BigRedX
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Everything posted by BigRedX
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Looks. Given that most basses are capable of making the right noises in a band context, for me the most important thing is to have an instrument that has the right image for the band and the music we are playing, and in my personal case this generally means something unconventional. While there are plenty of perfectly serviceable instruments available if you want something anonymous looking, the basses (and guitars) that stand out generally tend to be at the pricier end of the market. I suppose it helps that I don't have any interest in playing covers in dodgy pubs, so I've never worried about having my gear stolen, and TBH the main basses I use are so distinctive that if that was to happen, the thief would never be able to do anything with them other than admire them in the safety of their room. I've owned ordinary looking instruments in the past, but no matter how well they played and sounded I could never really bond with them. Also I spent most of the 80s playing synths and in real terms these days even an expensive bass is very affordable compared with how much I spent on my first decent poly synth. It's all a matter of perspective really.
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Probably not a real Schaller then. I had a Hondo Alien Bass that came with look-alike fitted that exhibited exactly what you have described. IME the real ones are almost indestructible. There was one fitted to my mid-80s Overwater that was still working fine when I sold the bass a few years ago.
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The Pretty Things "Emotions". Their end of contract album for Decca released in 1967 and at the time loathed by both the band and their fans mostly for the additional "orchestration" that had been added at the record label's instance. I only discovered it in the late 70s, and when I first heard it didn't know anything about its history, so for me it was just another album by a band I liked and wanted to hear more of. While it's not their best album (that's Parachute) it's also not their worst by a long shot and IMO is on a par with the two earlier Decca albums, and it does include some of my favourite songs by the band. When I finally got to hear the versions of the songs without all the additional orchestration on an early 2000s re-release, I was surprised by how little difference there was between them, and in some cases the versions without all the extra instruments sounded weak and only half-conceived. Of course that might simply be down to familiarity, but after almost 20 years I still prefer the versions that were "ruined" by the record label. -
Make sure both you and Handbox sort out all the relevant customs forms to say that the amp is being returned for a warranty repair otherwise you all be stung with another round of VAT, import duties and handling charges for the two additional trips the amps will have to make.
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Who did you use for your short run?
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As has been said first off how small a run are you considering? Last time I looked, Mobineko were the only real choice for anything under 250 units, unless your run is going be so small that you could consider getting a handful of one-off dub plates, in which case I'd be looking for anyone cutting vinyl here in the UK (I'm assuming that's where you are based). However you need to bear in mind that firstly vinyl has become exceedingly hip and demand currently outstrips the production capabilities so you might be waiting for quite some time for your records. Secondly when I last had anything produced by Mobineko all the processes were handled outside of the UK - the label printing was done somewhere in the far east and the actual pressing in France. We had our own custom packaging done so I don't know where the standard record sleeves are made. Now that the UK is no longer in the EU this might not be as straight-forward or as cheap. Finally get your mixes mastered specifically for vinyl. Unfortunately vinyl is somewhat limited with what can be reproduced compared with a CD or digital only release, so it always best to get a vinyl specific master made before you send off the audio files for cutting, as problems at this stage will impact both in cost and time.
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IME even with all the correct codes importing and exporting at the moment is a complete nightmare. Also IME US companies are terrible at exporting goods if they don't do it regularly. I spent a good half day jumping through all the required hoops to get my EORI and commodity codes for a job I was working on that required me to send printed labels from the UK to the EU and after all of that they were still delayed for a month until Belgian Customs admitted that they had lost them. Currently I won't send anything out of the UK and I'd be very reluctant to buy anything from abroad unless it was through a retailer like Thomann who sort all the paperwork out properly for you.
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In my personal situation, I can't ever see myself wanting to do a reading gig. It's simply not where my musical interests lie. I'm an originals band player and composer, and this is all that really interests me. I would always consider my time is better spent writing more songs than learning a skill I'm unlikely to need. I understand musical notation well enough to be able to write down what I have composed, but even this is a redundant skill since PRS no longer requires composers to submit their works in writing in order to register them. On the occasions where I have been asked to play on other people's compositions, I have either been chosen to produce something in my own style or have been presented with a recording to learn from a sufficient time to prepare before the gig or session (and usually with at least one rehearsal beforehand). If I was making my living as a musician then I completely agree that bing able to sight read would be an almost essential skill. But I don't. As a composer I make more money from performance and mechanical royalties of the songs I have written then I do from playing the bass.
