BigRedX

Brilliant. We just need to keep it up and let people know every time the sound is inappropriately mixed, and maybe something will get done about it.

Because I don't really have the social skills to notice, I'm blissfully unaware of sales-people trying to make me feel unwanted in any shop. I'll happily take my time looking and touching all the items I'm interested in, and after all of that I may even make a purchase. However like, I suspect, a lot of people on here, I generally find myself more knowledgeable about stuff that I am genuinely interested in buying than most of the people trying to "sell" it to me.

My Helix is set up with one patch for each song and up to 4 snapshots (as required) for each patch. I have a two basic patches (one for each band) which have what I consider to be the core sounds I need and then I add and adjust the modules as required to give me the sounds for the music. The foot switches are set up so that I have 4 snapshots on the bottom tier and 4 patches on the top. I use the set list function to arrange the patches into the order we are going to play the songs, so I don't even need a printed list.

Yes, But simply knowing what the chord progressions are isn't what makes a song great. Also most of the time he's dealing with a specific recording, and what makes that great is a combination of the music, the lyrics, the arrangement, the performance and the production. The latter 4 are barely touched upon, if at all.

TBH in 30+ years of gigging with multi-effects I have never once felt the need to "tweak" my sounds at the gig.

The whole point of programmable effects is that you don't edit them on the fly. You do that at your leisure in the rehearsal room and then when you are gigging you simply hit the right footswitch to call up the right combination of effects.

But live unless it's a rig with a single cabinet containing a single driver and no tweeter, you are not mic'ing up the cabinet, you're just mic'ing up a single speaker which looses just as much of the nuances of the sound as using a load that is just resistive rather than both inductive and resistive (not that I'd want to use any of these devices with a bass amp running at gig levels).

As I said in my original post, maybe it's because most of the audience either don't say anything or simply don't care. I'm lucky in that I don't go to "big" gigs where this problem seems to be most prevalent. I don't like big venues and luckily for me the bands I go to see aren't popular enough to be playing them - the largest places I go to regularly are Rock City and Whitby Pavilion. If I did encounter it, then I would be complaining on the band's social media pages, on the venue's social media pages, and if I could find out who was responsible for the live sound their social media pages too. I might also ask the sound engineer at the gig in as polite a way as possible why the sound was like that - was if the band's preference, venue acoustics or simply because "that is how it is done these days". So every time you don't complain to someone who might be able to do something about the sound (i.e. not on here), you are in effect enabling the continuation of inappropriate live sound.

Am I the only one who doesn't get Rick Beato most of the time? Some of who he'd does is informative, but "What Makes This Song Great?" despite dissecting what happens musically (and occasionally with the production) never actually tells what makes the song great. Of course the answer to that question is entirely subjective and most of the time the thing that has made the song great is that when it was originally released in the 60s/70s/80s/90s lots of people went out and bought it (in the US) simply because they liked how it sounded.

Not necessarily. My first multi-effects unit was a Roland GP8 which apart from the delay and chorus/flanger was all digitally controlled analogue effects.

Unfortunately there's a big difference in building design between something that will suit orchestral and choral music which often need a bit of help projecting out in the auditorium, and something that suits loud amplified music, where that same projection will play havoc with the sound.

Yes, but the only benefit of using a device like this is to capture the sound of the power amp valves working hard. Therefore it needs to be used in conjunction with a speaker cab or a suitable heavy duty dummy load. If the valves are in the pre-amp stage only you might as well use the line out socket and a standard DI box, because no-one wants to hear the sound of clipping power transistors.

The great thing about programmable multi-effects is that once you have set up a sound you like you can store it and then it's there again at the touch of button/footswitch. That for me completely over-rides any supposed sonic benefit of individual pedals.

Tread with caution. If you read the manual, it must always be used with a speaker attached and is designed for 200W maximum output (not RMS) and the "speaker emulations" are all very guitar orientated.

Any shim that raises the neck enough to give you access to the truss rod adjustment will require you to also raise the bridge by an unfeasible amount. You are much better off routing a slot in the body at the end of the neck pocket to give you access. And TBH unless you live somewhere with extremes of weather (I don't think Croydon is quite there yet), or you regularly change the makes and gauges of the strings you fit, once you've got the relief right you should never need to touch the truss rod again.

My screen name is from an Underworld song...

Maybe we as punters are partly to blame because we don't say anything, other than on forums like these. If every time the sound was crap we posted on the band in question's social media pages, and if we could find out who had been hired in to do the FoH post on their pages too, and if it's an in-house PA on the venue's pages as well. Then if enough people do it, then it might become obvious that a mix that is all boomy kick drum is not want the audience want.

That seems to be the standard for festivals in the UK. We simply don't have appropriate weather for outdoor ones, even in the summer. Some years back The Terrortones had a "summer" season of festivals booked. It rained at every single one part from one the events where we played indoors. At one there was water dripping onto the stage through several holes in the "roof" and our gear had to be set up to avoid these areas. At another it was also so cold that our guitarist wore gloves while playing in an effort to try and stop has hands from seizing up. As a punter I wouldn't attend any festival unless it was local and free to get in so I wouldn't feel compelled to stay when the weather turned bad, in order to get my money's worth. As a performer, I'd be happy to play so long as I can turn up just before we need to set up the gear and leave immediately after we have finished playing.

