Greg Edwards69

I'm glad it wasn't just me. I couldn’t dial in a satisfactory sound at all from mine, despite the specs looking perfect. I bought the Katana:Go on the release date. It's fantastic. Comparing it to the P1 is chalk and cheese.

Forgot to add. I laughed like I haven’t laughed for ages over some puerile, schoolboy “band humour”. Whilst we were setting up, the DJ started playing “come on Eileen”. I innocently said, “Am I the only one who doesn’t dislike this song as think we could play it?” One of the guitarists, replied, “maybe, but I wouldn’t trust Liam (singer) not to change the words to make it filthy”. Long story short, we started putting the word “spaff” into song titles and lyrics (obvs not whilst actually playing them). Childish. Yes. But we found it hilarious.

We played at a charity football match at Concord Rangers, Canvey Island. We were kindly asked back after playing at the inaugural event last summer. As usual with these type of event, load in and setup was a bit chaotic with lots of people, and the schedule was rather loose, so we finished playing a lot later than expected. Started playing at 6.30 with 2x 1 hour sets, but we didn’t finish until gone 10pm as they held the charity auction during our break (by what I overheard, signed football memorabilia was changing hands for a lot of money which was great for the charity!) Luckily, a lot of people stayed on after the raffle and auction so we still had a good sized (rather drunk) audience till the end of the night. It also marked the temporary return of one of our regular singers, Jenny, as it was local for her and she's heavily involved with the family running the event. She was on great form and was like she hadn't been away. Shoebury Con Club next week.

I went down this rabbit hole of matching tone and volume (or thereabouts) as I was never happy with the perceived volume increase and low end loss when switching to pick. Marketing had led me to believe that bassists should use thick picks, until I researched my heroes (such as Duff and John Deacon and discovered they used light more flexible picks. I bought a couple of Dunlop mixed bags and tried some of them out at a band rehearsal. I ended up settling with Tortex Flex 0.60mm. They have the snappy attack that for is the magic of pick playing, and is that happy medium of being flexible enough that it doesn't jump in volume or and thick enough to retain the low end. Compression helps, but I like to have always on 'global compression'. If there's a volume mismatch between pick and finger it will change how the compressor reacts. I prefer to fix this issue 'at source' with the right pick. The alternative is to use multiband compression to hone in and clamp down on the highly accentuated frequencies.

BassTheWorld's video touched on it all too briefly. I heard the test tones that sounded familiar of other analysing equipment. What Boss hasn't disclosed is how it measures the response - there must be a microphone embedded in there somewhere.

Aside from this, the main bug bear I had with my previous Mighty Plug (non-pro) was Bluetooth. The latency when playing along with youtube videos, particularly ones with tab/score was unbearable. A good second out of sync. I also discovered that it added a significant bass boost to Bluetooth streamed audio. The Katana:Go fixes both of these issue. Oh, and there are octavers, and pitch-shifters. I wrote to Nux about this a couple of years ago, before the Plug Pro was announced and they said their hardware didn't have enough dsp for pitch-shifting. I was dismayed to see the Plug Pro didn't either.

As I mentioned elsewhere, I'd be very interested in a deep dive of the cab resonance calibration feature to find out what it does exactly. i.e. is it an optimiser/sweetener like Bergantino's B-amp cab profiles, or can it effectively flatten a typical bass cab with lumpy response and turn it into a passable frfr solution? It would be interesting to hear how the head performs with different cabs and compare the calibration.

I'm still tempted. It isn't ludicrously expensive, even with shipping. I just don't need one. But it's a clever sales tactic, with a limited pre-order time. FOMO and all that.

That's what I thought too. I'm not even looking for a new bass, well, not one like this. But it does seem like a cracking bass for the money until you add shipping etc on to the price tag. Still tempted though. It's not ludicrous.

