Al Krow

2 minutes ago, SumOne said:

 

Yeah, I figure playing an instrument live is somewhat future-proofed. People have been able to listen to recorded music for over 100 years but still want to go out and hear people perform it. 

 

Making new music, I dunno - AI will get very good at it. There will probably be a lot of hybrid stuff where music is made more cheaply/easily with AI but there is still a real 'face' to the music e.g. ask AI to make a backing track after having been given prompts about they style etc. but then a real person sings over it.

Even more scary is that a close mate, whom I formed a covers band with back in 2013 and has written 5 albums, just commented: "TBH that song sounds as good if not better than many songs coming out of Nashville".  Whether that's fair or not, the fact that was his reaction just shows how good AI already is at composition.

Very glad that, like you, I'm focussed on live performance. 

Scarily easy as I've just figured out! 

Another nail in the coffin for aspiring originals artists hoping to "make it", just as streaming has already proved to be?

I suspect that where the industry is heading could well be similar to where classical music has ended up with performers, in our case covers and tribute bands, being custodians of a vast library of music that is already much loved; with occasional new material to sit alongside the great songwriters and composers of the past: read ABBA to Zeppelin for Bach to Verdi.

The Times They Are A-Changin'...

Updated below.

Just now, Kiwi said:

Oh wait, I might have it confused with the previous model.  I wasn't aware there was a new release!  Now I'll have to take a look into that as well.

Look forward to getting your thoughts on it!

2 hours ago, Kiwi said:

Yeah I had a look at it about a year ago, and decided to keep looking.  Either it was limited in programmability or there was no ADSR on each step, I can't remember exactly.  The Polyend Mess has it's own issues BTW with pitch stability on some steps which I've never encountered with the other pedals (Moment Machine etc.).  I'm assuming this is simply a development snag and it'll get addressed in the future at some point.  

Oooh how did you manage to get to preview it a year or so back, given they haven't released the Quimera yet?!

12 hours ago, Mokl said:

With much inspiration/guidance from this excellent thread, I'm now 4 gigs in with IEM, with the last being a silent stage at a venue with particularly tricky acoustics.

 

I'd say that so far the success rate in terms of my experience/sound in my ears is at about 60%. Areas I know can be improved are FOH chap not altering my levels mid set (!), seal of the IEMs (if I insert them just right, then there's a definite improvement, getting better at that), then finally the actual tone in my ears. 

 

The last point is the one I'm after advice on. DI from my amp sounds ok but very dry in the ears. It's not so bad when I've got stage sound as some of that leaks through to a fairly pleasing effect. Last gig and rehearsal before it I tried using my HX Stomp with cab and amp sim engaged to try and get a more pleasing sound to my ears (silent stage this time), but in rehearsal guitarist thought my tone suffered out front with the cab sim on, so I ended up running just the amp model, and it wasn't much really much different to my amp DI. No surprise there really.

 

My question is, what do you all do to get a satisfactory bass tone to your ears?! Would a decent DI with cab sim likely sound better than the Stomp, do I just need to experiment more with the Stomp? Answers on a postcard please!! 

Having a good preamp sound is quite key, so finding something that works for both FoH and in your IEMs is definitely worth investing a bit of time on. HX Stomp can be a little harsh from experience, unless you've put the time into sorting the EQ. I've found the IEM tone from my Boss GT1000 Core and same patch on the GX-10 to be excellent for both IEM and FoH.

The other big difference can be from the IEM ear pieces themselves. Several of us in my band are using KZ ZARs (£90 Amazon or £35 Ali Express) and I'm sure others on the thread will be able to recommend other models.

Bananana Effects Quimera: a powerful polysynth pedal for guitars and keys - SYNTH ANATOMY

Nice little review posted here.

Sadly, the Meris Enzo X has had a lot of bad press about its poor tracking, and not on my shortlist on that basis.

I  personally wouldn't want to use any of them as a standalone multifx eg for clean preamp or drive. But for synth, and also for filter and modulation/pitch shift, for sure!

14 minutes ago, SumOne said:

Looks good, I want one!

 

This seems more innovative and interesting than any pedal announced by the big companies at NAMM.

 

Triggering recorded samples I think being unique for a guitar/bass pitch tracking pedal?

 

I'm also interested in using it as a synth midi controlled by a keyboard, my keyboard is piano and organ type stuff and limited synth stuff (basically samples) so plugging this in could really expand that. I know the FI can do that, but this seems to have more hands on editing and the screen.

 

I'm guessing it'll not be cheap, something like £500?

If it comes in at £500 or less, although definitely not cheap, that actually doesn't seem like bad value for such innovative and cutting edge tech? And you can pay significantly more for some old-school analogue preamps or Eventide pedals. 

Be interesting to see how this stacks up against the Polyend Mess that @Kiwi recently got (currently £519 with Andertons) and also looks excellent. 

1 hour ago, GisserD said:

Wow!

+1^^

Does look amazing! 

Nice one Michael! Coming back from tonight's gig, part of me thinks: "why am I not the least bit surprised to hear you saying that?!". Probably the same part that is loving the baby brother of your GX100, and finding it's delivering a core sound and some fab fx I'm really happy with in my band mix.

