BigRedX

The Squier Jazz Bass I had was definitely thinner than standard, because I had to route an extra millimetre or two out of the control cavity to get a J-Retro Pre-amp to fit.

To me that seems completely counter-intuitive. The D and G strings go under the a string retainer, so you only need enough string the anchor it properly to the machine head which is 2 full turns around the post. Any more will mean the string takes longer to settle stretch out, as the length of string around the machine head post takes longer to settle down than the rest. The more string wrapped around the post the longer tuning instability lasts with new strings. However the E and A strings need have more turns around the post to get the correct break angle over the nut, and in this case two turns is not enough. The actual amount will depend on the post diameter and the thickness of the string.

Having had another listen it could possibly be a Korg VCF pedal which has a combination of an envelope follower and a manual pedal for controlling the cut-off frequencies. It's a long time since I last used mine but it produced a similar flanging effect with the right settings and playing plus pedal technique. However, I think it is stillest likely to be a Bass Balls. Again with the right settings and a compressor it could be set so it only re-triggered when you really dig into a note.

Thanks! It's part of a set of illustrations I did of my band to go on the back of the CD copy of our latest single "Robert Smith's Eyes" The CD version has added googly eyes to match what I did on the front cover: And as we're a post-punk/goth influenced band the 80s look was very appropriate.

Instead of wasting vast amounts of computing power on AI-generated images, you could go old school and actually draw something. Here's an illustration I did of me.

Thanks both of you. However as I always say great gig photos are just as much down to having a good photographer, good lighting and not too much clutter in the "stage" area as they are to the band looking and acting interesting when they perform.

Could be an EHX Bass Balls?

Works in Firefox, Opera and Chrome on the Mac. Not in Safari. IIRC Safari now offers some fairly aggressive anti-tracking facilities, so it might be those that are preventing the images from showing.

So would The Chameleon in Nottingham if it was still going. Almost impossible to get to in motor vehicle that wasn't a bus or taxi, and when you did there was no where close to park unless you wanted to risk putting it on the pavement while you unloaded as fast as possible. Then it was down a narrow alleyway and up two flights of steep, dimly-lit stairs to the venue itself.

IME for angled headstocks and strings that go under retainers to set the break angle you want roughly 2 full turns around the machine head post which is 8-9cm from the centre of the post to the cut point depending on the post diameter. For non-angled headstocks where the break angle over the nut is determined by how far down the post the winds go you want as many as will fit comfortably on the post which is normally about 4 complete turns. Also IME it is completely impossible to get the silk ends to line up no matter what bass you are stringing so I no longer worry about this.

We're getting there, but there's not the gigs or money being offered for us to be out every weekend at the moment, plus our synth player has family commitments. That means we are trying to stick to gigs that will put us in front of new potentially receptive audiences. However we've made enough from T-shirt sales in the last 6 months to pay for a decent run of CDs when the album is finished.

I can't see any of the images. The two that are dl=1 show a broken link and the other two nothing.

Thanks! We've been toying with the idea of a vinyl version of the album, but as we'll be funding it completely ourselves, it's difficult to justify the cost when it's 2-4 times more expensive than CDs depending on the quantity and packaging. And as I said previously I still have 300 copies of the Terrortones album that right now are unsellable, plus the fact that for our audience CD still seems to be the most popular format.

That's excellent. Can I be cheeky and ask you who you are using for the CD and vinyl production, how many of each you are having done and what it is costing? You can PM me if you don't want to share that info in public.

Probably equally through gigs supporting better known bands and being on popular streaming playlists. Both require that we spend time doing promotion and research so that promotion is effectively targeted. From a gigging PoV we have made a conscious decision that we are not interested in "headlining" and that a support is far more valuable to us. As a result about half the gigs we have done recently have been to capacity audiences either due to the popularity of the headline act or the overall combination of bands on the bill. It also helps that the band fit into a genre with an enthusiastic and dedicated audience. We're now starting to see people wearing our T-shirts at gigs (and not just ones where we are playing). On-line, it's all about getting on popular playlists and pushing each new release on social media, without coming across as "spamming". It's a delicate balancing act. However we currently have a handful of songs that get around 40 streams a day, and more importantly new people following the band, saving the songs and adding them to their personal playlists.

My band has worked the other way. You can only purchase one of our CDs by actually coming to a gig, and both of the CDs were are currently selling have "bonus features". "Lost Souls" includes a remix of one of our most popular songs that is only available by buying the CD, and "Robert Smith's Eyes" has special packaging that can't be replicated by an on-line image. It's a strategy that appears to be working. We expect to sell out of "Lost Souls" after the next 2-3 gigs and after 2 gigs we've sold almost a third of the copies of "Robert Smith's Eyes". Currently we are not selling physical copies of either single on line, mostly because the P&P even in the UK would double the cost of the CD. We may reconsider when our album is released, but until then if you want a physical copy you need to come to one of our gigs. However as I have already said, you need to tailor your releases to what your audience wants. Our audience are still into buying CDs so they are worth producing.