In my neck of the woods, and I assume most the UK it depends on the gig. Covers bands in pubs are usually free, but tributes and originals in music venues are usually ticketed or on the door. There was one pub we regularly played at years ago that refused to pay bands themselves and we had to charge on the door. I never like doing that. One of us always had to stand by the door collecting money and stamping hands and it was always tricky judging how much to price it. I remember a few people turning away - they didn't want to pay £5 to go to the pub!

One thing that does irk me a little. Why the USB Type-B port? I get that it stops people from accidentally plugging a power adaptor into the USB port. But it's arguably the most hated of all USB port designs and more prone to failure. I frequently see posts on Line 6 Helix forums/FB groups from people saying the little plastic tongue has fallen out of the port rendering it unusable, and I live in fear of the same thing happening to my Helix LT.

I'd love to know more about how this works. Information is scant and I haven't found a decent demonstration video... yet. Does the amp have a microphone to "listen" to the test tone? Does it flatten or sweeten the cab's profile so every cab you use is neutral/consistent?

I bought a sub-shortscale Jackson Minion as a backup bass. I was expecting a substantial transition period to get used to it, but I felt at home instantly - even jumping up and down the fretboard with accuracy. Maybe due it's years of playing guitar as well as full size and mini key keyboards (not to mention sax and clarinet in my youth) that I'm able to transition fairly easily*. FWIW, I find it more comfortable to play when seated that my long scale basses - it actually feels more natural. No neck dive problems. The lightweight sealed tuners probably help. But I think the body design with a strap button that is parallel with the 12th fret helps more. *BEAD tuning on the fly from my Helix is a different matter entirely that challenges my brain.

I once read a sage piece of advice regarding dialling in reverb. Once you've got it sounding great, dial it back by half.

Holy moly, that looks useful. And the new Katana bass head looks incredible and totally unexpected. Boss have really started to raise their bass game lately.

Have a look at the TC Helicon Critical Mass pedal. It's a "crowd simulator". It has several algorithms, unison (i.e. double-tracked), octave up, octave down, and octave up+down together - each can be mixed with the "lead" vocal. Then all of those in either melodic (tight - think "we will rock you") or gang (loose - think Lumineers "Ho Hey") styles. Because it generates octave harmonies, you don't have to set it to any key or use a guitar for the pedal to detect the key, like you do with other harmony units. There's also several reverb algorithms that are independent of the harmony generator - so reverb works event when the harmony is switched off. And there's TC's "Adaptive Tone - automatic and intelligent eq, compression and de-esser

Back on "The Rock", at Starr Sports, Canvey Island on Saturday. A very enjoyable night. We've played there a few times, but for some reason, this was the most fun I've (and we've) had there. I don't think I stopped moving and bouncing around all evening while playing. Everything fell into place, set up was easy, as was sound check, with a receptive audience with people dancing from the start and kept going all night. I spoke to a couple of people who said they had seen us before elsewhere and came to this venue especially to see us... which is nice. Obligatory "tonight's office" pic attached.

Back on "The Rock" at Starr Sports this weekend. We usually get a decent crowd here, but it's the only venue I know of that I need to wear earplugs to load in an set up. The non-stop sports commentary is so loud an eq'd just in the right place to burrow deep inside your brain!

+1. I'm really enjoying the sound of my IE400's - much smoother than the KZ ZS10 Pro X I was using before (and the original ZS10 non-pro before that). The KZs always sounded a little too harsh at the top end, which became fatiguing and uncomfortable to listen to after a while. I can comfortably listen to the IE400 all evening. I read here how you can tame the piercing treble with a piece of medical tape stuck over the grille. I bought some but didn't get around to trying it as I bought the IE400 instead. The KZ's definitely sounded louder, than my IE400's, but I think that's a KZ thing more than a Sennheiser thing. Perhaps it's the aggressive tuning, or sensitivity... or both.

I told the chap that's the only one I've ever heard off. Let's hope it 3 chords and steady eighths root notes.

