Al Krow

I've noticed at a few rehearsal studios that certain channels don't work particularly well and that we need to swap to another of the input channels.

Found that happening with our band desk yesterday - the singer was just not getting much volume from one mic channel input but the adjacent ones were fine. We couldn't fathom any particular reason for this being the case in terms of the settings and that particular input hadn't been particularly "abused".

Have any of you experienced similar issues?

Any thoughts on possible causes and fixes?

On 13/06/2023 at 17:47, NoirBass said:

Just resurrecting this thread - a year later how do the SY-200 users still feel about it? Are you’d still using it live? Did you end up selling it for something else?

 

It seems like the device I need at the moment for copping a few 80’s synth lines on covers gigs, I want to see if I can be talked out of it.

Been using a full pedal board live for a little while with a Zoom B1-4 multifx at its heart, rather than just the B1-4 as a standalone multifx and tuner. 

Found a really good bit-crusher sim ("Lo fi") on the SY 200, which I've tweaked to suit my personal taste. I don't recall having a bit-crush feature on the SY-1? If so, this is a really nice-to-have additional capability.

The patch seems very usable e.g. for a Sweet Dreams/Eurythmics style bass line and probably means my dedicated bit crusher pedal could be for the chop, in which case the SY 200 just paid for itself!

The polyphonic & superb tracking that the Boss SY pedals have also means I don't need to worry about noisy glitches during a song, which was a key reason for going with this in preference to a couple of the market leading alternatives. 

2 hours ago, Smanth said:

I’m a Dwarf fan girl but a pre loved GT-1000 core here on BC at an irresistible price is now in my clutches … trying to wrap my head around it!

S’manth x

Excited that you've joined the club! I'm currently focusing on getting my Boss SY-200 knowledge up to speed and then will be turning my attention to the GT 1000 Core. I'm hoping that there will be a fair bit of OS overlap! 

Oh dear, I agree that wasn't the best deal to sell something for a good price used to replace with a new unit! Still I'm not complaining, haha! 

By coincidence I spotted that ability to set how many patches you cycle through on my SY-200 just a couple of days back, which is a very useful live feature that Boss clearly seem to have on all their newer multis? Saves me scrolling through 128 patches on the SY-200!

Seen a few of these exchanging hands recently in the FS and thought a thread for those of us up to speed to share their wisdom and those of just starting out to post any queries we might have could be helpful.

So please share thoughts on how you're using yours, any stock patches you rate/recommend and details of your own bespoke patch ideas.

On 07/10/2023 at 13:10, isteen said:

Thank you kind Sir 😉

I tried it out in anger on Sat night and it was getting a little lost in the mix so I've given it a little volume boost and the nudged the treble up a bit to give it more presence. Here's the updated Xotic BB patch:

The individual sims are in order:

• Black Opt - Comp 35 Lo 80 Hi 40 Vol 50
• Bass BB - Gain 85 Bass 5 Treble 7 Vol 50
• SMR 400 - Bass 7.5 Treble 0.0 Gain 50 Vol 70 Mid F 160 Hz Middle 0.0 ENHNC 50
• ZNR - Detect GTRIN Depth 100 Threshold 30 Decay 0
• Patch Vol 40

Let me know what you think! 

8 hours ago, OliverBlackman said:

First thing that came to mind was an epiphone Thunderbird, but actually I regret always trying to “trade up” to better basses. Looking back with what I know now, some of those basses I traded were far better for gigging with than the high end boutique gear I ended up with and subsequently sold.

Does that mean a certain rather lovely KS is very much off your radar now? 😁

16 minutes ago, Rayman said:

I don't know about modding basses I love...... I've spent an obscene amount "upgrading" many..... many basses over the years, that I still didn't love and sold on anyway. I've lost a lot of money there I can tell you.

 

I'm over the moon with the Aguilar OBP-1 just fitted to my Warwick Fortress, so that's a success story I guess (until I decide to sell it, like I do with literally everything I own).

Aha, that bodes well for me then! I'm just getting an OBP-2 fitted on my Yamaha BB 2005 to replace a rather tired Yamaha pre-amp with an NE1 mid-cut circuit that never gets used. How's your OBP-1 changed the sound to make it such a step up?

So what were your top 3 waste of money upgrades and why didn't they hit the mark?

