intime-nick

I’ve spent the past 20 years designing them if that counts (and I’m also a crap drummer).

finding a good drummer is like finding a guitarist who appreciates that a 4x12 for pub gigs is a bit of an overkill but I digress...😀😀

I do need to improve my drumming but I need to finish the designs for my new e-kit first, build it and then get some practice in if I ever have the time. 

I’ve replaced the Warwick tuners on both my German made Corvette and Streamer Jazzman.  One from both basses have failed over the past couple of years (one stripped a gear, the other had a post shear off with no obvious misuse)

replaced both sets with Gotoh versions - they are so much better built  / smoother than the Warwick originals and are a direct replacement and perfect fit  

the origjnal Schaller-made tuners are great, the later Warwick versions of them are pretty cheaply made by comparison  

Speak to @SmoothHoundChris - he may still have some of the strap mounting brackets available. Just be aware that they are different to the ones shown above - that was an early design. 

2 hours ago, King Tut said:

Have you got a link for Lugs custom moulds please? They're not coming up on a Google search.

Here you go :

https://www.facebook.com/LugsCustomIEM/

speak to Rob, he’s a very helpful chap.  I’ve got some LUGS quads and some UE6 Pros - sound-wise there isn’t anything in it but that’s totally subjective of course.  Either way, they’ll be light-years ahead of the universal ZS10s (I’ve got a set of those as well and I like them 😄) from a sound, fit and isolation point of view. 

Still with the other band on IEMs - we’re pretty much fully booked for next year already which is nice  

The new one is an originals rock/blues styleeee and I’ll be working my way in slowly to show them the ways of the IEM force 😉

re. the helix - it’s been sat idle for a few months but as this new band has only one gitarrrizst then I’ll be needing some extra ‘fill-in’ gizmos and wizardry and I suppose the helix can do that if I can be arsed to deal with the programming. 

I was asked to join another band a couple of days ago and I’ll have to revert back to a amp/cab setup for this instead of my usual zero backline/IEM setup from the other band.

i was going to take my BF Super Twin and GK amp but have decided to dig the Helix out of retirement and use a Yamaha DBR15 powered cab. It turns out the guitarist is reasonably sensible and uses an 18w Suhr valve amp into a 1x12 cab so I think it’ll all balance out OK. 

our drummer has a drum-tec e-kit and, whilst that makes the band sound a lot better out front (in my opinion) and he also wears IEMs, that shouldn't preclude you from using them.  Both our guitarists have conventional monitors and backline but I have used IEMs and no backline for a long while now and it works great (for me)

I’ve got a P2 as well as a backup to my Sennheiser (with a stereo cable from @obbm) - it works very well  (and some ZS10s 😀)

57 minutes ago, burno70 said:

Thanks for your quick response. Can you point me to Lugs custom IEM's? I can't find them. Thanks.

I have some LUGS quads and some UE6 Pros - both are very capable IEMs with the LUGS also being very good value for money.  Either will be a massive step up from universals. 

Ha, maybe.  Everyone is different I suppose and some may be more susceptible to latency (although I do agree that more attention should be focussed on that aspect). I do think the Smoothound system is great value for money and, in my own personal experience, works well with a standard backline but no so much with IEMs & singing. 

7 hours ago, EBS_freak said:

PS latency makes a BIG difference if you are an inears user.

Even worse if you are singing at the same time.

This is very true. I have a Smoothound wireless and used it with my Helix LT into a digital mixer into a Sennheiser IEM system (I don’t use any backline). The latency was noticeable to the point of it being a distraction (I sing as well). Kept the same setup but used my Line6 XD-V75 wireless and the perceived latency issue disappeared.  Tried the other options on the Smoothound to reduce the latency but that rendered it very susceptible to dropouts.

In short, the Smoothound system is great if you use a conventional backline setup - my own experience with digital mixers and effects in the chain (each adding to the latency to be fair) meant that system didn’t work for me.  As an aside, I’ve now ditched the Helix and play directly from the line6 wireless XLR out straight into the mixer with IEMs and haven’t noticed any difference in latency from when I had the LT in the chain. 

