BigRedX

Well after the initial faff of setting up the AirTurn pedal, it has proved completely reliable over the last month of gigs and rehearsals. Of course having said that it will fail miserably at the next important gig!

If this is about the Squier Bass VI then IMO not at all. Baritone guitars are usually tuned B-B for 28" scale and A-A for 3" scale instruments. The Fender and Squier Bass VIs come fitted with strings designed to be tuned E-E one octave down from standard guitar tuning. That, to me, makes it a bass. The other thing is pickup placement and voicing. I've not tied stringing my Squier Bass VI with an A-A set, but given that the pickups work very well for bass guitar type tones, I'm doubtful that it would sound as good for guitar-type tones. The real test for me as to whether something is a bass VI or a baritone guitar is can you play full first position chords on the instrument with the supplied strings and get a clear but down-tuned guitar sound out of it? No problem at all for any of the 28" scale B-B baritone guitars I've owned/tried. A complete waste of time on the Squier with the supplied strings, or any other E-E set I've tried on there.

Yes

This has come up before. Unfortunately the removal of the original JB pickups make this less desirable.

On the couple of occasions when I have played a fanned fret bass I found I had adapted to the frets within 5 minutes of picking it up.

The first piece of music I ever performed at a "concert" in front of an audience was in 1976, aged 15, and was one of three self-composed, semi-improvised instrumentals with me on either piano or guitar (depending on which piece we played first and which I really can't remember now). Myself and two of my class-mates in the ensemble used to attend a junior folk guitar evening class and the teacher put on an evening of music played by members of all the various music classes she taught. Most of the rest of the programme was earnest teenagers playing "folk" songs or classical music and we were very much at odds with the overall theme of the concert. I think our performance was met with polite applause and bemused expressions from the audience members. My first live performance playing bass was also my first proper gig at a proper gig venue, at the Ad-Lib Club in Nottingham in 1981. IIRC the opening number was another self-composed instrumental called "Modern Atoms #2" which was heavily fuzzed bass with feedback guitar, toy-trumpet, drum machine and bongos.

As I said in the other thread, I once took my Atlansia Solitaire 1-string fretless bass along to a rehearsal for my Dad Rock covers band where it was perfectly usable for about half the songs we played and the fact that it was fretless was more of a hinderance than the fact it only had one string.

My last gig of 2024 is with In Isolation, and will also be In Isolation's farewell performance as singer Ryan is calling it a day. It will be at the Salutation, in Nottingham on Saturday 14th December. Doors are at 7.00pm and we'll be on shortly after that as we will be playing an extra-long set and it's Spellbound Goth Night at 9.00pm afterwards. Tickets are just £4.00 and if you'd like to come and see our final gig it is highly recommended that you get one as they are selling fast.

You should know enough to know that it only theory and not the law. Depends Not since 1978

Amp & Cabs Vs Modeller and FRFR?

And it would be equally valid to say that a lot of people who try a 5-string bass and then go back to playing 4-string basses do so because they haven't spent enough time PRACTICING with the 5-string bass.

There's any number of threads in the Theory and Technique sub forum about practicing, but AFAICS you haven't contributed to any of the recent ones, and yet you are happy to post on this one which means your statement is pretty much worthless. Practice doesn't attract that much discussion because either you need to do it, in which case you just need to get on and do it, or you can come up with an alternative thing to play that doesn't require you to any practice. Simple.

Warwick Reverso or his yellow Auerswald.

It is now in a separate action.

Flanging is also a lot more forgiving about the sweep time not being directly related to the tempo, whereas phasing nearly always sounds wrong unless it is synchronised to the tempo ideally with the high and low points of the sweep being at the start of a bar.

The Moog Rogue was supposed to rhyme so that should tell you how Moog should bee pronounced.

Weird isn't it? Technically a good on-board pre-amp should be little different to the pre-amp in your amplifier. In fact I would go so far as to say that a very good on-board pre-amp such as one designed by John East will probably be sonically superior to a lot of pre-amps in the actual amp.

It's never truly silent. Even though the room where I practice is separated by a floor and wall from the lounge other people in the house can hear the acoustic sound of the strings (and my foot tapping on the floor) unless they have the TV or music on.

When I bought my Mono M80 gig bag it was the lightest of all the semi-rigid bags. Some of the "competition" were heavier than a Hiscox Liteflite hard case. At the time, all the serious contenders had the case weights included in the specs on their web sites.

In retrospect, I think I was lucky when I switched to playing 5-string basses. Previously I had played lots of different stringed instruments with different tunings, numbers of strings, scale lengths and neck widths, so 5-string bass was just one more of many options to get used to. Also I had just come from 7 years of mostly playing synths, and even my not brilliant 5-string bass was a superior instrument to the 4-string I had been using before that. That combined with the fact that I decided I liked the idea of 5-string bass, then my next one was a truly excellent instrument in every respect.

