Greg Edwards69

Is that the latency of the transparency mode? I was considering getting a set at some point and using them as digital earplugs. But if the latency is bad, then there's no point.

That make sense. I use a pair of open back, on-ear headphones for quiet practice. Nothing amazing, just a Jabra Move set, but they sound great and dead comfy (I chose them after extensive research for a pair of inexpensive headphones, with bluetooth and optional wired connections, with decent sound and sensible non-hyped bass response - they also don't look ridiculous if I wear them in public). I can imagine that an on ear set could work better in rehearsal, as you get some of the room ambience to hear the drums properly, whilst being comfortable to wear for 4 hours. If I do need additional protection, I could switch to IEM or simply stick some earplugs in underneath the headphones. EDIT: I wonder how well bone conduction headphones would work in this regard?

That’s is the plan, but not until we get a subwoofer. But it didn’t occur to me that it could make rehearsals easier and in many ways, better!

You've gotten me thinking now. Me and the two guitarists use a helix, we always bring individual FRFR speaker to rehearsal. One of them doubles on keys, and the drummer has a little trigger device with a couple of pads that he sometimes puts in a spare channel of my headrush speaker. We could potentially just bring a 12 channel mixer to rehearsal, plug everything into it and rehearse with IEM.

If it's anything like the generic G4M system my band has, it's not great. The problem, according to the IEM bible thread, is the cheap compander in the system. It's fine for a vocal only mix, but if you put the whole band through it, the bass is the first thing to disappear. I end up using one earpiece and an earplug in the other ear. We're in the process of rethinking our IEM setup. I've pretty much given up using my Line 6 wireless, it's often too much hassle for many of the smaller venues we play in. So we're thinking out going wired with behringer P2 units for the musicians, and the current wireless for the 2 singers up front. I'm thinking of making up a loom cable so I can put the P2 on the floor with my Helix, and have a single 'cable' for guitar and headphone extention.

Aha he does mention its not that light however, but he will weigh it for a future review.

I have no opinions on tonewood either. My main concern with wood these days is weight, and as you say, whether it balances or not. Looking at the specs again, it appears the new basses have a D shaped neck profile, whereas the JB75 Vintage series have a C shaped profile. I guess there's potential for the D shape to be heavier, or maybe they break even. However, with a roasted maple neck (assuming roasted=caramelised) and the lightweight Gotoh tuners, the neck should be lighter too and balance better. It makes me wonder if HB have been listening and created this bass in answer to the comments regarding the weight of their basses.

I've just compared the specs on the HB website. The JB75 is "american ash" and the new MV-4JB Gotoh is alder. One would assume the alder bass is lighter. FWIW, the other new jazz bass they recently released in their Classic series (the Gotoh is Deluxe) has a poplar body.

I came back to post the same thing via a Music Radar article. Harley Benton offers premium hardware at entry-level prices on the £199 J-style MV-4JB Gotoh bass guitar | MusicRadar I have to admit, they are quite pretty basses. I don't usually go for shell pink (it's a bit of fad at the moment), but it does look quite handsome. I just wish they'd offer a maple fretboard with black inlays - like the JB75 series, but with a painted, matching headstock. And I hope they've saved some weight. It's the only thing that put me off getting a JB75.

Yes. I had a problem with one of the gears on the factory installed Xtender on my Attitude Bass. It's a custom-built tuner made especially for this line of basses and not available to buy. Yamaha was no help in resolving the issue, so I contacted Hipshot. They sent me the parts I needed to rebuild the tuner, all the way from the US to the UK for free. Only problem I have with hipshot at the moment is scarcity and price. The specific ultralite tuners and xtender I want to buy for my G&L tribute seem to be out of stock in most UK vendors, and the price has skyrockets lately, like most things (I bought an xtender from Bass Direct last year for £80 - a similar tuner is now around half as much again depending on the colour. I wonder if it would be easier and cheaper to buy them direct from the US.

My brother had one for a while, and IIRC Paul Simpson bought one from Vinnie. I have a feeling Jim Nugent might have had one too.

Indeed, there were a few in the UKMG who had the guitars, including Vinnie Burns for a while. I seem to recall a certain Mr Creedy having several of the basses. No idea if he still has them.

I'm inclined to agree. I'm aware of their significance and legions of fans, but I just can't stand the look or sound of ricks and I'm not keen on the sound they make either. The only redeeming feature I can think of is Rick'o'sound, a version of which found its way into the Yamaha Attitude.

And ironically, it's usually the bass player who has the best understanding of acoustics, due to the nature of our chosen instrument. But we're usually passed over as a gibbering simpleton.

Steady on. Next you'll be saying that they help carry equipment!

