adamg67

I can't help with the dead cheap I'm afraid, I went for a Palmer Daccapo but they're just shy of £60. IMO worth getting a proper reamper with volume (rather than just using a DI backwards). Reamping works really really well once you get the hang. One thing that helps is to record a track with the bass direct through the interface, then put that through the reamper and back in to another track (don't make a loop,. that's like crossing the streams in ghostbusters ). You can then tweak the volume on the reamper to match the original signal from the bass, which really helps as you'll be driving your gear at the right level. I have a song saved just for doing that, although you only really need to do it once. Oh, and also watch out for the levels on the output to your DI box, you need to keep those the same once you've got the level set, if your DAW lets you lock them then do it.

Impulse Responses aren't just EQ presets, they represent the response of a piece of gear over time. I mostly understand it, although I still need to learn about how convolution works, but there's plenty of info out there, just google something like "what's the difference between IR and EQ". The end result is that an IR gives you a lot more than an EQ preset will. I've got an IR loader pedal and an IR plugin (which also lets you mix IRs, which is cool) that I use for bass cab sims and you could use that on it's own for tones that will sound like a real rig. My baby DI rig just has the IR loader + Darkglass harmonic booster (+ compression and tuner), no preamp pedal at all, and it sounds really good, probably better than my markbass multiamp. And I can set the IRs up in my DAW with the IR plugin (which also lets me mix IRs), then load them on to the pedal when I'm happy with them and they still sound the same. It's the best thing I've heard after a few years trying to find a good flyrig style setup (and it's tiny). Also, having been down the road of having plugins for recording and separate gear for live / rehearsal / jam, you are doubling the amount of stuff you are dealing with. I've gone back, well, sort of back and the forward in a different direction now, and I use outboard gear for recording again but set up so I can change things after I've recorded (i just reamp everything). That way I'm always dealing with the same gear to get my tone. It does make things more complicated though, but I dont' mind that. Assuming your Shuttlemax is doing something for your tone, I don't think wanting to DI that and use it when recording is a bad idea. I think what I'm trying to say is be careful of going down the rabbit hole of finding a load of plugins to replicate what you already have, and remember that whatever tone you get with the plugins you can't take it with you on a gig (well, unless youwant an ipad or latptop on stage yet, I'm not quite there yet although I do have an iRig).

Was just about to post this as well. Not good.

I was tempted to do this for a Tele I sold a while back, first instrument I'd shipped ever as I'd managed to arrange meet ups for everything else. In the end, since it was not the most expensive guitar ever, I went for packing the guitar in the hard case with foam and bubble wrap, then wrapping the hard case in bubble wrap, then a sheet of ply top and boottom, all wrapped in cardboard. That was not international and I'd do at least that if I was sending anything again (I hoard useful material, the ply used to be the back of a wardrobe). I think the crates are spot on. One of the reasons I'm so fussy about packing is that I worked for a parcel company for a while (in IT, not mishandling parcels, still chaos though). Assume your parcel is going to be kicked from where it's picked up to it's desination.

Bought a Micro Thumpinator from Paul, all quick and easy and as described, perfect! Thanks!

That's true, but I think the point of the which article is that you have to be careful as they often aren't actually any cheaper, retailers just claim the RRP is more to make it look like a deal. Not music related but I was looking at something in the Amazon black friday sale (because I wanted it anyway), £14.99, 50% off from RRP of £29.99. Curry's have the same thing, £10, RRP guess how much? £14.99. It's not new, I saw B&Q do it a few years ago for the january sales, I had bought a kitchen from them and needed an extra door or something, but the prices had mysteriously doubled. They stayed double for long enough for B&Q to say they were having a half price sale and then went back to normal price for the sale. If you know what price something was before Black Friday and it's definitely cheaper then go for the deal. I got a Barefaced Big Baby last year in their Black Friday sale and it really was 20% off.

Nice.

They did a Black Friday sale last year, so worth a wait and see, they hadn't done one before that AFAIK so it might have been a one off.

