NancyJohnson

Always used to take a couple of basses when I gigged, but can only recall one time where I swapped basses out (and that wasn't anything to do with instrument failure). Stopped carrying more than one bass a long, long time ago.

I'm running a very simple set up - old HP PC, DAW is Cakewalk (free), Focusrite Scarlett 2i2, M-Audio BX5 powered monitors. Aside from power, three cables; USB to the PC, cables from the Scarlet to the monitors. I'd hasten to add that I've never been a fan of bundled DAW software (or whatever came with the Scarlet), so didn't install anything off whatever disc came with the hardware. From the outset I had a mahoosive issue with the PC; there was some particularly nasty Harmon Kardon software that was running a soundcard that was nigh on impossible to override - you'd get things working, then the HK software just rebooted everything with every restart, so I took the soundcard out of the PC and junked it. Fixed! Once you ensure the firmware on the Scarlet is up-to-date and you point your PC audio to the Scarlet, Cakewalk pretty much handles everything (you just need to assign the left or right inputs to individual tracks in Cakewalk or simply go with stereo on a single track). I have issues elsewhere though; in 2023 I bought an Arturia MIDI keyboard to add noise to recordings...I just can't get it working.

I'd raised this previously, but the thread didn't go too far. I'm also the owner of a very old Aria Primary bass and while I have no issues per se with the neck, I prefer the visual aesthetic of a rosewood/dark fingerboard. What does £70 buy you? Visually they look ok, but you could be getting something with the strength of balsa wood. Swapping the hardware shouldn't be too much of an issue, although at £70 you may need to factor in a fret dress. I might pull the trigger at some point, just actually see.

It took a long time to admit/realise that I was never 100% happy with a standalone amplifier that had dedicated pre/power stages; while I'd used separate Trace Elliot pre-amp/poweramp stages, I think the simplicity of jacking a BassPOD into the effects return of an old Ashdown MAG combo was the first revelation, what 25+ years ago? Pretty much that point I knew, for me at least, power amps were the purest way to go, allowing you to have control over what you needed to amplify rather than what manufacturers felt you needed.

Aah, the use of inverted commas for emphasis. Perhaps you'd like to provide me with a synonym for people that better suits your narrative. Sherlock? What a compliment. Made my day.

By way of troubleshooting, do the pedals do what they're supposed to do in isolation/one at a time? You're absolutely certain everything is plugged in correctly for signal flow and each unit is getting the correct/required voltage? Connector leads are all okay?

Not wishing to dig myself into an ever deepening hole here but the thing with Precision/Jazz basses (along with, let's face it, any other bass that shares the same/similar geometry), is that the elongated top horn improves the balance of the instrument while it's on the strap; I suppose you could use the time-honoured quote that it was something Leo Fender got right (and continued to get right at MusicMan and G&L) and that it was something the boys at Gibson didn't. Despite not being a fan of Fender basses, I've owned some in the past and in support of the design I'd say without hesitation that they do have incredibly good balance on the strap. You could go into some depth here about pivot/fulcrum points, triangulation of the fixed points (strap connections and break angle at the shoulder) and rotational symmetry, all whilst factoring in other variables (viz. weight of chocolate bars on the headstock), but of course people aren't really interested in the maths or science behind it. In closing, Happy New Year.

The Hercules part arrived a couple of weeks back, but to be honest my schedule has been very full pre-Christmas, so it'll get sorted in the New Year. I've taken the top of the original stand apart (a little more than at the point of my last post) and did a little figuring out about how to join everything together. I just want to retain the stand's originality so I can revert back to default if needs be. I have a young bloke nearby who did a bit of metalworking for me a while back, so I may knock him up to do this.

I'll do a test post and maybe up the estimate 😏

I'm figuring most of the smaller stuff should just go into a small padded envelope.

I've amassed a huge quantity of cables that I'm never going to use. HDMI cables, speaker cables (hifi), MIDI, CAT5, lengths of CAT5 cable (you'd need to crimp plugs), phono cables...I think there may even be some SCART cables, random lengths of two/three core cable. Need to have a clear out. There is honestly too much to list. All very good quality stuff. I'm going to be opening a few boxes over the next week or two that contain a lot of HDMI splitters and some very useful HDMI over CAT5 stuff (useful if you're trying to shoot 1080 video to a second TV. I'm happy to just move this on free, but don't necessarily want to spend a fortune on postage, so the cables/connectors are all free, maybe a quid postage per item? PM me if there's anything you need. Happy for pickup. (Crowthorne, Berkshire). Kettle on.

