Greg Edwards69

I'm half hoping this weekends (18th Dec) gig will be cancelled. But it's a pub and doesn't fall under the same rules as larger venues, so the bar manager (friend of one of our singers) says it's still going ahead. I hate cancelling gigs, even if we have a valid reason - like one of us has fallen ill. But there really ought to be clearer guidance for this sort of thing from the government, such as pubs can stay open, but no entertainment, or table service only again. As it is, once more, the advice is vague and puts the onus on the public to do what they think best. If you get sick, it's your fault and the government can't be blamed. We've had a discussion and it looks like we are going to do this gig, but in what appears to be an act of self sabotage, we are actively not promoting it. We've also said we'll take whatever precautions we can to keep ourselves safe and out of harms way. After this weekend, we don't have anything until February. Oh, and keep testing!

Even QSC themselves recommend the smaller K10.2 for bass in live bands. Although this is with PA support. You might be better served with two of them or the K12.2 without PA support. https://www.qsc.com/resource-files/productresources/spk/k.2/q_spk_k.2_appguide_livebands.pdf PS, I'm seriously considering downsizing from my headrush frfr-112 to the K10.2. It would also replace the smaller headrush frfr-108 I sometimes use for rehearsals.

I used one of those too, with my old 121H cab. It made a huge difference in being able to hear the details in the bass tone. Sitting it on a Gramma Pad seemed to help a little as well, especially on hollow risers. These days I use an frfr speaker that can sit vertically or as as a wedge. I don't use the gramma pad anymore either as my Helix has an hpf. I really ought to stick that thing on ebay!

I remember many, many years ago in my first band, we acquired a couple of Wem 4x10 column cabs for our PA. I wish I'd kept them. They were a bugger to move around, but I bet they would have made an epic bass rig.

LIkewise. Rocked up versions of disco era songs seem to work well for us too. Mama Mia, September, Le Freak, Disco Inferno, Love Train etc. All guitar driven covers that guarantee people on the dancefloor. It's picking the right ones that is the challenge. I can remember clearing the dancefloor with Boogie Oogie Oogie, Let's Groove and Everybody Dance.

Both! Female and male lead singers. He and I can both do pretty decent falsetto.

Tragedy! Or pretty much any funky Bee Gees song. Cheesy as hell, but absolute bangers. Oh, and... "December 63" - Frankie Vallie "My Girl" - Temptations "Parklife" - Blur "Common People" - mash up of Pulp's original and William Shatners epic cover.

We play these two with one or two guitarists without issue. For Enter Sandman I have a little grit in my tone, play hard with a pick and play the bassline as normal (aside from a little wah sweep to simulate the guitar on the intro). The guitarists plays more of the rhythm part on the intro. On Alive, I use judicious drive and chorus to really fatten the bass up. I also improve a little on the outro underneath the solos around simple pentatonic shapes. The bassline on this song is busier than you might think. Make use of those glissandos, harmonics and vibrato.

All of the above advice is great. Get your tone in order first. Plenty of mids and maybe a little overdrive to accentuate the harmonics - really bring the bass to life. The drummer can help too. It's amazing how a ride cymbal can replace a rhythm guitarists On the odd occasion my band goes out with a single guitarists this covers pretty much everything. But I do have a specially dialled in Helix patch for a couple of songs that really need a little extra help. I based it on this guy's preset. Does a similar thing to the Fishman Fission mentioned above, but sound more convincing.

It is a bit of a risky buy for me tbh. I usually prefer chunky necks, and I really don’t get on that well with thin necks at all. But from my research, I understand the jb2 has a fairly chunky neck for a jazz, which should work for me okay. The biggest challenge will be the narrower nut. I’ve been spoiled by wider P style necks for years. My hand used to cramp up on my old 5 string Warwick thumb that had similar nut end string spacing, but I think a lot of that was the poor ergonomics that meant the nut was about a mile away from my body!

