martindupras

I bought a B:assmaster pedal from Guillaume. It was desptached very quickly and it was well packed, and the communication was great. Recommended heartily.

I bought an Avalon U5 pre-amp and a Crown power amp from Ryan. Smooth, fast and pleasant transaction with a splendid chap. - martin

I bought an Aguilar ToneHammer DI and a Diago 18V power adaptor lead from Matt. Great transaction, communication and packing. Highly recommended. - martin

I just wanted to gloat a bit. My bass is now on the front page of the shuker site: http://www.shukerguitars.co.uk/ The bass is still awesome. Since getting it I've hardly played any of my other basses. - martin

I've just bought a TC Electronic G-System from Ian. Top bloke. Brilliant, easy, straightforward transaction. - martin

[quote name='fretmeister' timestamp='1332415420' post='1587887'] How long did it take from Order to Delivery? [/quote] I ordered it last April, and it arrived in mid-February, so about 11 months. - martin

Here are some photos of my new Shuker custom-order bass. I've actually had it for a few weeks now, but I didn't get round to taking photos so here they are. The spec: - 35" scale, maple neck, 22 fret rosewood fretboard - Alder body - 19mm spacing - Nordstrand Fat Stacks (that's temporary, I wanted the Norstrand Dual Coils, which will replace the Fat Stacks) - piezo-loaded bridge - John East Retro pre-amp - HipShot Ultralite tuners What's that little plate with the switches, you ask? One switch is active/passive, the other two will switch each pickup between series and parallel. You can just about see that there's a little LED on the plate. That's my favourite feature I think. It does absolutely nothing... until the batteries get low. What a splendid idea. The bass sounds and plays awesome. The amount of output from the John East preamp will need getting used to. First time in my life I've had to use the "active" input on my amps. The playability is superb. The workmanship is superb. The bass balances really well, better than any of my other basses (they are all 5-string, maybe that's why they don't tend to be so well balanced.) I've gigged the bass a few times, and every single time I've had people come to me after the show saying they love what the bass looks, and that it sounds very good. I'm over the moon with it, and since getting it no other bass has had any serious play time. It looks like it will achieve its purpose, which was to be my main bass for everything. - martin

(Well, technically yesterday, since it's past midnight and therefore Tuesday.) I just wanted to let you guys know that an album that I've produced and played on is out today on iTunes, Amazon, etc. The album is Voyage of Oblivion by former Monk & Canatella frontman Jim Johnston. Check it out: [url="http://itunes.apple.com/gb/album/voyage-of-oblivion/id479747617"]http://itunes.apple....ion/id479747617[/url] We're on tour starting on the 11th. Come and see us! It would be really great to see some basschatters! Cheers, - martin

[quote name='lxxwj' timestamp='1327455249' post='1511707'] Looks good. So what you're trying to do is have an actual line from your bass in case the wireless fails? Well that would work if there's a switch on the patchbay to quickly change the input from wireless to wired. All in all, very cool plan! [/quote] Thanks, man. I'll try that in the coming days and report on my success of failure. - martin

Thanks for the reply. I don't think I explained very well! Hopefully the diagramme will help explain what I'm trying to do. I can't put the tuner at the end of the chain. To start with it mutes the signal when it's on, and I don't want to active it with its own footswitch. I want the tuner on all the time, and to turn the sound off with the master controller when I need to. - martin

I'm redoing my pedalboard around my newly received Vinteck TB10 MkII switcher (which is really awesome; check it out: http://www.vinteck.com/index.php?id_cat_info=4&id_info=13). The conundrum is this. I'm using a Line 6 G30 wireless transmitter and receiver, but as a safeguard I'd also like to parallel that with a 1/4" input in case anything goes wrong with the G30. Equally I'd like to split the signal from these two to go into both my Sonic Research ST200 tuner (which I want to leave on but out of the signal chain) and into the switching controller. The solution I came up, which would be quite elegant if it works, would be to use one set of parallel connections from a Behringer patchbay. (Basically you have four 1/4" connectors all connected on a small PCB, with switches that allow you to change the connections. I'm setting the switches to all connectors in parallel.) My thinking goes: 99% of the time, that'll be the buffered signal from the G30, which is quite safe to split, I think; the tuner permanently on is unlikely, I think, to interfere with the signal going into the pedalboard controller; and on the rare occasions when I need to use a lead, I can always turn the tuner off if needed. What do you all think? Cheers, - martin

Thanks!

A bit of shameless self-promotion. Some of you might remember a mid-1990s band from Bristol called Monk & Canatella. The singer, Jim Johnston, is releasing his first solo album on 6th of February. The album is called "Voyage of Oblivion" and could be described as indie-rock with psychedelic and folk tinges. It's really good. I produced it, and I played bass on it. But it was good even before I got involved. I decided to get involved because I heard Jim's songs and I thought that they were really brilliant. You can check out the website here: [url="http://jimjohnstonmusic.com/"]http://jimjohnstonmusic.com/[/url] We'll be on tour in February. The dates are: 11th Feb: Bristol (Album launch party/gig) 15th Feb: Cardiff 16th Feb: Birmingham 17th Feb: London 18th Feb: Brighton The actual venue details are on here: [url="http://www.songkick.com/artists/467327-jim-johnston"]http://www.songkick....27-jim-johnston[/url] I'm hoping to see some basschatters at some of the gigs. And if do you, come say "hi". Cheers. - martin

That's the thing, on my chair the armrests are supporting the rest of the chair, if you remove them the chair doesn't hold. That Markus Ikea chair looks ace. Maybe it's too much of a fringe market, but it does seem rather silly that they don't advertise the fact that you can use the chair without armrests. I keep looking for chairs but there's often no way of telling whether the armrests can be taken off. - martin

Cool. I might go down to Ikea and have a little look. Thanks for the advice! - martin

Thanks for that, certainly promising! Have you used them for prolonged periods yet? - martin

Hi, I guess this really qualifies as miscellaneous... In my home studio/office, I'm currently using two chairs: one which is relatively comfy for long periods, but which has armrests which get in the way of playing; and another which is just a cheap office chair on wheels. I'd like to replace both with a single reasonably good quality chair which is on wheels, comfortable (and friendly on the back) for long periods of computer-based stuff, and has no armrests, so that I can use it for playing bass. For some reason, I assumed this would be really easy to find but now that I started looking, it seems to be rather more elusive than I had anticipated. Any good leads? - martin

Sunfish bought my TC RH450 and footswitch. Very pleasant to deal with, quick communication and payment, recommended. - martin

I've just bought an Aguilar AG500 from Carlosis. The transaction was quick, pleasant and fuss-free. The amp arrived quickly, well packed and as described, in excellent condition. - martin

I have a Tech 21 SansAmp programmable Bass Driver + DI, which is practically new. I decided to use it at rehearsal yesterday to split my signal between my amp and the PA mixer. (I can't vouch for the PA mixer: it's a Peavey powered mixer at the rehearsal room we rented, but it looked like it was well maintained and in good condition.) My setup was: bass into tuner, into MXR Blowtorch, into the BDDI, from which the output went into my amp, and the XLR out into the PA mixer. That worked fine, except that after a few minutes I could smell like something was burning a little; the BDDI was still operating correctly and sounded ok, but the LEDs would not light up. Once I noticed the issue, I took it out of the chain. I'm confused. It's not a power supply issue because I was running the BDDI from a fresh new battery. The manual is quite clear that it's acceptable. It's not a phantom power issue because the BDDI *can* be powered from the XLR phantom power. Anyone have a clue? - martin