On 19/12/2025 at 13:16, spyder said:

I paid full price when it came out and I haven't regretted paying such a large amount for it.

I use it everyday and every gig.

Confused! I thought you loved it! What changed your mind over the past month?

14 minutes ago, krispn said:

Ooh I stand corrected it has deep dive functionality. It's officially multi fx unit

Yup 😅

And I guess my point is that Tech 21 are famous for their analogue pedals; they've got a huge climb in the digital multi-fx space to match some excellent products already on the market, which are typically going to offer a lot more for the same price (Helix, Boss etc) or knock it into touch for value (e.g. Valeton etc). Just my tuppence worth.

I'm maybe missing something, but this seems to essentially be a multifx with pretty limited fx capability? Other than the DI out, why go for something like this rather than one of the very capable mid-range multifxs available in the same price bracket?

On 08/12/2025 at 23:42, Chienmortbb said:

To be honest, it’s not really an issue, if the nes tablet works I will d delighted. 

How is the budget Doogee tablet working out so far?

Enjoyed watching this. There's quite a lot on here that BC'ers have been buying and liking! 

12 minutes ago, fretmeister said:

and as the saying goes - once the drums start rolling, it just doesn't matter.

Very true! But push that argument a little further and you end up concluding: "why bother with pedals at all?"

I guess tonally what some folk are content with, won't cut it for others?

Personally I'm super happy with the digital drive that my Boss GT1000 Core and GX10 provide, and actually prefer it to half a dozen standalone drive pedals sitting on my shelf waiting to be sold...

But I think the point is what we hear on stage from our amps, or via our IEMs,  plays a key part in how much we enjoy performing. No one is going to pay more attention to the bass tone than the bassist, ie us, right?

1 hour ago, SumOne said:

I like the look of that, and $299 seems a decent price that'd hopefully translate to about that in £. seing as a $ is £0.74 and I suppose there are import costs. 

Tough, simple and looks like it can do all the things you really need for gigs: Tuner, compression, drive, EQ, line and XLR out, fx loop, simple to access presets, and some nice to have extras like filter, IRs, Chorus (I wonder if it can do other modulation effects or delays?), midi.  

I suppose the key thing will be if it sounds good though. I'm not against digital, but there is a big variation between a good digital overdrive and a bad one.

So it's essentially a drive focussed multifx? Just wondering (other than XLR out) what it's offering over some of the more popular multifx's some of which have very usable drive patches?

I guess, fingers crossed, it will be nailing the classic sansamp sound better than most!

If you want to try different flavours of sound eg drive, octave down, tremolo, chorus, phaser which can work well with different songs, then a budget multifx can be a very cost effective way to do that.

A Zoom B1-4 is an excellent entry-level multifx, offering an excellent built in tuner, plus drums, looper and headphones out for home practice.

Other budget multis e.g. the recently released Valeton GP-50 are getting some favourable comments from fellow BC'ers too.

1 hour ago, Woodinblack said:

I think most of them are already sold. I found it pretty hard to get answers from them by email when I was asking about my sei

Ah excellent, hadn't appreciated you're a Sei owner! 

What's your detailed thoughts on how it stacks up against your Ibby SR Premium for tone and playability? That will give me a very decent benchmark for a bass I know well.

Just had a quick look on the Bass Gallery website and the prices of the sold Sei basses seem to range from around £1,800 to £3k. Hard to tell whether they were new when sold or not, but they look pretty mint. So maybe prices aren't a million miles from their old price list?

3 hours ago, eude said:

Their pricelist is 9 years out of date.

https://www.seibass.com/_files/ugd/0d5a6d_4f689b24da564e98b41449865297a03d.pdf

I'd expect to see some big jumps since then, EVERYTHING went up by a lot between 2017 and now.

Thanks!

Be great to get a steer from any folk who have ordered one more recently. 

I need to pop into Bass Gallery at some point to get some work done on my Spector, so I can maybe also catch up with one of the two gents then.

The basses look great! Can any of you excellent Sei owners give me a steer on what they cost new these days, ball park?

Just seen this on a fBook thread:

"I was just playing on my studio, as usual, suddenly I hear a few loud pops. a few minutes later, again but much worse and for longer, I look at the CQ-18T screen and it was like all the channels had very loud inputs and the screen was flickering..."

Those symptoms seem pretty identical to what I've been getting. Which is kinda worrying that this might be a design flaw. However, he did follow up with this:

"Update - I think I've found the issue!! I've moved some cables recently and I left one of the outputs cables running in parallel to a power cable. Once I re-organized the cables it didn't happen again."

No idea what he meant by "running in parallel to a power cable" or whether that gives any wiser folk than me a clue as to what might be the cause?

6 minutes ago, Woodinblack said:

Oh thats really bad, I assumed you meant just like the occasional pop or click. Is it on one side or is it both? oh I see what you mean, it appears as a signal on all inputs. Are those inputs plugged into anything. It does rule out the speakers, and I would think it either has to be the power supply or the unit itself.

Is it connected to any bluetooth / wifi at this point?

Not connected either to wifi or bluetooth.

Inputs:

- Stereo in from PC

- plus a couple inputs from Zoom (for drums) and bass via GX10.

Was coming through both speakers.