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I find IEM works really well. Do you have IEMs for the MD or is that sign language? My tip of the day is to drop the chord charts & learn the song's parts using the chord number method. That way you can free yourself up to focus on playing rather than eyes tied to a chart, and as it's the chord numbers, easy transposes.

One thing I found helpful when learning church songs, was to have one listen to the original, then go find an acoustic version of the song in the key (or as close a key as possible) that the church singist wants it in & practice to that version. This way there's a high chance of the bassline being better than the original You're praising God with your bass.

I’m not saying you’re wrong, but I’m not convinced. After watching some more YT vids, pickups seem to be by far, the biggest factor on tone, then the electrics. My Sub Stingray sounds crap acoustically, but plugged in, it sounds decent. Will the pickups & electrics sound better if I put them in a MM Stingray? I don’t know, but I’m doubtful. A video I watched this morning, he took a Squier Tele affinity & put expensive pickups in it. The sound was hugely different, but he went on to say “the tone is only 1/2 the difference. They also change the feel of how you play”. Off to see if I can find any “cheap pickups in an expensive guitar/bass” vids.

Found something interesting. Still points to the body wood seemingly not making much of a difference though...

I'm not saying that the wood doesn't have an effect on tone, but so far the evidence points to it having very little effect. I'd like to see one that shows the effect the wood is having, balance up the debate.

Why not replace the monitor with a headphone amp & then plug in a pair of earphones?

Would be interesting to hear what the difference is if you swapped a maple neck & a rosewood neck over. The video didn’t take that into account, but I’ve heard it said many times that rosewood makes tone a little darker. My Ibby has a rosewood neck, but strung with flats (Chromes), though I have a set of rounds I could throw on it to compare next to my stingray, but then they’re completely different instruments.

But the video seems to have pretty much shown that body wood has nothing to do with tone. We need a reverse test to prove otherwise. So 2 identical basses that sound different then change the pickups & electronics over & see what the outcome is. Because so far, I’m inclined to think 2 identical basses sounding different is due to the pickups maybe being at a different height, have a different winding or something different in the electronics.

From the video, it seems the biggest effect on tone other than the strings, is the pickup & the height that it is set. Then the electronics.

Do plexiglass necks have a transparent sound?

Double post

It would be interesting to see if the pickup height is the same on each.

The main things I can see as a benefit from more expensive instruments are the “quality” of the components used. Lighter wood and a more comfortable neck, as well as a good fit & finish to the instrument. It may not affect the tone, but it’s more about comfort & visual appeal. I have a Sterling Sub Stingray 5. It’s not a bad instrument for the money, but it weighs about twice as much as my Ibanez (& it was about 1/2 the price).

But does what type of wood it is have anything to do with it? On the piano, I think the different densities of wood would make a difference, as it’s basically it’s own cabinet. Just like I’d expect different sounds from a speaker cab if you made one out of a hard wood & another out of a softer wood. But for the bass, I’d like to see what happens if you take your hardware & neck from one of the basses & put it on a bit of 2x4. See how it compares.

Did another search & I found the last one, but there’s not much discussion really. Tried looking for the ones buried in a Tonewoods thread, but no joy. I had planned on saving a couple of £k & getting a nice bass, but it would seem money would be better spent finding an inexpensive comfortable bass & then upgrading the pickups & electrics?

Wont stop now outro first line is now: I know Grapefruit is coming.

Oh, I hadn’t seen the previous ones & they didn’t appear in my (admittedly short) search. Gonna have a look for them, as I like to hear others’ opinions.

My church rig for a while was Ibanez SR1000, with passive electrics, bbot bridge & d,addario Chrome faltwound strings > Korg pitchblack tuner, Boss Chorus, behringer BDDI > desk. I only used the chorus on a couple of songs, but no longer use it. A few months ago I got a Sterling Sub Stingray 5. It’s strung with d’addario rounds & goes through the same signal chain. Church desk is a behringer x32 & we all use IEMs. At home, bass goes into iMac via NI audio interface & comes out through either Shure headphones or Kali LP6 monitors (no dedicated bass amp/cab used anymore). Oh, years ago I had a great pedalboard, but it never saw church. It had a homemade splitter/summer, Boss OC-3 octaver, Moog MF-101 filter, Moog MF-104b Bass Murf, PSK distortion & a Boss chorus. Sounded immense.

This popped up in my YouTube feed & although it’s a guitar, I don’t see why bass would be any different. So are expensive basses really about a more comfortable neck & visual appeal?

Coincidence. In my worship team 2 of us play Ibanez, one plays aFender P, one plays a P copy & I also play a Sterling Stingray.

There’s the mathematically challenged “How great is our God”… ”The Godhead 3 in 1: Father, Spirit, Son, the Lion & the Lamb” Maybe it was written by Monty Python’s King Arthur?

One thing I can't do is sing. I sound awful & can't hear the notes. But I have worked with a few different singers & found the vocal chain (that's what effects to use) can vary. For the Mrs (she sang the December 2021 BC comp, if you want a listen), The effects used in order were D16 Frontier ( a free self adapting limiter), Native Instruments Solid Dynamics (a compressor), an EQ with a slight boost at 250hz & a slight cut at about 800hz, & then quite a cut at the 5.6khz up (the mic picked up too much treble), a de-esser & then Isotope Ozone 9 Elements (using a slightly tweaked version of the Pop Vocal preset). I then have 3 effects sends, Bus 1 is to a settee delay on 1/8 notes & blended in very slightly (-19 db), Bus 2 is to a chorus (Arturia Juno 60) & again blended in very slightly (-19db) & Bus 3 is to a reverb (NI Raum, using Vocal Hall preset) & blended in about 35%. I then doubled her vocal for the backing vocals, panning one hard left & the other hard right, lowering the volumes & then sent them to the one buss using the same signal chain (but with some slight tweaks to soften them a bit). Another tip is to use a sample delay on the vocal & delay one side very slightly. This will help make the vocal thicken up.

Jesus Saves. My fave is Resurrecting by Elevation - "Your name, Your name, is Victor Reeves".

The drums on your track sound fantastic. I'd be tempted to pop a little bit of parallel compression on them just to give a touch more punch & see how it sounds, but then it might be too much. I think all the instruments in your track sound like great quality instruments & having a good sounding instrument to start with makes the rest of the production a whole lot easier. I think my issue is that I'm not happy with my initial sound from any of my instruments, so I try & fix it with different plug ins. The only way to change the instrument sounds to something I like, is to buy better quality instruments. My Sterling Sub Ray5 doesn't sound anything like the quality of the MM Bongo I tried, but I can't afford anything better just now & I find most of NI Komplete's sounds aren't production ready either.

Funny how we must hear our own songs. I think your sound quality is much better than mine. For this song, I tried using the Accusonus ERA 6 AutoEQ along with Isotope Neutron 3 on some of the higher pitched sounds. The master channel is 2 EQs, one set to mid & a HPF set at 30hz, then another set to sides and the LPF at about 240hz to put the lows in mono. Then isotope Ozone 9, a very small room chorus (NI RC48 using the "Studio Aura" preset), Shadow Hills Mastering Compressor & then Brainworx bx masterdesk classic just to bring the LUFS up. I've found layering a couple of compressors, each doing a very light job seems to work well.