danlea

I'm very aware of how I should sit in the band setting, precisely because we have a keyboard player. It's why I gravitate to the precision sound, and why I use effects sparingly, now having only a DHA VT2 at my feet (aside from a tuner pedal and a loop + tuner mute pedal). Even with just a guitarist, much of your mid and upper ranges is going to be masked, and these are the regions in which effects [i]predominantly[/i] operate. With keyboard as well, adding effects can clutter the mix.

That said, you may find yourself sounding extremely 'bare' when the other instruments drop out. I would argue that this can be remedied with EQ alone, but then as it would need to be kicked in, kind of counts as an effect anyway.

In any case, bass effects have a time and a place, but not for everyone.

Next gig is at the Water Rats showcasing two brand new songs (though they'll all be new to you guys), so if anyone fancies coming along, put yourself on the [url="http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=91139238685"]Facebook event page[/url]'s guestlist to get cheap entry (and let me know about it as well).

I know it's a long-shot asking you to come and see a band you know nothing about, but this venue's really easy to get to, and there should be thirty odd people coming to see us alone (there are three other bands on), and so make for a good Tuesday night.

Dan.

[quote name='danlea' post='504915' date='Jun 3 2009, 06:21 PM']Well there are a myriad of devices that will do exactly what you want...[/quote]
See.

Well there are a myriad of devices that will do exactly what you want, but I'm assuming that given you've done headphone practice, you realise how unpleasant shoving effected signals straight into your ear can be (like those three fuzz pedals you refer to in your signature).

I'd recommend getting either a Behringer V-Amp (I have one myself, though I've not used it in a long time), or as you say, a Korg Pandora. I really think you'd appreciate the amp/speaker/ambience simulation. This is the key to satisfactory headphone practice in my opinion, so anything which does that is going to helpful, and I think the V-Amp is the cheapest of your options, although I've just checked the price of the Pandora, and it's not far off, plus appears to be smaller.

Dan.

I shelled out the £165 for a pair of ER15's a few weeks ago after having a slight, but very worrying ring in my ears for over a week (that has now thankfully disappeared). I have owned a pair of standard musician's earplugs for ages, but never wore them due to their being [i]really[/i] uncomfortable (I think the openings to my ear canals are pretty small) and not being able to make out all of what was said between playing due to the quite severe sound level reduction and, moreover, the muffling effect.

Anyway, they arrived this morning and though of course I've not rehearsed with them yet, I did try them out briefly. When I first put them in I wasn't sure I had done it properly because everything sounded just the same as it had done before putting them in. It was only when I took them out and noticed the considerable volume increase that I realised they really do sound that transparent - a hundred times better than the £15 plugs ('Hearos' I think). They're comfortable, as you'd expect, and the only negative effect of having them in is the slight rumbling they can cause if you're talking or, say moving your jaw for whatever reason.

I've only been rehearsing at volume for just under three years, and I wish [i]I[/i] had gotten them sooner! It is a bit of an expense for some, but it's absolutely worth every penny, and I think we should all play a role in encouraging their use so that people can benefit before having the damaging effects of loudness proved to them.

[quote name='Mr. Foxen' post='501642' date='May 30 2009, 02:24 PM']Ifs its dual power amps like a Little Giant, then one will be running at 8 and one at 4, with the three cabs, so would be unblalanced.[/quote]
[quote name='Alien' post='501743' date='May 30 2009, 04:21 PM']It wouldn't make any difference in the real world - the cab that's on the channel by itself might be 1-2 dB louder, which is about the smallest change you'd notice, even if you have good ears.[/quote]
Amps with two channels can have independent level controls as well. I am in fact referring to Trace Elliot heads like mine, but this is by no means light and I'm not suggesting it as an option.

[quote name='Born 2B Mild' post='501623' date='May 30 2009, 02:07 PM']...an amp head that could do 2ohms...[/quote]
Or one with two 4 Ohm outputs?

