BigRedX

Are these being sold by Baz from The Doghouse venue?

You should be able to do via the MIDI socket.

As a punter I don't think I'd want to see ANY originals band play for 2 hours. I'd find it unbearably boring. Even bands I've liked for years that have 4 or 5 albums (at least) of decent material to draw upon, would be hard work after the first hour.

The Sound of the Fairlight like lots of electronic musical equipment is a product of the technology not being completely up the demands being placed upon it. The original version had 8-bit sampling with half a second maximum sample time was completely down to the fact that it was the best the technology of the day could achieve. Peter Vogel even had to design and build his own D-A converter from discrete components because there was nothing available off the shelf back then. In many ways it has parallels with guitar amplification. None of the designers of the original guitar amps wanted distortion. They did everything they could to minimise it, but now of course almost every guitarist wants that overdriven valve sound and guitar amps are deliberately designed to allow this.

Have a look at The History Of Japanese Electric Guitars. However a quick skim through my copy hasn't revealed any that are obviously 34" scale. TBH part of that 60s garage band sound is short scale bass.

Is there any ergonomic rationale for shape of the the Tensor?

The Fender P shape only looks right because you've had years to get used to it.

Two accounts? One for what you really want to listen to and another for stuff you need to learn.

I'm not surprised that the G doesn't fit. IME 5 a side headstocks are cumbersome enough, I can't imagine one attached to a 36" scale bass. My Overwaters were all 4+1 layout, and the headstock was still slightly compressed from the standard Fender size, to make everything a comfortable reach.

Not helped by the fact that on any of the songs with piano, the keys left hand is doing the standard solid bass line, leaving the bass guitar the noodle about in the space between the keyboards and guitars. Unless your band is replicating the keyboard parts exactly, I've found the best way to get the song sounding even close to the recording is start by emulating the keys left hand and then add as many of the bass guitar licks as you can while still keeping it solid at the bottom end.

Surely it's all sequenced synth - probably done on something simple like a Roland Bassline?

But that's the way it always is with high tech musical devices. If you want to be at the cutting edge you have to pay a comparative fortune. If you are content to wait and just be a "me too" you can buy in for next to nothing. Of course by then unless you happen to be a complete genius or happen to stumble upon some brand new way of using it that no-one else has exported so far, you'll have been left behind creatively. I had a look at the App Store page for the CMI. I can't say that it impressed me in the same way that the E&MM review of the Fairlight CMI in the early 80s did.

What's the machine head arrangement of your bass?

Do I need to download the new version of the HX Edit software separately? EDIT: sorted. I did need to download the most recent version of the editor, and finally managed to work out where it was in the big list of updates for the Helix.

Intersteing interview with Kim Ryrie and Peter Vogel founders of Fairlight Instruments, talking about the development of the Fairlight CMI and other projects they have been involved with. Over 90 minutes long but well worth the time to listen (you don't really need to watch the video, it's all static headshots).

Thanks! All sorted now. Now I know what to do it's easy, but IMO Line6 really don't make it very intuitive. I just searched for Helix software and downloaded the latest version. There's nothing on the page to tell you that you need the Line 6 Updater application as well. That should be at the top of the Helix (and any other product that requires it) downloads page, so newbie like me know what to do. I didn't need to back anything up because I've not made any changes to any of the programs yet. I thought I'd make sure that the software was up to date first.

As you have revealed the results would you care to "disclose my thoughts on the “tonewood” subject" now?

Just been able to find the time do to some serious Helix programming, but I thought I run the updates first as I'm still on 2.21 which is what mine came with. So I go to the Helix site and download the latest version - 2.53 - but it's a .hxf file and my Mac doesn't know what to do with it. I thought the updaters were stand-alone programs? Have I got the right file? If so what should I do with it? If not what should I be downloading? Why is the process so unintuitive?

The 745 is lighter than the 735 too.

Two and a half grand for a Strat? With the wrong headstock and a missing vibrato spring cover. PRS are having a laugh.

Unfortunately the retailer had gone out of business quite a while before the mixer started playing up. I'm just glad I hadn't paid the full list price of £7k. In the end I think it lasted for about 15 years before it packed in altogether, but it had been developing various niggles on top of the incomplete software for about 3 years before that. My analog mixer it was bought to replace is still going strong after almost 30 years.

I hate to be a party pooper, but even though you are not selling the track you are still on dodgy ground having this track available on Bandcamp. Part of the terms and conditions you agreed to when uploading your recordings to Bandcamp (you did read all the terms and conditions didn't you?) is that you own all the relevant rights to the recordings. So unless you have obtained the appropriate PRS/MCPS licence for these covers you are in breach of your Bandcamp agreement.

Having sprayed stuff with rattle cans before, I would get anything new I wanted doing sprayed professionally. By the time I'd organised a suitable dust-free space to do the spraying in, bought the paint and ancillary equipment like masks/ventilators etc. and spent the time spraying and sanding many times before I got I even close to a finish that I would be happy with, I might as well have paid for a proper professional job. Martin Sims has done the finish on 2 of my basses, and I wouldn't hesitate to use him again.

But unless your instrument is made from non-traditional materials (not wood) or has a generally unusual design, those "options" such as fancy woods and electronics are the USP. Otherwise again we might as well all be buying and playing Squiers.

I doubt I'll ever buy another TASCAM product again. My very expensive digital mixer never got most the promised software updates, so many of the functions remained inoperative. When it started behaving erratically TASCAM wanted an inordinate amount of money to just look at it while simultaneously saying that they would be unlikely to be able to fix it. They wouldn't even give me a hint as to where the memory backup battery might be located so I could have a go at eking a few more years of life out of it. Getting a full set of schematics was completely out of the question - even though I was prepared to pay for them.