After churning through over 25 basses over the past decade I've ended up with a herd of 8 including 3 basses that I'm regularly gigging and finally feeling "yeah, this lot are really good!" I guess the fact I've not actually bought a bass in a couple of years is perhaps a good sign that I'm pretty happy with my lot.

However it's fair to say that even my current herd have not been without their niggles and I've started going down the route of seeing if I can put through a few judicious upgrades to sort out the flaws without replacing the bass outright.

I've got a couple of stories to share about tweaks to my Spector Euro 5LX which has made a really positive difference to an otherwise great bass and more recently about my Yamaha BB 2005 which is currently being upgraded which I'll come back to shortly and maybe add some more pics:

In the meantime, thought it would be interesting to swap stories of any mods you've put through to basses you really rate, and what it is about them that make them special, where the modifications have had a really positive outcome, or any that you thought "oh dear that was a waste of time & money!"? Pics very welcome! 

3 minutes ago, isteen said:

Can you share the settings used for this patch?

With pleasure - should have a bit of time next week.

Ah...interesting pedal running order: I've always had my Octave and Filter reversed in running order to yours - to give the Octaver the cleanest bass signal to bite on at the start of the signal chain and the Filter towards the end to give it the most complex wave pattern to filter. And I'd have the HPF at the start to clean up the signal for the rest of the pedals.

The other thing about Octavers "doubling up" the lowest notes with the second harmonic is that there is a very slight latency which I guess then sounds like a second string and which I presume is how we hear a thickening up of the sound?

But I digress, again, haha. As you were, back to HPFs...

45 minutes ago, fretmeister said:

 

Yup. This is so well demonstrated when using Octave pedals.

 

Copying Dusty Hill's approach I run a Thumpinator immediately after my OC-5. The Thumpinator cuts off everything lower than about a low B on a 5 string so I don't get any flub when playing E-A, and I don't have to turn it off when playing on the E string. 

Apologies for the thread digress, but was interested in your comment - I used to be a massive fan of using octave pedals, but find that a 5 string largely eliminates the need in a band mix as you can often play an octave down anyway compared to a 4 string particularly for songs in keys of B, C, D and Eb. 

If you're playing in the low E string to A string range then the octave down is giving you a fundamental at 20hz to 30hz, which you're barely going to hear. The second harmonic from the octaver pedal is then just doubling your existing fundamental (which you've already got). I find even with HPF engaged it's not a great sound in the mix - pleasant enough when solo'd at home for sure - but you're obviously finding it works well with your set up and band? I've literally just taken my OC-5 off my board this past week! 😊

20 minutes ago, dmccombe7 said:

That was very un-PC of me there. My apologies for that. 

Dave

Cheers buddy - that's gracious of you. It's so easy to slip into casual sexism [or whatever...ism] without realising we're doing it! 

Back to HPF. I've actually got a decent ability to HPF on both our desk (100hz cut off) and via patches on my Zoom multifx which has a variable HPF sim, so no real need for something additional, although I had a Thumpinator on my home board for years. There's also the very simple option of cutting the bass EQ on your bass preamp or amp a touch?

If I was getting another HPF pedal the Sine HPF mentioned earlier looks very capable and decent value.

I guess the trick is to balance eliminating low end crud and getting a tight non-boomy sound without the bass sounding anaemic in the mix.

10 minutes ago, dmccombe7 said:

Ampeg replied fairly quickly and said my SVT7 did not have an HPF filter ?

I'm assuming they asked a techy type person and not just some wee girl in the office but you never know.

Dave

Or not some wee lad in the office, either, eh Dave?😉

19 hours ago, Nothingman said:

It’s all part of the journey. 

You work some rubbish jobs.

You wake up next to some mistakes.

You buy duff gear. 

Life’s a wave, just gotta ride it. 

Loved that post! 

 I've bought and sold a lot of bass kit over the past decade - it's been an interesting, fun journey and I've got a much better idea of what I'm after these days - the last bass I bought was 2 years ago which is quite a feat for me, haha! It's more now a case of applying some TLC and judicious upgrades to basses that I otherwise love, rather than replacing them outright e.g. getting the onboard electronics properly shielded, fret dressing and upgrades to the preamps. Finding someone as skilled and easy to work with as @Garymac to apply his bass-tec skills has been a boon.

