Huge Hands

Ashtrays are something I'm thinking about for mine, when I eventually get to have it. 13 days and counting.....no elves have died yet.....

I used to be exclusively LaBella Deep Talkin' on my basses, but the more time I spent on here and falling into the trap of buying more basses to mod and play about with, I couldn't justify the cost of more sets, especially as the price kept going up and up. I bought a set of Detroit flats for my last 5-string Harley Benton I bought I and they have been fine and would happily buy more. However, I have just bought myself another HB (4 string PB-50) for Christmas, and this time have taken a punt on a set of their/Thomann's new mega cheap flats for it. I also bought a 5 string set to try on one of my other basses. I have been told all the elves will die if I touch any of it before Christmas day, so I'm afraid can't report on how they are at the moment....

I was obsessed with drumming as a kid, and used to annoy my family by tapping on anything I could - ie the dinner table with cutlery, chair arms etc. At 11, my parents said they would get me a drum kit if I took it up at school. Our school only had a brass band, and after realising there were about 7 drummers and I would never get a shot, I opted for trombone. However, over the years I would be playing offbeat melody stuff on the trombone, but really listening to (and wanting to play) the bassy stuff the tubas were playing (bass trombone wasn't an option at my school). As an aside, my parents kindly did still get me a drum kit, and outside of school, I became a drummer. However, at that age, in most bands I got to play in the bass player was the most rubbish guitarist "demoted" to bass. However, I was listening to lots of Acid Jazz and funk stuff, and wanted to be playing with bass players like that. I was also feeling I was reaching a plateau in my drumming skills, and although people were saying I was a good drummer, I couldn't get my feet around some of the clever things I wanted to play. Around this time, I watched the Beatles Magical Mystery tour film, and was fascinated by the I am The Walrus video in the middle of it. When Paul slides down and comes in after Ringo's fill - it got me every time. In truth though, it was thinking that Paul looked so much cooler, and that if I played bass like him, I was likely to get so many more girls than as a drummer that gave me the kickstart to start playing bass myself. It is now around 30 years later and I have come to realise I didn't pull any girls on either bass or drums.......

I went for the sunburst. I don't know why, but I just can't stomach red guitars, maybe it's an unconscious aversion to The Shadows thing. I don't remember there being any other colour options at the moment. I don't like relic'd guitars normally, but I have seen fakers before with a white over sunburst and quite like that, so we'll see if I fancy getting some emulsion and a belt sander out.... Having said that, I reckon you'll ask me in a few years and it will still be exactly the same as it came out the box, but we can dream....!

Santa DHL has just delivered mine ready for Christmas day. Had a quick look in the box and it seems to be all there. I have always wanted an old Tele style P but mainly play 5 strings and there are not many options for one of these in a 5 out there unless you go custom, which I can't justify spending out on. This was really cheap and should scratch my itch for a while and might even get me back into playing 4s more often. Now then.....I need to get a copy from someone with the template to cut the headstock to shape at a later date.,....anyone?

I met and worked on a couple of his gigs in the early 00s just before he died. I never got to speak to him personally, but his tour manager was a character. He always told us to keep drinks away from the stage as Edwin was staunchly against alcohol and would walk off stage if he saw any. On one gig a load of staff got up and started dancing on stage with him - me and the tour manager had to run around and quickly grab their beers off them! I also remember Edwin refusing to have vocal monitors, unlike his percussionist who wanted all percussion mics in his wedge and would take us an age during soundcheck setting up, trying to stop the big congas resonating and feeding back at the high volumes he wanted!

I seem to remember Edwin Starr was part of Norman Whitfield's producing stable, so assume this is probably correct - early stuff would have been Motown guys (i.e. Bob) and then I once read that later the band that became Rose Royce were originally put together to back Edwin on tour and in studio, so would have been Lequient "Duke" Jobe on his later stuff. I got to do some stage management and sound with Edwin on a few gigs in his final years as he lived in the UK then. He always had a really good band with him.

Does it have passive or active electronics? I had an active Cort years ago that used to do this after about 6 months of buying new from a shop. It turned out to be a bad solder joint on a pot casing that wasn't obvious to the eye but eventually broke off so was able to spot and repair with a soldering iron. Was totally reliable after that.