I ordered a G&L Tribute JB-2 (Sunburst and maple) from Anderton's last night when their black friday sale went live. I've had my eye on this bass for a couple of months now since my back started playing up. I didn't expect to see one in their sale, but low and behold, there it was. £299 down from £399. Should arrive Monday. FWIW. My back went twice this year, the last time I was crawling around on my hands and knees for a few days. I think it was a fitness issue at it's core, but triggered by the first gig in about a year, playing my significantly weighty Yamaha Attitude LTD2, and carrying a load of gear (inc PA and helping move drums) up and down a fire escape - my back was on fire after that gig, and a week later I was on the floor. I vowed then to lighten my gear as much as possible. The Attitude now has Hipshot ultralites (makes a big difference to the balance), I sold my very heavy Warwick Corvette. I've been considering getting a jazz bass for a while as in nearly 30 years I've never had one (not a true "classic" one anyway) but I realise they tend to be on the weighty side compared to the average P bass. Bassdirect had a list of lightweight basses and the inexpensive JB-2 caught my attention at only 8.5lbs. I'm not a sunburst guy normally, but I am a sucker for a maple fretboard and this particular model really appealed. I know it's not a "classic Jazz" style, but it's closer to one than anything I've had before, and lighter. I just hope it lives up to it's reputation.

A rug with the same design popped up on my FB feed a few days ago. I nearly convinced the wife it would look great in the living room.

Personally I prefer drive into compressor. Overdrive is dynamic and responds to touch. Compressing first would reduce it's touch sensitivity.

I really hope this model is reintroduced. I've been after an inexpensive P/MM bass that looked different, with black body and maple fretboard. This ticked all the boxes. Unfortunately, they aren't available any more.

Intruiging idea, but not quite what I had in mind. The Zoom Z-pedal “twisted from side to side rather than rocking sideways.

I remember my old Zoom b9.1ut had a "Z-Pedal". It was laterally rotating treadle plate, so you could use it as a regular forward/backward expression pedal, but also rotate it sideways to control other parameters at the same time. I wonder if you can buy a standalone unit that does the same thing?

Just remembered this cracking cover. I have played it, but not at a wedding… yet! Two become one - Paul Gilbert

I was looking at the Nux some time ago and dismissed it as it didn't have a compressor. I noticed recently they've released a firmware update that unifies the guitar and bass effects, updated everything with a new algorithm and adds a compressor!. Sure, it's only a Ross circuit comp, but it's better than nothing, and will probably be fine for headphone practice. If finances weren't so incredibly tight at the moment I'd get one now.

We had to learn "It's All About You" by McFly for a wedding a number of years ago. Credit where credit's due, it's a cleverly crafted little pop number when you analyse it.

I used to use Dunlops many years, but I had one fail so switched to Schaller. The screw always worked its way loose over time. Possibly a combination of using the included screw and the resultant thread in the wood getting worn by replacing the screw. I realised last year when I bought a new bass that I have a designated strap for each instrument and I don't really need to take the straps off. So I bought a pack of rubber washer strap locks, replaced the original buttons and screws on each bass (didn't need to touch the new one) and installed straps and washers. 18 months later, they are still rock solid. Sometimes the simple solution is the best, for me anyway.

That's good to know. As another typical pub covers band (plus functions) we're using just a pair of DXR12 speakers, that I guess perform similarly to your QSC12's without a sub It's only fairly recently that we've been putting the guitars and bass through the PA, after years of me badgering the rest of the band about it. The PA actually belongs to one of the guitarist's dad, who is our unofficial seventh member. So his job has been fairly easy so far only having to mange vocals and telling us to turn up or down!. He's getting on a bit now and has had some illness so we've been running the sound ourselves with the DXR12's and a yamaha MGP16x mixer, with a fair bit of knowledge between us and getting decent results (my input is generally hpf everything apart from bass and bass drum!). He does also have a Behringer x-air mixer. But we really need to spend a fair amount of time with that in a large rehearsal room before going out with it, plus it'll be more flexible if we go in ears. I love the guy, but bless him, his knowledge it a little behind the times and I have to remind him to low pass certain channels to avoid feedback and rumble on the mics! If we can do this ourselves with an ipad it'll make life a lot easier and he can retire gracefully. If we can ditch the backline as well and go IEM using just the DXR12's as FOH without a sub, then even better. Then we only have to invest in a decent IEM system. The Behringer P2 will work in a pinch (afore mentioned guitarist has one and sounded great) but I'd rather go wireless. I need to do a test at our next soundcheck, and turn my frfr off once we've got everything mixed to see if it's supporting the FOH or not. This, I feel will be the turning point.

