MichaelDean

2 minutes ago, dmccombe7 said:

Its annoying when we learn a new song we just add it to the set rather than drop one out and keeping the sets approx 1hr each.

Both my bands suffer from this issue. In a few yrs i'll be doing 4hr sets if things don't change.

Dave

That is annoying. It can be useful to have some songs ready to go if an extra song or two is needed, or just to vary the set a bit so you don't get bored.

8 hours ago, thegummy said:

 

Yeah the stuff they use for toys and kids stickers etc. must be cheap cause the products themselves cost less than Luminlay material. But those things don't glow in the dark as brightly or for as long Luminlay.

 

That's what I'm wondering, have they used the cheapo stuff (so it's a bit of a gimmick) or have they found a way to make the dots as good as (or close to) Luminlay for much less money?

It's just about how much powder they use as to how long it lasts. I've seen YouTube videos of guitar makers, making their own glow in the dark inlays that last longer because they just put more powder in than Luminlay. They don't have a magic formula that no-one else understands, as I understand it, they're just the first to do it at scale. 

4 hours ago, thegummy said:

Something that stands out to me from the specs is the glow in the dark side dots since Luminlay itself is expensive and I've only really seen it come stock on quite expensive instruments. 

 

I wonder if they've found a cheap alternative that works as well as Luminlay or if it's a really poor substitute like they might use on a child's toy or something.

Glow in the dark power itself is pretty cheap (you can find it on eBay). If you can find someone to make it into a shape you can quickly install as an inlay, I can't see the extra spend being enormous. Especially since they've dropped the Gotoh hardware for this incarnation. 

Back at the basement at Exchange in Bristol, we (Hora) organised this gig with our guitarist's friend's band, Tüsk. We were a bit worried about tickets sales. This is our 6th gig, Tüsk haven't played in Bristol before, but we actually managed to almost fill the 50 capacity venue! Very pleased with that. Plus we sold a couple of t-shirts. 

I managed to snap my high C string on the first song so I was out of tune for the first couple of songs until I got a chance to retune 😅

I took along my Zilla cab because the stage is so tiny, and it delivered the thunder in spades, as it always does. Much better than their house cab, a beat up Ashdown 410. Love that thing. Signal chain was Combustion, GX-100, ABM-600, Zilla 212.

A lot of the time, I'm not necessarily concentrating on the lyrics. I'm listening to the whole song and enjoying the vocal stylings, not necesarily the content. Like it's another instrument. I find I have to properly concentrate on the lyrics to hear the words. And I don't necesarily notice any story being told unless I read them. That was what the song book in a CD was good for I suppose...

1 hour ago, Dood said:

THESEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!! Absolutely BRILLIANT!

 

https://www.daddario.com/products/guitar/bass-guitar/xl-nickel-bass/exl160bt-nickel-wound-balanced-tension-medium-50-120-long-scale/

 

120-90-67-50 

 

 

That 120 is perfect and, I found on my basses I didnt need to adjust my nut to fit the heavier gauge. (Which may just be lucky) 

I'd wondered about these for use on my backup bass for drop C. Good to hear some real world experience!

Just to add my two pennies... Lots of the Focusrite stuff also allows you to do direct, latency free, monitoring. You can also use a few XLR splitters for guitars, vocals & drums and run cables for everything you need, while leaving most stuff in place for the sound guy.

In an old band, we used a laptop running Ableton looping the guitar live, then into a big Focusrite like this and a Behringer thing like this connected via ADAT, which also worked in the direct monitoring software (which I think was called Mix Control, but is now Focusrite Control) to give us more ins and outs. That then lets you save your individual mixes and also gives you the opportunity to group outputs for stereo mixes if you want it (and you do...).

We were running:

Guitar

Bass

Vocals

Keys

Kick

Snare

Stereo overheads

Cello

This set up allowed us to have 5 separate IEM mixes and the sound guy had everything as normal.

