a call at the factory. When Martin did a refret and setup on my original series 5’er, Chris replaced at least one of the knobs from NOS.

Love the idea of supporting a British manufacturer (hell my first proper bass amp was an Ohm GB60 combo back in the day), but no website and just a facebook page leaves me cold. The subs placement thing is a real thing. Of all the venues we play, there is only one where I can put the subs side-by-side in the centre in front of the stage and yes they sound measurably better when arranged like this. For the majority of our gigs, space dictates that we go one sub per side with a pole mounted top. I’m serious tempted by a pair of the RCF NLX24’s and single 905 sub as this will comfortably cover all of our gigs, and being a registered gear slut, I’d probably add a second 905 down the line just because I love chest thumping kick drum mixes.

But now I am thinking about it, the Jad Freer Capo has become my single point of failure in this setup - perhaps I need a second spare preamp pedal just in case 🤔

I have a foot in both camps. I have an amp on stage which is largely redundant as the PA is supplied from my rather excellent Jad Freer Capo preamp and we’re all using in-ears. The amp is really only helping the PA out, but at a recent gig, my amp died and with this setup no one noticed. The plan for next year is to upgrade the PA and ditch the backline altogether.

Thanks @Phil Starr and @Dan Dare for your input. I must confess I am not convinced by the stick systems - I’ve only really had experience of the low end ranges and to my ears they do not sound good nor look good (I know, Luddite etc). I’ve been tempted by the RCF NLX24’s before, in my pursuit of a single box solution, but I could certainly see using a pair of these with either one or two 905’s working for us. My plan was indeed to retain the XR18, I’ve had mine almost ten years and I am very comfortable with the UI and workflow, despite being tempted by the x32 rack for no other reason than I am a self-confessed gear slut. As you say, the EV’s and Peavey’s owe me nothing but would still probably return some money to the pot.

Danny’s tone is the tone I aspire to. Stylistically, he always managed to hit the sweet spot, underpinning what the other instruments were doing, never getting in the way, but always adding something significant to the setting. Thanks to @TwoTimesBass for sharing that beautiful version of Magic Strings.

Sounds good, but to be fair, I get a very similar tone from my Warwick Rockbass Alien. I ripped the frets out and fitted her with La Bella low tension flats and she growls and sings. Mind, my playing isn’t anywhere near Matt Garrison level 😂

@BassBags that’s great to hear and thank you for taking the time to clear that up 😎

I think we’ve all played the gig to the bar staff and the gig to a rammed out room. My own highlights include travelling 50 miles to play in a remote Northumberland village pub to the bar staff and pub dog because two local lads were having a birthday party in the village hall (at least the dog seemed to like us), and playing to 4,000 Hells Angels in a big top tent on a Thursday night in Stafford. Locally, live music is often seen as a way of saving failing pubs with the result that you get three or four pubs all offering live music of varying standards within a 1 mile radius. This splits the local audience with reduced numbers all round. Suffice to say that most fail and eventually close or get new management. We’re blessed with a few pubs and clubs with a reputation for good quality live music, and as both of my bands are shall we say ‘niche’, then we prefer to wait for gigs in these venues than take a gig in a dying ‘flat roof pub’ where the meagre audience are not going to appreciate your efforts. But I think we have a huge role to play in attracting audiences. The prevalence of social media means that marketing/advertising your gig doesn’t need to cost a fortune. Timing your advertising is important too, too early and folk will forget, too late and they will inevitably already have other plans. Also, all band members have to share the workload of marketing as whilst we have many common connections, if we all hit the like and share on our bands posts, we will hit the widest possible audience. Oh and posters, many venues still rely on bands sending posters to advertise inside the venue.

So we’re thinking of upgrading our PA. Current system is Behringer XR18, dBX DriveRack PA, an old pair of Peavey Pro 15 powered subs, and a pair of EV ZLX15P tops. As we’re all using in-ears now, and with most of us having the gear to go amp-less, we’re thinking of going down that route. The band is a southern rock five-piece (2 x guitar, bass, drums, fiddle) and we play everything from small pubs to largish clubs. I’m looking to get a good solid kick drum and get increased vocal headroom as we, on occasion, run out of headroom. There is lots of chat on here about how to get a great sound with minimal kit, but if you had a budget of £5k, what would you buy? To give you a steer, I’m old school, so I don’t see us going out without subs, and I’d not rule out going back to passive cabs if it reduced the weight of each individual element as we’re all getting on these days.

^ this I do this with our acoustic Americana’ish trio on double bass. I used to use the TC BG250 208 for ‘personal monitoring’ but now prefer to use in-ears with the bass going into FoH via the Stanley Clarke’s DI.

If I remember correctly, the Shaftsbury’s were bolt on necks?