I've also moved from trying to get the best rig within my budget to being content to go through the FoH to focus on getting the best balanced sound for my band.

Second hand purchases tend to hold their value if you look after them, so it's not put me too much out of pocket along the way.

Regrets? Spending far too much time on kit and getting into passionate debates over the minutiae of tone with fellow BC'ers and not enough on the fretboard and actually making music would be my only real one. But I can maybe do something to put that right now 😊

Price includes:

• BeatBuddy drum pedal with SD card, PSU, box and all gubbins in vgc (currently retailing new for around £345).
• BeatBuddy midi cable included (unopened - costing £25+ inc P&P) to facilitate downloading drum tracks.

• RM guaranteed and insured next day delivery. Knock £11 off for collection in person (or happy to meet up half way if that works).

The pedal is in very good condition (a couple of small marks if you look very closely and from the right viewing angle). This is currently in it's box not getting used, but I'm thinking I may get around to using it down the line so (I am clearly dithering, haha, which is why I recently withdrew it from sale), on that basis the price is reasonably firm although near offers, will of course, be considered! 

My little gigging pedal board with Zoom B1-4 very much at its heart! Couple of additional pedals for filter and synth which, together with pitch shift, tend to be weaker areas for many multifx:

Tip: I've recently found that layering a little drive pedal before e.g. the Xotic BB patch I've made** on the B1-4 is giving me a drive tone that seems juicer (apologies for the lack of a technical term!) than pretty much all of the bespoke dirt pedals I've had over the years (and I've had a few, haha!).

** My Xotic BB patch combines the following B1-4 sims: Demeter Comp --> Xotic BB --> SWR SM 400 amp, and has boosted bass to compensate for the low-end loss on dirt sims.

11 minutes ago, mike257 said:

My most regular touring role is as a monitor engineer, so this is my typical approach if I'm starting from scratch with an artist/working as an in-house monitor engineer.

 

For a wedge mix - I'll start off with each persons own instrument/voice in their wedge, plus anything that isn't making its own loud noise on stage (keyboards, sample pads, backing tracks, acoustic guitar, lead vox etc).  I don't tend to put drums or amplified electric guitars in to start with unless its a large stage/festival stage and you're sufficiently far enough away from the person at the opposite end to not hear them well. I'll usually throw some kick in the bass players wedge, and some kick/snare/toms for a drummer.  If there's multiple vocals that need the lead/each other as a pitching reference I'll make sure that's in there too. Basically, I'll fill the gaps around the sound that already exists acoustically in the space.  That's usually a good starting point for most folks, and then I'll adjust to taste as requested. I avoid putting a full "FOH" mix in immediately as it's just adding more noise on stage and clouding what's going on if there's already guitar amps roaring and a drummer going full tilt. 

 

For IEMs, if you're wearing custom moulds you've generally got a very high level of isolation from outside noise, so I'll start with more of a general balance of the whole band with each persons own instrument/voice pushed up on top, plus a splash of ambient mics, that I'll ride up further in breaks between songs or in parts where there's a lot of crowd participation/singing. Again, this is usually a good starting point, but I can often end up miles away from this once an artist has made tweaks for their preferences. 

 

As a general note, if someone's struggling to hear something, it's better to find what's getting in the way and pull it back to make space, rather than continually turning things up until it's all a bit of a mess. 

 

Also very much endorse what @Bill Fitzmaurice has to say about low end in wedges - I'll slap a high pass filter over every wedge mix and get that low end gone.  It makes for a muddy mess on stage otherwise, and can ruin the day for whoever's mixing FOH too.

Happy to have my brains picked about monitor mixing if anyone's got questions (there's not much in there to pick though!)

Great post, thanks Mike! 

What's your view on IEM and silent stages vs using stage monitors in delivering a really good FoH sound? 

Is the benefit of a silent stage / IEM route more pronounced for smaller venues when the stage bleed into the FoH mix is likely to be relatively much more pronounced?

3 hours ago, TimR said:

 

I've not used this particular mixer but the manual refers to 2 modes.

 

FOH mode in which case the 6 outputs are G1 - G4, L and R.

And

Mix mode in which case the 6 outputs are Aux 1 - 6.

