BigRedX

What is the switch actually for?

But IME those bassists who say they don't use/need compression, when you look at the signal path from the bass to the audience's ears there is almost always something in there producing compression as a side-effect to whatever else it is doing sonically, or it is being applied post-rig by the PA engineer.

There can also be non-nitro products in the base coats and fillers applied before the nitro top coat(s).

It's all pretty pointless, and it has been said many times on both this thread and others about compression; the only bassists who can guarantee that there is no compression going on in their live bass sound are those who: 1. don't put the bass guitar through the PA 2. don't have any devices with valves in them in the signal path 3. have no devices producing drive or distortion in the signal path 3. can definitely say that they are are not clipping the input circuitry of any device in the the signal path 4. have an amp and speaker with plenty of headroom still available when playing at maximum volume at a gig. Which rules out everyone except those who use a low output passive bass going directly into a non-valve amp with an input level indicator that never comes on, and which is being run well within it's maximum output level and driving speakers rated far in excess of the amps maximum output capabilities.

Are you sure it's Nitro? The symptoms sound very much like a poly finish that is not longer adhering to the underlying wood. There are plenty of recommendations for refinishing (IMO you can't go wrong with Sims Custom) but they do tend to be pricey. If you want to look at cutting the cost, think about stripping the old finish off yourself (that's the nasty time-consuming bit that more refinishing services charge the earth for) although you will need to be careful if it's a blockboard body.

Any venue that puts on or even plays pre-recorded music (jukebox, computer playlist etc.) has to have a PRS licence and therefore will be covered. I think the only gigs I haven't received a pubs and clubs payment for, was a very dodgy squat-style venue in Liverpool and a gig done in someone's house.

That's good to know. It's been a while since I last submitted a set list for the PRS. This is handled by other band members in the two bands I currently play with. I believe that the gig reporting system has changed since I last did it, which may make it easier than before. Previously it was simple to find the songs that you had written, and also if your set list only changed slightly you could start a new submission by copying a previously submitted set list. However as I said, tracking down the correct song when it wasn't written by yourself or another member of your band could be a confusing and time-intensive process.

In the days when I did the PRS gig reporting for The Terrortones I think the only times I had problems with the set list was when it was for some weird venue that didn't actually have a PRS licence. Looking at my PRS royalties breakdowns, the vast majority of gigs that we did we were the only band who supplied a set list and consequently we got the full £6.00. Sad to say, but if I was in a covers band, unless we played pretty much the same set every gig, I don't think I would bother submitting a PRS set list as the time and effort involved in tracking down the right songs from the PRS database is simply too great. I always diligently included the occasional cover that The Terrortones played, but finding some of them (especially any with a common song title) was a massive effort which involved cross-checking the Discogs and Wikipedia to find out who the song writers were so that I could correctly list the right song. Often making sure I had reported the right cover song from our set took much longer than all of the rest of the process.

If the keyboard and MainStage support MIDI program number mapping, then you can assign consecutive MIDI program numbers to the patches you need in set order without needing to actually move any of the patches. For instance your first three songs might require patches 56, 84, and 2 on the keyboard but MIDI program mapping will allow you to assign MIDI program numbers 1, 2 and 3 to these patches so you can simply use the up selector footswitch to move to the next patch.

So wouldn't you be better off buying a Lakland Skyline Bass instead?

If there is latency in some things but not in others then it would follow that the computer is prioritising some Bluetooth events over others. How far up the list a set of Bluetooth pedals comes then, is anyones guess.

I think eventually one of your gigs will be visited by someone from the PRS...

Yes, and no. The £6.00 is split between all the songs you play, approximately based on their duration. When you submit your set list you should also include all the covers that you play as well. The band leader's share of the royalties will be £6.00 minus the proportion that goes to the writers of the other songs you play. For example if your band plays 10 songs of which two are originals and the rest covers and all the songs (or at least the registered versions) are roughly the same length then he'll get approximately £1.20, so long as there are no other bands on the bill (or if there are they haven't also submitted set lists).

This is wrong. The performance royalties from being played on even local radio are quite substantial. My one quarter split of a song played on BBC Radio Nottingham was a couple of pounds for each play. On 6 Music it was considerably more. Also don't forget if your band is regularly playing live you can get performance royalties from this too. Last time I looked the PRS pubs and clubs rate was £6.00 split between all the songs performed live at a gig. That might not sound like much, but bear in mind that most small bands don't bother to report live performances, so there is a good chance that that whole £6 will go to the songwriters in your band each time you play. Also for bigger gigs and festivals the rate is higher. If you are out gigging regularly it soon adds up. My last band funded all our studio time (3 EPs and a full-length album - approximately 15 days in total) from our PRS royalties, that's roughly one gig a week over 5 years, plus radio play. From 40 years of recording and releasing independent music I now earn a couple of hundred pounds a year from the PRS. It may only be a few pence here and there for each song, but I'm still getting royalties from recordings made and released in the 80s and 90s as well as those I'm making with my current band.