Redonizm was back on "The Rock" (aka Canvey Island) Saturday night. A new venue for us, and first live band for them. The venue next door frequently has live music and this one was losing customers, so they've decided to bring some competition to the market, which is a good thing for everyone. We went into it expecting it to be a little quiet, but we got a decent sized crowd, including some friends and family and it turned out to be a fun evening. We were a guitarist down, so the other guitarist who usually doubles on keyboard just played guitar all night (making him happy bunny). He added a boss synth pedal to his rig for some extra texture, and loaded up a few samples, chords and sounds to an Alesis sample pad that one of the two singers triggered. This solution worked great and meant we could still play some of the pop and dance tunes we normally play when we have the keyboard. Otherwise, the set would have been more rock orientated. The only potential issue was being informed about the dreaded decibel meter upon arrival. It was installed by the council after complaints from someone who had moved into a flat above the bar (this really grinds my gears - it's not as if someone was living there already and their flat was jacked up and slid the bar in underneath!). It was quite a sensitive meter too, I reckon just a heated debate could set it off. Luckily, only one socket was wired into it and after some furniture rearrangement, we plugged in elsewhere. Sorted. Oh, and a well behaved audience this time. No fights!

That's the second time today I've seen the AI Coda S4 mentioned. The other time was on a talk bass thread - a chap has downsized from bemoth rigs to one with a similar sized extension cab for electric bass. https://www.talkbass.com/threads/your-feelings-about-rig-size-for-stage.1579120/#post-26845765 It's gotten me intrigued, as I reckon it would be a far superior, compact, one box solution to my current Headrush FRFR-112. I note there's a used one for sale in my local music shop, but unfortunately I can't justify the £1,000 asking price.

I've not tried it myself, but allegedly, IRs (impulse responses) can help 'plugged in' acoustic instruments sound more like a mic'd up acoustic guitar/bass. One of my guitarists used an IR in his helix when he uses his Yamaha Silent acoustic guitar. 3Sigma have a few bass options you might be interested in. Of course you'll need something to load the IR into. But you can pick a small device up relatively inexpensively these days. Upright Basses Archives - 3 Sigma Audio

This is one of the reasons I love Basschat. Discussing "ugly basses" is prohibited on Talkbass, just in case it offends someone.

I meant to add. I've used a couple of clip on tuners in the past when they first started becoming main stream and couldn't get on with them. The cheap one just didn't work very well on bass and I replaced it with an intellitouch model. This one worked fine in the shop and at home where it was quiet, but was rubbish at gigs. It would pick up vibrations in noisy environments and fail to read the lower strings. I don't know if clip on tuners are any better for bass these days, but past reliability experience has put me right off. I'd rather plug directly into a tuner any day.

Another vote for the pitchblack. I had one and it I found it to be excellent. Highly visible and accurate, especially in strobe mode. I only sold it because I needed to sell a few redundant pedals when I bought my Helix. I sometimes wish I had kept it for home use such as setups. However, I use the Peterson iStroboSoft app on my iPhone/iPad for setups that works just as well as you would expect a Peterson tuner to work.

Another vote for the TC corona mini. I bought one specifically for the Duff toneprint and with all knobs pointing to 12:00 it definitely had "that sound". You should be able to find a used one within your budget. Here's an example of the toneprint. The engineer explains that it's a tri-chorus effect, so that's also worthy of exploration if the TC pedal is out of reach.

In my youth I was dead set against FSO's (Fender shaped objects). I wanted to be different from everyone else I saw toting P and Jazz basses. I was well aware that some artists and sound engineers stipulated fender basses, which I just put down to laziness. If a sound engineer can work with any guitar brand, then they should be able to work with any bass. So I played Warwick for a number of years as well as a dalliance with Yamaha RBX basses. Then I got into Billy Sheehan and realised the Attitude bass with it's dual outputs was the answer to my tonal prayers. Whislt it's a beast of a bass when routed like that, my tastes and knowledge grew and I realised that just the P pickup on it's own was magical. It just slots into almost any mix and genre perfectly. That was my first, great FSO. More recently I had the opportunity to try a Squier 50s P. I fell in love with it. Real, simple back to basics stuff. So I had to get one of them. Then last year or so I had a hankering for a jazz bass as my band has been expanding our repertoire into more pop, party and disco genres, and and I needed "that sound". After much research, as I'm very particular with certain specs such as neck and weight, I ended up getting a G&L Tribute JB-2 (essentially a jazz bass). It's fast become my number 1 bass, more so than the considerably more valuable Attitude. So although I still don't own an actual Fender, I've really learnt to appreciate how much Leo Fender got right with his designs. They do "just work". FWIW, I kept hold of the Warwicks for quite some time unplayed. I had a play shortly before selling them and I really didn't care for the sound of the Thumb at all. it just sounded totally wrong to my ears.

We played for a Hells Angels chapter last year, got to the end of the set and they asked for more. I started playing the riff to Love Shack for a giggle. Then they asked us to play it. We happily obliged. I recall playing September by EWF and Disco Inferno at another biker club in amongst the hard rock and metal. They enjoyed that too.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, biker clubs and hells angels are a lot less bother than regular pubs for misbehaviour.