redbandit599

Right. I shall resist and maintain my usual state of blissful ignorance and leave the complex and mystical, infernal machinations of boxes that go zzzz to the properly qualified 'Afuzzianados.' That was a close call, I'm off to smoke some crack to ease my nerves (Have you tried crack? I hear it's rather moreish.)

Woah! Lots of squiggly lines there! Looks like some kind of fiendish maze for a lab rat. I'll just have to rely on a bit of trail and error I think.

Cheers Graeme! Sounds like you had fun. I hadn't noticed much difference with my two fuzzes (big muff and a pickle pie other than it just sounding a bit 'better' (hard to quantify I know) with my Sandberg in passive. But, I didn't really play about with the volume control. The missus is away on a course tomorrow so I anticpate some sonic experimentation tomorrow night! I notice that you mention '2 transistor' type fuzzes working this way. How can you tell which ones are built like that? Cheers Jason

I had a Unibass for a while, it worked as described and tracked well etc. Just sounded a bit synthetic, better when I ran it through the PA and and outboard amp sim pedal, but still not great. The octave and fuzz thing seems pretty close when I've tried it. Operative 451, your rig sounds close to what I was thinking of, though a bit more complex. I thought maybe about just line out from the bass rig to the extra amp and have a mute switch for that amp. Cheers all

Hi Graeme Interesting! That makes sense, look forward to hearing what you experiments through up. I've got a Sandberg too (and keep torturing myself by configuring different VM4s on that damned Configurator!) so I'm assuming this your results on this will probably reflect what I should expect. Cheers Jason

Hi all I'm full of questions lately (probably because I bashed my left hand falling of my bike and have to rest it!) Anyhow, I'm no pedal expert and don't really understand how they work etc, but I like playing about with them. I've read that some fuzzes don't like active basses and that this is due to the impedance (I think that's right) being different between active and passive signals. As every active bass I've ever had has been switchable is the solution to the issue just to switch to passive if you want to use fuzz in a song, or am I missing the point somewhere? Cheers Jason

Hi all First up, I'm not planning on doing this anytime soon.There's two guitarists in one of my bands and three in the other, but to be honest I'd prefer playing with one in which case I may consider this approach for during solos and heavy bits. But I've often wondered what it'd be like to split my signal and switch it occassionally into a small guitar combo (as well as maintaining the 'normal' bass rig.) I've seen a few pro players with what looks like something like this set up. Just interested if anyone has ever played around with it, and if so if it was any good and how you did it? Cheers Jason

Don't load your gear into a pub with the lights off if the landlord has a large dog that isn't house trained......

You can have quite a bit of cheap fun with a Digitech Bass Synth Wah. May not be the master of any of it's trades but if you only want a bit of 'difference' every now and then it's good. I flick between the settings for little bits on certain songs, the octave tracks ok, the filter/wah sound is good enough for the average punter to think "that sounds funky" and even a couple of the synth patches get used for a bit of a fuzzy drone on some intros for me. Probably not essential but a useful toy. Even my drummer likes it!

I've got a set of his signature flats on my Warwick at present, they are really high tension strings. Quite nice though.

Acoustics and a cajon eh? I quite like the sound of that. I used to badger our drummer about getting one but he never seemed keen (Andy, if you're reading this I might start again! - I've sent the link out to my mates in the band.) The common theme is that there seems to be many solutions to the 'problem' just need to try a few out probably, I think to be honest we haven't changed our approach since we first started and maybe we can get a bit more flexible to maximise our time. Cheers all, good ideas. Hope others are getting something from this too.

Good tips here. Bob, at the risk of asking dumb questions can you just clarify your headphone set up please? I've got the all amps turned low/off and effects into the mixer bit, just not quite clear on the output to the head phone amps? Do you need some means of splitting the outputs from the mixer (presume you can use the monitor out and usual signal outs) so that they can then go to six headphone amps? Be great to know what those cheap headphone amps actually are too. Cheers all!

I've thought of tapping up church halls, not sure they'd approve of some of our material though! Highway to Hell blasting out may send the wrong mesaage to the congregation....

Yep, what's the secret to these home practices? I get the electronic drum kit bit, but how does a guitarist (especially) cope? Never had much call to di or anything before, do they just run their effects into a di then into the board? Both my guitarists have valve heads so I need a convicing approach to give them what they need in terms of drive etc.

Electronic kits seem to be a good call. I'm intrigued by this headphone/monitor approach though, does it just mean di ing guitars etc into a mixer and then splitting off headphones somehow? If we could make that work somehow then I've potentially got a room or garage we could use (but not leave set up.) Assuming the drummer splashes on a electronic kit too!

Hi xgsjx (Nigel, I think isn't it?) Yep, that's pretty much what we can do, except weird shifts means that we can't have a regular practice night. Also the studios near us (although I'm very grateful they exist) have quite pokey rooms really. I agree, best and pereferable to practice with your own kit and actually this would make more space in these rooms. One of them has an 810 in it for Pete's sake! Leschirons, that sounds ideal, even if I got the logs out of my shed I don't think we'd all squeeze in though . Space chick, just clocked your rugby club venue, haven' tapped up sports clubs so that may be worth a try, cheers!

Wow, Stockholm sounds like the place to be! Bit of a trek from Essex though... Maude, that basement sounds cool (and a bit like Fight Club...) how did you find it?

Hi all I've seen some people on here mention their 'practice space', which sounds very professional, but it got me thinking. Where do you guys get together to practice, we have our own vocal PA so can sometimes get in a couple of local village halls (when the WI aren't using them etc.) We sometimes use rehearsal studios in Colchester, which do the job and I'm very glad that they are there, but they aren't an entirely pleasant experience (I'm sure that there is a sweaty punk band that preceeds all of our sessions here...) and have quite small rooms. So, do any of you have any alternative arrangements? Is there some mysterious other option that I've never encountered? Is the mysterious 'practice space' just a bit of luck that one of the band has garage going spare or something? Cheers! Jason

Another +1 for the Lomenzo, I 'rediscovered' mine last night and it's very good and very flexible.

Just dropped you a PM, I've got a nice Pickle Pie B you can have for a £100 if you decide on giving on of these a whirl.

The X Factor is a part of the music business, but with the BUSINESS element writ large and I think that's why it isn't pretty to people like us who (probably by and large ) aren't that keen on that aspect anyway and put the music first. But you know what we (broadly) just don't fit the demographic that that the marketing dept is trying to hit, we probably don't download many singles, we probably don't buy boy/girl band t-shirts, we may experience a vague sense of guilt/loss after spending Saturday night in front of the telly, we record programs we want to watch and fast forward through the adverts.... You know what the marketing guys have got it right, so it's not for me and I don't watch it. Not everything on telly or in society has to suit everyone. If you don't like it, well you're probably not meant to. But I don't want designer clothes or buy a new football strip every two months to fund a footballers new Lamborghini either. (Though that Sandberg configurator is a demonic invention that tempts me in my times of weakness ) Us raging against it may even be part of the marketeers devious plan. Let 'em get on with it and save your rage for when you really need it.