You'll need lots of XLRs and set up is going to take longer. But the rewards are great. Consistent, accurate monitoring is amazing. We used to be able to get set up in standard changeover times, with the guitarist checking that his midi controller was working too.

I like @BigRedX's patch bay too. Label it and make it idiot proof, so everyone knows exactly what to plug in and where.

A detailed tech spec will also be useful for sound guys.

1 hour ago, Phil Starr said:

Hi all, well the drugs are working and I'm feeling a lot better. In my case it was caused by a PE and deep vein thrombosis and I got the chest infection thing at the same time. I survived and my lungs are healing but it wasn't nice. Back at the gym now and digging the garden and starting to sing again so all is good.

 

Anyway yesterday I ordered a couple of Fane 8-225's so I can build the prototype and I'll try and dig out my draft plans and get them off to @Bassybert for drawing once I've made a few sketches.

 

We are back on track

Good to hear you're on the mend, Phil!

Good run through before next weekend's gig. Tried using some samples to go between tracks and that worked nicely. Also managed to work out I can use the harmoniser for +/- 1 octaves for some extra filth if I downgrade the reverb from the "plus" option on my GX-100. That, with my always on OD, plus fuzz, reverb and delay sounds enormous. I've recently switched out to processing all of my dirts as parallel paths too, combining bass and guitar effects to make a thicker sound. I'm so pleased with my tone at the moment! I dread to think how much I'd have spent to get my current setup in a traditional pedalboard format. Especially once you add in a pedal switcher that can do parallel paths. It'd be massive and heavy to boot! 

8 hours ago, JohnnyFlatWound said:

Hi I'm new to this chat but I love the support it provides! Does the comment above with regard to a chain with 11 effects in it refer to the P1 or the P2? If it's for the P1, does it apply to the guitar and the bass sections? Sorry - I had a little trouble following. Many thanks!

The P1 has a very rigid effects chain. You can move blocks about a bit, but you can't add new ones. If I was looking for a new practice tool, the Boss Katana Go would be at the very top of my list. I don't have one of them, but based on feedback here and my own GX-100, I have a lot of confidence in it. The P1 is my biggest gear regret to date. I couldn't coax a sound I liked enough out of it (for bass or guitar), which meant I didn't practice and spent my time tweaking and getting frustrated. I wish I had returned it, instead of thinking I could make it work. 

We've organised a gig at Exchange with some friends on the bank holiday Sunday at the end of the month. Should be fun!

6 hours ago, MrDinsdale said:

A while back work clamped down on people installing random software on work laptops, luckily i already had logic set up.

I installed the drivers for my GX on my work laptop so that when we have company wide briefings, I can route the teams audio out the headphone jack and noodle away 😅

40 minutes ago, MrDinsdale said:

Anybody using their GT1000 as an audio interface for recording?

 

I have a Focusrite Scarlett I typically use. Combined with the Capos pre/post DI it makes it really easy to get a dry signal as well incase I want to reamp. It’s a lot of cables though.

 

The GT1000core provides a main, sub and dry signal in stereo too via usb I believe? It also allows you to reamp without having to faff around with reamp boxes etc.

 

Kind seems like a no brainier now!

I know it's a different range, but I've done it with my GX-100 which just does dry and effected (both in stereo). The ability to reamp without buying extra gear is super handy. On my MacBook, I created an aggregate audio device (not possible with Windows as far as I'm aware) with my audio interface and my GX-100, sent the dry back through some effects, then into my head, took the DI out into my audio interface, which I fed into a cab sim. 

9 hours ago, HP BASS said:

Ah, I see, thanks. I guess when they go they just go quickly? But I guess that can happen with any sort of failure...

Even when they do go, take the head out of the wooden case, pull the old valve out, plug in the new. It's a preamp valve, so no biasing is required. It's really easy. 

6 hours ago, HP BASS said:

Presumably ABM heads will likely need a bit of care and upkeep for the valve preamp?

Not really. The preamp doesn't see massive voltages like power amp tubes. It should tick along happily for years. 