I've gone from one end to the other. For many years, my bass amp was used to fill the room, with only vocals and maybe bass drum going through the PA. I think a lot of bands start out like this and carry on without realising there's other ways. Sure it works for many gigs, but it's difficult to manage overall mix and volume, doesn't project that well and challenging to eq for both stage and room. As I've said in another thread recently , I never really "got" amp modelling, or pre/post DI an amp to FOH. You buy an amp and cab for the sound it makes - why would I want to model another amp through it? Furthermore, I had used a DI a number of times, but it never made perfect sense. If you take a pre DI it bypasses the amps preamp colour, if you take a post DI it get the eq you've dialled in for the stage. Neither is perfect. The only other option to replicate the sound of your carefully dialled in bass rig is to mic the bass cab, and maybe combine it with a DI. It becomes an unwieldly mess for the average pub band. The Helix was game changing. It was only when one of my guitarists turned up with a new helix and frfr speaker that everything made sense. The rest of the band followed suit in time. It is a joy to be able to dial in a great sounding tone and replicate it consistently through nearly every sound system, whether its headphone, studio monitors, frfr speaker, IEM or FOH PA. It gives you so much flexibility. So in answer to the original question. My bass rig used to be there for mine and the audiences benefit. Now it's just a stage monitor for me. I can't see myself going back either.

It's an option. They both took turns playing bass a rehearsal recently when I couldn't make it due to back issues. They said the bass sounded great through it. I need to hear it for myself. I'm just concerned it may not be enough if it needs to fill the room without FOH support - much like my baby headrush. The little headrush 108 is surprisingly competent with bass. I don't like too much sub bass in my sound and I always have the hpf engaged in the helix and tune it to the room. Sometimes up as far as 80hz if it's too boomy. The headrush 108 seems to behave better in a smaller rooms such as a rehearsal studio, probably because it inherently rolls the low frequencies off similarly to using a judicious hpf. It would likely be fine with great FOH support. I just don't know how much my bigger 112 is supporting the low end of our sub-less FOH system and whether switching to a smaller speaker will ultimately make any difference to the FOH sound. It would be great to replace both speakers with something inbetween. Although physics tend to indicate that the perfect trifecta of weight, volume and low end extension doesn't exist. TL:DR We need to do a "technical rehearsal"!

Indeed. I never really "got" the idea of pre/post DI from my amp head, when the amp and cab together are part of your sound. As such, I rarely put my bass through the PA and relied on it to fill the room. Likewise, I never really "got" amp and cab modelling when running a modeller through a conventional bass rig. Why invest money in a great sounding amp, only to try and simulate another one through it? Or why send a modelled bass amp to FOH whilst using a real one on stage? The helix was the lightbulb moment. Excuse the cliche, but it was game changing. I sincerely wish I had gone down this path years ago, even with just a preamp feeding an frfr speaker (heck even some of my old gear had primitive amp modelling - I just didn't "get it"). I just love how consistent my sound is, whatever the situation. It's worth the admission price for that alone.

Going back to question of a 10" frfr as a bass 'rig'. I read a QSC article last week that recommend what speaker of theirs to use for different scenarios and bands. It was interesting to see they recommend the K10.2 as the on stage bass monitor in almost every scenario with FOH support. https://www.qsc.com/resource-files/productresources/spk/k.2/q_spk_k.2_appguide_livebands.pdf This has gotten me thinking.... I have a headrush frfr-112 (1x12) and it's baby brother, the frfr-108 (1x8). The former is a heavy lump, but performs well, even without FOH support. The latter I bought for rehearals and home use, being a lot smaller. It handle bass suprisingly well. But as Phil Starr aludes to above. I'm not sure I have the confidence to rely on it in a gig situation, even running bass through the FOH. I'm likely being stupid, I know. The 2 guitarists have a DXR10 each, and we use DXR12 speakers for mains - no subs. Drumwise, we only stick the bass drum through the PA at the moment. As far as I can tell, it sounds pretty good out front with everything going through the DXR12 speaker. I note the QSC guide recommends 10" tops with a single 12" sub for the average pub rock band, so I'm guessing our 12" tops without a sub are performing similarly and adequately. I'm not sure how much depth my headrush speaker is providing in the mix without some significant testing. It's definitely got me thinking about downsizing. I've had a couple of back issues lately, so I could definitely do with something lighter than the 12" headrush. We do have a basic, wireless IEM system, but it's not very good (gear4music own brand, get's mushy and compressed with a full mix). I'm intrigued by the Behringer P2, but I'm not keen on being wired in. But it would be great if we could eschew the backline completely, and/or change the PA to a couple of 10inch tops and a compact sub.