NancyJohnson

I had a VTBass rack unit AND a VTBASS DI. Didn't mind them, but the BDDI/RBI was superior, or more to the point, it suited me better. If @Tech21NYC had made a head with the RBI then it would be my #1 choice.

I'm not so familiar with the DG pedals; the backbone of my tone was Sansamp BDDI for years. When the AO was announced I ordered thinking it was going to be a one box solution to satisfy my needs. I remember @Wolverinebass saying that the Alpha suited me more than the Omega, which is largely correct. Anyhow, I've decided to relist the AO900 and will do so this weekend. Replacement, well, I just don't know.

I posted a while back about simply going the stomp/small (class D) Poweramp route. I could live with that. I saw a review of the Boss Katana bass head a few hours ago, but a peak rate of 500w isn't going to be enough. Suppose the thing is - and while I live a few miles from Andertons - actually trying stuff out is nightmarishly difficult.

It's an odd one, but a case of wrong type of distortion. The AO is somewhat middy; the videos where you see these metal guys going nuts with Dingwalls, not once have I ever been able to emulate anything close to that. I was never happier than when I got my first Sansamp BDDI and then migrated to an RBI/Poweramp setup. I've gone through a lot of kit since then, chasing tone. There has to be something.

I have a few basses (all good), several cabs (all good), some Sansamps (all good) and a Darkglass AO900 head. I've posted previously about how I haven't really bonded with the AO900; it's a tad too aggressive/gnarly for my liking. I adore the power and that I can jack a stomp into the effects return, but ideally I'd like to be able to have a small/loud one box solution to give me a bit of Geddy Lee style clank and Jean Jacques dirt, so I'm looking for recommendations. I guess the amp will return £650/700 which I can throw at something else. Help!

After an abortive three days trying to install this, it went off to Julian Mullen to do the work. It went in as a replacement for a John East Uni-3 that just stopped working. Got the bass back home about an hour ago. I'm of the mindset that if you invest in a suite of products, they should all kind of work with each other; so the Tone Capsule into an AO900 should be peachy, eh? Well, happy to report the bass sounds fantastic in isolation. The cap has three boost/cut options bass, low-mid and hi-mid. There's no real sweepable mid thing going on but there does appear to be an element of treble passthrough, but man alive, it's just glorious to my ears.

I've got a list of what I own on a spreadsheet. Serial numbers/anticipated values etc. Said spreadsheet also includes contact details for @cetera.

I've been to a handful of open nights and on one occasion was unfortunately asked up to play bass on a couple of songs that I didn't actually know. "Is Paul out there? Where is he? Oh, there he is. Come on up!" ['Oh, sh*t, oh, sh*t, oh, sh*t.'] "Nope, you're OK." Wife interjects, "Go on, it'll be fun." Sigh. Well, it wasn't fun. The evening was full of these dead behind the eyes bedroom-warriors; blokes who'd taken up guitar because they had a bit of money pre-retirement. All the gear. Gibson and Fender. Guys with an arthritic claw like grip on their necks, struggling to extend beyond three chords whilst reading off music stands. One of the blokes had the fecking audacity to later stroll up to the bar and tell me I wasn't following the right bassline despite never having heard Wonderful Tonight or whatever wretched Clapton/Eagles thing it was that they were playing; this despite him being one of the most inept guitarists I've ever witnessed. Sure, each to their own but, with all respect to the OP, I'd sooner cut my arm off than play the selection of songs listed there.

Christ on a bike, yes. It doesn't matter how great the bass looks, if the headstock doesn't work from a design perspective it's a non-starter. The five string looks way better.

Aah, the Blue Lagoon, Iceland. Years ago my mother stoically gave me several bits of sage advice. 'Don't smoke, stay out of the sun where possible, drink in moderation and find yourself a decent moisturiser.' My dad had skin that resembled dry leather; much as I loved him I didn't want that, so I've followed all three for 40+ years. Here's a recent one.

Isn't this the same with every copy bass? Lost count of the posts I've read here and elsewhere (for instance) extolling how a £125 Harley Benton Stingray clone growls as much as the real thing or how Rockingbetter clones clank like the real thing etc. I think usage of 'special sauce' wins Basschat for today. "Oh, your Epiphone is fundamentally all round better than the '60s Thunderbird it's copied from, y'say? Does it have the special sauce?"

Whether this is right or wrong, I don't know, but years ago one of the guys doing our live sound said if you want to use mids do it from the bass as you simply 'can't produce modulation for a frequency that doesn't exist'. This stayed with me since; if you squirt your desired tone to an amp from say a Jazz bass, your tone control is simply open (pickups open, unaffected) or the high frequency is being cut (thus rolling off the highs). In theory any mids produced away from the source are simply emulations as they don't exist in the original signal source. I guess this leads on to the active circuit argument; there's John East units installed on several of my basses, all have a midsweep frequency/boost control. Used sparingly, this'll allow your tone to cut through the mix. It works significantly better than any outboard tweaking.

Personally, the better perspective would be to have a mid/mid frequency-sweep stack on the bass; this way you're in control over what hits your amp/board.

Sometimes you just have to take a direct route and be the voice of reason; the thread has been viewed 350 times, I'm sure there's many who probably went, 'Really?' when they read it. Perhaps it's just the way I'm wired, but there's little point in skirting around things, always be as direct as possible.

I honestly don't get these type of what's-your-favourite-colour? type threads. OP has used a pick previously, but is asking for plectrum recommendations and how to use them. What follows will inevitably be dozens on well-intended posts suggesting plectrums of various makes/thicknesses etc. Come on! The OP purports to have been born in 1972. They're 52-ish. It's like riding a bike or tying your shoelaces. If you've used one previously, you know what you've used, whether you were happy with it and you simply don't forget. Please.

It wasn't huge by any stretch; dedicated Gibson/Fender/Rickenbacker, plus the usual areas. There were a few regulars; the guy that came up with the Badbird bridge for old Thunderbirds, a German guy that had a phenomenal amount of Gibson basses

There's probably a handful of members here dip into The Last Bass Outpost once in a while. Seems like the site is in trouble or it's the end. Database errors for the last few days. Anyone know what's happening?

I'll admit that lack of appropriate band drew me along the same lines; it gets about a half hour use a week I reckon - I'll just fire it up when dinner is on the make or when someone says, 'Ooh, what the hell is that?'

Interestingly(?), for the last three hours or so, we've been listening to a combination of the deluxe version and the 30th Anniversary editions of Definitely, Maybe. All in all, about 70 tracks. This is the first listen in 20/25 years, but obviously some of the material is burnt into my psyche. It's odd, there's posts just about everywhere effectively deriding the band as talentless oiks with a whining vocalist; that's as maybe, but honestly the album (and bonus stuff) is pretty rocking...ok sure, inevitably there's tracks that don't work for me, but it's much better than I remember it at the time. There's so many hooks going on.

Dependent on the number of holes in the body, John East kit is by far the most flexible.

I know businesses are in business to make £££, but the handling fee element is bonkers. Handling fees, facilities fees, booking fees etc. When all this was fields, I remember my dad driving me up to Hammersmith Odeon to get Rush tickets for their first tour here. From memory, centre stalls, ten rows back, £3.50 or something. You just paid the face value to the lady behind the window. Didn't it used to be that when a band planned a tour, they set the ticket price based on venue hire/size, transport, crew wages, hire etc.? Now there's just a whole other element where jackals like Ticketmaster/etc are just creaming off even more from ticket buyers; for what? There's very little human interaction involved. The sad thing is that buyers just suck it up and you know it's going to get worse. It's not exclusively Oasis, every band (even my band were subject to this on advance sales).

I used to have a bit of a reputation in my immediate group of mates as being the go-to guy for, 'Have you heard anything new recently?' Like millions of other people I'd trawl Napster/Easynews trying to find stuff. Gigs, little record shops, obscure snippets in Alternative Press etc. You might find an album on Dischord with two decent tracks on it, but the hunt was half the fun. Even now, I favour US indie station W-EQX as my preferred listening; as recently as two days ago heard two great bands (Wishy and Bella's Bartock).