Well it sounds like compression just isn't needed for your type of live music. It's most important where you're providing a solid foundation (or pudding, as some people here like to call it) for the band, but certainly if you're playing like a guitar (only lower) it may not be what you want. You say you're noise floor is an issue - are you using overdrive/distortion pedals? If so, these act rather like hard-knee compressors themselves.

timloudon - I wouldn't use a compressor to even out different effects levels as in order to do this the compression will most likely have to be severe enough to crush your playing dynamics. If your unit doesn't have an output level control you can always use a loop pedal with one, e.g. [url="http://www.redonionsolutions.co.uk/Loop/Single.htm"]http://www.redonionsolutions.co.uk/Loop/Single.htm[/url] with the passive volume control option.

[quote name='stevie' post='486649' date='May 13 2009, 09:34 AM']I have a similar issue with Duncan P-Bass and Jazz pickups on the same bass. They are both vintage model pickups but the bridge Jazz pickup is quieter than the P-bass. The pickups themselves are fine (I've measured them). I have a Quarter Pounder Jazz waiting to go in now in an attempt to balance them up.
The lesson here, as you say, is that there is always less output from a pickup near the bridge.[/quote]

Well yes, naturally the amplitude of the vibrations near the bridge is much smaller, particularly at lower frequencies, but of course the bridge pickup will always be closer to the strings. I use either all precision (neck) or half and half. The difference at face-value is fairly subtle, but it does make a significant difference to the way in which the bass fits into the track. The bridge pickup by itself has practically no deep bass and is simply low volume, full stop, but then this can be used for playing 'low guitar lines', particularly if you've got another instrument (like piano/synths) providing the real lows. This is probably the reason the hot-rodded precisions are becoming rarer - for many the benefit will not be worth the cost of the extra pickup/modification.

I have to say I have similar experience with the *hot* stack at the bridge of my Japanese Precision (see signature). The volume is not as high as the non-stack version I have in my backup bass, but this could also be due to distance from the bridge and the guitar specifics. I know it's not a height or phase problem from testing. I'd say that if you're tone is fine, there shouldn't be a problem, unless you're having issues with noise. Still, the checks mentioned by the others could be worthwhile - deductive reasoning.

Hey guys, we're starting fresh as redbluegreen, and I've made a sampler Flash animation for our minimalistic web page: [url="http://redbluegreenmusic.com"]redbluegreen[/url] - and yes, it took me ***kin' ages to make. Also, we're still debating possible logos/motifs, so if anyone has ideas that would fit our style of music, we're open to suggestions! Oh, and we're playing the Camden Purple Turtle (it is quite a decent venue, despite the ridiculous branding) next Wednesday if anyone fancies it. Let me know and I can see about guestlist.

Ta,

Dan.

Good value this keyboard - nice, light hammer action. As a guide, I paid £130 for one from ebay (pickup only, London) a few weeks back. I think they were something like £250 new.

I'm just going to note that this is still taking up room in our storage space, and is not being used, hence still for sale. I just couldn't be bothered re-doing the gumtree ad, etc.

[quote name='Prosebass' post='309253' date='Oct 18 2008, 02:32 PM']because its easier to run a wire to the bridge with the potential (no pun intended) to electrocute someone...cheapskate manufacturers.[/quote]

Umm, I think it's more likely to be the manual labour of shielding. The earth connection to the bridge isn't an alternative to shielding, and even if it is shielded, you should still have this connection.

- Looking into the physics of a faraday cage won't necessarily answer all your questions given that the conducting enclosure is far from complete.

- I would definitely isolate the springs before connecting to earth (which is something I would definitely do) assuming your bass buzzes if you touch the poles.

- Without a proper A-B test I couldn't tell you if the supposed improvement in tone is real or psychological, but I definitely did think the tone was a lot more defined after I shielded mine. True, it could be the effect removing the noise mask, but in any case I'm happier with the sound now. Oh, and it could have also had something to do with me fixing the earth connection inside my amp!

That is astonishingly beautiful - which is why I wouldn't buy it even if I wanted to spend that much on a bass; I 'd freeze on stage with worry that I'd knock it against something!

Trace Elliot? Light-weight? Are they going to use neon pink colouring for them?

Perhaps I'll chuck [url="http://basschat.co.uk/index.php?showtopic=25375"]this[/url] into the mix. Probably not exactly what you want, but maybe it'll be helpful in some respect.