Curious to try the Boss WL20 if only to reduce the amount of gear I take to gigs even further.

6 hours ago, naxos10 said:

Good choice Dave.

Hopefully Chris will have the strap attachments back in stock shortly.

He will - I'm making some for him at the moment - they will hopefully be available in a few days

As a part-time bass player but full-time drum designer (for the best part of 25 or so years), and as mentioned a few times already, get a Porter & Davies drum throne system (the new BCX is great) and ditch the rather bizarre bass drum only amplification. Whether you need / want to put the BD through the PA is up to you but the P&D system will give him all he needs to feel the BD (and anything else you want to feed into it - we run a small amount of my bass guitar into it as well)

Pretty much all the drummers I know, having tried one, do not want to play a gig without it afterwards.  Combined with IEMs and you’ve got the best setup for any gig irrespective of venue size.  

There’s always two sides to every story I suppose, I sold my Shuker jazz as although it sounded OK, it weighed as much as a small planet (and I have a Sandberg PM5 which is lighter and that’s saying something), the pots and jack were of a poor quality (I swapped from a vol/balance/tone to a vol/vol/tone setup from KiOgon as the volume drop either side of the balance control centre was really noticeable), the body matching headstock paint was roughly done at the edges in a couple of places, some paint fell off in front of the bridge after a couple of years with no provocation etc  

Nothing major in the grand scheme of things I suppose -  maybe I just got a duff one.  It’s a pity because all the others look amazing. 

Dave supplied an adaptor cable to enable me to run stereo IEMs into one XLR cable for my Behringer P2 - product, service and delivery, as usual, top notch

First try of the UE6 Pros at band practice tonight.  First impressions are very good indeed - gig on Saturday for a full test. 

UE6 Pros coming tomorrow - will be an interesting comparison to my LUGS quads.  Also got a Behringer P2 today as a backup for my EW300G3 (and for when I’m stood right next to the mixer) plus a stereo cable adaptor from OBBM to use a single XLR to the P2.

we had a gig last week and because our mixer and IEM kit is racked up and I have no backline, I realised I was set up after having taken the front & rear covers off the rack case and plugged it in - downside is I ended up bringing in a lot of the guitarists amps/cabs/pedalboards as I had very little else to do until soundcheck 😀😀

On 20/10/2018 at 11:09, observer said:

HI Guys, hope you don't mind my question.  My band is considering buying XR series mixer.. I've read about poor wireless connection performance. Could you share your experience in live situations.

Thanks

Kris

We’ve used an XR18 for about two years now and have always used an external router (a pretty basic dual band TP-LINK model).  Run it only on 5GHz, hide the SSID and all should be well.  We’ve had no issues with dropouts/slow connections even in pretty heavy RF environments. 

I may be a bass player (of sorts) but my day job, for as long as I care to remember, is designing drums in all forms (kits, snares, marching, hardware etc etc).  I know Steve White pretty well (we worked together at Premier where I designed a range of kits and snares with him as a consultant) and, as with all programs of this type, you can’t please everyone and not everyone’s favourite will be included.  Overall, I thought it was a pretty good effort and most importantly didn’t fall into the ‘lowest common denominator’ style to pander to the masses which would have been just awful.  I thought the last episode was a bit poor as lists are pretty pointless and the time would have been better spent interviewing some of the other great drummers mentioned in the previous comments on here. 

I’ll start by saying that I really like the overall sound of my Warwick Jazzman LX5 so my question may be a little odd.  The only thing I don’t like is the noise from the single coil neck pickup - it's really noticeable in certain environments (LED dimmer switches, dodgy pub wiring, slot machines etc, I’m looking at you...).  It’s not a shielding issue as when it’s fully panned to the bridge MM pickup in humbucking mode, it’s very quiet.  I know single coils have this issue so was thinking of swapping the J neck PU for a stacked humbucking type (and possibly the MM PU as I’d like a visually matching pair ‘cos I’m vain like that)

swapping PUs is something I've never done in my 30+ years of playing so could do with some advice.  I realise everyone’s idea of that ‘perfect tone’ is different and I’d rather not lose the core sound of the Warwick if that’s possible.  I’d also like to keep the 3 way switch for the MM PU if the preamp was swapped.  The current preamp is a 3 band MEC with stacked volume / pan and pull for passive plus 3 band EQ  

any advice on pickups or pre’s or should I leave it alone and put up with the noise ? (you can’t hear it when playing to be fair but it is a touch annoying nonetheless)