Join the PRS. You'll also be able to collect performance royalties on your songs when you play them live as well as when they get played on the radio or television. A lot of the copyright information supplied by Bandcamp and other on-line music services such as aggregators is aimed at musicians and bands in the US where the mechanism for collecting performance royalties is somewhat different to that in the UK and Europe. Don't sign up for any service on-line that purports to collect your performance royalties for you. If you are a PRS member you won't need it. In the UK you don't need a publisher. All performance royalties go to yourself (and you co-writers) unless you have specifically assigned a proportion to a publisher. In the US it is somewhat different as a lot of collection agencies will assume that you have a publisher and hold back the publisher's share. You can get around this by setting up your own publishing company and assigning them a proportion of the performance royalties. However it is only cost effective if one of your songs is picked up to be used on a US film or TV show.

Is Bluetooth fast enough for timing-critical operations like patch changing? In the days when I used to automate all my band's patch changes with our MIDI sequencer, one of the things that we spend a lot of time on was getting the program change commands in exactly the right place for a glitch free performance. Often we'd be moving things forwards a back by the smallest MIDI timing increments to find to optimal position for each one. My understanding of Bluetooth is that there is too much latency for timing-critical operations, and that the latency is not consistent depending on what other operations the two Bluetooth devices are also doing at the same time. I'd get a proper set of MIDI pedals and MIDI interface to connect to the computer to do this. Does the audio interface you are using on the computer not already have MIDI?

That's pretty much how my Hondo Alien sounded, particularly once I'd replaced the horrible bridge with a proper Schaller one. Plenty of clarity and a piano-y sound with round-wound strings - very suitable for post-punk bass lines.

I would suspect two reasons: 1. Not everyone liked them or understood how they worked properly. I bought a 5-string Overwater Original fretless from a prolific session bassist where the pre-amp had been replaced with a Ken Smith one. 2. They eat through batteries compared with modern designs. I much preferred the sound of my fretted Overwater with the filter pre-amp to the one with the Smith, but I can see/hear how they wouldn't be for everyone.

Even that is no guarantee. I had 500 copies of my band's LP on vinyl delivered on a pallet from the pressing plant in France. By the time they reached me the pallet had been smashed to bits and every single box had damaged records in it.

I've not owned a Kramer Duke, but I have owned other Kramer basses - 450B long scale and XKB-10 short scale - and a Hondo Alien, and IMO apart form the completely rubbish hardware (bridge and machine heads) on the Alien it compared very well. Once I'd swapped them for proper Schaller components it was a very usable compact bass with a perfectly good sound.

Who? Seriously though, they're not a massive company with a presence on the wall of almost every musical instrument retailer in the UK, Besides their Fender clones only appear to be part of what they offer, and my perception of them has been as more a custom maker than off-the-peg. Could they stay in business if all they offered were the Fender Clones with no customisation options?

TBH there are only 2 types of Fender style basses that are worth making if you are not actually Fender. 1. Standard P and J style basses of a reasonable quality that can be sold cheaper than the equivalent Squier branded model. 2. Specialised models that look on the face of it look like a typical P or J but have been customised to exactly match the requirements of the player ordering it and come with a correspondingly high price tag. Pretty much everything else is going to be doomed to failure.

No. Please no more pointless electronics being shoe-horned into the control cavities of our instruments. Especially when it almost always going to be duplicated somewhere else in the signal chain. IMO all I want on my bass is a master volume control that works smoothly, and for basses with more than one pickup that don't have an individual output for each pickup individual volume controls/balance controls for the pickups. If you are going to have on-board EQ then it needs to be individual EQ for each pickup, and not a master one which is going to be duplicated elsewhere in the signal path.

The Kramer Duke is generally a better bass, especially where the hardware and electrics are concerned. However if you can find a Hondo Alien cheap enough to be worth upgrading then it can come very close it in quality. There are two things to watch. 1. There are quite a few Hondo Aliens that are being passed off as Kramer Dukes. The earliest way to tell them apart is the neck joint. The Duke has the standard Kramer 2-bolt attachment with a lozenge-shaped plate which includes the serial number. The Alien has a 4-bolt neck plate attachment. Also the Duke has a single bolt string retainer whereas the Alien has two bolts. 2. Not all Hondo Aliens have an aluminium neck. All Kramer Dukes do. If you prefer the feel of the all-wooden neck the Alien might be a better choice if you can find a wooden-necked one.

How much string you need around the machine head winding post depends on what sort of headstock your bass has. For basses with angled headstocks you need somewhere between one and a half and two turns. This is enough the hold the string in place while not being so much that string tuning stability takes too long to achieve. (as you tune up the string would around the post takes longer to stretch to an equilibrium than the normal speaking length, therefore the more you have wrapped around the post the longer it will take the tuning to settle after restringing). Usually 7-8 cm of excess string is right depending on the diameter of the winding post. On basses with non-angled headstocks, for the strings that do not pass under string retainers, you need as much string as it takes to wind to the bottom of the post. This will depend in the thickness of the string, the diameter of the winding post and height of the post from the bottom of the string slot to the bottom of the post. If you are good with maths you could work it out, but it is generally easier to do it by trial and error making a note of how much excess string you have each time and adjusting it as appropriate the next time you restring. Strings that pass under string retainers can be treated the same as strings on angled headstocks.