Dood

Do say hi from me. I must catch up with my last email with him!

Great to see Gillett Guitars being represented officially on BassChat. About 6, maybe 7 years ago Michael himself posted on BassChat to discuss the new product line and I just had to reach out to him to talk more. We've stayed in touch as much as possible and I feel honoured that I was able to be instrumental in aiding the design of the original range. Certainly very touched when Michael reached out to me as he did with other bassists who are highly regarded to discuss his basses and what players were looking for in an instrument. In case you missed it on TV, Michael has been on Dragon's Den with his instruments as well which I think was superb! I have a lot of time for Michael, I think he's a really nice guy and I want to see him and his basses progress.

Hi, sorry for the slow response, been so busy in the studio, but I will do my best to reply properly later. Apologies chap.

Same here. All of my 'best bass tones' as commented on by engineers have never had cabinet or amp sims on, even when I am using drive effects. So yes, my last pedal board pre-helix (everything mounted on a bit of Ikea shelf, yeah I rock ha ha) had a mini DI on it and I split the signal direct to XLR for the PA and should I have had an amp on stage the 1/4" went straight to that. I took the direct signal from the PA and ran it back with my own mix to IEMs. I like the 'immediacy' I suppose of being plugged in direct. If that makes sense? Also meant that the EQ and compression on the desk sorted out the FOH tone, saved, set and pretty much forget.

I think I'll come at this from a different angle. Pro Steels are definitely one of the brightest sets of strings out there. Now, I used to think that strings didn't stay bright for me for very long, but it wasn't the fault of the strings. My hand sweat etc killed strings after long gigs under hot lights etc. For a while when we were busy I was changing strings nearly every gig! So, rather than looking for even brighter strings, maybe look at ways of stopping these from going dead so quickly. If you can handle a 'little less bright' then you should absolutely give coated strings a go. D'Addario do their own non-tacky strings that will try to keep the sweat out of the windings. They will sound more consistent for longer. The other thing you can do of course is to keep your hands dry between songs. Wipe down the strings if you need to as well. I don't know if you can still get it, but I used to use a rub in sport 'grip' powder throughout the hottest of summer gigs which really helped to keep not only my fingers dry but also my palms too. I used to leave gigs absolutely drenched back then, but I needed up saving my strings; they stayed bright longer. - I'm a lot less animated these days ha ha. Anyway, just a few thoughts and you never know if you find a solution, you'll change strings less and that will save you money in the long run!

Look up Rick Beato on YouTube and his son Dylan. Irrefutable I think that music has a massive effect on us, even under the age of two years old.

Laughably, I've had the Helix a while and I've just not had the time I would have liked to have spent tweaking, but, the Pearce Preamp is very very good and will probably at some point take over the pedal. That said, I really like the simplicity of the pedal there too. It feels a bit like when I used to be a guitar shredder and have a two channel amp behind me ha! It's a bit of a 'core tone' thing for me in conjunction with the HyperGravity just above it. If I continue that route, so I have a 'core tone always on' thing, I'll probably drop an EQ in there. Not because I need to, but you know... that's more pretty lights, isn't it lol !!!! I think with some tweaking the Pearce Preamp is going to be a killer, but for now, EBS stays. It is my favourite distortion pedal. Dan

I know! the OCD I don't have is going crazy right now!!!!!

Seen out in the wild this weekend... (Not quite finished setting up yet but enough to be safe 'on the road')

Thanks Russ! - Yeah, I wasn't so fussed about the audio quality, it's perfect as it is; but the 'premium' version of the connectors do look more 'beefy' than the standard version. I may give those a whirl as I can see a weak point where the cable goes in to the connector itself which is liable to get grief in day to day use. Not sweat or anything like that, just movement in this case.

@EBS_freak - and for the sake of others reading too. Literally in the last couple of minutes, the connector on my IEMs has disintegrated as I coiled my IEMs carefully in to their case! YIKES! I'm glad it happened now and now whilst I was at a gig. Of course I have ping'd out a mail to the rather awesome The Custom IEM Company, but whilst I am here, it might be a good time to look at 3rd party vendors who are making really well made cables that are tough but not bank breaking in terms of cost. I can see where the connector has fallen to bits and I'm not so sure it won't happen again.Thankfully I managed to pull the connector out of the IEM carefully with some song nose pliers.

I love them! - If I had the money I would buy one. So much fun and one of the better 'mini' basses out there. We did a BassChat review video here where I had a short time to get to grips with one, but even in the brief period before it was packed up to return to Taylor I enjoyed using it.

Interestingly, arguably the king of 'triplets', Steve Harris (though often actually a 16th note pattern) doesn't use three fingers. He 'gallops' with his index and 2nd fingers. He also plays very lightly with the bass turned up loud. This enables him to use a light touch and thus play quickly. Index and second is also fine and as you've mentioned, a pick finds it's way in to my playing when the tempo is very high and I want that sharp attacking sound to boot. Start slow as always and build up to it. Don't lock your fingers or hand up as you'll fatigue quickly.

It'd be different if Jaco only used FRFR.. lol

I have just bumped another thread about a Spotify Playlist that you can all add to. I thought it might be cool if you added some of your 'best baselines' from the favourite artists mentioned here! (For my own selfishness, I like to listen to this on long journeys in the car!) http://open.spotify.com/user/onlinedood/playlist/6UkfcLnRafb95u7EnciaAU

Bumping this if you have any cool and favourite bass lines to share! It's an interactive playlist you can add to! http://open.spotify.com/user/onlinedood/playlist/6UkfcLnRafb95u7EnciaAU

It has to be Queen. I was immersed in such a wide range of music as a kid. My family always had music playing I think. My cousins would put on all sorts of cool music when I was tiny. everything from The Damned to Jeff Wayne, Jean-Michel Jarre to Neil Diamond. But there was always one band that stood out, Queen. I learned so much about song writing and music theory from absorbing myself in their music. I expected that I'd play guitar first of all as Brian May was such a standalone character at the time.. The story behind the Red Special, the hair, the guitar solos etc.. but then I discovered this rather quiet chap at the back with an instrument that looked..and sounded very, very cool indeed. I was smitten with it and like a terrier with a bone... it's been about 30 years now ha ha.. I'd like to shake John's hand and say a little thank you.

Absolutely buy Toontrack's EZ Drummer 2. It works stand alone and although a fully featured 'drum machine' is a powerful song writing tool too. The ability to easily save and export your finished song structure full of professionally created fills, introductions and endings as an audio file or MIDI for importing in to a DAW is invaluable. Of course the audio can easily be dropped on to an MP3 player or CD and you have your drummer there to take to any gig. Dead easy to use and about another 20 features I've not even mentioned that had me reaching for my bank card in minutes. I use it every day now.

I’d definitely like to trial the QSC K12 or more so K12.2. Very intrigued!

Just running the update myself. Looking forward to testing it out but it will have to wait until tomorrow, I'm rack mounting our digital desk and router this evening too!

Turned out nice again!

Ha ha ha, resistance is futile

I'm amazed this is a thing! ha ha ha! It's a bit like saying that an able bodied person prefers walking with their left leg rather than the right.

Beat me to it lol