ped

[quote name='Gust0o' timestamp='1343912093' post='1757202'] This is what we need. [i]Naked Ped[/i], from [i]Asschat [/i]vists [i]Barefaced[/i]. This is gold dust, people. [/quote] I think the blog needs a password protected, subscription only section... bAsschat

I've just confirmed a visit to TC Electronic so I'll take my mankini

P.S I just posted the link on Talkbass in the 'Strings' forum, reckon that's OK? I just thought for the US customers it would be especially interesting; they probably see Rotos as quite exotic! ped

Thanks for the comments, I'm glad you all enjoyed it. It was certainly good fun to do and I'm really looking forward to the next ones. Is there anything I should do more? or less? I know I say 'Yeah' a lot and do lots of nodding in this vid. We've got a better camera to do the vid this time so that might be better (mainly the sound). Cheers ped

He agreed to blog this a few weeks ago, great minds eh? Cheers! ped

Thanks for the suggestion, sounds like a winner. TC Electronic and Warwick are next and I have a list of others - the more popular thee blog posts get the more I'll be able to do!

[quote name='Musky' timestamp='1343718366' post='1753969'] Well done chaps, and thanks for the hard work. Any chance you could up the font size a little or use black though? It's a bit difficult to read at the moment. [/quote] Hi mate I can't actually see any way of changing the font size at the moment but I'll find out for you. In the meantime press Ctrl+ the '+= key to zoom in Cheers

Thanks Sam, I'm off to bed now, yawning my arse off over here! Nighty night ped and Nellie

Excellent. Plenty more competitions on the horizon, so keep a look out!!

Discussion/comments from this article: http://blog.basschat.co.uk/welcome-to-the-basschat-blog/ As you can see, the blog is working!! We still have a couple of things to do and tidy up but go ahead and have a look. We have an exciting set of regular articles going live over the next few weeks plus there will be a chance for you all to get involved in the non too distant future. Keep an eye out - soon there will be a 'new blog posts' box on the right of the forum (above the Facebook block) which will alert you to new articles. Looking forward to any comments - each post will have a thread like this attached to it so you can comment on the blog post itself, or you can comment directly under the post using the Facebook comments box, if you use Facebook that is. We did look at integrating your login for BC into the blog to allow comments but that method is fraught with danger so making threads linked to the articles was the way to go! Cheers BC team

Enjoy and please comment - next up, Warwick HQ! Here's a video about our visit ped We’re about to leave the office of Jason How, CEO of Rotosound, when I ask, on the off chance, if he’s interested in cars. Jason sits bolt upright and reaches for his iMac screen, a signal that he’s about to spin it around and show me some pictures from his archives. I knew this was as good as an affirmative answer so I sat back down, putting all thoughts of the usual questions asked earlier in the day to one side. Jason @ Rotosound by chiscocks, on Flickr I’m not very experienced at interviewing people, much less with asking questions that people might be interested in. What I was trying to achieve with this visit, and my aim with the Basschat visits of the future, isn’t to hear the ‘party line’, the sort of information you can gleam from the companies website or marketing bumf. I want to dig beneath the surface a bit. As Jason showed me some pictures of his other passion, a selection of vintage Saabs sourced from all over the country and starting with a chance encounter at a scrapyard as a teenager, I felt I had built up a really good picture of the kind of man that runs a business as central to the music industry as tires are to the car industry. Hands up who uses strings? Strings laid out by chiscocks, on Flickr I wasn’t sure what to expect on this visit. I honestly didn’t know whether there would be masses of machinery, robot controlled laser canons or chimps running up and down a coal shaft with bass guitars. Well, perhaps the last two were slightly fanciful but I’m trying to put across the fact that I hadn’t really seen a factory before, but in a more interesting way. Upon our arrival (I brought BC bookie David with me; partly for company, partly to handle the video and partly to witness and ledger our Harvester meal on the way home) we were shown upstairs into a hallway with two offices, one of which was lined with guitars of all shapes and sizes. After a nose around, flipping through a diary, calling people on the phone and leaving rude post-it notes around said office, a cheerful little geezer introduced himself to us as Jason and he immediately ordered a cup of tea for everyone. I had heard that Jason was a musician himself – he later corrected me and said he’s ‘not a widdler’ – judging by the weird and wonderful instruments here and the tracks he later sent by email I should say he’s got a good ear for song writing. I even found a vintage Casio DG-10 somewhere. Upon hearing my excitement he looked around. “How does it sound?” he said, clearly having forgotten he had it stowed away. “sh*t” I replied. Instantly we felt very welcome and we started to ask the usual sorts of questions – how did Rotosound begin? Who were your first customers? (As I mentioned, most of this can be found on the website) What really intrigued me were the machines which built the strings. Jason designed and built many of them himself, and very impressive they are too. As a fan of mechanical engineering I was keen to see them in operation (see video) and impressed that everything was manufactured ‘in house’ but also using machinery built in the same building. How many companies can claim to be that British? Winding wrap by chiscocks, on Flickr In many ways, that ‘Britishness’ is Rotosound’s USP (Unique Selling Point, for those who don’t watch The Apprentice). Jason is quick to suggest how it’s a relatively important factor in foreign markets and the history of the brand is something many other manufacturers simply can’t compete with. As anyone ever caught behind a coach load of Americans in Blenheim will agree, foreign customers see this particular aspect as a key ingredient of a quality British product. The heritage of the brand is a big factor, then. But what about it’s future? Should the company permanently be looking at it’s past? Jason explains that whilst they have tried various innovations, their bread and butter really is the traditional roundwound string which remains largely unchanged since production began. I should imagine it’s a safe but slightly frustrating position to be in for someone like Jason who seems to enjoy inventing and finding solutions to things. When you see the machines, though, you can see that the focus for his efforts needn’t be in changing a winning product but in changing how they’re made – faster, better, safer, cheaper… all require innovation and attention to detail. Around 40 employees and a few million quid’s worth of stock and material sit in one building and that’s a lot to sink your teeth into (N.B Jason is not a vampire, least we saw no evidence to suggest this to be the case) Tension by chiscocks, on Flickr In the 80’s Jason reckons they would have needed 3 times the workforce they have now. Having built 25 machines himself exclusively for Rotosound his passion comes across as he highlights the many features and innovations which have come to the fore over the years. Rather than just copying his father’s work, he’s adapted and improved it. Maybe that’s why we wound up talking about old Saabs. Perhaps Jason feels a certain sadness that a company once successful like Saab went under. Perhaps it puts things into perspective and urges him on to keep Rotosound at the top of the game – or perhaps it’s a fascination of mechanics. He even sounded semi interested when I started going on about the Citroen SM I drove recently. Shelving by chiscocks, on Flickr I hope this visit has given you all an insight into the way Rotosound works. Hopefully now you will see a pack of Rotos on the shelf and think of the relatively small company behind this global icon which underpins some of the biggest developments in our musical history and the instruments which were used to write it. Long live Rotosound and thanks for having us for the day. (now all please stand for the national anthem!) Shipping room by chiscocks, on Flickr String machine by chiscocks, on Flickr Making strings by chiscocks, on Flickr Working at machine by chiscocks, on Flickr Machinery by chiscocks, on Flickr String hopper by chiscocks, on Flickr Busy factory by chiscocks, on Flickr Silent operation by chiscocks, on Flickr Finished strings by chiscocks, on Flickr Ball ends by chiscocks, on Flickr Monel by chiscocks, on Flickr Warehouse by chiscocks, on Flickr

