MichaelDean

Just got back from playing The Pit at McCann's in Newport. An interesting night. Soundcheck was annoying. We went to go do it and one of the guitarists decided to just go to the hotel he was staying at and have a shave. Not the best timing 🙄 never mind, we eventually got it sorted. The first band had pulled out a couple of days ago, so there was plenty of time. Probably our smallest crowd yet of about 6. That might just be what happens when you play a metal gig on the same weekend as Download Festival 🤷 We played well though and were well received by the people there. The supplied cab sounds like it's on the way out though. Really didn't have a nice high end. Usual gear of Dingwall Combustion -> GX-100 -> Bass Big Muff/Mojo Mojo in the loop -> Laney Digbeth. Footwear for this evening was some Hobibear barefoot trainers. Still undecided about barefoot shoes... No photos, sorry. I'll update if anything surfaces on the socials! AQMTd9ffsrUKIQvw473CG84aAMXW5_YfPV1mCS5Yv3ZmZDz7cwMSEAAL2nHmvI0RM2jeN38zBu7K7ml6rLHzjlihBZKSa09Q5hLkWgQ.mp4

PMT did have their own "Antiquity" brand. I played one and it seemed like a really decent instrument, especially for the money. They just never got much of an internet buzz around them.

I've got a pau ferro fretboard on a Harley Benton LP copy. Feels like rosewood, very similar pore structure, just a bit lighter in colour. It's absolutley not an issue.

It's a valid question. We all haven't been 20 somethings for a while now and don't want to start at 7 to finish at 11. It makes work pretty painful the next day. We used to do 6-9 on a Sunday which was great until one guitarist moved to Newquay (travelling up in the week to work a few days in the office) and then suddenly it obviously doesn't work that well. Had to switch to midweek and then instead of doing 3 hour weekly practices, we're doing 4 hours every two weeks. It's all a bit frustrating. It really stops new songs being fresh for next practice if it's two weeks away. I think maybe we need to instigate some sort of online practice too on the non-physical meetup weeks. I've heard good things about Jamkazam.

Getting ready for a run of two gigs in Wales this weekend (The Pit at McCann's in Newport on Friday, Fuel in Cardiff on Saturday). Got a few issues with a new song ironed out, so it should be all good. I do find I struggle with the timings for weeknight practices though. We do 6-10 at a local place, but finishing work at 4:30 so I can do the nursery run, where my daughter has decided that she wants to walk to/from nursery (and I don't want the fight of trying to get her in the pram!) means I get home at 5:20, quickly try and make something for dinner and get my stuff ready and wait for my wife to get back, try not to burn my mouth as I inhale dinner and then get out of the door... It's a challenge that seems to put me on the backfoot for practice.

Good stuff! I'm a big fan of their straps. I've got two so far and they're excellent.

We're going on a Welsh tour next weekend! Well, Newport and Cardiff... 😂

Fender Studio is new and free. I've had a little play and it seems pretty decent. Lots of drum loops to play with. You get some guitar amp sims too, so you can just plug straight into an audio interface, then audio interface into the tablet without needing other hardware. https://uk.fender.com/pages/fender-studio

I sometimes wonder if Bass Direct get a preferential buying rate from Dingwall. They always seem to have the lowest prices. Or maybe they take a smaller margin from the sale price on Dingwalls?

I've got it going with my GX-100 for blending two different distortions (one bass, one guitar). It all seems to work. You can either have full signal in both paths or set a crossover freqency for the div/mix block. Missed this one. To set the input gain, play your bass as hard as you would in a gig and adjust the gain so that it tickles the orange section. That's what Boss say to do in the manual. I like the concert for a neutral tone. The Fat Tube is my preference for something a bit gritty.

If you can accurately drill and tap holes in aluminium backbones for your 3d printed creations, you are certainly more than capable of doing this. I have faith in you!

Doesn't seem to work with my Pixel 9a. It says the Android version for the app is incompatible with my phone. I wonder why they've not gone through the Play Store for the Android app...

I think that applies more to amps where you're generating a bit more dirt in the amp itself, so you want that coloured sound to be effected. It's all personal preference though. Try it and see if you like it. I found it wasn't worth the extra cabling required.

They're brand new - I've had a look for Hartwood basses before because the guitars look cool and there weren't any and these say pre-order on them. The guitars have been getting decent reviews with the usual umbrages that you might expect in the price range.

