Dave Tipping

I started out with a American P bought for $600 brand new in a shop in Vegas ... It's still the only bass I've owned. I'm actually dying to get another bass .. as a back up on stage .. but mainly down to GAS. Every single time I've taken my p to a shop to try out basses .. even when I've had the cash in my wallet .. I've walked away as I know I'd never use it. I'm at the stage now of just buying a second hand bass off here without trying it .. just so I've got a back up. Part of me thinks I should just save up a bit of dosh and get another p ... Having said that I'd be cheaper flying to America buying it there and flying back than walking down to my local music store.

Offft! If my current band had a roadie I suspect my rig would look similarly monsterous! Very nice man.

.... opens door dressed in full gimp gear, looks at the lads with their Velcro ... I'll get my coat.

To quote one of the dragons .... "I'm out"

Def. Take a few months off ... But don't let it go more than that. Stick a date in your diary to start something new. I've been through this a number off times, the first time ended up bandless for years and my playing really suffered. At the end of last summer same thing again but I put the feelers out after a couple of weeks of leaving. About 6 weeks later I'd found something much better and due to me having just left the 'circuit' the band new of the previous band (had actually seen me play a number of times) so I didn't need to audition etc.. was just given a couple of CDs and left to get on with it.

1: 100%
2: No.

If you are in a covers band and you are trying to accurately reproduce a variety of bass sounds I'd find it pretty impossible without any fx. You'd be surprised how many rock bands bass players use quite a lot of fx .. distortion is the obvious one, but compression, eq, chorus, octavers etc. I not talking about totally over the top .. but live a subtle dose of an effect can add loads to your sound.

Just back from a band practice .. you can't beat fitting all your effects and leads etc. in one guitar case

[IMG]http://i1105.photobucket.com/albums/h352/tony_char/b3.jpg[/IMG]

...for those interested it's a standard american p-bass case, I had to cut the polystyrene out of the bottom of the middle pocket to allow the 'flap' to close with it in place .. I spray mounted a thin piece of foam to the plastic of the case that was revealed, but the width and length of the standard pocket fits the unit like a glove.

Did you get some Codeine? Awesome stuff ... they never last quite long enough though! Wishing you a speedy recovery dude.

I was Just about to post .. Give Richard a phone he's a good guy ... he beat me to it by being a good guy.

?? what happened man. Last year was my year for hospital visits / stays .. trying to avoid them this year (apart from weekly physio for my reconstructed knee)

why? .. they look pretty cool but they get in the way. I played with one for years in my early 20's .. the more I played my bass I realised that it was getting in the way. I might still have it as well as my bridge cover if you were interested, let me try and find it first though.

I was playing with my b3 tonight a mixture of synth and two bass big muffs gave what could only be described as a "HUGE EPIC BRUTAL" sound. The great think with the b3 is the ability to layer 3 effects at the same time and do a blend with the amount of each effect .. and the overall amount of all three. IMO the simulations of all the well known pedals is very good. For the cost of one pedal you can play with 99 ... It was a no brainer for me. Gigged with mine twice so far and I've heard nothing but praise.

[quote name='dannybuoy' timestamp='1329175695' post='1538498']
Record a clean sound to your computer via usb with the B3. Then you can play that via either the headphone output on your PC or an MP3 player into the B3's input.
[/quote]

Good suggestion .. haven't bothered putting all the software onto my pc yet, stuck with just a netbook at home .. pain in the arse not having a cd drive. Any ideas where to download a clean 'direct' bass line? have looked on youtube but everything I've found is either distorted or terribly recorded.

This might not be possible .. or may simply be a crud idea, but I'm basically looking for a way to run a clean bass sound into my zoom b3 so I can dabble with effect settings with my headphones on. Ideally by sticking a sound file onto my phone on repeat and sticking it into the input .. I guess with the "active" signal button pressed? Any ideas if this will work .. I'll obviously tweek the sound to suit my own bass and amp etc.. but I fancy devising a way to play with the effects in silent.

Also any ideas where to download clean bass lines / loops for this purpose? Or better ideas altogether?

I had hoped to use the looper ..then apply the effect to the recorded loop, this doesn't appear to be possible?

The hugeness of your sound is really down to your amp or sound man if your going through a house PA ... a simple distortion pedal like the boss will add plenty of dirt to get it sounding fat and nasty without getting lost in the mix. In my experience fuzz sounds great in the house but on stage it's like somebody has turned your bass off! My wee zoom B3 has lots of distortion / bass boost / driver combinations I was able to get a massive sound in a club on sat night with a simple bit of distortion and boost .. might be an idea if you're not sure exactly what you want.

[quote name='Rumple' timestamp='1329121042' post='1537232']
maybe we could have a thread on Basschat dedicated to patch sharing?
[/quote]

Top Idea! I've not tried the software yet, love the fact you can import and export patches though

discreet you need to get playing in some better venues .. I had to kick one guy last night to stop him from jumping up with a pint .. lots of beer was getting thrown around / fights breaking out etc. so I managed to pull my zoom over to the side of the stage just before an encore of killing in the name of .. which ended up with 20 odd piss heads jumping onto the stage and leaping around like mentalists. I was probably just being over protective of my new toy but I'm not sure it would survive being jumped on, despite being fairly rugged it has got a very large screen and a fair bit of plastic on the front of it. The joys of playing in small Scottish town nightclubs!

