Greg Edwards69

The best purchase was my Darkglass Anagram. I've only had it a few months, and it's getting rapidly getting better and better with DG's speedy updates. They're so quick, I'm struggling to keep up! Worst was some IMA Helix presets. There's nothing wrong with them - they sound great. But redundant now I've moved over to the Anagram. Honourable mention goes to my GR Bass 1x12 active cab. It's fantastic and logic-defyingly light. But it only gets used for rehearsals. That said, this and the Anagram have made loading in/out of rehearsal and gigs much more enjoyable.

Looks like a useful practice and gigable backup tool, especially with the built-in battery.

How was my gig last night? I have no idea, I wasn’t there. It was the first one I’ve ever missed since this band started around 20 years ago. A dep was in my place even though I was fit and able. Keen readers my remember I mentioned I had a colonoscopy a few weeks ago and the results weren’t what I hoped for. I’ve since found out it’s not good news at all. There’s no easy way to say it, but it’s proving cathartic to share, so here goes. It’s cancer, of the rectal variety. I told my band mates at the time of the first investigation before knowing it was cancer that it will likely mean surgery and treatment very quickly, possibly before Xmas, so they had to organise cover in case I was out of action. The chap they got for a couple of gigs said he had other offers for the same dates, so he had to commit, meaning I couldn’t do them, whether I was able or not (unless we paid him off). It was probably for the best, though; my head has been all over the place the last few weeks dealing with this. So anyway, it looks like a rough few months ahead. Radio and chemotherapy followed by surgery, and possibly more chemo after that. Oh and a bag atttached, either temporary or permanent. Sorry to bring the mood down, but this is the thread I interact with the most with people I know. Besides, I’m still hoping to continue to contribute to the thread with any gigs I am able to do over the next few months, and long after once I’m cured, and normality is resumed.

I’ve just seen this case on Thomann. Thought it could be useful to a few of us who don’t use the supplied PSU. https://www.thomann.co.uk/thomann_bag_darkglass_anagram.htm

Popped into Lidl on the way home from work and they had two left. I've been after these for ages, so I bought both of them!

My SM58 went missing* a few years ago, so I replaced it with an XM8500 when I found out how much SM58s are these days compared to when I originally bought mine. * I last remember using it at a band rehearsal before Covid happened. Many months and lockdowns later, we had another rehearsal to dust off the cobwebs, and my mic was missing from my gear bag. I had the leather case, but no mic in it. I reckon I left it on the mic stand, and either the following band or the staff pilfered it.

Just a short one as I have 'things' going on.* A halloween party gig at The Cricketers in Westcliff on Friday. Decent turnout with a lot of people making the effort to dress up. We were a guitarist down and used yet another female dep singer who we didn'tt have much to to prep with. She did a decent job, but a couple of songs clearly weren't in her comfort zone, so we should have addressed that sooner. I felt quite liberated being able to fill some of the physical and musical space left by the absent guitarist, throwing in extra licks and fills here and there, juicing up my usual tone with a little more overdrive, and I had prepared a couple of special presets on my Anagram to simulate powerchords blended with my bass tone for several songs. The crowd seemed to enjoy it, dancing for most of the evening, and gained some new followers. So a decent result. *lets just say I had a colonoscopy the day before and the results are not what I had hoped for. Still yet to have more scans before knowing conclusively and what impact it will have.

Do you mean the EBS UniChorus? I can't reference to an EBS Multi Chorus. If so, the manual says it has an internal mix trim pot. This might help reduce the volume jump, but it will obviously also make the chorus effect less obvious. If you like the sound of this pedal then the only workable solution I can think of is to put it in the loop of a Boss LS-2 (or something similar). This way, you can leave the chorus permanently engaged and use the LS-2 to enable it and control its volume. If you're not married to it, then yes, a different chorus pedal may be required.

Fingers crossed, there might be one added next week.

