BigRedX

Mastering is as much as about making a set of tracks sound like a coherent whole as it is about making an individual track sound good. Decisions made when mastering a single track may not be the same as those made when mastering the same track in combination with others. Bear that in mind as you may need to get you single track remastered when it becomes part of an album.

Why? No offence to stewblack, but unless he's bought that Alien Ant Farm custom job or a Katana, it will look just like every other Fender bass.

Just turn up the input gain on your amp then. Changing the pickups or pre-amp on your bass will change the sound.

Their second single "You're History", was a top ten hit in 1989 - 3 years before "Stay".

Without Jerry Dammers on keyboards, is it really the Specials?

I was cured of any interest I might have had in watching football by being taken to see Notts County draw 0-0 against Workington Town on a cold, wet miserable Saturday afternoon in 1968. Despite the fact that we were stood behind one of the goals, all the action happened at the other end of the pitch in both halves. I couldn't wait to get home to the warm and dry and do something more interesting like play with my Lego.

@Al Krow Finally there is a 1' 30" preview of our forthcoming single up on iTunes. Search for Hurtsfall and you'll be able to hear it. Unfortunately it cuts off before we get to the "middle 8" where I go all guitar-y on the Bass VI, so you'll have to wait until the official release date in July to hear it in its full glory.

Sorry. I thought you were down for the Whitby Goth Weekend (WGW). Ignore everything I said (although it might still be relevant). BTW SLAG should definitely be playing Whitby if you can.

Behringer X18 £327 plus a decent WiFi router, and then control it from your phone or tablet.

WGW is a completely different ballgame, because of the audience and the fact that it is very tightly run on the nights. I'm a regular in the audience - I go to most unless the lineup is particularly weak. The best way to describe it is a professionally organised multi-band gig in the big venue with a good stage and PA. Are you down for October/November this year? BTW don't expect to see many "exotic Steampunk chicks" in the audience for the gigs. They are too busy parading around the town for the photographers.

It really depends on exactly how your band approaches playing the songs they have chosen. If your role in the band is to play a bass guitar part that fits the song, and rhythmically holds down the bottom end, then as EBS_freak says, DI into the PA and use the superior facilities of your mixer to compress and EQ your sound to suit the band mix. On the other hand if you need to accurately nail the specific tonal characteristics of the bass line of each individual song, then you are going to need a good programmable multi-effects and probably also a keyboard synthesiser.

As you can probably tell I'm not a big fan of festivals. The only one I've ever really enjoyed was the annual Rock and Reggae festival in Nottingham mostly because it was free to get in to and I lived less than 10 minutes walk away, so if the music or weather was not to my liking I could simply go home until it improved, without feeling that I wasn't getting value for money. The Terrortones had one year where we managed to score a decent number of festival slots. The only one that had other bands playing that I actually wanted to see, kept getting cancelled and then was back on again, and finally we decided to tell the organisers that we couldn't do it partly due to the uncertainty and partly because I had the opportunity to go an all expenses paid holiday that included the festival weekend. I think in the end it didn't go ahead. For the others it rained (often quite heavily and occasionally on the stage) except for one that was held indoors on a brilliantly sunny day, so of course everyone was outside enjoying the sun and virtually no-one saw us play. I'm sure festivals in countries that have decent weather are great. I remain to be convinced about their desirability in the UK.

IME Japanese-made basses that require a special case due to size and/or shape, generally come with one.

If it's not deflatable at the flick of a switch like the BassMute, then I really can't see what the advantage of it is over a piece of foam under the strings.

For me the whole point of a Rickenbacker bass (or any other bass for that matter) is that it offers something different to Fender P or J and their copies. It seems to me that most of those who try a Rickenbacker and don't get on with it really want something that plays, feels and sounds like the Fender but with the 4001/4003 body shape holographically laid over the top.

It’s essentially the same thing. I got rd of my Gramma Pad because it didn’t make a significant difference to my on-stage sound at most of the venues we played, but it did make my stacked rig extra wobbly on some.

Normal bass strings may not fit the machine heads or tail-piece. You need to get short scale strings at least, but proper Bass VI strings with a 95 or 100 E are the best.

There’s a whole thread about improving Squier Bass VIs in the Bass Guitars forum somewhere. Two things you need to do: 1. Replace the standard strings with some of a heavier gauge. LaBella and Newtone do round wounds and LaBella and Piccato do flat wounds that should make a big improvement. I’m a round wound fan and have Newtones on both my Squier Bass VI and my Burns Barracuda. 2. Raise the bridge to decrease compliance of the string and make it feel stiffer. You’ll also need to shim the neck in order to keep the action suitably low. And don’t forget to raise the pickups correspondingly or it will sound rather weedy compare with before. You can look at after-market bridges and term locks, but for me these two modifications made my Squier Bass VI much more playable and I haven’t bothered modifying it further.

Firstly apart from the Lightwave system which uses LEDs and optical sensors, what are marketed as "active" pickups are simply normal magnetic pickups with a pre-amp circuit built in to the pick up casing. The pickup windings might be low impedance to suit the noise or tonal characteristics of the pickup designer and require the circuitry in order to present the amp with the correct impedance and for the pickups not to sound weedy, but there is nothing active about the pickups themselves. Other than that I would second everything that Doctor J has said.

New studio album out later this year.

Hasn't the mad boss gone? Or has he been replaced with a new mad boss?

Bridges that are designed specifically for a particular instrument shouldn't need any adjustments other than individual string intonation and overall string height. Everything else - individual string height and spacing - should be fixed to suit the fingerboard radius and neck width/pickup pole spacing of the space so there shouldn't be any need to adjust these if the bass is made properly. Of course after-market units need these adjustments because the manufacturer has no way of knowing what kind of bass the bridge is going to be used with.

The Cure are massive. They filled Hyde Park at their 40th anniversary gig last year.

Festivals are my idea of hell, both as an audience member and is a performer. If I was on at Glastonbury, I'd want to helicoptered in 5 minutes before I was due on stage and out again the moment the last note of the encore was finished. Having said that I wouldn't mind seeing the Cure, but I won't be going to Glastonbury to do it.

I don't (and haven't ever) play either. What category does that put me in?