Ok .. 1 pub gig (about 100 folk) on friday and a large club gig (500 ish people) last night ... Apart from being very nervous beer would get spilled on it .. or some tool would jump on it during a stage invasion at the end of our set last night, I've got nothing but praise for the little unit. The distortion sounds very fat (not at all digital) and the variations of chorus are great. I also had a couple of bass boost effects and a couple of eq settings which worked brilliantly. The sound guy in the place (a pretty respected local bassist) was really impressed with the sound I had which made my night. I'm not sure what to do about the beer spillage issue though .. it just seems a lot more vulnarable that my old pedal board ... Esp with a large group of drunken punters invading the stage with pints in hands! I'm probably going to get some rechargeable batts for it so I don't need it plugged in, that way I could probably kick it / pull it to the back of the stage if it's getting a bit crazy. One thing that was a massive plus last night was simply the illumination of the screen, it was a very dark nightclub stage we were on last night and it was superb being able to see my effects so clearly. Even with my relatively bad eye sight I had no probs reading the displays standing up, I'm really impressed with the tuner on the pedal as well it definitely copes with my dropped C# better than my pitchblack.
.. ok I'm going to shut up now! As before when you get the pedal don't despair at the presets .. take time to go through it and you won't be disappointed ... that said I'm only talking about when through my amp at a decent volume, not had it through headphones since the first day.

bump before the weekend ..

Just back from a full volume practice with the band .. I used 3 separate distortions all excellent (bass muff, tube screamer, and overdrive) all sounded the same as the real deals .. but with the added benefit of being able to tweak the setting and store them! ... Other than that I used two separate choruses 1 very subtle ... and one totally over the top effect for a bit of big country fields of fire .. My guitarist is not one for compliments and a bit of a gear snob ... his exact words "you f**king nailed that tone mate" . Oh and for S*ts and Giggles at the end of the practice I cranked the amp and stomped on the "bomber" .. totally useless effect but brilliant for scaring the crap out of people! Looking forward to gigging with it tomorrow .. I've also realised with a little bit of tweeking to my old P-bass hard case (basically three dents in the foam) I will be able to fit the pedal into the middle pocket which is awesome.

I think it must be... I did exactly the same thing , just played about with the effects prior to flicking through the patches. I still haven't read the instructions!

... Forgot to mention the tuner, it's great. Very fast .. not gonna bother with my pitchblack this weekend.

Ok .. quick review (as I'm about to keep playing with it)

I had 20 mins with it this morning with a set of headphones and was really disappointed ... I started by flicking through some of the preset patches, awful! most of them pretty unusable and then I was just flicking up and down the various pedals and to my ears it sounded pretty thin and like others had suggested previously some of the effects just wouldn't go 100% effect. At this point I had to head to work ... I decided to take it with me along with a set of headphones and a lead to connect my phone to the unit and I recorded a simple bass loop onto my phone (not the best way to test anything .. but I was feeling desperate).

At lunch time I got the bass loop going through the pedal and decided to take it slowly. I started with one patch .. turned everything off and started with the "global" settings and then the "total" settings. This is where I had my first "oh, I see" moment. Each "patch" of 3 effects has total settings as well as the individual effect parameters. This instantly perked me up as the patch I had been trying alter had the "bal" set at 50 .. meaning only 50% of the signal was being effected. I quickly managed to get much further with some of the effects than I had earlier but decided to leave until I got home.

Once at home I decided to try some of the effects at gig volume through my amp (one of the benefits of living in the wilderness). Instantly things were sounding way fuller than through the headphones. I decided on putting my bass directly into the zoom then into my amp (as opposed to through the effects loop) mainly because I don't want to drive my preamp .. say when I'm tuning muted with then no output? (I could be being retarded here .. but I don't know exactly how this works on a hybrid amp) ... anyhoo, first thing to report is with no effects on I couldn't notice any tone suck at all which is a bonus. I started with the effects I already have on my pedal board to see if I could comfortably replace my board with this unit. In short Yes. The great thing about all the effects on the unit is the ability to blend the amount of the effect that is effecting the signal and secondly is the ability to stack the same effect on top of it's self . With a bit of playing I have now stored 4 patches of distortion which cranked through my amp sound better than anything I've managed with my own pedals and various others I've tried. Next on to the chorus ... this was one of the early effects I hadn't been able to get full enough ... not an issue now .. everything from totally over the top, to very subtle very easily achievable and sound great cranked through my amp. I've also managed to get a pretty nice synth effect for new order tunes etc. and a few other subtle effects.

All in all I'm really chuffed with this little unit so far, it's sounds very 'organic' through an amp and not at all digital which It does sound a bit through headphones. I think to start with the best way to think on it is not patches of three effects at once but as one effect .. by adding one of the many compressors and filters / eq along with an effect .. you can shape the overall tone massively .. I've still got loads more playing about with it, but I've got a full volume band practice tomorrow night a pub gig on Friday and a large nightclub gig on Sat I'm pretty sure I'll be using this on it's own so I'll let you know how I get on.

Our singer uses the [color=#282828][font=helvetica, arial, sans-serif]TC Helicon live .. it's an awesome bit of kit! Think she may have the 2? programmes it for every song on our set list and brings in harmonies etc. when needed .. If it's just for your harmonies can you not just put your mic into it?[/font][/color]

My last covers band had a roadie, this would have been in the back of his van if I was still in that band! May need to convince my new band we need a roadie!