molan

[quote name='lemmywinks' post='466786' date='Apr 19 2009, 03:44 PM']Am really interested in one of those Auralex Gramma jobbies. How much difference do they make? Also what sort of money did you pay? I've seen em for around £50 inc. shipping Ta Steve[/quote] I must admit I was pretty sceptical but the venue I played last night does a rep for boomy bass sound & it has a wooden floor (albeit a pretty solid one) and I had no problems at all. I think the key benefit is that you should have a better chance of just hearing your speakers as opposed to a clutch of low end vibrations rumbling throught he floor. Mine was £45 from Dolphin but I can't remember how shipping worked as I bought it along with some other bits & bobs.

[quote name='acidbass' post='466740' date='Apr 19 2009, 02:25 PM']Sounds like you have attained a state of Gear Nirvana! Actually I'm planning on buying one of those short Comfort Strapps too - how do you rate them in terms of comfort/adjustability/reliability? I've been wearing my basses up quite high recently too and some of my straps just aren't short enough![/quote] If you can I'd try to check each of the lengths with your own bass strapped on. There isn't a huge amount of adjustability on each one. I always tended to use either a short one on it's longest possible length or a medium on a short length (if that makes any sort of sense!). With my Spector I need a short one on a mid-length but that's partly because the strap button on the rear of the body is set quite high.

Since joining the forum here I've been swapping basses and gear in and out in a quest for the 'right' combination and tried out my latest stuff last night at a nice little pub gig. The set up was: Spector NS5XL Elixir super light strings - 40 60 75 95 125 Comfort Strapp - short Planet Waves foot tuner MXR Auto Q Epifani UL502 Bergantino AE112 x 2 Auralex Gramma isolation stand All set up pretty flat with just some mid cut at about 250hz on the Epi and the tweeters rolled off to about 50% on the Bergs. Everything just felt and sounded great, lovely deep punchy lows but without any nasty boominess & really crisp top end (especially on some of the funkier stuff using the Auto Q). The bass was super comfortable and I've finally got round to using a short strap and wearing it much higher than I ever used to. Longer scale now feeling very natural and the narrow string spacing and chunkier of the Spector works perfectly for me. The Auralex seemed to do a great job of killing the nasty boom that my sound man said he'd had from a band the previous week. He said there's often a problem with booming in the venue (and the Bergs can be prone to this if they are too close to a rear wall) but that he couldn't hear it all from me. Of course, the set up was easy and quick too with those lightweight Berg cabs & the Epi in a gig bag, everything fitting neatly in the boot of my car as well With everything working so well I stopped worrying about my 'sound' and spent the whole gig just concentrating on playing and, more importantly, enjoying myself Allowed me to add little fills on some songs that I've heard in my head but never been quite able to play. The slinky strings & super low action of the Spector meant I could play a lot more little sixteenth note runs just to add a bit of variation here & there too. I have tried so many different options of 4/5 & even 6 strings, wide & narrow spacing & necks, 34" & 35" scale length, nickel, steel & coated strings, about a zillion different strap lengths (lol) and a host of basses & amps/cabs. It's just brilliant for me that I seem to have whittled everything down to exactly what I wanted to hear & feel. The band all said how nice the bass sounded & even one of the punters mentioned how clear the bass lines were and that bass looked really nice - and expensive, lol. Only glitch was clipping the keyboard player's shoulder at one point & knocking my D string seriously out of tune on a song that required quite a lot of 'D' playing! To top it all off a second Spector NS5XL arrived chez Mole yesterday in a very fetching flamed maple as well so I've got options as a back up bass for live work & can afford to keep one at rehearsals & the other at home so I'll always be using the same instrument for serious practicing. All in all - a right result

I haven't listed to the Squire solo album for about 20 years (although I still have it of course, lol). I love his playing & can never understand how he plays some of that really syncopated rhythmic stuff whilst singing at the same time

[quote name='Stylon Pilson' post='466229' date='Apr 18 2009, 04:44 PM']The only problem here is that if you invite band members 2 and 3 to join, and they decline, and then band members 4 and 5 find out about it, they'll wonder why you didn't invite them. Might create tensions within the existing band. S.P.[/quote] I didn't invite anyone - just mentioned I was going to do something else & they invited themselves, lol. Mind you, the other members wouldn't have touched a funk band with a barge pole so I was on reasonably solid ground.

