BigRedX

Bass cabs add a massive amount of colour to your sound. Try running your amp into different cabs and you'll find it sounds different each time. Cabs from different manufacturers will sound different to each other even though they might have the same number and size of drivers inside. Which is why I'm always surprised when people ask for cab recommendations based on driver size and numbers, because IME these are the least important factors in how a cab is going to sound. And guitar cabs take this to a completely different level. Unless you are a fan of super-clean guitar sounds the whole point of a guitar speaker is to colour the sound in a way that guitarists have come to find pleasing through familiarity.

The RCF745 is lighter than the 735, although it does cost more. My Helix and RCF745 is replacing BassPod XT Pro, Peterson Stroborack, SFX MicroThumpinator, Tech SoundSystems Black Cat Amp, EBS Proline 210 and 410 cabs all of which combined cost me a lot more even taking into account that some of it was at second-hand prices. In fact when I factor in my guitar rig unless I'm very unlucky, I should make back enough money from selling my old gear to more than cover the cost of the new rig. I can't see myself going back to a "conventional" bass rig. At a push a could carry everything plus one bass in a single short journey. I can't even lift the EBS 410 cab on my own!

The great thing with using an electronically generated click is that you can have any sound you want. While we mostly use a standard click sound with an accent on the ONE, there are occasional other audio cues on the click track for things like time signature changes which use different sounds.

What in your opinion makes the use of a metronome different to the use of a click track? One of my current bands uses a click track. Only the drummer gets the click (in his headphones) and the rest of the band play to to the drummer. We use it to keep in sync with the pre-recorded keyboards, sound effects and backing vocals. As part of The Terrortones preparation for going into the studio to record we would practice all the tracks with and without a click. Those that required a constant steady tempo would be recorded to a click track, those that sounded wrong when regimented in this way and relied on tempo fluctuations to maintain the correct feel would be done without.

I know your comment wasn't completely serious, but in 40+ years of playing in bands I've never once come across this attitude outside of this forum (i.e. in real life).

The great thing about the Helix > FRFR set up is that it can be as much or as little as the band/song requires. Because of the way the Helix works only those modules that are in the signal chain and actually switched on have any effect on the sound. I have one patch that is essentially just a volume control and nothing else. On that one apart from the A to D and D to A conversion at the input and output, there is no signal processing going on at all - not even the baked in sound that all bass amps have. And price isn't everything. The list price of the amp it replaced in my old rig was double that of the Helix.

Absolutely not. Apart form Public Image it's been the best track on this playlist so far.

Actually I'm only using an amp sim on two of my patches and then it's as an "effect". I haven't found the need for any of the cab sims yet.

A Sad Lovers And Giants track came up on my Spotify recommended for me playlist today!

I've gone for a simple setup too. Bass > Line6 Helix > RCF745 FRFR. Job done.

Does a bass cab really go lower than a good quality FRFR? It might look like it on paper, but you have to remember that most of what we perceive below 40Hz is implied by the harmonics being generated and not by the fundamental itself because most cabs simply aren't cable of reproducing these frequencies at any great volume. My Line6 Helix into a single RCF745 has replaced the huge Tech Soundsystems and EBS rig that I was previously using. With the RCF745 set up as a wedge the opportunities for positioning and dispersion on stage are superior to what I was getting previously which means lower on-stage volumes; and the new set up occupies about a quarter of the van space.

I must be lucky as I've never experienced anything remotely like the scenarios described here. I played with some "interesting" people in my early bands, but back then I was barely competent on any of the instruments I played, so I wasn't really in a position to criticise anyone else's shortcomings in terms of musicality or personality. Besides it was era of punk and post-punk and having characters in your band was almost a requirement. It certainly didn't hurt the chances of my first two bands both of which managed to do pretty well with limited ability and to a certain extent limited ambition. Since then I've been careful about which ads I answer and how I describe myself when advertising, and have only had positive experiences. The Terrortones had a couple of less than appropriate drummers audition but that was mostly due to our original drummer being one of those extremely talented musicians who made everything he played look easy even when it wasn't, and the fact that we thought the auditioning drummers were just being overly modest about their abilities (they weren't).

I wouldn't touch any software that needs iLok with a bargepole.

But did deleting the quote box require me to click the "+" sign first or had the panel that allowed me to remove my saved post just not loaded the first time?

If I was playing in a band like that I'd have light-weight fold-flat Ampeg SVT and Fridge façade to go in front of my FRFR.

LaBella Steels have black silk wraps.

"Better" tone is always subjective. "Fuller" tone might well not be appropriate in a band mix as it will likely be fighting with other instruments for sonic space. Also how long did you spend experimenting with the various parameter on the Helix before deciding the "real" amp sounded better? IME it takes at least a couple of rehearsals to get the sounds dialled in so that they work in the context of the band. What sounds as though it is going to work when played on its own at home at practice volumes is going to need more editing when you play it at rehearsal/gig volumes with the other instruments in the mix. I'm still tweaking some of my sounds. They get better each time. And very few of my Helix patches have an amp sim in the signal chain and none so far have a cab sim. After all an amplifier is just some tone controls in front of circuitry that can drive a loud speaker to the required volume, and all bass amps and cabs are colouring your sound in one way or another. So on the Helix all you need is some tone shaping that works in a pleasing way to your ears and allows the bass to sound the way you want it and you are set. Whether this is a stand-alone tone module or the tone shaping within an amp sim is irrelevant.

About a week ago I was in the middle of answering a post in a thread, when I had to do something else and never got around to finishing my answer. By the time I got back to the thread the conversation had moved on and my answer was no longer relevant, so I left it. Today I wanted to reply to a new post in the thread. When I try to do this I find that my unfinished answer from last time has been helpfully saved at the point I left off, and is displayed ready finish. As I don't need this anymore I try to delete my old unfinished post. All the text from both my new post and the post I was quoting can be deleted without any problem. However the "Quote box" is left in place without any obvious way of getting rid of it. It can't be highlighted. I've tried pretty much every combination of Control, Command, Option and Shift while clicking on it without success. Under the old version of the forum this would have been easy. I could have activated "plain text mode" from the switch above the post field and all the quote code would have been revealed and simple to delete. Since this function is not available in the new version of the forum, there appears to be no way of removing all the quote information. Any ideas? EDIT: Sorted. When I went back to the thread for another look, after clicking on the "+" symbol above the empty quote, a panel appeared beneath the post entry field giving me the option of clearing my previous post. This had definitely not be there the first time I looked. Whether that is just a glitch or that is how the forum software works I don't know.

So you can do it quickly silently at a gig. There's nothing more irritating or amateur than the tuning song.

Taken to it's logical conclusion you'd need to be using a single pickup bass with no tone control direct into an FRFR amp/cab. Of course if the PA plays a significant role in your FoH sound then it's all irrelevant, since the engineer will be applying EQ and compression at the desk.

The more instruments I can play, the better I can understand their role when composing/writing songs.

Are there any non-Bluetooth wireless headphones? They would have to be either WiFi or analogue. IMO analogue consumer wireless always needs companding to get the signal to noise ratio down to acceptable levels. This is going to play havoc when listening to multiple sources.

I can't help but think that all this "wrong bass" nonsense is down to "badge envy". It only seems to affect those who play Fender-style basses. There's no big mystery for how to make a Fender bass - their simplicity and ease of construction was one of their main selling points and is what originally made them affordable. As the basic designs have been largely unchanged for over 50 years, it really shouldn't be any surprise that other manufacturers can make a similar bass better and cheaper than Fender. In fact the big surprise is why one with a Fender logo on it is now so expensive.

My favourite is on the Electrix Mo-Fx. It's been discontinued so you'll have to find a second hand one.

If it's the one you like playing and it fits visually and sonically with the band then it's not the wrong bass.