Al Krow

Just updating this thread to say that, as many of us will have now figured out, eBay have not slashed fees, just shifted them from seller to buyer as obligatory "buyer protection". Buyers can look on other sites (e.g. Basschat) if they want to buy the same good without the additional costs.

Here's a worked example (excludeding P&P)

Old system - wait till you get 80% off variable fees before listing, and then the seller fee worked out at about 2.6%, so if you sold something for £500 you got £487

New system - buyer pays 10p plus 4% up to £300 and 2% above £300. So if they are looking to pay £500, then you would need to list it for approx. £484 (or if you list it for £500, the buyer will need to pay approx. £516)

It's a really intetesting question.

Are you "a doctor" if your training is limited to giving basic first aid?

Are you "a golfer" if you play for fun at weekends?

As someone who does decently paid pub gigs most weekends and a fair few functions throughout the year, I guess "working / part-time bassplayer and band leader" are labels that seem to fit.

I'm entirely self-taught on bass (online lessons and YT tutorials aside). I would hate for my doctor or car mechanic to be! I can't imagine most classical orchestral players, amateur or pro, being self taught?

I would, however, have no issues with any gardener or a pro muso eg Paul McCartney being. He's certainly been a fab artist on bass, as a musician and as a singer / songwriter. One of the very best!

4 hours ago, Phil Starr said:

Ironically bass here is your enemy. almost anything below 80Hz (the 2nd harmonic of bottom E) should be left for the drums and even up to 160Hz you are in an area where you will be fighting with the drums to be heard. I use a 35Hz 24db/octave filter to remove all subsonics and shelve the bass response through the PA below 160Hz or thereabouts. Please don't take these frequencies as gospel for your eq though you still need to get 'your' tone but remember you are trying to get the balance right between bass and mid/treble. Turning the bass down and maybe edging the volume up is as valid a way of making the mids shine through as boosting mids. It's not a bad principle to start with everything set flat and then cut bass. The idea of using a decent pre amp isn't a bad one either, using a SansAmp transformed my sound with almost no effort from me.

 

One thing you should also be aware of is the equal loudness contours which I'll put in below. It's the opposite of the loudness curve you are deliberately putting in when you use your mid scoop. We are hyper sensitive to mids at low volumes but almost totally insensitive to bass frequencies until they get loud. We aren't great with low level high frequencies either. Turning up you volume control boosts the bass and treble contrasted to the mids which is why a mid scoop sounds good at home but not at gig levels. Going from 80db average levels at home to 100db in the PA might mean you need to cut 5db from the bass to get the same subjective sound. You can read that off on the graph but the message generally is don't be scared to cut bass knowing that you genuinely sound bassier simply by being louder. 

 

One thing that worries me is that you say you have no back line (which is brilliant) and you describe your PA but don't mention monitors. You are using monitors aren't you? You simply won't hear the mid/tops from your PA just a wooly bass sound. You absolutely need some sort of monitoring 

 

Anyway loudness curves

 

 

 

I normally would agree with most of what Phil says! But the "weight" of the bass IMO comes particularly from the 120Hz to 150Hz region so I would, if anything, boost that by +3db or so.

I think if you are agressively cutting bass below 160Hz that feels too high a cut off, and you'll risk ending up with quite a thin sound.

I'd personally recommend cutting from 80Hz to 100Hz to get rid of low end crud, and leave your mids flat rather than cutting them; and as you've already shared mid scoop can sound sweet solo'd but it's where you're losing yourself in the mix.

I really shouldn't be quite so chuffed with a £10 9V PSU. But this one has decent 2A capacity and, if you're ever gigging with single multi-fx pedal, this has a 2m cable! Bloody marvellous!

32 minutes ago, LukeFRC said:

£305 online for vip version. I’m tempted! Though if you’re selling one secondhand in a few weeks I can wait…

And vice versa, haha!

Have the prices come down a bit recently, I thought they were closer to £340 inc P&P?

Great review, thanks Luke!

On 16/10/2025 at 17:12, Linus27 said:

I think my own view is I consider myself a Musician, if asked in what, then I would say a bassist. If I am writing music or basslines then I am being creative, if I am putting together a structure or how the song is to be played then I am arranging and if I am playing in front of people then I am performing but the over-arching title I would use is I am a musician.

Nailed it!

Great job on all fronts! Catchy 80's vibe and quality production by Haunting the Atom. Nice one!

Good price. Not going to deny also being a Zoom fanboi!

Remind us, Dave, what made you move it on last time and what's tempting you to get it back (other than the price)?