I'll definitely give it serious consideration if the gig is offered. Whilst I'm not bothered about being "noticed" and I've done my fair share of higher-end, non-pub gigs, it's certainly something to put on the CV. I thought I'd attached that picture - I think it's quite an amusing pairing to behold, like David and Goliath. The Jackson normally lived in a gigbag, but thought I'd make the stage look nicer with all the gear on display. Perhaps I'm being too hard on myself - I'm finding imposter syndrome is getting stronger as I get older. As @Woodinblack (who knows me quite well) mentioned above, I'm no stranger to learning and pulling off fairly complex songs with a fairly short preparation time - I've done that many times for our UKMG meetups, and depped with the odd band. But admittedly, I'm better at learning stuff I'm familiar with several weeks' notice. I've heard of guys who'll dep at a couple of days notice or less, with unfamiliar material... that scares the crap out of me. I have no idea how 'flygigs' work either. I guess the artist management would assist with all that. I've found this setlist that gives me an idea of what could be required, however. There are a couple of covers that I'm already familiar with. Oh well. We'll wait and see what happens. I guess it could be fun learning some of these songs as a self-improvement exercise anyway, even if it doesn't come to pass

Back at the Cow & Telescope in Southend-on-Sea on Friday. Our third time at this venue and by far my favourite place on the pub circuit. Always an appreciated crowd who turn up for the music. A decent night with a good turnout of our friends, family and followers. Unfortunately for us, we were told by the landlady that about 15 of the regulars (who wanted to see us) were up in London to see Slash and Myles Kennedy - I don’t blame them TBH, I’d rather watch Slash and Myles than us, lol. We’re gradually getting used to the Allen & Heath desk, and it’s getting easier to dial in and tweak for every venue,. I had a slight issue with my IEMs - the cable came out of the right one halfway through the second set. It was so hot and sweaty in there I could grip the plug firm enough to push it back in, so I played the remainder of the set with one IEM and a glorified earplug. Oh well. Our super sub Sophie did and fantastic job yet again and received lots of compliments. She blew our socks off on Proud Mary, she really went for it. I had an interesting chat with one chap. One of my wife’s younger workmates introduced me to her new boyfriend before we started who is a drummer. Nice chap, and got a chance to chat with him after our first set. He was very impressed with our drummer, asking me who he is. I replied he’s a grade 8 qualified drummer who’s a full time drum teacher, played in a number of bands, including originals and previously a busy, touring a punk band. The chap said, I’m a session drummer and he’s better than me. He then asked who our bassist is as he’s pretty good as well I don’t think he could see me where he was sitting and didn’t realise it was actually me. I said, “that’s me, and thank you. He told me one of his regular session gigs is playing with Samantha Fox, and what am I doing in a couple of months time as there’s a gig their regular bassist can’t do. I told me I’m not a session guy and I have a full-time day job so I’m not sure about that thing. He said, “Oh the songs are easy, and it'll be a case of fly into Lithuania on the Friday, gig Saturday and home again Sunday"! I'm extremely flattered and we shared details, but I don't think I'll go for it if he does end up asking. Not only do I need to renew my passport, but I don't own any flight cases for my gear not to mention a massive dose of imposter syndrome and I don't think I'd be able to dedicate time to learning a batch of songs I've never heard of at very short notice - it's just not a skill I'm used to doing. Still, it's nice to be asked. Obligatory venue pics, including the tools for the night - the very unidentical twins.

Happy to be back at the Cow & Telescope this Friday. One of Southend's premier music venues.

Yeah, using just one earbud isn't good for your hearing. It's potentially more dangerous than not using IEMs or earplugs at all. All you end up doing is turning up the volume to compensate for the loud surrounding noise around you, and you don't always realise how loud the single IEM is. Common wisdom says, if you're going to use just one IEM, then stick a decent nusicians earplug in the other ear to balance them out.