NickD

It seems like a lot of fuss over nothing then.... I'd better get on with it!

And so the questions begin! 🤣 So, I have this beast now, and I can't stop playing the damn thing, seems like my Helix handles it well, and given the absence of neighbours this morning I stuck it straight through my Markbass 121H combo expecting something awful from the low output piezo pickup, but was very pleasantly surprised as it turned out. Now.... Arco? Not something I can imagine having a serious use for beyond looped, effected drones and weird ambient swells (I guess you never know though), but a number of YT videos have suggested that using a bow can be useful for honing intonation given a bowed note's less forgiving nature. I plan on going fairly inexpensive to start with as it's only a practice tool for now (unless that's a terrible idea?), but reading around I'm getting mixed messages.... Is it a messy business? 95% on the time I'll be playing pizz, will the rosin make my strings sticky, my bass sticky, my case sticky, my carpet sticky.... does it fly around and build up on the curtains (ok, a step too far, but you get the gist). Is it something you have to live with, do I need to put a towel down, or are are those complaining of such things lashing a ton of sticky stuff on there unnecessarily? Is it manageable, can I spend 10 mins cleaning stuff down when I'm done playing and get everything back to square one... If so is there a string/bass/bow cleaner that you'd recommend? Thanks in advance

I'm sure I'll get the hang of it eventually. As it stands, straight out of the box it plays ok, in that it's manageable, and it sounds pretty good too. I think I've pretty much sorted positioning on the stand for comfort and posture, and the biggest challenge now is dealing with the monstrous scale length in terms of fingering for good intonation. I intend to focus on that first, then if I think setup/action/strings are getting in the way of actual progress I'll address it. As mentioned above, just based on reading around I don't think there's too much wrong with the out of the box setup, but I'm speaking from semi-ignorance there. What I can judge is that it sounds ok, feels ok (though obviously tougher on the hands), and doesn't have anything in the way of rattle & string noise. I can get a slap out of it, but even on BG I have a pretty percussive right hand technique, if anything the increased action on the EUB plays to my advantage as it seems to like a heavy hand. I'm going to try not to get caught up in the whole thing of trying to get the sound and response of a DB... because it's not a DB, and I will fail. As it stands, with the IR engaged it's kinda close enough for my purposes (maybe that will change in a mix though). I'm sure further down the line I can look at trying to refine things, by then I might have a clearer idea of what I want from it.

May well do that... It's worth a try! Cheers!

I've been looking round t'interweb for string height recommendations. To be honest I suspect it's ok, it seems high, but playable with some effort compared to BG. From the bottom of the fingerboard to the underside of the string it's about 7mm, 6mm, 6mm, 5mm, 4mm B to G. It's pretty thumpy and there's no real rattle, but maybe the G sounds a little dull acoustically compared to the others. I think I probably just need to play, not get caught up in something I don't know much about and then tweak to taste as I start to get an idea. Being the WAV version the output is a little low, but that's easily tweaked in the Helix for now. I'll worry about balancing impedance with an amp when the time comes... It's not like I'm cracking under the weight of my gig diary ATM!

Thanks... I'll give that a go too, see how close I can get to the sound I want. Cheers! Hopefully the 'new toy' effect will carry me through this dead period until there are signs of recovery. (I say dead period... I've been writing and recording loads throughout, what with getting 3 hours a day back that I would have spent commuting) That's good, I'll take a look when I have more of an idea of what I need... ditto with strings. It's not something I currently understand anything about, and it looks like experimenting can be pretty expensive!

I'm running Elements 10 on an almost 10 year old Toshiba Satellite laptop, god knows what the processor is off the top of my head, but 8gb Ram running Win 10-64. Lot's of tracks, plenty of plugins and it's not stalled once, no problems with latency, nothing. I honestly don't think Cubase Elements is that heavy a piece of software. It's not that I don't have the choice, I'm typing this on the Mac I use for work, but I'm happy to leave it where it is for the time being as it's fine.

Oh it's certainly fun! Coming from BG the action feels really bloody high as it is. I don't think I understand enough about it to change it, nor the strings for that matter, which sound pretty decent to my untrained ear, but there seems to be a fair bit of tension. I'm really impressed with the Impulse response (3Sigma Berliner, taken from an 1894 Lowendall) it really makes a difference, pushing it a lot closer to the Upright sound than I expected.... again, to my untrained ear. At this stage it would probably be comforting to get caught up in the technical aspects, strings, action etc, to make me feel better about my incompetence on the instrument, but I'm just going to leave everything as is and hammer at my technique... because we all know that's where the problems usually lie.🤣 Despite only having it a couple of days I jammed with my drummer yesterday (Covid safe, we live together) and it was a ton of fun. Despite my crappy playing, some really cool stuff came out.

Well done!👍

So this happened! It's something I've been meaning to do for a while... I blame Ronnie Scott's live streams and José Riso on KJazz. More seriously I've been listening to the recordings we're in the middle of and thinking that despite its generally rocky nature, a fat, plummy tone might have worked well with some of the riffs. I know it's not exactly what the instrument is for, but figured I'd give it a go anyway. My god it's a different beast, my brain is scrambled and my fingers are raw, but it's fun. I downloaded a 3Sigma IR for the Helix, and for a quick start it sounds pretty good right off the bat! Can't help but feel I'm looking up a pretty steep curve right now.

Ever, it's probably either Live after Death or Live and Dangerous. Over the past couple of years it's been Arriving Somewhere by Porcupine Tree.

I'd hoped to get one in too, but I'm up to the neck in studio stuff at the moment. We're down to guitar solos and vocal harmonies, neither of which are my strong points. I started and abandoned twice due to lack of focus... Hopefully this month will be easier

Another bloody strong field.... Some great stuff in there!

My Jake 5+ was built in 2016, my Elwood L5 the year before. Both are made beautifully, and neither has given me a moment's trouble.

The only one that really bugs me is Springsteen's Thunder Road.... an immaculate, evocative tune (IMO, obvs).... Then, in lieu of the beautiful resolution it calls for, they just tag any old crap on the end and repeat to fade.

'cos when they finally put you in the ground, they'll stand there laughing and tramp the dirt down'. Kinda ruined when they cremated the old cow.🤣

That reads to me as if he didn't understand the question.

That's fun... Works really well! I've done a couple of albums for a friend with Damon playing drums, he's a quality producer too!

It is well sculpted, it fits me like a glove. Maybe it doesn't look quite as extreme because the body is thinner, if that makes any sense? It's not at all slabby. The body is just about perfect IMO. The sculpted heel at the body/neck join works beautifully too, as I do get up the dusty end from time to time. Again the caveat that mine is a fiver, but I assume it's the same for the 4. There's a few folks on here with them, so I guess that will be confirmed soon.

Not an exact match, but speaking for a Jake 5 the body is a little thinner. It works well for me, sitting nicely and keeping the weight down a little.

Obviously the standard get-out phrase is 'Hmmm, depends on the gig'. .... Or just 'get out!'

I wish he'd stop playing over Bernaaard... He's just messing up the groove!

🤣 Barry Palladino.... I'm sure I've witnessed his slick vocal stylings on the South Yorkshire Working Men's Club circuit!

I don't really critique... It's music, whether I like it or not often has little to do with how 'good' it is. I suppose the criteria I use is, can I see a connection to the image, and which do I like better than the rest.