Greg Edwards69

I ended up going to a local amp repairer (Electronic Music Services in Southend) when my old Mark Bass LMII developed a fault after a small drop. I had contacted Mark Bass first and their attitude was that it was a discontinued product so they wouldn't help and I should replace it with a new model. Even the local amp repairer had a job to source the parts needed. I get that it's not practical to hold a large inventory of spare parts for every model ever produced, but as markbass seems to discontinue products at a seemingly quicker rate than many of their rivals, I find it quite frustrating that Mark Bass advocates such a throwaway culture. The yellow company is not exactly "green".

I guess that would depend on the venue size and how much "drum in the room" sound there is. As my drummer said to me (ex-touring pro, grade 8, full-time drum teacher), on a big stage, the audience doesn't hear the actual drum kit, they only hear what's coming out of the PA. In smaller venues, an acoustic kit works better as people generally hear what's coming off the stage. Modelled amps are similar in some respects, but you get away with it in smaller venues because it's still a guitar sound coming out of a speaker, regardless if it's a real guitar/bass amp and cab of the PA.

Another visit to Canvey last night, Oyster Bay on the seafront. One guitarist down, but no problem for us to retool. We played well, and got a really nice sound. Unforutnately, we had to compete with another bar a couple of doors down that had a live band (a friend of our drummer) and an event at another pub a couple of doors away the other side. So started with a around 30-40 people and ended up with about 10 by the end of the night. I had a feeling it was going to be a paid rehearsal, so we just made the best of it, and stands us in good stead for next weekend’s gig at one of the premier music pubs in Southend that I’ve been trying to get into for years. Really looking forward to that one!

This is one reason why I miss The Bass Centre, when they had an actual bricks and mortar shop (not to mention the dire lack of bass/guitar shops these days due to internet, but that's another conversation). I bought my first 'good bass and amp from them around 23 years ago IIRC. A Warwick 5 string Thumb and Warwick 1x15 CCL combo. I went to their Wapping shop with my dad and brother to try things out, but I was 90% sure I knew what I wanted. They didn't have the exact configurations of either bass or amp but had other models to try which confirmed my choice was correct. They literally said "try anything you like, just take them off the racks". I've never known of any other shop that let you do that. Any way, I ordered the bass and an amp and went back a few weeks later with my mum and dad to collect. Upon arrival, they recognised me, and told me they ordered two of the basses so I could choose the best one, and had the amp set up ready for me. Then asked if we'd like tea or coffee, and offered some biscuits too. Proper customer service that resulted in my going back a couple of years later to get a fretless Warwick Corvette, to which they replaced the passive pickups with active ones when I said I wasn't happy with them... free of charge.

Interesting. I also realise that the barefaced 10CR series is voiced differently to their 12XN series - vintage as opposed to frfr. I'm inclined to think the new ampeg cabs fall into the vintage voiced category. TBH though, if was in a place to pony up considerable money for a cab, then it would probably be a GR Bass one!

I have to say, the specs of the cabs look pretty decent. I'm pleasantly surprised at the usable frequency range of the 1x12 and 2x10. I wonder how neutral/flat they are and if they'd make for a decent frfr modeller platform?

Road trip from darkest Essex to Stevenage on Saturday evening to play for the Lytton Players Am-dram theatre group's 75th anniversary party. Quite a nice venue (golf club), food provided and easy load in. The theatre group sold fewer tickets than expected (apparently some of them wanted a posh 'do' with live entertainment but didn't want to pay for it), so we played to fewer people than we initially hoped for, but those who came enjoyed themselves and danced the night away and we enjoyed playing for them. I took the lead on sound check and set the gains properly to allow for more headroom (the last gig everything was set much too hot and feeding back), and eq'd a couple of things better. End result was a much better sound in the room. I think we're finally getting there with the ampless setup - going direct with IEMs.

Been there, done that. After many years of only playing 5 strings I decided I was a 4 string bassist. Like the OP the B string largely featured as a thumb rest with a few lower notes - I guess I never put the time in to properly explore the possibilities afforded by the extra string. I also felt some of those drop D lines worked and sounded better on a bass with drop D tuning. I ended up going back to 4 with a hipshot and I'm much happier. We do have handful of song in our repertoire that require a low B string, but I don't like switching basses during a set and I'd rather not play a bass I'm less comfortable with. So I simply retune to BEAD on the fly with my Helix. Sure, it requires a little extra brain power to pull it off (actually, I think it helps to not think about it, the moment I do, it when I make mistakes), but I'd rather play my 4 strings than a 5 these days. That said! Practising those songs at home means getting the helix out and set up. I've been considering getting an inexpensive short-scale bass as a "hope-I-don't-need-to-use-it" backup for gigs. So I'm considering a 5 string Ibanez Mikro and kill two birds with one stone.

That is most useful. I’ve recently acquired a set of M50x headphones and I love the tone profile of them. Neutral with a slight low end lift and proper bass extension. As such, a set of iems with a similar profile is exactly what I’m looking for. So the IE400 are on my list, although the cost is slightly out of my reach. I’ll keep an in eye out for sales! Audio Technical made a set of iems called the ATH-IM50 that were allegedly were designed to have the same profile as the M50x headphones. However, I can’t seem to find them for sale anywhere. If they’ve been superseded I don’t know by which model. I’m would assume it’s the ATH-E50, but I can’t find anything about their tone profile compared to the M50x, and they use a different driver setup to the IM50 (single BA vs dual DD)

To anyone who has the 110, how flat is the flat mode (as flat as a typical frfr speaker) and can it hang with a drummer and a couple of guitarists in a rehearsal room without assistance?