I would say the Zoom B9.1ut .  It’s got all the stuff you’re after and a bit more  (I’ve got one in mint condition that I got in a trade and don’t use...hint, hint 😉 ).  You could go down the helix route (again, I’ve got an LT languishing in its flightcase doing nowt) but that might be a bit of overkill based on your stated requirements.   The B3 with an external expression pedal would also be a good option (yes, I have that combo too that’s also doing nothing)...I think I have a multi-effects problem....hello, my name is Nick and I’m a multi-effectaholic...

5 minutes ago, Al Krow said:

On a more serious note, I'm kinda thinking I might just hold on to my MS-60B and B3n for a few months, rather than move them on straight away (not least in that I've already suffered the value drop with them!).

I've always been kinda interested in whether spending a whole bunch of extra cash on gear actually buys us much in terms of a better sound? Here it's whether extra processing power in the Helix is actually going to be the significant step up in capability and sound and live usability as compared to the B3n, given that the Helix Stomp is literally > 3.5 x more expensive (!) and look to  A/B various patches starting with the easy stuff that multis do well e.g. modulation effects (tremolo, delay, chorus, flange and phase) and then move onto to the more challenging stuff for multi's such as bit-crush, dirt, envelope filter and perhaps the most challenging of the lot: synth. 

I suspect that my view that the MS-60B and the B3N are two of the best value multis available for us bassists today ain't gonna change.

From a Helix LT and MS-60B / B3 / B9.1UT  etc etc owner - my own opinion is that if you’re happy with your existing sound, the new L6 stomp (or ‘latest shiny thing’) won’t make a jot of difference to you or the punters down the dog n duck.  It’s down to how many new things and flashing lights you like 😀. I should add, I now DI straight into our XR18 and use the onboard EQ, compression and Sansamp guitar effect on my channels (one for IEMs and one for FOH) and am happy with the tone and lack of faffing around but that’s just me.  

Where’s the XLR out ?  More pedal-specific annoying PSUs to carry around.  Having said that,  I can see why this may be popular as it has a lot of the stuff people want without the badly engineered expression pedal of the LT 😆

Ahem, I seem to have started down the slippery slope of IEMs, well, when I say started, I mean I’m already on the slope but seem to be accelerating. Just ordered some UE6 Pros at the UK Drum Show - the universals sounded great (thanks for taking the time to let me try them in a quieter environment EBS_freak) and, all being well, I’ll have them in time for our next gig.  I do have a pair of LUGS custom quads which I really like but I always prefer to take backups of the important bits of kit to gigs and, as I’m now playing sans-backline, it seems to me that it’s no different to taking a backup amp albeit a lot easier to carry 😀😀

1 hour ago, peteb said:

 

Now this not to say that there is not such a thing as too loud – there is always a compromise between volume and the room you are playing in. Frankly I do want to keep what is left of my hearing (quite a few of us have lost a bit of the top end in the ear nearest the cymbals but very few have tinnitus), so ear protection is a good idea. But the whole point was summed up by a punter who once told me, “you go to a pub and it’s like watching a band at St George’s Hall in the eighties”.

 

Is that St George’s in Bradford ? If so, I saw a few bands there including Yngwie Malmsteen and it sounded like shite (and he had a few 4x12s 😉) - waaay too loud, and I’m sure it was the start of my hearing loss adventure.  As for being ‘pretty loud to be authentic’ - I’ve been in many bands with that attitude and most of them sounded like crap in the usual pub environments due to the reasons mentioned earlier in this thread.  There is a massive difference between loud and quality and in a lot of places, with a lot of bands, the first replaces the second due to some bizarre insistence that you have to be loud to be any good.