BigRedX

Late to report but I've been in Whitby for the April Goth Weekend. We played the Shadow Factory event at The Crafty Cove on Friday night with bright new things Social Youth Cult and local stars Westenra. Sold out gig which wasn't that surprising given the line-up. The Crafty Cove is an interesting venue, being a shop during the day and a night club in the evening. When we arrived to load in they were still putting all the clothing racks away. Sound checks nearly over-ran mostly because Social Youth Cult had been told that backline would be provided and then discovered that what was in the venue wasn't very suitable and neither us or Westenra use any that they could have borrowed. Finally got everything sorted minutes before the doors opened. Despite the sound check hiccups Social Youth Cult were even better than when I saw them in October and their sound is veering towards Bauhaus rather than their previous Joy Division heavy influences. It could have been a hard act to follow but I think we managed it. There were some interesting glitches: I managed to hit my bass so hard during the breakdown in "Adore Me" that the wireless transmitter dropped out of the jack socket. Luckily I spotted it before someone trod on it and was able to plug it back in only missing the first bar of the next verse. Our singer forget all the lyrics to the first verse of "Tilting" and the foot switch for the backing was doing some weird things that required manual intervention at the computer. Despite all of that we went down really well and sold an unfeasible amount of T-shirts and CDs including loads of copies of our brand new single "Robert Smith's Eyes". Obligatory photos: Next gig is Carpe Noctum on 10th May at The Lending Room in Leeds supporting Faces Of Sarah.

I suspect your backing had been put through a rarely used channel on a digital desk which had previous been used for something that needed to be aggressively band-passed. We've encountered this a few times, and re-setting the EQ on the channel in question to flat has always sorted it out.

IME unless it's for noodling at home only, or you have the budget for something expensive with a very large body you are going to have to use it with amplification. This brings with it all the issues of handling noise and depending on the volume required possibly also feedback. Also a lot of the less expensive "acoustic" basses don't sound that great when amplified. I agree that image could be an important factor here, but on the few occasions that I have played "acoustic" gigs I've just used a decent short-scale solid body bass with the treble rolled off and it sounded fine. If image was more important I'd look for a cheap hollow-body with magnetic pickups.

I think that much of the problem with modern electronics with surface mount components is that while they can in theory be repaired at a component level, this is no longer possible for your typical hobbyist with some electrical knowledge and a soldering iron.

We've just had to turn down two potentially very good gigs in May and July due to prior commitments which is a pity. However we do have following now confirmed: 25th April: Whitby Goth Weekend, The Cove, Whitby 10th May: Carpe Noctum, The Lending Room, Leeds 24th May: Re:Vamped Weekend, 1 In 12 Club, Bradford 25th May: Dot To Dot Festival, The Chapel, Nottingham 12th July: Goths On A Field, Bridge Farm, Ellesmere 14th August: Twisted Firestarter (Infest Warm Up), Rebellion, Manchester And several more lined up between now and the end of August that I'm not allowed to announce yet. We also have our next single out on Friday 25th April on all streaming and download platforms and as a limited edition CD that can be bought at our gigs.

The neck and bridge/tailpiece are almost certainly from a Kay/Top Twenty bass. I wonder if the body is off something like a Futurama where pickups were part of the scratch plate and didn't need routing into the body?

I don't get this. I play originals and my band could be out almost every weekend if we took everything that was offered and our synth player didn't have family commitments. As it is we have at least two gigs a month for the next 4 months. In between gigs we are writing and rehearsing new songs or recording for our album.

I use it on one song. It occurs in a section of minimal instrumentation where the bass is doing the main part and it took at lot of tweaking in the rehearsal room to get the right balance of all the parameters. I wouldn't fancy doing it without a programmable multi-effects unit as the distortion setting are completely different to the ones I use without the reverb.

Can you not make it less bright using the tone controls on your amp?

Basically ever since electronic devices stopped being made solely with discrete components and moved over to ICs everything has the potential to become obsolete, and even then you're not safe. These days there are a limited number of valve manufacturers and many of them are in countries we probably shouldn't be doing business with. There's also the problem of improved quality of modern components which may now be too good to be suitable replacements in vintage gear to relies on the fact that it was built with components from the 60s and 70s that have 10-15% tolerance and a modern <5% tolerance component will make it sound different. And of course when that component fails it is no longer possible to find out other than by trial and error what the actual value was. As has been said already don't buy equipment that doesn't do what you want out of the box on the promise of some future update that may never materialise. I've done this once and won't do it again. A very expensive digital mixer that had several dedicated front panel controls that did nothing other than bring up a message saying that their function would be implemented at a future date. That didn't happen. However those functions that were there when I bought it carried on working for over 20 years and I can't complain about that. I've been working with digital music equipment for over 45 years now and have plenty of time to get used to the fact that once one of these devices stops working it will either be impossible or too expensive and take too long to fix. I have now moved most of my high-tech gear into my computer and only buy from one manufacturer. I have no plug-in incompatibilities because apart from two I only use those that come with my DAW (Logic) and while they are convenient neither are essential.

