NancyJohnson

Yikes! From wikipedia: 'Fingernail and toenail loss may occur a few weeks later, but they will regrow with time.' What? Whaaaaaat? Get well chum!

Well if there is an upside to me pulling out because of my knee, me and the wife (plus mother in law) are all positive for COVID, so I'd probably have infected a few of you...

Not certain what you're asking here...

I'm struggling for Sunday now too. I had knee surgery about six weeks ago and I'm still hobbling about. Spoke to the consultant yesterday, he's just suggested the ongoing pain I'm in is part of the healing process and has suggested I keep off the leg (Rest/Ice/Compress/Elevate). I'll see how I go today.

My desired tone has been a gritty hybrid of Geddy Lee, dUg Pinnick and Jean-Jacques Burnel, largely facilitated by using guitar heads into large enclosures, then following the gear clearout of 1999 I went to BassPODs, then a variety of Sansamps until I hit paydirt (GT2s, BDDIs, VTBass, Geds, DP3). Honestly never had an issue with mud or shrieking highs. If you're interested look me up on Spotify (Lutz/Lizard Sweets/Ninety Six Decibels).

Hmm. I appreciate that every facet of the signal path has the ability to alter tonality, but realistically unless you're using a cable that's hundreds of meters long any loss of tone will be negliable. A couple of weeks ago, I watched an interesting video about a guy who was running power, water, twisted core and audio cable (for an intercom) to a garage on his property. Said garage was about 80m from the junction box and exterior wall. There was a drop in voltage of about 8% over that distance which was accounted by the length of cable and resistance in the copper. Everything suffered over that distance, even the water pressure was a bit iffy. The point being a drop of 19.2v still kept the supply within a usable 220/240v. The same principal will apply (more or less) in instrument cables. I would wager that if you connected your bass to your gear with one of these, you'd not notice any improvement over a 10m cable.

Onboard preamp (active circuit). I used to own a Bongo 5HH. Would sound lovely at the start of a rehearsal, little bit of tweakage to get a decent sound/clarity for levels and the room. As session would go on, inevitably everything would be tweaked to the max and isolated tone would be a horrific mush. Lesson#1: if you need to be heard, turn up the amp. Lesson#2: while it's difficult to keep away from the knobs, leave them alone once you're happy. Outboard preamp (Sansamp etc.). Set your tone and leave it alone (aka Lesson#3). I use a mix of passive and active basses into Tech 21 DIs. I tend to favour John East units on the basses that have gone from passive to active conversions. My general rule? Go with lesson 2, then lesson 3 and then lesson 1.

You don't actually need the valve pre-amp, you know this, right? You're effectively pushing a (Sansamp) pre-stage through a second (Ashdown) pre-stage, before the signal hits the poweramp. My experience of the valve side of the ABM was that the drive just added an unpleasant crackle rather than any creamy/controllable drive or dirt. The BDDI is more than capable of providing everything you should need. You're also saying that you're boosting mids off the BDDI and scooping (removing) them with the pre shape button, which is a bit odd. If it works for you, fine!

Plug it into the effects return and stick an unused 1/4" jack plug into the front of the ABM (this will fully bypass the ABM pre-amp; it's a quirk of Ashdowns, they need something plugged in the front for the effects loop to work) and just let the BDDI drive through the power amp side. You're welcome.

I'm on Andy Partridge/XTC Fizzy Warbles albums today. I do adore XTC, although I came very late to the party (they'd already called it a day). Some fondness of the singles, but beyond that they passed me by. The Fuzzy Warbles sets are nine CDs chocked full of demos, alternative takes and nonsense.

Walter Schreifel stuff. Rival Schools/Quicksand/Vanishing Life.

When you played another bass through your amp, same thing?

On the OP, we were always a fairly tight, well rehearsed unit; we booked a studio for an early start one Sunday (10.00am start) and did five songs, all recorded live with a click, three takes of each. Chose the best ones, guitarist did his solos and we were retired to a nearby bar by 12.30pm, leaving the singer to do his stuff. We went back about 2.00pm to do BVs (half hour). Rough mix and home by 4.00pm. https://wknancyj.bandcamp.com/album/cops-and-robbers

Jellyfish. The 4CD Fan Club box. Demos, live, nonsense.

Never had any desire for multi-effects...I mean, I've owned stuff but they never really did it for me. I had a Fishman thing that was a riot, but totally unusable in a band context. End of the day it's all about a gritty core tone, currently have two Tech21 things - dUg and a GED2112 DI. They're all I need.

About three years ago, I left a band I started about ten years before that. Had I not left I think it would have started affecting me mentally. A bit of advice? Lick your wounds, move along. It hurts now, but you'll forget that. I've probably been more productive since leaving. I don't miss the rehearsing, the time lost, the expenditure, the angst, the disagreements with the singer, the almost constant schlepping over southern England playing to five people 'because it's good for our CV', etc etc.

Just an aside (and despite the Fender connection) I'm amazed that Gibson haven't jumped on him for a signature line of Explorers, rather than hurling $$ at Simmons and Brown for their wretched line of Thunderbirds. U2 were way better when he played Explorers.

I just fancied listening to The Darkness. I don't know whether the first album was ahead of it's time; it's certainly not as bad as I remember it. As I type, I'm just reaching the last couple of bars of the first album. Next up, The Sweet.

With all the big makers, it's all so much about the RE; reinvention, reinterpretation, reissuement, rerendering, rebranding and renaming. If Fender were a car manufacturer, they'd be making eight ton vehicles based on 50s specs that returned ten miles a gallon, but they'd be called stuff like The Starliner Deluxe Tribute.

Feeling a little straighter now. I was having a very heavy work morning and stressing a bit. I was almost at the point where I was about to shut down without some kind of distraction. ☹️

My first proper/formal exposure to many bands I followed in the late 70s/80s was through live albums...All The World's A Stage, Alive & Dangerous, Strangers In The Night, Cheap Trick At Budokan, Aerosmith's Live! Bootleg, Kiss Alive!*; when you visit the studio albums the content on these are, very much as you say, like demos. I'd also counter that these live albums probably came too early in their careers, three studio albums followed by a double live album? Too early. *Not strictly live. I'm a bit fuggy at the moment...I don't seem to be writing properly, so if I meander here, apologies. There's a load of bands I follow who didn't put out live albums of any sort until some years had passed since the first album or two; I'd cite Living Colour, a band I've adored since my initial flirtation with them pre-Vivid. The albums were all pretty strong from a production perspective - and bootlegs aside - when the inevitable live album dropped, it didn't have the same impact as the back catalogue which was almost etched into my psyche, if that makes sense. It complemented the catalogue rather than it being a highpoint/epoch making). Visiting the UFO studio recordings following my exposure to Strangers... will never have the same impact. Same goes early Kiss/Rush/Aerosmith.

I'm sure there's plenty of people (like me) that adore Strangers In The Night but have little data on the source material. I dipped in UFO again a few days ago; just cherrypicking the studio versions of stuff I know from the live album. Really couldn't get past how weak/underwhelming the studio versions sounded by comparison. I'm more than content with Strangers... and the deluxe version of it. I'll stick with that.

Public Service Broadcasting. Currently on The Race For Space.