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It's not that being able to read "stifles creativity", it's that a lot of musicians who read have never also learnt to play by ear or improvise. Nothing wrong with that. If all the musician wants to to be able to play from a written score then they don't need those other skills. In the same way, that if you are never in a musical situation where you will be presented with music in written notation and expected to be able to play it, then you don't really need to be able to read. I think that sometimes people in the "you need to be able to read music" camp fail to realise that there is a perfectly viable musical life for those who can't read. It might not suit them, but there are thousands of musicians playing in bands who mange quite well without being able to read. Given that most of us on here play primarily for fun or as a hobby that generates some extra income, we generally only have time learn the skills that we actually need, and if being able to sight read isn't one of them, why spend time working on it when there are other musical things you could learn that are of more immediate value? There's also the mistaken idea that being able to sight read is an essential part of understanding music. I can't sight read but I know enough musical theory (and remember that's only theory and not absolute rules) to be able to compose and listen to what someone else's musical ideas and create my own guitar/bass/synthesiser part to go with it.
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I doubt that. The last version of Logic that run under Windows was V5 (we're now on what is essentially V10). Emagic were bought by Apple in 2002 and since then Logic has been a Mac only application. Apple have absolutely no incentive to produce a version for Windows. For a start having a known hardware platform makes for a much more stable application. Part of the problem with all Windows DAWs is that they have to cater for a massive range of hardware configurations, and a significant number of problems are due to to this. Secondly Apple use the Mac only nature of Logic to drive music producers towards the hardware platform (which is where they make their money). Logic costs just £199, which considering how many plug-ins you get with it these days makes it IMO better VFM than Reaper (which is free).
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There are few enough choices for Bass VI strings without adding extra restrictions by requiring guitar size ball-ends.
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Compact budget PA set-up to put bass through (without back-line).
BigRedX replied to Al Krow's topic in PA set up and use
For a lot of smaller venues there is a conflict between having the bass sound that you want on stage and being able to hear yourself and the other instruments clearly enough to know that what you're playing is in tune and in time with the rest of the band. I learnt a long time ago (in the 90s) that I'd far rather be able to hear the notes I am playing rather than a powerful bass sound on stage and trust that the FoH was delivering the right sound to the audience. IME if you need it to be loud and/or bass heavy on stage in order to "feel the vibe" there is something wrong with the songwriting or the arrangements of the songs themselves. My less conventional band has just done our second gig with no backline at all, just relying on the foldback to be able to hear ourselves, and it was probably the best playing and sounding gig we have done since the end of lockdown. It might have been a little lacking in bottom end on stage, but we could hear everything clearly which certainly meant that I played better and it sounded as though the rest of the band felt that way too. The FoH sound must have been pretty decent because there were people up and dancing from the first song, and this is for a weird post-punk/goth band playing our own compositions. -
In that case you'll be fine on all counts. I hope you're going that start a thread about this in the Build Diaries section.
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Good luck with finding a suitable bridge for your project. The original Shergold and the Eastwood Hooky are the only instruments with this kind of string spacing and, last time I looked, individual string bridge units were too wide to get them close enough together for 13mm spacing. However if you've got the appropriate metalworking facilities it should be simple enough to make your own as it's essentially a Fender style BBOT with a wider base plate and narrower saddles. IMO you could also get the strings slightly closer to the edges of the fingerboard at the nut either by going for a narrow nut or spreading the strings out slightly more - there's space for an overall width of 43mm on a 50mm nut here. BTW if it helps, the neck width at the 24th fret is 64mm. These measurements should be fine for finger picking. I was looking at using standard classical guitar spacing (which is pretty close) for a custom build, until the Eastwood Hooky was announced. I'm not so sure for chordal work, IME unless you stick to two string chords or up in the guitar register it all gets a bit muddy and indistinct. I've found that B-B 28" scale baritone guitar is as low as I'd comfortably go for fuller chords.
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You've simply found an amp that suits the sound in your head. However I know from your posts on here over the past 10+ years that you've been through quite a few rigs to get there.
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Confession time, just in case you don't already know, I've been a user of multiple-effects for so long now that my bass rigs have really only been a way of making the sound coming out of the effects unit louder and nothing more. Anything in the way of additional colouration produced by the amp and speakers is, for me, completely unwanted. I've now bypassed this problem by going direct into the PA from my Helix and having an RCF powered cab to use for rehearsals and venues with big stages but small foldback systems. For the most recent gigs and rehearsals I've not even bothered with the RCF and TBH the sound in the practice room, on stage and FoH has benefitted massively from this, and has made the band much easier to mix. The problem is that even if your amp has got you into the ball park of your preferred basic sound with the settings as close to "flat" as possible, there's no guarantee that you be able the EQ it into perfection. For this you are completely reliant upon the designer of the amp and yourself having the same tonal goals. That means that the EQ centre frequencies, Q and amount of cut and boost available all need to be right for you to be able to dial in the sound you want. If they are not, you'll never get there no matter how close the "flat" setting is.