Fair enough. I don't really get on with the J-Bass shape, whilst it's not as clunky as the P it still feels too big. And I've never worked out what was so special about the Sadowsky pre-amp. I once spent a very pleasant morning at the Sadowsky workshop/showroom when they were still in Brooklyn playing all their 5-string demo models, and IMO every single one sounded better to me with the pre-amp turned off. Also none of the 5-string models played as well as the basses I was using at the the time - Overwater Original and Gus G3.

I had the Sony 2.4 system which, IIRC, when it came out was very highly regarded. Unfortunately after two instances where the connection dropped in the middle of a gig and I had to resort to using a cable I couldn't trust it any more. On both occasions the disconnection, as I discovered later, occurred due to the transmitter changing channels for no apparent reason. The only contributing factor I could think of was that at these gigs the FoH sound was being mixed wirelessly from a tablet. Not a definitely reason but too much of a co-incidence for me to consider using the system when the mix was being done this way. After a handful of gigs with similar mix situations where I decided not to risk it, I stopped taking the wireless system to gigs and when I rebuilt my rig it was removed completely. I've been using a 5.8 system for a year now without any issues. I was also under the impression that 5.8 system supported a lot more simultaneous devices over 2.4 before you run into bandwidth and connectivity problems hence the improved reliability, rather than a paucity of phone users with 5.8 devices in the audience.

I had the same problem with a 5-string Original and the truss-rod cover that Overwater sent was a completely different shape to the one I needed. IMO any non-textured black plastic of a similar thickness will be fine.

Is that really a problem in the sorts of places most of us play? I would have thought that the interference from all the WiFi devices in the 2.4 band would be far more problematic. I've owned both 2.4 and 5.8 wireless systems and the 5.8 has been far more reliable. The only reason I'd have for line of sight to be blocked would be if our singer stood in between me and the receiver and I would hope that a single human body wouldn't be a problem. I've used the 5.8 system on some fairly large stages where having a wireless system allowed me to move about more than if I'd been using a cable and again no problems. I think if I was going to be playing places where the 5.8 range might be a limitation I'd hopefully be in a situation where I could buy into a proper professional wireless system. At least the 5.8 hasn't changed channels randomly causing the sound to cut out mid-way through a gig

It's all very well saying that but when the many of the UK builders are Producing instruments that bear more than a passing resemblance to Fenders and Gibsons, what's the point. You might as well buy from the manufacturer that came up with the idea in the first place. Whilst Overwater will still make something that resembles their Original shape bass to special order the majority of their instruments these days are essentially super J-basses, and have Gordon Smith ever produced an instrument that isn't copy of something American?

Obvious. It's a short scale Woolies Special that's been stripped, de-fretted and then fitted with a mudbucker and a damaged Strat scratch plate. What else do you need to know? The case looks quite nice.

Much the same as the rest of the year. Personally I don't like festivals much and I don't think the English weather is particularly suitable for them unless they are held indoors. We have one outdoor event in the 2025 calendar but it does have an indoor location should the weather turn bad, and I have relations living close by so I'll be staying with them rather than mingling with the great unwashed while I'm not actually on stage.

Well done!

So, as long as you can compensate for temperature instability, Oct/Volt is a more sensible method to use?

He can play other people's music, how do you think covers bands exist? He just can't pass it off as his own.

That's a pity. In the 80s getting all the CV and gate synthesisers and other devices to talk to each other was a nightmare. We had stuff from Korg - Hz/Volt CV and S-Trig Gate and Roland - Oct/Volt CV and various different trigger voltages from +4 to +15 volts depending on the device and trigger output. Luckily we discovered that although the Korg was Hz/Volt for the keyboard interface the modulation inputs were Oct/Volt, and you could turn a +ve trigger into an S-Trig with a simple resistor and transistor circuit that fitted in the body of a 1/4" jack plug. We also had a home-made device that allowed us to synchronise clock and start/stop functions of the Roland MC202 and Yamaha RX11. We were more than grateful when MIDI came along and swept all this rubbish away. I would have hoped that all the manufacturers could have standardised on one CV scaling and a minimum +ve trigger value for all new and re-issued kit, but obviously that's far too sensible. Is there any advantage of using Hz/Volt for CV and S-Trig over the other methods?

Out of interest have Behringer taken the opportunity to standardise the analogue interface specifications of all their re-issues? If so which spec? Or are we still left with two different standards of CV scaling and a variety of different trigger types and sensitivity levels? I did have a look at a couple of downloadable manuals but they seems to have neglected to supply this information.

Why not?

I had exactly the same experience with another Washburn. I swapped out the stock pickups and pre-amp for a set of very expensive EMGs that were about half as much as the bass originally cost. I couldn't detect any difference in sound before and after at all. So either the original pickups were very good or the difference in sounds between pickups or the same form-factor is less than the manufacturers of after-market pickups would like us to believe.

IMO there is nothing intrinsically special about musicians and live music, unless you have absolutely no filter. Appreciation of music is entirely subjective and I personally do not want to be subjected to music I don't like. One of reasons I am a musician and composer is so that I can move the balance of music I like and music I don't like very slightly closer to music I do like.