Just to be contrary here: I'm a Helix user and do the bulk of my programming using HX edit on the computer. The Presets and Snapshots are fine-tuned from the Helix controls in the rehearsal room once I see how they work (or not) with the rest of the band playing. In anticipation of this I make sure that any parameter that I might want to alter is already assigned to the "Snapshot" setting so that changing it only changes the setting for a particular snapshot and not the whole Preset. That way I can fine-tune the Snapshots for a new song after a couple of run-throughs.

Anything that you still have significant quantities of after the band has become defunct is always going to be somewhat depressing. I still have about 300 copies of The Terrortones album, on vinyl, that I have very little chance of selling now, but due to the amount of money and effort I put into it, I'm loathe to chuck the unsold copies away. They'll continue to take up a large amount of storage space until I next move house at which stage they'll almost certainly go in the bin. (And shortly afterwards someone well-known will give an interview saying how much that like it and how it has been an influence on their music!)

So what have you gone with? BTW the double press problem with my AirTurn appears to have been solved by wearing shoes with less flexible soles.

Played The Lending Room in Leeds on Saturday supporting The Faces Of Sarah. It's a decent-sized venue with a great PA and lighting system, but is upstairs from a student pub. Every time, no matter what time of year, I have been here, the pub downstairs has been rammed full of students all in fancy dress getting very drunk. It's a complete contrast to the audience upstairs. A slightly smaller crowd than usual, but still very appreciative. Plenty of people down the front dancing. Fewer problems than two weeks ago. The footswitch problem appears to have been solved by a different choice of footwear and the wireless bug stayed firmly attached to my bass. However our singer managed to forget the words to the second verse of a different song to last time. Still sold a decent amount of T-shirts and CDs afterwards. We're close to selling out of copies of "Lost Souls", we have two gigs coming up in a fortnight's time and after those they may well all be gone. As usual gig photos courtesy of Oh My Goth: Next gigs are in two week's time first on Saturday 24th May in Bradford at the 1-12 Club as part of the ReVamped event and then on Sunday 25th in Nottingham at The Chapel as part of the Dot-To-Dot Festival.

Thanks! The remix has gone down almost as well as the original so we're looking for someone to do an "industrial" remix of the next single. As for the Vivian Westwood shirt, it's a "modern" re-issue bought about 10 years ago.

But the size and number of drivers in a cab are only part of the overall sound of the cab. Every cab I have ever owned has sounded different. Even when I've owned cabs by different manufacturers that had the same combination of drivers in them they sounded very different. Not surprising really considering that the cabs were all different sizes and the drivers while being the same diameter had different technical specifications. So why do we keep defining the sound of a cab by the number and size of drivers it contains?

Thanks. The illustration was based on two photos, one where I liked the expression and the other which captured the "hair" better. I did a Google image search on the finished version (before I added the googly eyes) and neither of the inspiration photos showed up, so I considered that a job well done. I also did illustrations of the band in the same style to go on the back cover...

Probably somewhere in between...

IME no ethernet cable is as robust as a good quality Jack or XLR lead. I have jack and XLR cables that I made myself in the 90s which have been in use continually for gigs and rehearsals over the past 30 years that are still going strong, whereas the best ethernet cable in a similar environment lasted about 12 months. As you have discovered the typical office ethernet cable is completely unsuited to the rigours of gigging. It's designed to connect a device to a wall-socket in an office and never be touched again until the device is replaced. In the days when I was using a rack mounted BassPod with the Floorboard footswitch unit I was going through a cable every 2-3 weeks. Eventually I bought two very expensive Van Damme coil-able ethernet leads with heavy duty shrouds on the plugs which were supposedly designed for gig use. Each of these lasted about a year at which point they would stop being coil-able and then fail very shortly afterwards. Luckily for me the failure of the second cable coincided with me replacing the BassPod with a Helix Floor. I deliberately chose the floor version of the Helix so I wouldn't have to deal with ethernet cables in a gig situation again. A coil-able cable with heavy duty shrouds would be the minimum spec I would go for and I would always carry a spare. As soon as your lead shows any sign of less than 100% reliability chuck it in the bin and buy a replacement. Be aware that plugs with some of the chunkier shrouds do not always fit snugly in some sockets, but the locking mechanism on un-shrouded plugs will break with moderate use rendering the connection unreliable. If I was using ethernet cables ideally I'd like them to be fitted with EtherCon plugs, but they only work if your equipment is also fitted with the corresponding EtherCon sockets and for some reason very little supposedly gig-worthy equipment with ethernet connections has these.