Fender released the Musicmaster as a "beginner" or "student" model. For some reason, that's stuck in some people's minds and had short scale basses labelled as cheap/bad for the last X decades, despite some very prominent players using them. I think the tide is changing on that as more and more manufacturers are making them as more premium models. I love my Mustang. It sounds great and I've had loads of compliments on the tone too. 

Any excuse for a picture too...

Decided to take my Revelation PJ tonight in lieu of my Dingwall on account of running a bit late and this is the bass that lives in the case until I swap it out. It was surprisingly fun with this one. Even the 105-45 strings going down to drop C wasn't terrible. Less muting to worry about overall, but there are some phrases I find easier on the fan frets. I'm also starting to wonder if I prefer a gloss neck to a satin one... Seems like madness, but my EB3 was gloss, so is my Mustang and Revelation, and my recent Harley Benton LP is also gloss. Doesn't seem to hamper me in any way. 

7 hours ago, scalpy said:

#metoo, albeit with Aggie cabs.

 

The Louisiana, Bristol with George Montague. 90 minute set, attempted from memory which I’ve got lazy at of late with more regular gigs, using a iPad most of the time. Helpful sound guy and the ever excellent Tom Hooper on drums. 
 

Much easier to keep the cable runs tidy at this one….

 

 

The Loui looks so much tidier than it used to! Not hard, but it's nice to see a bit of an effort has been made. Haven't played/been there in years now despite it being in walking distance. Ought to rectify that. 

When you load it up in stomp mode, the DarkPre takes up two footswitches on the board. The one one the left engages/disengages the effect, the one on the right turns the boost on/off. I'd assume the boost is off by default.

From the manual:

8 hours ago, nilorius said:

Jaco with his "bass of doom" wouldn't mind.😁

Not sure how well a mosh pit would go at a jazz gig 😅

Depends on the band you're playing with. I've had people sit on the beer stained carpet of a venue to intently listen in my old post rock band. That was cool. I've also had the whole place dancing in the hip hop covers band. 

Maybe trying to get a pit going should be my goal for the (doom) metal band I'm in now? Not sure that doom is really the one to get people going like that though...

Played at The Pit at McCann's Rock and Ale bar in Newport last night. Really good fun. Good setup with cabs and drum kit provided, so you just need to rock up with heads and breakables. 

We hit everything a bit too fast, which we haven't done previously. Need to work out a signal to slow it down a bit. I dropped my pick twice as well, which doesn't usually happen, so that was annoying. Still, good fun and people seemed to enjoy it!

We played with a death metal band called Cremulation and a another doom band, Damek, who we're hoping we can arrange for them to come to Bristol at some point. 

This was the setup. We're Hora, and the gear I used was my Dingwall into my GX-100 and then my ABM-600.

I've cycled around with a bass on my back before. Wasn't overly comfortable. The neck kept bashing into my helmet. I didn't have to worry about an amp, as there was something decent to use at the studio. It didn't feel overly safe cycling through the middle of Bristol like that, but I never had any actual issues. 

Most pannier racks/eyelets are rated for 25kg, so a small combo might be ok bungeed on, but I wonder if the bass might hit it?

A trailer seems like the safest option to my mind. Pop the combo in that and the bass on your back? There might be a cheapish second hand one you could buy and refurbish/sell and replace if you decide it is a good idea. 

You may have guessed from the silence, but I've never seen a non-Hipshot one available to buy new. I think the answer is "no". 

10 minutes ago, Acebassmusic said:

 

I use a few different wireless units (for practice, rehearsal and gigs) and the ones that dont come with a clip (LEKATO WS-90 and Smoothound) I came up with a solution that works for me. If you're jumping around the stage then you'll probably need something more substantial. I simply use a hair wrap the strap end is fed through, patch cable and jack to jack socket!

 

 

That is a super neat solution. Replace one end of the cable with a locking jack socket and I reckon the hairbands would be hold up to some jumping around.