Al Krow

Ah Witney! A former family haunt of Mrs Krow! Enjoy mate - hope it goes well!

Hi Phil - perfectly happy for you to comment on here: for me the thread is about two things: - live music returning, and - what's enabling that to happen (e.g. vaccines appearing on the scene). You and I have always managed to discuss our different PoVs with civility, so no concerns from me on that score!

My sense is that at a pub gig with a full rock band the only person who is likely to notice a difference in tone between two different 4 (or 5) string basses will be the fella / lady standing nearest to the bass rig, playing some great bass riffs with a slight air of disdain, whose ear is most attuned to the sounds of the bass i.e. us! But do you know what? Even if the only person who is really getting pleasure from the nuances of live tone from their different basses is us, that's plenty good enough a reason

Been almost exactly a year to the day since we had clips of fellow BC'ers bands playing live. Be great to see you all back in action!

Wow amazing! Good luck! And if you get any clips please feel free to share on here: It would be great to get that thread up and running again!

Phil - the Aus / NZ 'zero covid' model is definitely worth keeping an eye on as it is a clear alternative to one being adopted by the US, UK and Europe. There was no play book for Covid for any government to follow other than the WHO shouldn't have taken such a supine position and should have encouraged other nations to cut travel to China much, much sooner. There were understandably lots of plaudits early on in the pandemic for the Aus / NZ model but their zero-Covid approach is starting to look a little threadbare. Came across this article which you might find interesting. Right now I would much rather be a 'free' citizen in the UK than facing another 12 months of lockdowns in Aus & NZ. Covid-19 - Aus & NZ (21-08).pdf

Hehe! But tbf on our fellow BC'er whose comment you are alluding to, it's massively easier to hear nuances of (pretty much) solo'd bass tone in a "bedroom" environment. Put a full rock band alongside and then try deciding which bass was which in a blind test without being able to choose based on their looks? Hmmm not so sure many of us would easily be able to. Nicely played btw @ped - my vote went to the G&L; it just has a more 'interesting' / richer tone.

I entirely agree that getting the EQ right on your bass e.g. boosting the mids to cut through the mix, or reining them back a little to sit in the mix etc and certainly avoiding boominess by judiciously paring back some of the lower 20 to 40 Hz freqs, where possible, is very desirable. No disagreement from me whatsoever on the important topic of EQ! Every bass player will have access to and ability to adjust EQ - it's vital part of our toolkit. But plenty bassists don't bother using pedals (other than perhaps a tuner) and they can manage to sound just fine, fantastic in fact. At the end of the day live performance really does boil down to groove, feel and technique and those are 90% in your fingers. The rest is what we angst about on BC to keep ourselves, as bass players, entertained.

Fixed! Brexit has happened, it's history and reflects the will of the British people. I get that losers in elections and referendums can sometimes be sore. But did I mention before that democracy beats dictatorship.....? 😁 Now how is your tasty reverse P BB refi coming along?

Very cool - it does have a touch of Rush about it, particularly the drums!

@Dood what track is the riff from you are playing at the start of your review? (It very much feels Rush, but I'm not familiar enough to pin the track down, if Rush is correct!)

Yup - go for it!

Yup that's right - there should be NO Customs duties or VAT on goods travelling from NI <--> GB in either direction. Only exception is GB --> NI --> EU i.e. goods being routed from GB to EU via NI. Steve @Steve Browning is our expert on this stuff and will correct me if I have got this wrong, I'm sure. Obviously still the issue of transport and courier costs to deal with.

Paul - I kinda get where you're coming from. I have had exactly the same debate over the years with the compressor-brigade that no typical pub audience is going to really notice pedal board compression (which, FWIW, I contrast to carefully sound engineered compression on studio recordings). But I think you're perhaps taking it too far in that, as you have acknowledged, a Rick does have its signature tone. In the same vein a classic Fender P is pretty signature and quite different to e.g. a Warwick MEC growl.

The Sire gig bags are pretty decent. I held onto mine when I sold my Sire P7 and regularly use it now for everything but Sire! 😊 PS I think Andertons sell them separately.

So my last gear purchase was exactly 9 days ago - arrived on the 2nd August. A pedal that I've only bought and sold three times before, lol! Does that I mean I am officially, finally, and forever cured of GAS and will now spend the better part of my bass playing future making the most of the gear I already have? 😆

You will get parallel routing options on the Helix, but not on the Ampero or Zoom. The plastic construction on the Zoom B1-4 is pretty robust though and you get metal on the B3N.

Well the Zoom B1-4 is just £65 and will do everything you want it to. It's also aimed at bass rather than guitar. @JohnRwhy wrong thread, buddy?

Zoom B1-4 multi-fx is a fantastic little "micro-board". I liked mine so much, I've bought two and it's all I'm currently taking with me for live performances - I personally use it to provide me with tuner, B7k dirt, chorus, tape echo and Z-synth. You can include a compressor in every patch if you want to. Includes very good headphone amp capability with aux in and has both a (basic) looper and a decent drum machine which can be useful for home practice. But you'll have so much spare cash left over if you go for that option...😁

It's audible, but actually not an issue for me at all even when playing at home and it's entirely lost the moment you start playing. My DG M900 AO is quieter, for sure, but costs a LOT more. My favourite amp is actually my Mesa M6 which is home use only for me given its weight, but has an awesome tone! The M6 fan is actually nosier than the the BV, which was a pleasant surprise for me given the fact this had been raised as an issue by others with the amp. We all have different fan-noise tolerance levels - mine is certainly above what the BV is producing. And at £200 you're not going to find a better featured amp (e.g. 3 band EQ with semi-para mids, built in comp, 750W+ at 4ohms).

Hiya mate - still on the lookout. It seems that Covid has (understandably) laid waste to a fair number of gigging bands which has resulted in supply being sparser than it used to be. I've managed to persuade the pub manager to up his rates and I've just updated my OP to reflect this. Having said that, he does have decent expectations in terms of quality of the bands he's willing to take on.

If you don't mind have additional power on tap (circa 750W to 800W), then worth also checking out the Bugera Veyron BV1001M or T. I've got the M as a back-up amp and several of us are happily using one of the two models as our main gigging amp. DV 247 currently have them on sale new for sub £200: Bugera BV1001M Veyron Mosfet Head | DV247 | en-GB

My two compact PBs, main board and 'psycho synth' smaller board. Both powered by HB IsoPro PSUs (a 5 and a 12) with a Thumpinator hpf also sitting under the larger board. Currently just using one of the Zoom B1-4s for gigging, which provides me with tuner, BK7 dirt, chorus, tape echo and Z-Synth in one very handy 'micro board' which can easily slip into my gig bag.

That's a great weight. I'm currently lacking an MM 5'er in my herd... How close does it get to the classic MM tone? I'm kinda expecting the pup and preamp at the HB price point to be pretty meh - are they better than that?