I'm in the market for a standalone multifx to gig with for some gigs that would be a lot easier for me to get to by public transport gigs (now the Elizabeth Line is connecting places like Reading to London!). But for another £110 Thomann are selling a B-stock Boss GX-10 with parallel processing, much larger touch screen and IMO significantly better PSU. 

Oh I hope you manage to find the cause of the issue pdq and it's not down to the pedal but something less expensive like a faulty cable or PSU!

Couple of further Qs if I may: what casing are you transporting your GX-10 in for protection & what's it like as a headphone amp? (My cheap-as chips Zoom B1-4 has a pretty doesn't one!)

On 03/06/2025 at 10:41, SumOne said:

 

The split path is good, can use as a simple A/B switch or as a blend, and the blend can add more complex stuff like dynamic sensitivity and cutoff frequencies for each path.

 

I found that it isn't really necessary for most compressor/drive/effects though as the 'x comp bass' is multiband compression (Boss like to confuse things and call it 'multi dimensional processing') and has a clean mix (Boss call it 'direct mix'). The same with distortion like the 'X-OD Bass' and in fact I think all the amps and all the bass effects have a clean mix so I often use the split path just as a simple A/B switch to make it visually easier to see what is going on to turn a few effects on/off together (which can be done without a split path).

 

The split path things is useful for the Royal Blood type separate Guitar/Bass amp split and I've found the split path and dynamic sensitivity things also useful for nerding out with effect stuff like slicer+delay etc. 

Hey @SumOne and @deerhunter113 did you hold onto your GX-10 and, if so, how are you finding it after a living with it for several months?

Was looking at the specs of portable multi-fx to save me removing/reinserting my GT1000 Core each time I want something smaller for use on public transport and this seems to be a much more capable piece of kit than many in a similar £300 price bracket e.g. Helix Pod Go with its ancient chip set!

Quite enjoyed this chap's review: 

58 minutes ago, cetera said:

Got my XS-1 yesterday. It's good, but not astounding, but then I think that's just the nature of these pitch shift pedals....

 

It does a reasonable job up to about a tone/tone and a half detuned then the artificial sound becomes too overbearing for my taste. I also have the Digitech Drop and that's as bad/worse. Under layers of distorted guitars it probably wouldn't be noticeable but solo'd it becomes a distraction imho.

 

Advantages of this pedal (beyond tuning down with a good sound to C#/D) are the extra ability to tune up/add higher notes, the octaver and the 'secret' chorus setting.

100% ^^

Fortunately for detuning we only ever need 2 or 3 semis for our alto singer. If we have a male vox it may sometimes be 5 semis, but that's usually handled easily enough by playing on a different string.

You keeping yours?

On 14/07/2025 at 13:06, knicknack said:

I feel like that video does the MXR dirty a little... as a pedal it does need a little practice to 'show' it the information it needs to generate the synth lines. The more I experiment the happier I'm getting, and whilst i still love my Moog, I'd have the MXR over a Novation BS any day already, and will leave the Moog at home now more than I would have!

 

Had a fun little dep at the weekend...

 

 

@BigRedX Paddy didn't seem to have too much trouble nailing a great synth sound! Ok he's a fab bass player, but it's still clearly possible with this pedal!

1 minute ago, eude said:

Oh, very cool. Is it useful to avoid having to detune then?

I personally don't de-tune strings mid set - too much "dead air time", so it's been a case of learning songs in a different key or using a pitch shift pedal, which I've generally tried to avoid until now as I've found they had too much warble/latency and the XS-1 certainly does a better job than my multi-fx. Hopefully opens up more of our set for our alto lead vox to have a crack at (the other two who front the band are mezzo sops).

22 minutes ago, neepheid said:

 

Bought it on the way down the road to the SW Bass Bash on Saturday.  Tried it out in the Guitarguitar in Birmingham and really liked it so I decided to carpe that diem - not getting any younger!  Was too busy to do anything with it until I got home on the Monday - played around with it on the Monday night, put it on the board (replacing the TC Electronic Brainwaves) last night so I thought I should issue this update in the thread where people care about such things

 

Enjoy! I'm already liking mine a lot!

Have got it connected up to an expression pedal for a bit of whammy fun which doubles up as a more accessible on/off on my board.

I bought it primarily for detuning duties but, as others have said, it's very probably the best octave up pedal currently around (certainly for the price) and is opening up 8 string opportunities with my crew ("yeah you can stop doubling up the bass line now!") which should allow us to fill out the sound further.