Yeah sorry that's something we intend to fix. Save the file as, but type .mp3 at the end of the filename.

I found some samples I did a while ago. I think I've posted them elsewhere but here you go! This is my bass going though the Vbass but completely clean (no modelling, using bass pickups) [attachment=114412:Half moon short.mp3] Here I'm using the fretless synth with some delay [attachment=114414:Seismic mellow short1.mp3] This is my Jazz Bass model [attachment=114413:Holiday fun short.mp3] Some mucking about with a squishy synth patch [attachment=114409:Enemy lines short1.mp3] And another synth, bottom two strings are the low sounding synth hits, the high pitched bits are the top two strings. [attachment=114410:Enemy lines short2.mp3] It's a cool unit!!

Yeah I use mine all the time. 90% of the time I run my bass 'clean' into it and use it as a big fancy DI box straight to desk (using magnetic pickups, not the GK), but the rest of the time I'll use it for Jazz/P or MM models which sound, to my ears, perfect. As I never found a bass of those descriptions that plays anything like as well as my V-bassed bass I get the best of both worlds. I haven't massively explored the synths but I do have two set up that I use which I'm happy with. If I'm honest I don't think the unit's strength is the synth side, I think the modelling is where it excels. I like the unit so much that I installed the pickup into my bass so I have a 13 pin output on the side which makes it really nice and neat. I keep thinking about getting the new unit but I don't feel it's necessary from a sound quality point of view, but the new one does do some pretty cool things and I think the synth side of it is improved somewhat. Cheers

OK the blog is essentially ready now, I've just made the first post and the team of writers have been instructed to get their first posts in. We'll open it as soon as everyone knows how to use the software. Cheers

[quote name='bartelby' timestamp='1342873315' post='1742147'] The security guards in work will be pleased. As I only ever have my pass in my pocket. [/quote] I'm making you a special 'asschat' one The guards might be VERY pleased...

All good ideas. This summer I hope to add T shirts, stickers and lanyards. Problem is the £ at the moment, we're spending a fair bit over the next 3-6 months on site development. I think Lanyards will be next though as we have a supplier and design set up already. I've just had the artwork for the T shirts and planning a design competition for people here to submit designs for us to vote on. If we did this every few months we could end up with quite an exciting range. Cheers

I remember this came up a while ago and Ben had a look on the Invision forum. Lots of other people have requested the feature so I presume they are working on it for a future update. In fact, it may actually be included in the update we are missing out because we're waiting for the one after that which has additional security fixes from the recent issues. We've just hired a web developer to sort us out with some fixes so he will get round to this issue eventually... Cheers

I turn off all email apart from PMs. I'm here all the time anyway and set my homepage as the 'threads I follow' view so it's clear when someone posts in a thread I'm following. I think a fix is in order though and it's in the pipeline I think.

To be honest I had to use the donuts as spacers on the caravan axle to get it away from that horse who keeps on chewing the roof off

The production of the first album was really sweet. Drums sounded awesome. Dunno what happened to them. Ah well.

Really enjoying listening to these! Keep them coming.

[quote name='Voodoosnake' timestamp='1340878862' post='1710831'] Just joined the Vigier Passion owners club. Very exciting bass indeed!! [/quote] OOh I'm going to need some details!!

I'm trying Rotosound Nexus strings on the Vigier, they look amazing and feel nice but quite different to the Elixirs I'm used to. Time will tell how they fare because a set of Elixirs stay bright for over a year for me which is nice. This is still very much my main bass and I can't see it ever losing top spot. I have recently had an addition to the stable which I'll show later. ped

Excellent, glad you had fun. This has put a smile on my otherwise perpetually frowny face today