I did this very trick with a friend's band years ago when they asked me for some advice after they kept not getting re-booked for pub gigs due to the guitarist being face-meltingly loud. I turned up at their rehearsal and got the guitarist to put the amp in front of him on the tilt-back legs like a monitor wedge. After half a song, he kicked his amp and stormed off. "It sounds awful and is giving me a headache!" he raged. "Now you know how your audience feels" was my reply......... I understand he went out and bought a Blues junior the next day and gigged with that for years.

I had a similar issue with my setup last week - found I had taken the head out of the case and somehow spun the tube preamp gain up to full without noticing. Sound would be fine, then would fade to much lower volume, then cut out, then full power again, and then it would all happen again. Thought I had wrecked the input stage of my amp, but then after messing around found it was a dodgy jack lead in my signal chain. I only found it by starting with guitar straight into amp, then working backwards and plugging each device back up, test, add the next one, etc. I know you said you had swapped cables but I thought worth mentioning. I always thought jack leads would either work, be intermittent or not work, but over the years I have had a few that do this drop in signal to the amp=drop in output power. I assume it is my clumsy heavy feet standing on them and damaging the cores without fully breaking them..

As a big Beatles fan, I thought the song was good, but I do struggle with that Jeff Lynne production sound they keep on with that makes this and Free As A Bird sound like a Travelling Wilbury's record. I think it's the "big wet fish on plastic oil drum" drum sound he seems to love. Maybe they used Bev Bevan kit samples, but I don't like it. Only my opinion, of course.....

Pete Ray Biggin is fantastic. I first met him in the early noughties when I was a sound engineer and he was about 19 playing with Jimmy James (and the Vagabonds). As a drummer myself, I instantly snapped my metaphorical sticks over my knee the first time I heard him play as I was simultaneously amazed at him and disgusted at how much better he was than anything I would ever be able to play - he was that good! He stopped coming to gigs with them and I was told he had left to join Incognito for a while. I have since seen videos of him doing drum workshops with a giant kit but back then he would borrow the house drummer's kit with just top and floor tom. It wasn't particularly his fills that were amazing (although they were) - it was just his feel and groove that were top notch and on another level that I could hear (no pun intended).

I would probably also look at the mix the drummer is asking for in his monitor. Is it purely his vocal, or is he asking for loads of kick drum and a mix of all the instruments at full volume? The more he asks of that monitor, the more it (and al the other sound sources on stage) will likely become a mushy muddled mess that will probably just resonate his floor tom and make it all unclear. What I'm trying to say is, perhaps you might want to try starting again with his monitor. Maybe don't include some of the stuff that is already loud on stage so that it can concentrate on producing the sounds he actually needs to hear to keep time/cues. This may have also been the issue with his dislike of the in-ears. As others have said - it probably needed a bit more time to balance levels and get used to them. As a side anecdote, I remember always being amazed when working sound on gigs with the classic singers Edwin Starr and Jimmy James - both would insist on no vocal monitors at all, and would sometimes get funny if you even left some on stage to save putting them away! They were alway spot on vocally too.

Welcome Simon - I am taking my first trip to Belfast next month for work, looking forward to it! I would probably say I am a similar level to you - have been playing for just over 30 years - mainly by ear until about 12 years ago when I started in a reading band and had to learn to read sharpish! I struggle with reading quaver and semi-quaver runs in that I panic and usually either play them too fast or two slow! I think the issue is not regular playing of the same stuff so you don't get to take it all in and think about it so much. When I was younger I dipped in and out of playing in some soft rock style church bands reading the bass notes of chord charts (Mission Praise type stuff) and week in, week out it was different songs so you played through once that morning and never got to perfect anything. In my personal experience reading tends to use a different part of my brain and as soon as the notes are passed, they are forgotten. I would struggle to play some pieces from memory as I don't store them as I read. In terms of playing by ear or memory my biggest enemy is my wandering attention span, which has gotten worse since my bad covid experience in 2020. The times when I play my best are when I'm in a regular gigging band and we play the same set repeatedly, so it locks into my memory and I can start playing without thinking about it too much a lot of the time. I think the guys that I am jealous of on bass that can just get up and play along with perfect runs and changes by ear or read note perfect probably have a much more complete music theory knowledge than me, play more regularly and have practiced things like scales and runs in their bedrooms much more than me. I guess what I am saying is practice makes perfect, but I am no angel myself, so full solidarity from me! Don't give up, just enjoy it! Note - this is only my experience - I assume some more learned members will read this and say I am full of it!

