BigRedX

True. But you don't need to. The Helix isn't going to suddenly stop working if you don't update the firmware. The functionality on the Boss unit that requires Bluetooth or a computer connection seems like it might be quite important to some people. Having been bitten in the past by products that promised additional functionality through firmware/software updates that never materialised (Tascam I'm looking at you), I will only make my purchasing decisions based on what the product will do at the moment I buy it. I would still be as happy with my Helix even if it was still on the firmware it came with 6 years ago. All those updates are just a bonus IMO.

Right, I've watched the video and for me the most surprising thing was Rick Beato's generally positive comments. Other than that there was nothing new. The sky still isn't falling. From everything I have seen AI composition is still very much at the stage most of us were at when we were writing our first few songs, with our primary influences still very obviously on show, and the problem isn't that AI is taking away from musicians and composers, but more that it is likely to be sued for plagiarism. This for me is why AI music in the way that it is currently being marketed is not ready for public consumption and should not really be in the public domain. Even the very derivative output still requires a lot of well thought out user input to get anything close to original. That part was conveniently glossed over in the video. Admittedly as musicians and composers we're going to be more critical than the average listener and sometimes we forget that music isn't as important to a lot of people and definitely nowhere near as important these days as it was when most of us were teenagers in the 50s, 60s 70s and 80s. So the output of AI music generation systems may well be acceptable for those for whom music is simply there because the alternative would be unpalatable silence. However these people are not our audience and never will be our audience. There's a far more realistic video about trying to compose just using AI tools that I saw recently. The biggest thing I took away from that is just how far AI still has to go before it comes remotely close to being able to make the artistic and technical decisions that composers and sound engineers make all, the time without really being aware of them. IIRC the only AI components that made the final cut were some of the lyric generation and a voice replacer to make the vocals sound like Dua Lipa and even then the composer had to input a real singer who already sounded close before they got acceptable results. Everything else was discarded in favour of human generated content. Where AI music is going to have an impact soon is "library music" and if I was a composer in this area I'd be looking at repositioning myself as an "AI Wrangler". In the same way that many keyboard players and producers in the 70s and 80s had people behind the scenes to program synth sounds, and understand and work all that new technology in the studio and at gigs, there will be new opportunities for those who have the skills to come up with usable and appropriate AI music output in the quickest possible time. For the rest of us the sky still isn't failing.

I'm going to. However the fact that he's mentioned in the title says to me a lot about the sort of audience it's going to be aimed at.

Why are you selling your bass? If it is to buy another bass and if so what were you considering before this trade came up? Have you been able to play the Hagstrom or are you considering simply based on the photographs? A 70s Hagstrom is a quality instrument which has little to do with those currently being produced under the same name. However it will be a very different bass to the one you are swapping it for and for that reason alone it may well not suit you.

Boss go to all that trouble to make the device as hands on and user friendly as possible with all those knobs and then make one of the key features accessible only via an unreliable protocol that requires extra hardware to achieve. While the Helix might not be quite as immediate and hands on, there's nothing you can't do from the actual user interface.

Given that it appears to be more click-bait from Rick Beato I'm tempted not to watch it. IMO he comes across as a sad old man railing against modern technology when that boat has very much sailed, producing videos that deliberately mis-use and mis-represent the technology he's against in order to pander to his core audience of equally sad old men. Either that or he really is very stupid and hasn't understood how the technology should be used creatively. All the AI generated music I've heard so far has either been very poor (both technically and creatively), or has required so much input and intervention by people who actually understand music and audio production, that really it would have been just as quick to make the tracks without using any AI. I'm sure the day will come when this is no longer the case, but until AI starts spontaneously producing interesting and original new music without any user intervention or prompting, but simply because it NEEDS to, much like human song writers and composers, the truly creative won't have anything to worry about. I work in graphic design where AI has been in use for quite a long time and even though many of the features are there IMO for the artistically challenged, some can definitely help speed up the design process. Last year my band used AI generated graphics to produce the cover art for our "Christmas" single. The cover for our previous single which I created based on ideas supplied by our singer took two weeks (working off and on) and 8 iterations before everyone was happy with the results, and this time around we needed it doing quicker. Even so it took several hours of one of the band members supplying prompts and refining parameters before we got something that was sufficiently good and close to what we wanted. I think that had I had the time to do it myself the "old fashioned" way it wouldn't have taken me much longer and the result would have been 100% what I wanted at least, circumstances were against me then.