The Impulse is only available in 2, 4 and 5 octave keyboard sizes, and since its also by Novation, AFAICS there is not guarantee that it will work with my version of Logic. Also I don't like piano style keys for controlling synths. The feel is all wrong.

As I have just discovered. There is the A25, but as I said only 2 octaves.

Thanks for the suggestions, but why does it seem as though only Novation and IK Multimedia have controllers with 3 octave keyboards. Having been able to try the Novation with my live rig (that runs a slightly newer version of Logic) has convinced me that I need three octaves. 2 Octaves isn't enough to get all the drum sounds from Logic drum designer on. My keyboard playing is from the 80s where I grew up with 3 octave mono-synths, and that's what I like the best. I'm waiting to hear back from Novation (hopefully tomorrow) to see if there are any further things I can try to get it work with the version of Logic that I have to use. Since I last posted I thought it might be an idea to have a look and see what has changed in the most recent version of MainStage and see if it will now do what I want. While doing a bounce from Logic for the audio would be a solution, we do like to tweak the relative instrument settings when we practice, which wouldn't be possible. Also I have discovered that even the most recent version fails at one of the most important functions I need. The ability to play back MIDI files in sync with the audio. One of the things we want to do is automate all the patch changes for the synths and the instruments using programmable effects pedals. After all if we're using pre-programmed backing it would make sense as the patch changes always need to be at the same point in the song in relation to the audio track. Simply can't be done. Generally it appears as though MainStage is aimed at keyboard players who want to run their "rig" from a computer with a keyboard controller instead of lots of hardware synths etc. rather than people who want to automate the playback of the backing for the set.

Unfortunately the Launchkey 37 might have to be returned, as it doesn't appear to work with the version of Logic pro X that I use in the studio for doing the actual programming/writing. I spent a very frustrating 5 hours on Friday (3 of them with a Novation technical specialist in on-line chat) trying to make it work without success. It turns out that although it's not mentioned specifically on either the Novation web site or in the Manual the Mk3 versions of the Lauchkey range require Logic Pro X 10.5.1 as a minimum. At the moment because of the Mac I'm using I'm limited to Logic 10.4.8. We couldn't even get it to work as a basic MIDI keyboard via USB on this Mac, which may or may not be a fault with this actual keyboard, but at the moment it's not possible to tell. Th Mk2 version doesn't integrate as well with Logic (it was designed mainly for use with Ableton and direct Logic integration was only added with MK3) there doesn't appear to be a 3-octave version, and if I can't use all the extra buttons and knobs there's no point in having them take valuable space making the device bigger than it needs to be. I might be back to looking for an alternative controller. Roli appear to have gone bust and whenever I've tried one of their "keyboards" I really haven't been able to get on with it. Still not convinced by MainStage if you also need to use it to play backing tracks as, the last version I looked at was missing several basic (to me) functions such as the direct import of Logic songs and the ability to program what happens between songs in a set.

TBH laptop crashes should be a thing of the past. I use a laptop to provide the drum parts for one band and synths and incidental noises for another. In over 5 years of using this setup for weekly practices and monthly gigs, the computer has not crashed once. We have had one problem where on a very lively stage the vibrations caused the mains lead came out of the audio interface, which in turn caused the backing the stop, but the band were able to carry on playing to the end of the song and TBH I don't think anyone in the audience even spotted that something had gone wrong. This won't happen again as I have now hot glued the mains lead in place. No one in their right mind would power a system like this from the laptop battery.

First off what output sockets are there on the back of the amp? Maybe post a photograph. That will narrow down the options. In the meantime: It's all very well suggesting that the cab is mic'd up but most of the time unless you are playing large stages, trying to keep the mic'd feed under control while still accurately capturing the sound of the cab but very little else, will cause more problems than it is worth for the overall band mix. Also most typical cabs that are paired with big valve heads are multi-speaker types. The sound of these cabs is the sound of all the drivers working together from at least several feet away. This is not a sound you can capture on stage. If you do mic up one of these cabs it will be a single mic close to one of the speakers. So before you decide the try this route spend some time in a space where you can turn the amp up to gig volume and have a good listen to each of the speakers in turn. Up close, do any of them on their own get close to the sound you hear when you step back and listen to the whole cab? Probably not. However, if you are lucky one of them might be in the ballpark of the sound you want, so make a note of which one it is and make sure that is the one you mic up. Mark it on the front of the cab if necessary. If the cab is front-ported it will ideally be the driver furthest from the port. You do not want to be mic'ing up a speaker that is close to a port opening. It will only be worth exploring this route if you always use your own cab at gigs. I'm always wary about putting anything (other than a good quality heavy duty speaker lead) between the amp and speaker on a bass amp especially one with a valve power amp. The various devices being mentioned in this thread are almost always aimed at guitarists who don't use amps rated over 100W and whose sonic needs are considerably lower than the bass guitar. I would only use one of these if you can get a written guarantee from the manufacturer in question that it is safe to use with bass guitar and your particular amp and speaker combination running for a whole gig at maximum volume. If one of these devices decides to die mid-gig it will be the equivalent of running your amp into an open or short circuit (depending on how it dies). Will your amp be happy with this? Will you, if your amp dies as well? TBH the best you can hope for is that amp has a line out socket on it. Couple this with the most neutral sounding DI box you can afford and use that to give the PA a bass guitar feed. That way at least you'll get the sound of the pre-amp valves working. Otherwise you might as well just get a SansAmp. Sick it in front of the amp and take the PA feed from that.