JapanAxe

When playing through an amp I just have a tuner pedal. My ampless board is just tuner > compressor > amp/speaker sim. I may end up using this on an upcoming gig where I will have to slap (or at least fake it).

Tell me about it! I played a big festival last year and every note on my bass, from C on the A string down, was accompanied by an earth-shaking WHUMPH through the PA. It felt quite embarrassing and made it hard to play in time.

A band that I dep with has recently acquired the Mackie DL16. The ability to set up my own monitor mix makes IEMs a positive thing rather than just tolerable. They don’t currently have an XLR splitter so I think they just give the house sound engineer access to the FOH mix.

As a guitarist as well as a bass player, I am very conscious of the poor impression that between-song p!ssing-about can create. I am therefore careful to avoid noodling in the gaps. However, I do occasionally like to finish minor-key songs with a bit of ‘Teddy Bears’ Picnic’.

Metal bass in a Dire Straits tribute? BL told the audience it looked like I was in a Poison tribute!

… and a dobro.

Resistance is futile!

Played at the Square Chapel in Halifax with Dire Streets, having depped with them on rhythm guitar the night before. Near enough a full house, and a very appreciative audience, including Mrs Axe (who took these snaps). The D-Roc sounded great through my ampless setup, and considering nobody is trying to look like Mark Knopfler or any of the band, it would be hard to argue that the D-Roc looked 'wrong'. Plus it almost matched the drum kit...

My main and best ever amp head is the Demeter 800W head. I also have a lovely EBS which has been for sale for yonks but I’m not exactly sorry that it hasn’t sold! I have a Markbass Nano head for a backup. On top of that I have a couple of DIY heads that live in my home studio / practice room. Recently I’ve been doing some tribute band gigs in theatres with no amps at all. That can be fine but it depends a lot on good in-ear monitoring.

Without wishing to initiate another music-stand-related pile-on, I wholly concur with the first statement. Regarding the second, there is definitely a thing where a band will consist of a bunch of middle-aged men who want to play dad rock, fronted by a much younger woman who wants to sing pop. I’m always amazed the these unhappy alliances last beyond the first attempt at a rehearsal.

I just pull the cable through a bleach-free surface wipe, then dry it off with a clean bit of rag.

What makes you think that hiding behind some ducks will protect you?

Unless you don’t. If you play with a fully floating thumb, the side of it rests against the strings below (in pitch) the one you are playing, thus damping them.

I forgot to mention the weight, a svelte 3.77kg or 8lb5oz. The Dire Streets BL has raised no objection, so I will likely be rocking it when I dep with them at Square Chapel, Halifax, on 22nd July.

I was actually joking, or thought I was - that's one very specific set of specifications!

Yes but could you be a bit more specific?

I never thought of standing it up like that - should be quite stable.

Bass Direct are still showing 3 in stock, in Matt Vintage Burst, Matt Metallic Black, and Metallic Aqua Flake.

NBW = New Bass Week, as it is 7 days since I bought it. I've been a Precision devotee for some years now - a good P does 95% of what I want from a bass guitar, so I had ended up with 2 actual Precisions (a '73 and a RI '63) and a Dingwall Super P 5-string. The other 5% is what you get from more than one pickup, and/or a bridge pickup on its own. Jazzes never did it for me though, and I recently started looking in earnest for an alternative. I'm not drawn to active circuits either, which narrows the field considerably. My shortlist included the Dingwall D-Roc. Bass Direct had 4 in stock, which dropped to 3 even as I watched, but then one came up on BassChat so I arranged to check it out and duly purchased it from the gent known on here as @Jimryan. The following day dawned with a serious case of buyer's remorse - had I blown a considerable on something I didn't really like? Then I got it out to play again, and all such thoughts swiftly evaporated. I have spent some time fettling it to suit my own preferences, which involved filing the nut slots, fitting new Elixir extra-long strings (I didn't care for the Paysons it came with), and making adjustments to the truss rod, action, and pickup heights. I spent some time at home getting used to its range of sounds and how it responds to my playing. The major wow happened when I took it on a wedding gig last night - Demeter 800W head into BF Super Twin. Not only did it play effortlessly but it sounded phenomenal in all 4 positions on the selector switch. Those different sounds cover all the main bass pickup 'food groups'. You can get an after-market replacement switch to give you 2 more options, but tbh I think Sheldon has nailed it with the ones he's chosen. The extra tension in the low E (with a scale length of over 36 inches) meant that I could play notes on it that I would normally choose to fret on the A string, with no flub whatsoever. A friend asked me 'Is it as punchy as it looks?' and as I told him, 'punchy' is definitely within its repertoire! The position of the strap attachment points means that it balances perfectly, and the head end is not uncomfortably hard to reach. The only downside is that the bass-side part of the lower bout sticks out where you don't expect it to, resulting in the occasional clash with (a) my cab and (b) parts of me. I've included the second photograph in an attempt to convey how sparkly the finish is - it's as sparkly as a very sparkly thing on World Sparkle Day. More so under stage lighting - we're talking Sparkly Mc Sparkleface here. The eagle-eyed may notice the absence of the black striped vinyl 'scratch plate' - that was removed before I bought the bass, a modification of which I approve 100%. I can barely wait to play this live again - would it look out of place in a Dire Straits tribute?

Some slap bass in the right context sounds great and I wish I could do it better. A bit of a problem for me is that I usually play quite lightly finger-style, and slapping comes out a lot louder, so then I have to think about a limiter to rein it in. First world problems eh? What I don’t care for is the slapping that is often used to demo bass gear. Sadly, much of this sounds to me like a filing cabinet full of scrap metal falling down a fire escape.