We had a very enjoyable night at the Cow & Telescope on Friday. Due to temporary management shenanigans we haven’t got a gig booked there next year, so we felt we had a point to prove to the new management team, who were very impressed with us. So fingers crossed well be a go to reserve next year if they get any cancellations. I was still on holiday in Majorca with the wife in the morning with the wife and got home around 3pm. So had a couple of hours or so for a quick practice of several songs I hadn’t played for a while, and nap. The nap didn’t help much, I was knackered all evening and flagging towards the end, but adrenaline got me through. We were joined by the lovely Hazel, dipping for Jenny again who wasn’t available. Hence the handful of songs I hadn’t played for ages (and one, we’d never even played as a band before), but it kept us on our toes and gave the set list a good shake up. We had great comments from regulars and people who hadn’t seen us before, including a couple of people asking about merchandise. We have a fairly strong brand identity, so it’s something worth considering. I’ve been thinking about setting up an amazon print on demand store for a while. Next one, Halloween at The Cricketers in Westcliff, with another dep singer. Clip of ‘What’s up’ that we’d never played or even rehearsed before, let alone with a dep. Judging by the crowd reaction, it’s a keeper. IIRC, this is the only song I pulled and IEM out to hear the crowd signing along to. https://fb.watch/CQZJVVKUbR/?

I was using exactly the same one until my brother kindly 3D printed the 'unofficial' bespoke stand for me. The laptop one works well though, and has a handy place to hang your headphones!

Drawing up a stage plot diagram with notes can be useful in these situations. IIRC there’s specialised online tools to help do this.

I finally got around to sorting midi control out via the BandHelper app and used it at the weekend's gig. I didn't enjoy double footswitch pressing to change presets on its previous outing. Using Bandhelper to automatically choose the correct preset worked very well. Using CC's to select modes, stomps and scenes, however, is less reliable, and I had to resend the midi data manually a few times But I think this is because I'm sending PC and CC messages at the same time. If I understand Bandhelper's help page correctly, I should be able to resolve this issue by adding a small delay between each one. One rather annoying thing I discovered is that my Kindle Fire doesn't support MIDI over USB. Amazon, in their wisdom, decided not to include this in their fork of Android. I bought this device a few years ago, specifically for gigs, so that I don't risk getting my more expensive iPad Pro broken or stolen. So I'm looking into getting a similarly sized and cheap 'proper' Android tablet to replace it.

Starr Sports, Canvey Island, on Saturday evening. Decent night with a good crowd reaction. A few issues during soundcheck with feedback and a resonant node that seemed to appear in the second set that I wasn’t able to resolve whilst playing. Oh well, it didn’t seem to detract from the performance too much. I think we’re going to have to dial in a ‘gain safety net’ for the vocalists, their mics are just way too sensitive, and complain they can’t hear themselves during soundcheck, then they're too loud during the actual performance. Typical lead singer thing! Second gig with the Anagram pedal and I feel I had the EQ dialled in much better this time, punchy and articulate, and the drives sounded much better. I also set MIDI control up with BandHelper to save double footswitch pressing to switch presets. I need to spend a little more time with this. PC changes were fine, but CC changes are hit or miss. Next stop, Cow & Telescope in Southend in two weeks' time (with a much-needed holiday in between).

I think sometimes, it's just the time of the month and year. This Saturday just gone at a regular venue was rather quiet compared to usual. We put it down as the last weekend before payday, compounded by it being the first month after the summer holidays.

I haven't played with it much aside from setting up 2 or 3 alternate tuning scenes, but so far it's performing well. It tracks well down to my open E string, but I notice a little latency depending on how far down you shift on the lower note, but it's perfectly usable for BEAD tuning. My prefered pitch shift on the Helix for bass is the Simple Pitch, which whilst monophonic, tracked better on bass. The newer poly shift blocks had a tradeoff between speed and artefacts depending on the tracking setting. The Anagram is just as accurate as the simple pitch, but polyphonic and no artefacts so far. There's an indepth review on the pitch shift that I found useful