It's not Fight Club.

Good grief. Are you stalking me? Anyhow, I've fixed that for you.

The reduced size of kit you need to carry now is insane. There's absolutely no need for 6x10s or 2x15s and a 40lb head. Should have bought a smaller car.

I got my Baby Sumo on my birthday (start of December). It's blindingly good/capable. I've just got a Samsamp 2112-DI pre-amp at the front end.

Speaking from personal experience with the AO900, I found the drive engines way too aggressive for me; the allure here was the combination of output and the thought that it would do everything I'd ever wanted in a tidy little box (had Tech 21 produced a similar unit with a GED-2112 or XB Driver front end, I'd have bought that without hesitation). There were just too many knobs on the thing, all of which had a subtle effect on each other and in the end, I just kind of gave up on the thing, favouring the belief that jacking a Sansamp into the effects return would at least give me a usable front end tone and reasonable levels of output. Clean tones were easy, though. There just didn't seem to be any issue once the AO engines were off. You could go from dubby, through ponky, to a shrill slap tone with ease.

To this day I can't really get my head around the obsession and chase for weight saving when the saving is grammes; unless you're using a headless bass there's inevitably going to be some weight on the headstock end. Seeing as how it's Christmastime and that most people love chocolate bars, let's look at the weights for perspective. 49g per machine head is just shy of the weight of a standard Mars or Snickers bar; if you're struggling with lifting four of these bars, then honestly you need eat more red meat or hit the gym to build muscle mass. You're looking at saving a possible 9g per machine, so the total weightsaving of 36g on the headstock or roughly the weight of a single Double Decker multipack bar. On my thousands of posts here, I tend to pepper my content with the terms subjective or it's a nonsense. The amount of weight you're looking to save is so small it'll make no difference whatsoever. My ten year old niece regularly picks up my basses when we see her, she wouldn't struggle with an extra 36g on the headstock.

I use my live rig just turned down quiet.

A much repeated story. Years ago my old band played with a band of young upstarts that were using an iPod to fire off backing vocals/keys etc. it did not go well and disaster/hilarity ensued. If you're removing the human element, you really need to be completely on top of your game; no room for errors, nothing.

I watched Rick Beato's post last night. In fairness Trevor, he has nothing bad to say about any of the musicians lumped together under the Yacht Rock banner/genre, he just hates the terminology. It is pretty awful, let's face it.

The last couple of days I've been ripping The Cure's back catalogue to a better audio format (subjective), so there's been a lot of The Cure. I am currently recording some vinyl to the computer (Living Colour/Funny Vibe remixes).

Get Timmy to represent you.

Timothy. Tim. Timmy. I'm a highly educated man in my 50s and am a longstanding member of MENSA. Read my posts here, you have the facts. In answer to your question, of course I'm fully cognisant what ULEZ means and even if I didn't the prospect of using my phone in a moving vehicle to find out why could also have incurred me a fine as well. Whether I agree with ULEZ (or not); given the inner M25 ring is 0.00005% of the planet's surface area, the questionable benefits are negligible; what happens to those emissions when the wind blows? It's just revenue generation, pure and simple. There's no correlation between air quality and money. It's just like the congestion charging that preceded it and continues to this day; have I seen any improved in congestion since that started? Nope. No one has. When everyone is in EVs, they'll probably need to start charging based on vehicle weight, whether there's only one person in the car or by the colour of your car's interior. Anyhow, I'm really not interested in opening any further dialogue with you about this; I've seen dozens and dozens of your posts where you demonstrate this rare talent for getting into discussions that just raise the recipient's heckles. You have the facts, you should be able to join the dots and know where I stand on this.

I'm sorry, but what? There's this expectation that everyone is supposed to know every facet about everything; sure I saw the ULEZ signage, but the car is deemed clean/zero road tax by Government. This isn't top trumps. They make the rules. Law of the land, except where TfL are concerned. Insofar as the fine for using the Dartford crossing when I was forced onto it because of road closures on my preferred route? That's ok is it? I didn't want to be on the bridge, I was trying to get to Greenwich.

You're very kind!