If you're an 'aggressive' slaper then your volume on peak slapped or popped notes is going to be louder than regular fingerstyle playing. A lot of people do use a compressor to tame this but the other thing to do would be to simply lower the volume on your bass a little on those songs that you slap on? Tougher if you're continually alternating between slap & finger style playing of course. If the Mark is definitely not clipping at all but is clipping the PA channel then he should absolutely be reducing the input on the desk. You should always set the level just below the loudest part of anything you're playing rather than at mid-level output. If you have an active sound guy then he could just lower the levels on the desk on the slapped parts but sounds like you have a 'set it & leave it' policy without anyone actually monitoring input live. To test if it's really clipping simply set everything up as normal & then stand in front of the desk and play at your loudest so you can watch the levels. If they are bouncing off the top of the dial then you definitely need to lower the desk input.

I've done something similar in the past when trying to get out of a pretty boring band to form a soul / funk outfit. All I did was to let a couple of the band know that I fancied putting a 2nd band together to play different material with a view to the odd gig outside of the main band. The singer & drummer were both really up for it & suggested we go for a beer to discuss. We agreed what we fancied doing, recruited a guitarist, had a single rehearsal & the three of us resigned from the other band leaving the irritating guitarist & his crap friend keyboard player to stew in the own 'middle of the road' juices

I auditioned with a drummer once & we got on really well. Unfortunately we both got bounced from the audition because we supported a different football team from the lead guitarist / vocalist - I kid you not! The audition went well, drummer & I clicked from the outset. We were both well prepared and knew the songs and the guitarist threw a couple of his own compositions at us that we handled pretty well without too much fuss. We seemed to get on well were nattering away as we packed up our gear & he asked for our numbers and said he'd phone us both the next day. As we were leaving I noticed he had a Spurs scarf in his car so I asked (in a very casual way) whether he was a big Spurs fan or not. Without hesitation he replied "why, don't tell me you're an Arsenal fan?". I said that I was actually a season ticket holder & he immediately turned on the drummer & said he supposed he must be a Chelsea fan then - to which the drummer replied that, as it happened, he was indeed a season ticket holder at Stamford Bridge. I should stress that all of this was done without any piss taking from me or the drummer or any comments about Spurs but the guy obviously took major offence at us. He gave us both a half-hearted reply & slammed his car door & zoomed off. Needless to say we never heard from him again. . .

I wanna know what you used the tree climbing harness for in your studio? I'm guessing obscure mic placement in the top corner of the attic for acoustic effects?

[quote name='Josh' post='460845' date='Apr 12 2009, 10:38 PM']Pfft, 36 more like.[/quote] You are too kind young sir

Play fast sixteenths for half an hour. By the end of that the pressure you're applying should be just about right

Not quite 50 yet but only 6 months to go

I'never checked their stuff in huge detail but the stuff I have noticed advertised by Absolute is usually listed at way over the price stuff sells for here. I've actually used them as an example of what great prices I've offered on stuff in the past because they've made my stuff look like an absoluite (sic) steal!

There are two commonly repeated contenders for the derivation "Happay as Larry". One is that it refers to the Australian boxer Larry Foley (1847 - 1917). Foley was a successful boxer who never lost a fight. He retired at 32 and collected a purse of £1,000 for his final fight. So, we can expect that he was known to be happy with his lot in the 1870s - just when the phrase is first cited. The alternative explanation is that it relates to the Cornish and later Australian/New Zealand slang term 'larrikin', meaning a rough type or hooligan, i.e. one predisposed to larking about.

If you can find someone to take the missus off you in exchange for an early pre-Gibson Tobias then I'd go for it

I'm not sure it's a Tune. The tuner spacing on Tune Bass Maniac looks different to me A&D tuners very close & almost horizontally aligned: