BigRedX

Make your own using your DAW?

But you can still compete the circuit with wires without having to rely on the screening components or soldering to the back of the pots. So is there any actual benefit? Or as I said in my first post is is simply a convenient place to join all the various earth connections together.

When I built my solid electric guitar I included a Varitone mostly because I was trying wring the maximum in tonal variety out of a single humbucking pickup. I found the Gibson style varitone (based on the one in the 345 guitar) was very effective thinning out excessive bottom end from an over-wound humbucking pickup. How useful it would be on a bass guitar would very much depend on the sort of sounds you are after.

As you've said, there are already tone controls on your amp. Why would you want a second (potentially conflicting) set?

Since you mentioned iMovie I assume that you are using a Mac to do this? I was aware that Reaper for Windows requires some additional files to be able to import .mov files (which is what your iPhone will be producing) but I would have thought that the Mac version of Reaper shouldn't need these. Anyway at the moment the easiest way to sort out this problem on any future video recording you need to make would be to to set the project sampling rate in Reaper to 48kHz to match your video.

IIRC iMovie only supports 48kHz, so you'll need to record your audio to match. Any reason why you're not doing this editing in Reaper?

Different sample and/or frame rates between the recorded audio and the video? Check that they are both the same. If this is the problem, I suspect it will be easier to change the audio to match that of the phone video, so find out what that is and then set up the audio inputs so that it matches.

IME an awful lot of men already appear to be doing this. So long the clothes stop them freezing to death when it gets really cold, and they don't get arrested for indecent exposure at other times, any old crap appears to do.

Auger: We're supporting them in Nottingham on 7th April...

Sound On Sound forums.

If I was properly "rock 'n' roll" I'd be too busy snorting drugs off naked groupies in the back of the band van to be bothered about trivia like food. Got to keep that elegantly wasted appearance somehow!

I voted nothing. Firstly, the majority of out-of-town gigs that I do these days include free food and drink for the band (with any special dietary requirements taken into account) so rarely feel hungry on the way back from a gig. Secondly, for me getting back home a bit quicker so I can get to bed and sleep, always trumps stopping to eat some nasty (not very) fast food on the way. If I'm really hungry I'll make myself some proper healthy food when I get home.

The other thing to remember about songwriting is that it has the potential to continue to provide you with a music-derived income (if that's what you want) long after the band that originally performed them has gone. I get regular (if small) royalty payments for songs I wrote back in 70s, mostly off the back of a rather glowing review by Johan Kugelberg (that also led to the band in question being asked to produce a retrospective CD for an indie label in Chicago some 25 years after our last gig). And every year as my back catalogue to recorded and commercially released songs grows, so do my performance royalties that are derived from them.

What makes a song successful is that it is memorable and that it stands out from the "competition". Sticking to the formula can make that much harder. Making a song memorable means having something that people can latch on to. A song with different structure can be a very effective way of doing this. However IME you don't "force" it, because it always ends up sounding contrived. A successful unconventional structure is one that just happens during the song writing process.

There is no "best EQ". There is only what works for you, your bass, your rig and how it fits in with the rest of the band. That is something that only you can work out while playing with your band. Most of the time you don't want a "full" sound as it will interfere with what the other instruments are doing. Have a listen to some isolated bass tracks to hear how different (and often strange) the bass sounds when taken out of the context of the band mix.

There is no formula for writing a "good" song. And most of the time people mistake "good" with "popular", not that there is anything wrong with being "popular" and anyway "good" is entirely subjective. And remember that every song you play in your covers band is an original song for the band/artist that wrote it.

No it doesn't. Maybe if you are stupid and lazy, but for everyone else it opens up an endless set of possibilities limited only by your imagination.

IME writing songs is something that improves the more you do it. In fact once you've reached a certain standard it becomes harder because you want every new song you write to be even better than the last one. You didn't start playing the bass well enough to be in a band overnight so why should song writing be any different? Also why rely on your guitarist to come up with musical ideas? You play a melodic instrument too.

If you really don't enjoy playing some of your old songs then simply stop playing them. If that impacts on audience numbers for subsequent gigs then you have failed at point 2 of my previous post. As a punter I might be disappointed if a band doesn't play one of my favourite songs from their back catalogue, but there will plenty of other equally great ones in the set to make up for that. If you only like one song by a band, it's probably not a good idea to go and see them play live.

Yes. Now that I have stopped obsessively collecting instruments and just settled on the ones I like and need for the bands I play in I have got it down to four. For one band I use one of two Gus G3 5-strings (one black, one CAR). For the other band I have an Eastwood Hooky bass and a Burns Barracuda, both different shades of red, but the Burns will shortly be sold and replaced with another Eastwood (maybe in red maybe not).

Yes, pretty much every bass I have ever bought. In my hands, in a band mix, most basses sound pretty much the same; so how they look is what differentiates them from each other. If you play live it is, IMO, important to have a bass that compliments the image of the band.

First of all, to answer the OP question: IMO if you don't like gigging then just don't do it. Give the band slot to someone who does like it and find something else musically to do. If you don't rely on music to make your living there are plenty of interesting musical-based alternatives that don't involve having to play gigs. Like many things in life there are aspects to gigging that are not so pleasant - travelling for hours to get to the venue, getting back home at 4/5 in the morning and having to unload the gear before you can go the bed (if you are lucky and you don't have to then get ready to go straight to work). What you need to do is make sure that enjoyable parts like playing music you love to people who are enjoying it, and getting paid for it, more than make up for the boring and less enjoyable bits. And lets lay that myth to rest that you can't make money from playing songs other than covers. IME there are three reasons why "originals bands" don't make any money: 1. They have chosen deliberately to play for free, or do gigs that are not paid. 2. They are simply not entertaining enough - in music or performance. 3. They are just starting out and have still to build up a reputation. (IMO this is allowable - every band has to begin somewhere, but if you can't start expecting to get paid 10 gigs or 6 months into the life of a new band then see point 1 and/or 2). If you want to ensure that all the songs in the set are ones you enjoy playing, then the easiest way is to write them yourself. Over the last 45 years, apart from two originals bands where I have chosen deliberately to be just a musician, I have been the principle composer of the music of the songs I perform, so if there's songs in the set that I'm not 100% happy about playing, then it is entirely my fault.

Or the second version of the P-Bass with the split humbucker for that matter. Or anything from G&L...

Unless you are going very very heavy gauges, the lower strings are always lower tension than the higher ones.

It would help if you could tell us why you didn't get on with the Helix, because of all the multi-effects I have owned IMO it's by far the easiest to use, most versatile and for most effects the best sounding.