I find that website really confusing. In my old days of analogue desks, the 14:4:2 would mean 14 input channels into 4 subgroups, into 1 stereo output. The auxiliary outputs should be totally separate, and it is saying there are 6 of them. However, the blurb does seem to say the auxiliary outputs share with the subgroup and LR outputs. Very odd......

I have the bigger Behringer UMC-22 and was looking into using this for my own in-ear setup - to allow a feed from a mixer and blend in my own signal from my bass. This was driven from doing a headphone (amateur) theatre pit gig and everyone shared the same mix, and they all moaned when the bass was where I needed it. I never got as far as trying it, but was planning to buy a USB-A to USB-B cable and powering it from a phone charger. I never got as far as checking the current draw requirements of the UMC-22, but figured if it ran off phantom, it probably wasn't that high. My other idea was to buy a cheap mixer, similar to what you are looking at. I haven't had such a gig since, so have shelved my ideas for now. The only thing I can think that may cause you issues is that I don't think the UM-2 has a mic "through" connection, so if you use it to mix the vocal mic locally first, you will end up sending the signal to your main mixer as a line signal. Obviously in theory with input gain balancing it shouldn't make any difference, but in my experience it may cause you more issues with controlling feedback in lively environments, especially depending on how your main mixer deals with mic/line switching preamps.. One to test and watch out for, anyway.

I wanted one because at the time I didn't use a pedal board and was connected straight into my amp, which didn't have a mute switch (other than powering it off), and the pots were a bit crackly if you turned it up or down. I also had a regular gig with a cramped stage and would struggle to access my amp controls once set without knocking half the drum kit over (I'm very clumsy), Yes, a pedal would have fixed it, yes having a different/better maintained amp would have fixed it, or yes, I could have got better, bigger gigs or been more nimble But some sort of switch on my guitar that would turn off the battery for breaks without causing a massive clang through my amp would have been a much simpler solution - should it exist. I assume some sort of capacitance in circuit to avoid the high transient thunk would have done it, but I just went back to turning down and pulling the plug. Like I was saying, a nice to have, not vital.

In my experience, this doesn't work so well - you still have to have the discipline of turning down/off your amp before you toggle the switch otherwise you get the same loud "thunk" you would if you pulled the jack out. I assume the poster you replied to meant a nice silent switch when turning off the active like you would get on a dual/active passive bass when switching between the two modes. A mute switch, rather than a kill switch, if you will. Just speaking from experience, as I fitted a switch as you describe on a self build active bass and had this issue.

Would like Fender to design and release a 5-string version of the '51 slab P that looks kind of normal but still has normal string spacing and comes in various colours, not just butterscotch and Sting - and not be a very expensive one-off custom thing. ...then pass the designs on to Squier so I have a chance of affording one. And then maybe Sire will do a sorted version and I can just about afford that.....

Just got this on my latptop running Chrome this morning. Clicked on a different part of the forum and got the English version. Didn't appear to be a "more options" or reject button, so only way to get rid of it was to agree to it from what I could see.

I've said this on here before, but I find my NS Design NXT5 EUB doesn't sound much like an acoustic upright to me when I am standing next to it playing it, but if I hear a recording of it from the other side of the room, it does! Like you, I often find my EUB is the talk of the gig, with audience members regularly coming up to me in the breaks to ask about it, more than they would with my standard upright. I love not having to lug the "real" thing around (plus this has 5 strings rather than my 4 string acoustic) and love the fact I don't have to find some giant space to lie it down between songs. I have had a few bands moan over the years because it is too modern looking and doesn't fit the vintage vibe they are going for. My wrecked back has always taken priority on that one though, so sticking with the EUB! Welcome to Rosie BTW!

I have always played finger style all my life and struggle with consistency of the strokes if I try with a pick. I wonder if this technique might help me get my brain and fingers around it.....I think I'm going to try it!

I remember about 5 years ago when I dropped my NXT5 after the strap broke on the supplied gigbag and was whingeing to the guy at Bass Direct about how poorly made the long strap fixing was at the time. He mentioned he had seen people using a case designed for skis (think he said it was hard plastic). I asked him to send me a link to one but I never heard and stopped gigging it for a few years after that so wasn't really a problem for me any more (once i had got a new bag). I wonder if that is also worth looking into?

It has always been those stringy bits in "You Only Live Twice" that R***ie Williams nicked for Millenium that do it for me. That and Nancy Sinatra's vocal of course.

...Way before?