I just got one of these for my birthday. I've had a 30 minute play and it seriously sounds great to me. Super easy to dial in something for practice. Not tried it with a guitar or NAM profiles yet, but I really don't see the need to do so immediately. I'm a little curious about making a NAM capture of my Digbeth head though just to see what that would be like.

I'd message them to find out what sort of screw it is and then have a look on eBay.

Played at Moor Beer last night. We organised Temple of Doom. A 7 band doom lineup. Unfortunately due to a major medical incident about an hour and a half before the gig, the first band had to drop out. We did message around, but couldn't get anyone to fill in at such short notice. So, we upped the next two bands sets to 40 minutes which they were both happy to do and it all went off without a hitch after that! We'd only sold about 20 tickets by last Saturday, but the ticket sales thing told me it was 89 on Headfirst and then we probably did another 10 on the door, so it was pretty packed by the time everyone showed up! My gear was my Dingwall Combustion, GX-100, Mojo Mojo, Bass Big Muff, Laney Digbeth. We all agreed that we dropped some clangers, but it didn't seem to matter. People really enjoyed our set and we sold 7 or 8 t-shirts! The other bands were also really good. An excellent time was had by all! But then we did organise a pissup in a brewery, so perhaps not unexpected 😅 I've downloaded someone Instagram story to share as I didn't take any pictures. AQM7SFrKQmv2jHBOSDZBwCh8bgI9tA2Zc4UvuquCIqmRAnWo51lpy_AfHXfWWTLSqAQx5T-KdOPpDZTag6p_toQDWZgFChcjR5wg49A.mp4

I must say, I'm becoming more and more enamoured with the idea of the Anagram. It sounds great based on YouTube demos. Being able to have a few NAM pedals might make my external effects redundant too. My main sticking point is the three footswitches. I'd need a MIDI footswitch with an expression pedal input of some sort to make it more useable for me. I was playing around with a pedalboard designer based around the Anagram and my current needs if money was no object and this is what I came up with. That's on a Harley Benton Spaceship 40, so not a huge board.

@acidbass - you might be SOL there. They only seem to do them in black on their own website and seem to use Babicz solo rails on their own basses.

I think part of the problem is not wanting to necessarily pay for the tooling to create a bespoke bridge for what might (at least in Spector's case) be a niche seller. Dingwall seem to be going great guns so it has made sense to create something. There aren't a lot of off the shelf options for single bridges either and I'm guessing Babicz pricing might price them out of being used more widely as it squeezes the margin just that bit more.

The bridge was a Hipshot part. It's a decent product, but it's got a sharp edge which only becomes an issue when palm muting. I'd say it's equivalent to using a tunomatic bridge on a Les Paul comfort wise. It's ok, but it could be more comfortable. For 2025, they've reworked the bridge entirely into somethig more like their Canadian models and will be doing an aftermarket upgrade for existing users should they want to. When I bought my Combustion, it was £1350. Not cheap, but not the prices they command now. I feel like the hardware is catching up to the price point now.

We've organised Temple of Doom for this Saturday. We've tried to bring in some bigger bands in the scene and we're playing in the middle of the thing. Should be a fun day!

As far as I'm aware from a Dingwall FB group, it's a straight swap. There was a gap over the grounding hole on earlier versions but I think @Bass Direct's current stock covers the hole. I've been very tempted myself.

Ooooh, we're trying to work out how to play Desertfest at some point! Glad you had a good time! I'll give you guys a listen.

The setup of most of these multi effects units is fairly similar really. Just take it effect by effect. You want an overdrive? Test all of them and see what suits you best. A chorus? Same deal. Rinse and repeat untill you've got a patch together. It does take longer than just getting a pedal and putting it on a board because there are more options, but it affords you the opportunity to try a lot of things out. I'm using an amp sim with no cab for a distortion - sounds great to my ears! I used my GX-100 as a pedalboard for a long time, turning on and off effects on the one patch. I've recently decided to spend a bit more time setting up presets for different sections of songs so I can step through them. As you get more familiar with any device you can get it doing new things in time. That's where the real power lies, but there's not necessarily a need to rush to that end game. You'll probably have been through this with your B3, but it's been so long that you've gotten comfortable with it. It can be good to challenge yourself with something new. It keeps the old grey matter ticking over.