 

That implies to me you can have L&R for front of house and 1-4 for monitors.

 

Or 1-6 for monitors. In which case you're using it as a monitor mixer and need another mixer to deal with FOH. 

 

Anyway, it's Allen and Heath, that's a high end mixer as already pointed out nearly £1600 new and with 14+ channels a tad overkill for a pub band. 

 

Most pub bands are going to be using a Soundcraft Spirit at most expensive or behringer/Yammah equivalent. 

 

A&H do more budget desks too eg their Zed / ZedFx range. Not many aux out, but well built and very decent quality. Several pub bands I know, including my former band, use them. 

I don't think we should assume all pub bands use only budget desks though, any more than we can assume that the bass player won't be taking a high end bass rig and £1k+ bass to their pub gigs. 

15 minutes ago, Pirellithecat said:

 

 Hmm - I wonder what the common-or-garden-pub-gigging-band's budget is?    Am I right in thinking this is around £1400?
Might be a compelling argument for going digital?   I must become more brave ...........

Yup. We can get 4 individual outputs from our Soundcraft MTK12 desk, which is all we need as a. 4 piece band. Fully tailored output on two, more restricted on the other two eg headphone out gives the FoH mix. Around £450.

Our next desk (whenever we decide to upgrade) is probably going to be digital, but with faders / ability to tweak on the fly mid song without needing a tablet.

There's a whole separate dedicated thread on compact mixers for you to dive into 😅

1 minute ago, TimR said:

 

That's still a 4:2. If you're using the 2 as mains, it's 4 aux. 

But any particular need to do that when it comes laden with actual mains out? 

MixWizard WZ4 14:4:2 | Allen & Heath (allen-heath.com) - 6 aux outs

On 18/09/2023 at 18:38, dave_bass5 said:

Well i suppose even if they are fakes they might still do the job. Worth a go if you are looking at changing. I believe the IE300’s are more for audiophiles and general music listening as opposed to the 100/400/500 being more for live music, but if the fit and sound works then its a win win. 

Well my £40 'Sennheiser' IE300s arrived and they work, so that was a good start. And the box came "fully laden" with all the gubbins you might expect of the real thing including a choice of silicone and memory foam tips

Actually a better over ear fit than the KS ZS10 Pros 

Don't seem to have quite the same volume of the ZS10 Pros which is minus, but a slightly less boomy bottom end which is a plus

I'll probably continue with the ZS10 Pros for live use for now. But these are a decent back up to have

Just wonder if Sennheiser would be able to confirm whether the units being sold from the Sennheiser Digital Store are genuine - I'm very tempted to ask them, be good to know either way. The price appears to have gone back up to around £95 (inc P&P) since I ordered mine.

Cheers for that. 

#2 I'm actually thinking of working with a line up with electronic drums and guitarist losing his amp and going straight into the desk via a decent pedal board / multifx set up (Russ is going to be amused to hear me say that!) Probably means getting a new drummer and guitarist in the process, but they do say change is as good as a rest 😅

On 27/09/2023 at 15:04, warwickhunt said:

My situation - Play bass and sing harmonies in several (loud) bands and play acoustic guitar in a quiet duo.  I own various bass rigs but I'm wanting to move away from that weight/load and I've tried/failed the IEM route, so a good quality active speaker mounted on a stand at the side of the stage will be my rig and the same speaker could do the acoustic duo as FOH (2 might be overkill).  I'm presently using an RCF310 (I have 4 in total that I bought as a package) which is working fine but I feel I'd like to take the next step up.  

 

My shortlist is QSC 12.2 or RCF 732/932 but I'd not be averse to a similar quality 10" but I feel that to get the best from the vocalist in the duo a 3" compression driver would be best (don't know of a 10" driver + 3" CD).  

 

Am I missing anything (manufacturer or series/spec by QSC RCF) by focusing on these 2 options and/or could I get away with a lower spec version of the above (inc 10")?

 

I could buy a single of the above new, so that is my budget but I'm inclined to look for used as that's just the way I'm wired.    

Was interested to understand what led you to giving up on the IEM route / why they didn't work for you? This is the path I'm looking to encourage our band to go down - and if there are issues or problems that you found couldn't be solved be good to hear in case it's the same for a couple of them too.