How fast does this set up load a new selection of effects? Given how slow Logic is at changing patches on a single native plug-in, I suspect that you'll need to use something similar to the "snapshot" facility on the Helix where all you are doing is turning individual effects on and off and changing the values of a handful of parameters. Especially if you need to change sounds mid-song. Good luck!

First photo from Saturday's gig. Probably be from early on when we were struggling to hear the backing on stage, hence all the concentration...

IME Rotosound are incapable of consistently making good bass strings that aren't standard gauge for 34" 4-string basses. I had a number of sets where the B string was completely dead. Luckily a friend recommended Newtone who are more than capable of making suitable strings for less conventional basses.

Two gigs for Hurtsfall at the weekend. First on Saturday playing "In The Bl4ck Midwinter" festival in Sheffield. The venue (upstairs at Shakespeare's) is small but there was a near-capacity crowd for the Saturday when we played. Some niggles with the on-stage foldback (at least there was some this time) where a request for the backing to be slightly louder resulted in it being so loud we could barely hear anything else. I don't like asking for monitor changes during the set as I think it can look un-professional and diva-ish, but despite the fact that everything had been fine during the soundcheck, it was far too quiet during the first few songs resulting in us struggling to stay in time. It sounded like there was a problem with one of the pots on the mixer for the foldback send as adjustments seemed to vary between almost inaudible and deafeningly loud. Eventually the engineer managed to find a sweet spot that worked for us for the last 3 songs, but it did make playing some of the set more nerve-wracking than it should have. Thankfully it appeared to sound fine FoH and everyone we spoke to afterwards said they really enjoyed our performance. It certainly didn't stop a good half of the room from dancing and singing along with our better-known songs. Didn't sell much merch, but I think that's because all those who would have wanted a CD or T-shirt already had one. There were a few T-shirts on display in the crowd. Sunday was completely different. We were playing at Saltbox in Nottingham as part of a Rock Against Racism weekend event. A much bigger venue with a decent sized stage and massively loud PA. However when we played at 3 in the afternoon it wasn't particularly full and it definitely wasn't an audience composed of people who mostly knew and already liked us. Still we seemed to go down well even if the response was a bit polite compared with the previous night. Once again there were foldback problems, during the soundcheck the wedge in front of me was farting out whenever our singer hit any loud/high notes and when we actually played it appeared to be completely dead. Luckily there were plenty of other wedges on stage that I could hear. Lots of professional-looking video and photography going on so hopefully I'll have something to post later on when it surfaces on social media. We had a proper dressing room (complete with kitchen and bathroom facilities) for ourselves - it was supposed to be for all the performers but we seemed to be only ones who wanted to make use of it. Unless we get offered something good at the last minute, that's it for Hurtsfall for 2024. We'll be spending the next few months working on our album and hopefully have it ready for early 2025. We already have a load of great gigs lined up for next year, unfortunately I can't announce any if them yet. My next gig is In Isolation's farewell concert at The Salutation in Nottingham on December 14th.

I got my first 5-string in 1989 and haven't looked back. Apart for a few years where I alternated between 4-string fretless (only because I hadn't been able to find a 5-string fretless I liked) and 5-string fretted, I haven't played a 4-string bass since then. At the moment I play 5-string with one band and Bass VI with the other. I can't see myself ever buying or playing a 4-string bass ever again. TBH a lot of what I've played on the 5-string could be done on a two string bass, and I once took my Atlansia Solitaire 1-string fretless bass to a rehearsal for the Dad Rock Covers band I was in, where the fact that it was fretless was a greater hinderance than the fact that it only had one string! Some general observations. IME cheap 5-string basses aren't worth the bother. I see lots of people buy something cheap to try it out and unsurprisingly they don't get on with it. I was lucky because although my first 5-string was cheap and not that good, my second one bought a few months later was a second-hand Overwater and payed and sounded fantastic. Also IME scale length on its own makes little difference to sound and feel of the low-B. Too many budget manufacturers add the extra inch to their 5-string versions when what they should be doing is making the neck stiffer and the neck joint better (or ideally make it a through neck). Yes there are decent 35" scale 5-string basses, but anyone making one should be capable of making an equally good 34" scale 5-string. The best 5-string basses I have owned have all been well-made 34" scale and worst have been cheap 35" scale. Also the choice of strings makes a massive difference. Don't just slap on the 5-string version of your favourite 4-string set and expect it to work. It took a lot of trial and error before I found the strings that work best with each 5-string I have owned.