At the Sarah Moore on Saturday night. The 'performance area' in this pub is rather cramped for a band of our size, but as we were a man down (Liam, our co-lead singer was unavailable), it meant I had the opportunity to move from normal 2 square feet stuck behind a guitarist and move up front next to Jenny as I was doing the majority of backing vocals. And I have to say, she did a fantastic job covering both her and his songs, including a couple she had never sung lead on before. This was the first time I used my new Darkglass Anagram outside the house. I decided to tempt fate and leave the Helix at home. I needn't have worried, as the anagram sounded great; besides, the pub is only 5 mins from home, so I could have gone home to get the Helix if I needed it (and I keep a Sonicake Boom Ave in my bag just in case). I still need to tweak several things with my presets and get midi control from Bandhelper up and running. Pressing two footswitches simultaneously to change presets is not the easiest thing to do. But I really appreciated the much smaller and lighter unit by my feet. This will be very useful in tight venues. EDIT: I forgot to mention. My tone sounded fine in soundcheck, but in our first set, my bass sounded muffled and lacked definition. My initial thought was it was due to using the Anagram, and perhaps it wasn't EQ'd in as well as the Helix, so I quickly added some high-end EQ with the Anagram's global EQ. It was only at the last song of the first set that I realised my bass' tone control was rolled nearly all the way off. Doh! I'm sure I'm not the only bassist in the world to have done this and not realise the obvious. The gig itself went well, but the pub was a bit quiet. I put this down to being the last weekend before payday, and the month after, many people have had expensive family holidays. But the manager was very happy with us and hoping to get us back next year, lease pending. Next week, our regular overseas stint at Starr Sports on Canvey Island.

Interesting, whilst I can see the alure of a bigger Anagram (and I reckon DG are already considering it), I've gone totally the opposite way. I'm getting fed up carting my Helix LT around, and I'm going to start integrating midi control from bandhelper to make life easier.

Whilst useless as IEMs, my Apple AirPod Pro 2 are surprisingly effective as earplugs when set to transparency mode, as they have a volume limiter. The only problem is you look a bit of a tit wearing Apple AirPods whilst watching a concert.

Thanks for that. I'm pleased to see my Loop Switch are highly rated, especially at that price.

Is anyone else have ground noise issues using the supplied psu? I only noticed it tonight. The past few days I've had my helix plugged into the same power strip which must have grounded it. I was using my mooer psu for the anagram for a couple of days, then tried the supplied DG one. It's only when playing tonight since packing away the helix yesterday that I noticed so much noise.

I need to look into better footwear for gigs for similar reasons. My right foot rolls inward after rolling my ankle badly some years ago. Often, gigging makes my ankle ache for ages afterwards. Strapping it up helps, but it's not comfortable. My go-to trainers are a pair of Camper Beetles as they're so comfy, but obviously not giving enough support for lengthy standing stints. Having a high instep also limits my choices somewhat - typically, trainers that fit my footshape are too loose around the heel, which starts to slide inward.

Guilty as charged!

No worries. I did try it without cab blocks, but felt it lacked a certain “Je ne sais quoi”, it’s diffult to put your finger on it. That said, I notice most of the effect and/or the amp blocks seem to have a smooth response at the top end, almost as if they have a high cut already applied. I’m glad to hear I’m not the only one scratching my head over the I/O gain. I kinda feel the input needs to be pushed a little more - it would certainly explain why the compressors seem a bit unresponsive - I’m having to crank the input on hte luminal FET compressor. I never really though about it with my Helix, I just added blocks to get the tones I wanted. The resulting signal is bit hotter than going in, but that's just the way they turned out. The Anagram blocks seem to naturally sit at unity gain. Furthermore, the main volume knob on the helix is cut only. I have detached it from the XLR outputs so that FOH get full volume. I'm a little confused with the Anagram's mixer block. I would assume leaving the XLR outputs at 0db would be "unity", but it also has a master volume control that I don't really see the point of. I notice you can unlink the different output from the master volume. I assume that unlinking will achieve the same as disabling the Helix's volume knob. Like you, I need to investigate this further. I haven't been able to A/B these at volume yet, and I'm not likely to before the next gig.

New venue for us at The Winged Horse in Basildon. Pretty much your usual community pub in a busy resential estate, with an array of lively, colourful characters. We were also joined once again by one of our dep singers, Hazel, who did a fantastic job once again. Initially they wanted us to set up in the main bar area, but there's barely space for a duo, let alone a 6 peice band, so we set up in the secondary room. It did however mean we had to compete with the football on the screen in hte main bar. Nevertheless, we played well and had a decent crowd who came through to watch, sing and dance. Only real downside is no body told us it's payment via "Just Pay", not cash. So that's that's going to take a while to come through. Oh well. Next stop, The Sarah Moore in Leigh-on-Sea.- about 15mins walk from my front door.