I'd really love to own one of these, but they are high quality instruments (not that I know what they sound like) and so obviously don't come cheap. Have been waiting for the right Bridge violin or octave violin to come up on ebay for aaaaages. Good luck with the sale mate.

I know what you mean about the on-off nature of passive PJ's, but I'm going to try using linear pots for the individual volumes (in my case just the bridge pickup - the neck is always on) - see [url="http://basschat.co.uk/index.php?showtopic=28270"]this topic[/url]. My logic follows the notion that the increase in overall pickup load (drop in overall resistance) as you dial in an extra pickup might also contribute to the change in tone, thereby compounding the shift. In any case, using a linear pot will at the very least push the 'on' position further away from the 'full volume' position and hopefully increase the useful window.

If I get round to it (that is bother to buy a linear pot) I'll post to comment on the results.

Scoob, dooby-doo do bump bump.

[quote name='flutophilus' post='294590' date='Sep 29 2008, 03:21 PM']Genuine question here. Why wouldn't you get a US Deluxe if you wanted a P bass with a bridge pu? (assuming money not a problem).

I'm asking the question because I'm looking at P basses at the moment, and I've tried the US Standard which I like but the shop didn't have a US Deluxe so I couldn't try it.

If you set a US Deluxe to neck p/u only and all eq flat would that not sound the same as a US Standard ? Does it lose something just because it has the bridge p/u ?

Cheers[/quote]

I've had a USA Deluxe. It just didn't do it for me. It was powerful and clear, but it just doesn't sound the same as a passive bass. For pop and funk it would be great I'm sure, but not my kind of music. Also the bridge humbucker is quite different to a jazz pickup.

Musky - You have to bear in mind that when dialling in another pickup you're changing the load characteristics of the circuit and so are liable to alter the tone and output of the original pickup's component (not that you can separate the components) unless both pickups are buffered.

bassbloke - The result is not going to be a lowering in output in every case. Just imagine a case wherein the outputs of the individual pups differ greatly, e.g. the neck being much quieter than the bridge - in this case the output is bound to increase when adding more of the bridge. Using a 3-way switch is not going to cure the problem and is not going to be an acceptable proposition to those who want continuous (as opposed to discrete) blending.

With regards to Badass bridge, yeah, it's a separate topic, but as it's in here I can't help but comment. The Badass may well increase sustain in certain cases, although I do also suspect the difference is lessened when using very high gauge strings as I do. The main thing is, as others have said, any difference in tone is not always a step in right direction, depending on what you're going for. From what I can tell, the vintage bridge is a major part of the vintage sound. Lastly, this bridge seems fine to me. Any cost-cutting measures on the Japanese models don't seem to manifest themselves on this bass at least.

bassman2790 - Putting a Stingray humbucker in a precision is a going towards the American Deluxe model, but staying passive. Would be interesting to try.

Just to chuck in my thoughts (probably far too late), it does sound like some multi-valve gnarl (so yeah, Ampeg SVT...) but that's not to say you can't get a similar tone from your Boss. The main thing is to get the extreme EQ shaping - play about with EQ post distortion and blend the dry signal.

[quote name='Mr. Foxen' post='292188' date='Sep 25 2008, 09:08 PM']Is there any way round that volume drop thing? Made my neck j-pup p mono and been noticing it.[/quote]

Well, without thinking it about it too much, I reckon you could potentially use a dual pot for the bridge volume, having the secondary pot in series with a higher value resistor as the load for the neck pickup. This way the neck pickup would be set just below max when the bridge is out, and increased up to max as the bridge pickup is dialled in. This is in reference to my 1 master, 1 volume control configuration, and I'm not really sure of what you have or want. To be honest you'd probably end up with the overall volume fluctuating as you turned the control, and need to experiment to get roughly equal volumes at either end of the dial - I don't expect it would be worth it. If I had a LOT of free time on my hands I might mess around with such an idea, but the values depend on your pickups, distance to the strings, etc.

The only way to avoid pickups affecting each other is to mix them actively, something I don't think is even done in most active instruments, the exception being combination piezo setups, correct me if I'm wrong.