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I thought that the Walkabout had a passive tone stack (or partly passive) which means that "flat" (or at least minimal EQ) would be with the passive controls at full.
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I've got one of the very first batch. The nut width is 50mm and the distance between the centres of the two E strings (the really important measurement IMO) is 41.5mm. The distance between the the centres of the the two E strings at the bridge is 65mm which works out at 13mm between strings. IMO it is noticeably wider than all the other Bass VIs I have tried, and noticeably narrower than a conventional long scale B-C six string bass. Whether or not it suits you will depend on how you play. For the sort of music I'm playing, post-punk/goth, it's exactly right in feel in that it doesn't feel cramped like a Fender Bass VI or cumbersome like a "conventional" 6 string bass. HTH.
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Can anyone identify the make of this bass
BigRedX replied to bigmuff69's topic in General Discussion
Far more likely to be a balanced line output. However if it's like the one on the Overwater I used to own, it may require the jack lead to be plugged in to turn on the power which kind of defeats the object. -
How can you tell? That's a genuine question. If you could put an oscilloscope on the input and output signals and show that they were identical other than an increase in amplitude then you could say the amp was flat. I defy anyone to be able to prove that. What you probably mean is that with all the controls at 12 o'clock your amp gives you a sound you like. Nothing wrong with that, but I doubt that it's flat. Given all that the OP might as well turn off any tonal presets the amp may have, put all the controls to their centre position and then adjust them (ideally only using cut) until they arrive at their desired sound.
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There is no true "flat" setting for any instrument amp. They all have some degree of baked-in sound. That's why you pick one brand/model over the others, because it has a baked-in sound that you find pleasing.
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There's a 4-string version of the Hooky Bass, but it's essentially the same instrument with a narrower neck and a more conventionally sized BBOT bridge, so short scale. If they were going to revive one of the old 4-string bass designs I'd like to see an accurate copy (with maybe a slightly lighter body) of the Hayman 4040.
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Unless your current DAW is not doing something specific that you need, it's always best to stick with what you know and are used to. And as has been said a modern PC should be more than capable of running most projects. Somethings things that you might need to be aware of if you are thinking of jumping ship. 1. If you have any favourite plug-ins that came as part of the your current DAW installation they may not work with another DAW. Obviously this doesn't include any third party plug-ins you may have downloaded separately. 2. If you do a lot of MIDI manipulation and given the problem you describe in your OP, it sounds like you do, you may find Pro-Tools lacking in features. Personally I couldn't recommend Pro-Tools to anyone unless you are in a lucrative songwriting partnership with other Pro-Tools users. The iLok copy protection is flakey, and their parent company, Avid, seem to career from one financial crisis to another. TBH Avid are mostly interested in video editing and the audio side these days is a very distant second. IMO the days of Pro-Tools dominance are over, now that every modern computer has more processing power than the Pro-Tools hardware, which used to be its USP. It's only user inertia that is keeping it going. 3. You mention that you are using Windows - just checking that you are aware that these days Logic is a Mac only DAW.
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My Squier Bass VI is strung with a Newtone Axion Bass VI set which is 24-100. GHS do an even heavier set for the Eastwood Hooky which are 30-105, however the Hooky has a BBOT style bridge and not a lot of excess string at the headstock end so they may not be long enough for a Fender/Squier style Bass VI with a vibrato system. My Squier Bass VI can sound just like any other decent short-scale bass using the neck or middle pickups. The only thing you should be aware of, it that IMO the Fender/Squier neck is very narrow. Think 70s narrow Stratocaster widths. Just make sure that you are comfortable with this. I'm not, which is why I now use the Eastwood.
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Here you go.... Eastwood Hooky Bass 6 PRO On the whole I'm not a massive fan of the Eastwood business model where they take classic weird guitars and basses of the 50s 60s and 70s and make very approximate copies of them using standard modern off-the-shelf parts. It might make for a more reliable playing experience, but they lose much of the quirkiness that made the originals special. Their "copy" of the Ovation Magnum Bass was particularly bad. However the Hooky Bass uses so many items that can't be replaced from the "parts bin", mostly due to the neck width, that all the important bits had to be created specially for this bass. This bass for me has replaced both of the previous Bass VIs (by Squier and Burns) that I had been struggling with due to their narrow necks, and it some point I'll be buying a second one as a back-up for live use.