And don't forget, Alice Cooper's epic-sounding "Feed My Frankenstein" is actually a Zodiac Mindwarp cover.

I have recently acquired the same pairing M50x and ZS10 Pro X. Very happy with the M50x - exactly the tone profile I was looking for. ZS10 Pro X are a step up from my old non-pro ZS10 but I wish they weren't so bright.

I read a similar thing years ago regarding what Mutt Lange told Phil Collen (Def Leppard) about guitar solos. You should be able to sing a great guitar solo

OTOH, I love this cover:

Yes. Same here. Clicked on a Retrovibe Vantage and it took me to a Cort bass. Possibly a problem with the email campaign software they're using rather than something Bass Direct have done.

I'm assuming it's okay for these chaps though

Obviously keeping the web url in readable text is a no brainer, especially from an accessibility point of view. I just can't decide whether to steer people to the website or FB. Having a variable QR code destination doesn't fix this.

The though has crossed my mind! I need to do a new batch of business cards or postcards that we can hand out. But I need to decide whether to steer people to the website or fb page. Although I am a designer, and have worked in branding for many years, actual marketing isn’t one of my skills.

Yes we do. I'm a graphic designer by day and have strong opinions on branding! I designed and got them printed with the intention of wearing them during load-in and set up, so people know who we are. Each one has our logo/web address on the front and it says "Band" on the back with either singer, guitarist etc underneath. However, we've taken to keeping them on for some lower-profile gigs such as pubs, bars and charity events. We'll still get changed into smarter shirts for corporate and wedding function gigs, but still keeping to the band's colour scheme (black and red) - but I must stress, we don't dress the same - we're not a cabaret band! We also have a roller banner and logo on the bass drum skin. The singers are always telling people to "find us on Facebook" if they see people videoing us. Yes, it might look uncool, and we may look like walking business cards, but never underestimate the power of branding and marketing. And hey, if Metallica and Iron Maiden can wear their own t-shirts, then so can anyone.

I really need a built in pitch shift effect that tracks down to low E. I don’t play 5 strings any more but I do down shift to BEAD on my helix for several songs. Correct me if im wrong but I don’t believe the spark series have a pitch shift effect.

I have considered it, as well as teh bigger Spark mini but they lack features I’d like. To be honest, the product I want doesn’t exist. I wish Line 6 would revisit the pocket pod with the helix algorithms - so a smaller pod go, with Bluetooth audio, rechargeable battery and phone/tablet control. Something I can use for headphone practice, or plug into a small speaker at home, or use as a backup at gigs if my Helix fails.

I ended up selling mine after 2 or 3 weeks (I bought it used). After the initial excitement of GAS wore off and I started to properly dial in a nice patch I just couldn't dial it in the way I wanted it. On paper, the bass firmware with its split paths looked ideal, but in practice, it just didn't sound good. The 2 paths sounded out of phase and 'smeary' for want of a better word. It didn't sound like one, unified signal, it sounded very much like two totally independent signals that didn't gel. There's a weird midrange hump on the upper portion of the signal that I just could not dial out regardless of which effects, amps and cab are engaged or bypassed. It was like that artificial low mid-bass boost you get on small speakers to make them sound bassier than they really are. The cab section made it even worse. The eq section is not flexible enough to dial this out. If the P1 could load cab IRs it might help. You should be able to set the high and low crossover to the same frequency, bypass all effects and get a ruler flat signal coming out, but it's nowhere near it. I knew the pitch shift effect wasn't great from this forum, but I thought it might be passable for headphone practice. But I really didn't expect it to be as bad as it was. Totally unusable, even for headphones. Something sounded amiss with streamed Bluetooth audio. I can't put my finger on what exactly, but there's something strange with the quality and eq. Nowhere near as good as other Bluetooth devices - FWIW, my Jabra Move headphones support Bluetooth and wired connection. Streaming Bluetooth from my iPhone to the P1 with a wired headphone connection sounded much worse than audio from my iPhone straight to the same headphones via the headphone's bluetooth. I tried downloading some presets as well to see if anyone else had success making a nice bass preset. I thought I found one, but when I examined it I realised they had simply set the crossover so high that all you got was the full range of the lower path and none of the top path. I realise this relatively inexpensive device wasn't going to be in the same league as my Helix, but I really, really wanted it to be better. I could have possibly lived with it if it didn't have that baked-in horrible hump on the top path. As it stands I'm sticking with my little Nux Mighty Plug for the time being (although I wish that one didn't boost the bass on bluetooth audio, and the video/audio sync with youtube is dreadful). I'm considering getting a Boss Pocket GT or Hotone Ampero Mini instead, or maybe both. (I'm aware the latter doesn't have Bluetooth and needs mains power, but I might be able to live with that).

At first glance, I seriously thought you meant "Elixir of life" rather than strings

Funnily enough, it's the two singletons in my band who are the hardest to pin down for rehearsals and gigs. The married ones are more reliable.

I can only comment on the ZS10 Pro X (that I recently purchased). They're good sounding, clear with proper bass extension that doesn't muddy up the midrange. They are however ever so slightly bright in the top end. Nothing aggressive, but you might not be used to that sort of bright treble. As ever, getting a good seal is crucial, and my Comply foam tips work wonders. Now if I could get the same tone as my ATH-M50x headphones give me in an IEM I would be very happy!