Mark_Andertons

Great playing of a great tune. Have to brush up those licks myself!

Some of you guys may know Wampler, they're a US boutique guitar FX maker started by a guy called Brian Wampler. The man is a tone maniac and is known for making pedals that sound incredibly close to classic amplifiers without (thus far) any digital wizardry involved, just good old fashion solder wire. Now I'm pretty close to the guys over at Wampler because they're one of the best selling guitar FX brands at Andertons and I was chatting to them this evening about Bass FX and whether there were any in the pipeline and their response was intriguing. They told me that they were in principal quite interested in making some pedals for bass but they hadn't really any idea what bass players actually wanted. Jason their famously British marketing guy's answer was this: [quote]Bass Pedals, I don't know mate. We get asked for them all the time, but when we ask what they want, they come up with really helpful things like "A diatonic Harmonizer, that has a silicon fuzz, optical compressor that works dependent on what string you play and if I've been to the chippy". So, once we get some sense out the bass players...[/quote] So we then went on to talk about doing some market research to find out what bassists want from a pedal. So this is where the market research starts. Bearing in mind that Wamplers expertise is in the area of non digital mostly tone shaping/modulation effects and amp recreation. What do YOU want from a boutique bass pedal (that you would pay around £120-150 for)

[quote name='chrismuzz' timestamp='1339102312' post='1683836'] Hey Mark, hope my last post didn't look like I was complaining about the store. You guys have done everything you should have done and more. And hey I should get something awesome in the post tomorrow! I'll be happy to order from Andertons again sometime [/quote] It wasn't meant grumpily just that I thought it was a good opportunity to explain publicly why things like that happen. Really want to get across how frustrating it is for us too that it has to happen

[quote name='chrismuzz' timestamp='1339078995' post='1683323'] Called up Anderton's today because my Stageclix Jack delivery date kept being changed, and it was supposed to arrive at the store today. I had it on back order which I was fully aware of before paying for it btw it seems like it was all due to their supplier messing them around (I came to this conclusion, I wasn't given this as a half arsed excuse!). Anyways Jon investigated and it had actually arrived today! And since I had ordered it just over a month ago, I was assured that my order would be upgraded to next day delivery.. Result! Definitely pleased with the service, however I would advise against ordering any out of stock items if you're in a hurry [/quote] Just thought I'd give you guys some insight on this because this is the number 1 cause of complaints and unsatisfied customers. When things are out of stock and you place a backorder we contact our supplier and order it directly from them, they then give us an approximate date which pass on to the customer. Now without naming names some suppliers are significantly more accurate than others who are wildly optimistic and or wildly undecided. Often there is a rush to announce new products during the major MI trade show that I'm sure you've all heard of NAMM which takes place each January. NAMM makes my teams life hell because 3 people have to sift through about a hundred press releases every day and quickly make those products available to order on our website, lest we be slow and the excited potential customer goes to a competitor instead to place his order (there is also an impetus from a Search Engine Optimisation angle to get things up online as soon as possible). The reality is that some of the products announced at NAMM are actually as much as a year away from hitting shelves (in extreme cases) and usually at least months away. The confusion is that the further away products are from hitting shelves generally the less accurate the delivery dates are. We've seen this today when I had to tell a customer that the Mackie wireless iPad Mixer that was announced at NAMM and was originally expected to hit shelves fairly soon after is now delayed until September. NAMM products illustrate this well but it applies to products already in production too. The point is that as a business we are at the mercy of the suppliers to give us accurate dates and while they are usually right sadly they can occasionally be wrong and require changing which sadly is seen by some customers as us 'messing them about'. Believe me when I say it is just as frustrating for us because at the end of the day all we want to do is get you your gear as quickly as possible so that you feel you've had a good experience with us and ultimately choose to always shop with us!