But if it's like the Drummer plug-in once it's producing a performance that's close to what you want you'll be able to render it as MIDI and assign any instrument you like to it. I realise that the style might be "piano-y" but you never know where it will take you inspiration-wise. One of the more interesting "hacks" I've seen with Drummer is to replace the drum-kit with an arpeggiator synth sound, which has produced the initial inspiration for one song that I've written recently. However I won't be upgrading yet as my Mac is too old and I'm stuck at Logic X 10.4.8 I see the current policy of Apple with their applications is aimed at driving new hardware sales which is where the real money is.

Modern battery driven active circuits are very frugal with their power consumption. Unless you play for several hours every single day or leave your bass plugged in by mistake for more than a couple of days a good quality PP3 should last well over a year. It's a long time since I have encountered the symptoms you are describing since I normally change the battery in the one active bass I still own well before it starts to run down, but it was a regular occurrence in my 80s Overwater basses which did well if the battery lasted more than 3 months.

Exactly this. I have a default Helix Preset for each band which will be fine while I am working on the musical aspects of a song. Once I know what I want to play I can start fine-tuning the sound(s).

One of the first things I did when I got my Helix was to go through each effect on its own to work out which ones I liked and would use and which ones I didn't do it for me. IIRC there are 4 different dedicated Chorus sims and couple more hidden away as parameters of other effects, but there is only one that really suits the sounds I want to create, so that's the one I use. Should a new one be introduced with a firmware update I'll give it a go next time I'm creating a new Preset. Every so often I may also try one of the others, but in this case I always realise immediately why I didn't pick it before and go back to my favourite. Just because there are multiple options for a particular effect doesn't mean that you have to use them all. I know that the Chorus sim I like the best won't be to everyone's taste and that's why there is more than one available. I now have two default Presets (one for each band) that contain all the modules that I need to produce the vast majority of the sounds I'll be using. When I'm creating a Preset for a new song I'll go to the default Preset and tweak the settings until it sounds right. It's as quick and easy as individual pedals with added benefit that once I've saved a copy it's there forever and can be recalled at the touch of a foot switch. I often wonder how quickly someone using non-programmable individual pedals could get their sounds back should some malicious person set all the controls to zero?

There's also at least one thread on the Sound On Sound forums detailing these problems with input from people who know their electronics. Well worth having a look at that too

That's because IMO you are approaching them wrong. 1. Most classic bass amps are simply guitar amps with a different name and maybe the EQ frequencies tweaked slightly. 2. IME almost all amp sims (both guitar and bass) have too much drive in their default settings. Try them all with the drive/distortion turned right down. The "best" value will be different for each sim so you need to play with the adjustment for each one before making any real decisions. However... 3. IMO most amp and cab sims make my bass sound worse. I've got much better (to me) sounds by just using separate EQ and drive/distortion sims. That way I'm not tied to a particular combination of EQ and drive from a single amp sim so I can mix and match to find the right EQ and drive for the sound I want. On the few occasions where I have used an amp sim it has either been picked for it's drive sound over anything else, or I've used a guitar combo sim that would be completely unsuitable for bass at gigging volumes but because it's just software there's no worry about damaging anything. 4. On the Helix most of the effects include a mix control so I don't have to worry about them sapping the bottom end from the sound. If absolutely necessary I can always run a crossover module first. 5. IME a lot of so-called bass-specific stuff is actually a red herring, so if it sounds right then it's right irrespective of what sims/modules you are actually using. Program with your ears not with your eyes.

This thread is over 10 years old.

This.

The key words that you want to be looking for is "Pure Sine Wave". If your inverter doesn't produce this, and most budget devices won't, then you will run into problems like the one you are experiencing. Unfortunately unless you spend a lot of money on a device from a reputable supplier, ideally one who specialises in audio solutions, even devices which claim to be outputting pure sine wave AC won't be close enough to prevent problems. Also exactly which model of Yamaha speakers are you hoping to use? I suspect that 300W of the inverter is insufficient to power a pair of them for any length of time.