15 minutes ago, neepheid said:

Pedalboard iteration number who knows...

 

Congrats on the new XS-1! When did that make its first appearance?

Another +1 for the Bugera Veyron and agree with all Dan's comments above.

Dare I say it's: light, capable and cheap/great value (probably 'cos they are built efficiently in China, where they also make our beloved iPhones?).

20 minutes ago, dave_bass5 said:

Apparently Sire is also good enough for MM, and yet....... 😀

He is at least using his signature Markbass kit which often also has blanket connotations, as well as the older Zoom pedals.

Maybe he just likes blankets?

@jacq - thanks for sharing that clip with Marcus's PB on it! Here's a screenshot from the YT clip:

That's an old Zoom B3n which is the same generation chip and software as the Zoom B1-4 - so it seems it's good enough for Marcus!

The newer Zoom chipset is in the B6, B2-4 and MS-60B+. I did prefer the MS-60B+ tonally a little over the Zoom B1-4, but its inability to display the name of the patch you are on (other than very temporarily) and lack of PC editing make it much less usable both for patch creation and live use. No such limitations on the older MS-60B and Zoom B1-4.

But no question for me that mid-range multifx such as the GT1000Core are a step up in processing power and the tone they can deliver, but are several times the price of the budget range multis such as the GP-5 and Zoom pedals. 

41 minutes ago, Bill Fitzmaurice said:

...which should never be below the mains unless there's no alternative. 

Seems to be the key point here, thanks. Please remind us why that is Bill - sound reinforcement from the walls?

42 minutes ago, Bill Fitzmaurice said:

[Cross over at 150 Hz]...results in directionally locatable frequencies coming from the subs. Then you lose the ability to put the subs anywhere...

I suspect 8/10 pub / bar bands in the UK put their tops on poles above their subs due to space limitation issues. But if the only downside is directionally locatable frequencies and bands aren't fussed about the losing the ability to put subs anywhere, then no particular problems crossing over at a higher frequency than the usual 100Hz when using a bass combo as a sub?

Completely concur with @Baloney Balderdash on how good this thing is for octave up and down! It wasn't my original use case (detuning) but this will open up a lot of 8 string bass possibilities for filling out the sound, which is ideal for a 4 piece outfit like ours with just one guitar and no keys. An unexpected bonus and, dare I say, worth the price of the pedal by itself?

18 hours ago, Chienmortbb said:

I would not do that, let the PA tops do what they are designed for and cut off as though it was a normal sub. The important thing is to be able to invert  the sub output to match the tops. The Thomann DSP crossover allows this. Of course it also allows you to experiment. 

It's an interesting one, 'cos there's an argument that tops are completely fine with going down to 60Hz? So why cross at 100Hz?

I'm definitely no expert here, but if a key purpose is to relieve the tops of their low end lows to focus on non-bass frequencies, then crossing over at 150Hz (because the bass combo can easily handle up to this) would be more beneficial than 100Hz. But, as I say, I'm no expert!

18 hours ago, Chienmortbb said:

I would usually set the crossover frequency to 100 with a standard sub. It’s a good starting point. 
 

As far as the Thomann crossover does, I have the one with the power amps in but the software is the same. It looks a bit old fashioned, think Win 3 meets Win 95 but it is clear and easy to use. 

Totally agree with a standard sub, which often don't go much higher anyway.

But was wondering whether it might make sense to flex this to make more use of the bass combo's ability to handle higher frequencies?

11 minutes ago, admiralchew said:

Really nice board. Great pedals and very clean.

Agreed! Clean does look really great and very satisfying too! But having engaged the wrong effect at the wrong time mid song and getting justifiably disapproving looks from bandmates, I've come to appreciate the need for adequate spacing for my large feet with gigging boards!

Speaking of compact gigging pedal boards, I've been really enjoying this set up for the past 5 months:

However Boss went and released their XS-1 pitchshift pedal, which looked really neat and has been getting excellent reviews for its tone and tracking and meant we could potentially extend our set to the lower vocal range of our alto singer without me needing to re-learn songs in different keys and new muscle memory. However no space on my mini board, and my next size up was a Rockboard, but gave the opportunity to add an expression pedal which puts the XS-1 into full whammy mode. Space left over to re-load a few other pedals that had been sitting on my pedal shelf itching to be used and my trusty Zoom B1-4 as a back up multi, which also provides a beats unit - would have come in very handy at a recent gig when the drummer had a puncture and couldn't make the gig, so we ended up doing the gig as a drum-less 3 piece, which was character building!