He who hesitates is lost. I was just half assed about it. Figured that I could gauge with a lower bid what the first guy had put. If I could turn back time would have just put 350 on at 2 seconds and would have got it for 311. Let a 700RB 1 2x10 go today for 275 because it was a little too far to pick up. So will keep looking on here and the bay for another to crop up. Incidentally properly confused as to why GK dropped the 700RB combos anyway :S

He who hesitates is lost. I was just half assed about it. Figured that I could gauge with a lower bid what the first guy had put. If I could turn back time would have just put 350 on at 2 seconds and would have got it for 311. Let a 700RB 1 2x10 go today for 275 because it was a little too far to pick up. So will keep looking on here and the bay for another to crop up. Incidentally properly confused as to why GK dropped the 700RB combos anyway :S

Bought Bass Crybaby 105Q off Ollie. Couldn't have gone smoother. Was very easy to communicate with and kindly offered to meet me at work when I couldn't get over to his place. Arrived at the meeting early which was nice. Top bloke

Against my better judgement bid a little bit early and got sniped by a tenner! £360 still seems a cracking price. I would of gone up to £400 had I had time to bid again. Oh well back to CMD102 lust!

Yep all good points. Not far from me though so will be tempted to have a punt just in case.

Tempted to put a bid on this at the death if it doesn't go up. I'm no gk expert though any reason anyone can think why this isn't getting any love? http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Gallien-Krueger-GK-700-RB-II-210-Pro-Bass-Combo-/290719677757

[quote name='paul_5' timestamp='1338803065' post='1679305'] Try this one, set the 'nome to a fairly slow tempo - you're playing semiquavers here and accuracy is more important than speed. [IMG]http://i1221.photobucket.com/albums/dd471/paul_510/Metronome.png[/IMG] The idea is to mentally subdivide the crotchet metronome beats into 4 and accent different semiquavers. It's notated as just one bar per subdivision, but that's just for ease of exporting the graphics file. Spend a bit of time on each one to really get this exercise into your head. It's a bit confusing at first, but worth persevering with. [/quote] Like that! Will try that in today's workout

[quote name='ZMech' timestamp='1338762823' post='1679094'] Yup, it's a fun exercise video this, posted a link the other day to a Wooten tutorial video that goes through this kind of idea: [media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jR9to6lbqTY&feature=player_embedded[/media] One comment though, is that 160 is a much better choice than 150 simply as it's divisible by 4 (and 16 for that matter, giving you once every 4 bars). [/quote] Love VW's definition of 'no fills' Great find with the video though that's exactly what I was talking about. Nice to hear that even he's not perfect when he gets it down to 40!

I think timing is actually the most important element of technique. Mine's not perfect but I wanted to share with you a tip and I'd love to hear anyone elses to help me improve my timing! When I was a music student my teacher use to have my practise to a metronome that only sounded the semibreeve while you do scales/arpeggios in crotchets i.e you play: ONE, TWO, THREE, FOUR, ONE, TWO, THREE, FOUR metronome: ONE, Silence, silence, silence, ONE, Silence, silence, silence That way you have to really get your timing right without the metronome to help (which it won't when you're playing on your own) but the metronome is a measuring stick of how good your timing is. Helps to start relatively fast tempos 150BPM or so and get slower as you get better (the slower the tempo the harder this exercise is). If you're still struggling then set the metronome to click on the ONE and TWO (minims) until you can nail that. Give it a try and see how good your timing really is! Who else has tips to improve timing?

Accidental Duplication. Please can mod/admin delete. Thank you! sorry!

[quote name='sarah thomas' timestamp='1338731583' post='1678537'] [/quote] Love the maple neck! (TV Pal?)

[quote name='Ancient Mariner' timestamp='1338731859' post='1678544'] I've used 15-20W amps through small speakers for years, and they work really well for containing excess volume while still working hard enough to sound good. My one concern with this is that it would be a dirt-only amp (Orange have tended toward this with some of their other tiny amps) and lack versatility, my preference these days being to play through a cleaner amp and then add dirt from other sources. But for a lower volume rock gig, I could imagine this doing a great job, just using the controls on the amp and guitar. The one thing I missed from the demo (I watched it all) was to see if it cleaned up rolling back the guitar volume. Looks like a lot of fun though. [/quote] Definately need to mic this up to gig it or would have to run it literally flat out and probably still get a bit lost. Mic'ed up though no problem.