The instrument I have owned the longest is this: This was my first proper guitar which I got for my 14th birthday along with copies of The Beatles Complete and Simon & Garfunkle's Greatest Hits songbooks. As you can see it's been heavily used and modified. As well as the visible Schaller pickup there's also a piezo fitted under the bridge and both are wired to a TRS Jack socket. This feeds to a box fitted with two foot switches - one to select the pickup and the other to select the amp input. This was my main (and only) instrument until I completed the solid electric guitar I had been making during my last year at school some 4 years later. It's had little use since and I still have it only because it's not really worth the hassle of trying to sell. About 5 years ago I had a big clear out of all the guitars and bass I'd accumulated since my first guitar. I was in a situation where I had both the finances and space to keep most of the instruments I bough over the last 35 years, and I did all my serial instrument ownership during my synthesiser playing days in the 80s. So the bass I have owned for the longest is this one: Which was ordered in 2002 and completed the following year and therefore is now over 20 years old. This has had off-and-on use over that time. The red Gus G3 I bought a few years later looks better on stage so it's my first choice for gigs, but this one has a slight edge sound-wise and so is my recording bass for anything that doesn't require a Bass VI.

It's big because of all those "user-friendly" controls. You can't fit that many controls into something the size of a Stomp without them being too small to easily manipulate. If you want to have a reduced set of knobs you'll most likely need a computer or menu diving in order to be able to set up the assignments, and you can guarantee that if that's the case there still won't be enough "hands-on" controls to satisfy everyone. For me the biggest weakness of this unit and most other budget multi-effects is the external PSU and the lack of locking connector for it. The wrap-round post is a terrible idea because this automatically introduces a point of weakness in the PSU cable. Both guitarists in my band have multi-effects with separate PSUs, and both have gone through several in the 6 years I've been in the band due to the low-voltage side cable failing. If you have to mounts this device on a pedal board with the PSU it defeats the object IMO because devices like this are designed to BE the pedal board. Also I'm not keen to just having numbers to identify the patches, it's no longer the early 80s. Again, the guitarists in my band have enough difficulty finding the correct patch for each song when the names are displayed; having to rely on just a number would be a disaster. And if you're organised enough to be able to remember the patch number for each sound, then IMO you are organised enough for something less immediate. One of the great things for me about the Helix Floor is the big display with the big Preset name and LED "scribble strips" above each foot switch that identify exactly what they do for each Preset.

If the above offer doesn't pan out, go to your local bicycle shop and ask for a bike box. They'll most likely be more than happy to give one away as it saves them having to get rid of it themselves. You will need to cut it down to fit the bass, but that's easy and the waste cardboard can be used as additional strengthening. IME bike boxes are far sturdier than guitar shipping boxes which only really work if the item is double boxed and the instrument can be replaced by the manufacturer or retailer should something happen to it in transit.

These solutions look fine but fall over (pun intended) the moment you use locking strap buttons, which Sei actually fit as standard.

Wimp! 😉 In the 70s we used to play "football" with a tennis ball during school lunch break whilst wearing platform shoes. It's a wonder none of us broke our ankles.

When I was actually operating my foot pedals by foot, I mostly used my right foot apart from the bank up and down switches on the left of my Helix Floor for which I used my left foot. Currently my Helix is now controlled by the computer that is also our band's drummer and second synth player, so it tucked away somewhere where our singer is unlikely to step on it mid-song and the only switch I have worry about is the one for activating the tuner for which I use whichever foot is most convenient. I do have a foot switch for controlling the computer which is normally positioned as far over to the left of the stage as possible so I normally use my left foot for that.

Just looked at the three options from your first post and to me that seems like a lot of money to spend when all you really need to do is swap out the three cheap pots for a set of CTS or Alphas. Also I notice that only one of those three actually specifies the brand of pots they are using. If the others were fitting something decent you'd expect them to include that detail in the spec.

What's wrong with the current controls on your bass?

IME it depends on what you are playing. For covers this is almost definitely the case. However if you are playing songs that you have written yourself and you are playing to the right audience - i.e. one that has come to see bands in the same genre as yours then you can pretty much play what what you want. It is harder work at the start because you have to build up a following from pretty much nothing, but if you are entertaining, it can be done.

What exactly is wrong with the tuners currently fitted?