I know this will only apply to people who've got a recording setup, and that it will be old news to some people as well, but reamping is definitley my new favourite thing for playing with gear at home. About 6 months ago I bought a Palmer Daccapo Re-Amplification Box (a reamper) for recording through my MB Multiamp or my pedalboard, and it has turned out to be one of the handiest things I own. I got it mainly for recording through the gear I already have and would use to jam, rehearse or gig, rather than using virtual amps and fidning that the time spent playing with them for recording was wasted when it came to other things. I always could record through my physical gear but then couldn't go back and tweak amp or effect settings, and obviously that's what reamping is great for. I did have the thought it might help getting the gear set up so they're ready to use when I need them. I'm not in a gigging band at the moment but was putting some feelers out before lockdown and I'm sure I will be again at some point, or at least working on projects with other people and jamming and rehearsing. I also don't seem to be able to resist trying out new pedals, and lots of words have been written on basschat about how your "bedroom" tone isn't the same as playing with a band. The reamper really helps with that. If I want to play with my tone, I'll get some drums and guitar down (or piano, or whatever suits) and leave them pretty much unprocessed, and then record some completely dry bass, EQ flat on the bass (I like to leave the bass EQ for adjusting things on the fly if needed). Then I'll play it back through the reamper and whetever gear I want to set up, so now I can hear how it sounds in the mix with other instruments, and I can sit and twiddle knobs and play with effects while I'm listening. If I want to check two pedals back to back against each other I can record the reamped track twice, once with each and then just switch between them. I'm already noticing the difference when I go to record stuff, the presets I've got on the multiamp and the way I've got my pedals set up get me much closer to a good tone. I'm about to drop new pickups in my main bass and redoing the multiamp presets will be a doddle. One thing that's pretty key is getting the reamping output volume the same as the volume from the bass, otherwise you won't get the same sound when you use the gear for real, but I've got that worked out now - that's one thing in favour of a proper reamping box like the Palmer as it has a control for the output volume (you can re-amp with a passive DI in reverse but dont' get to control the volume). I've tried playing straight through the amp and my little fly rig pedalboard and the tone I've worked on is still there. The other key thing for things like jamming or rehearsing where there's no PA is that the speaker I use is a Barefaced Big Baby so it's flat response, and I get my speaker tone from cab sims in the multiamp or the IR loader on my fly rig. Playing the mutliamp through the BF really does give the same tone, same with the fly rig using the multiamp just as a power amp. It works really well and neither setup weighs much either. My load in for a gig nowadays would probably involve a small bag over one shoulder and my bass in the same hand, and some of the drummers gear in the other hand It just feels like suddenly I can get my gear set up quickly and have it work in the mix, which always felt like a guessing game before. The only downside is that now I feel like it's worth buying and trying pedals, but I'm pretty good at only keeping a few(ish), no, really, I am!

Sort of thanks for that... interesting but I'm trying really hard not to go down the rabbit hole of learning about synths, it looks really interesting and like something I would get and get into (software developer and professional geek by day)... but I don't have the time! Must play bass, must play bass... (just finished a session practising piano instead, oops).

Had a bit of a VH listening session today in belated honour, mainly early stuff but then I tried 2012's "A Different Kind of Truth", although not with very high expectations - I like it! Nearly missed that one. Still got the DLR / VH vibe but with a nice update.

Yeah, I should say that the reason I'm ditching Delanos in my (active) Jake with flats is that I like being able to use it direct with nothing much else (Radial JDI on it's own is my ideal), but by going with Nordstrands for doing that I am limiting myself a bit - the bass now has a sound which I can change to some extent but can't undo. The same is true of the Haussels.

MIDI connections on most things are for sending or receiving digital note data (not the same as audio data), as mentioned above, but there are also a few things that use MIDI for control so you can automate effect changes using program control signals or use a MIDI footswitch that can change multiple pedals or effects units. I'm pretty sure that's what the one on the Whammy is for. Not sure about the mixer, or the interface "mic input" - are you getting MIDI (5 pin DIN) and XLR mixed up?

Another vote for the Haussels, I had them in a 5 string Elwood and now in a 4 string Hellwood and they have a nice bit of character, great for DI. Nordstrand's do it for me as well, I swapped a Delano for a Nordstrand in my Jake and that definitely got rid of the clean / hifi Delano thing which didn't do it for me either. Just about to swap the Delano MM for another Nordstrand.

I have, unfortunately, some inside knowledge of Hermes IT, from a brief stint there myself a while back and someone I know more recently. It's a mess. Staff turnover is crazy. I'm no primadonna and a job's a job but I wasn't sticking around that's for sure. To be fair the rest don't seem much better. They're all trying to do it for less than the cost it needs to do it properly, and none of them can up the prices to what they should be cos everyone would just use the cheaper options instead. As part of my induction I did a shift in a Hermes depot sorting parcels in the middle of the night. The work rate of the people doing that stuff is unbelievable and they get paid sod all. Systems go down, scanning doesn't work, two lorries come in at once etc etc and they are expected just to to deal with it all with no slack and not enough people. If you want to blame someone it's all down to the people who own and run the place IMO. They know how it is and they don't care so long as they can squeeze a profit out of it.

They came direct from the US as it happens, just because I was already talking to Nordstrand about some issues getting an NP5 to play with a Delano.

New Pickup Day... look what came in the post this morning, now sitting on the workbench waiting to be fitted to my Maruszczyk Jake 5a. NP5 and BigSplitMan 5 both with custom pole spacing to go with the 17mm string spacing on the Jake, OCD I know but it's my pride and joy bass and I wanted it to look as good as it sounds. The pole height on the humbucker is bang on for the fretboard radius as well. I already added a series / parallel /single switch for the existing Delano humbucker, so I'll have the choice of a split coil version of a big single, or a humbucker made out of two of them (series or parallel - series should be a monster!)

There are more and more people not even bothering with a traditional bass amp now and going for some kind of fly rig into PA or IEMs. Obviously that's been an option for a long time but there's a much bigger choice now and it includes plenty of things that sound as good as a room full of big old amp heads (one at a time, not all at once ). If you need to be loud in the room just use a PA speaker or other clean / FRFR setup to amplify the tone you have. Presumably that trend is gradually reducing the demand for all kinds of bass amps.

Studiospares have a reputation for poor customer service as well, I've started looking elsewhere first and then using them as a last resort. Shame as they have a good range and probably know their stuff (or used to at least) but if you're not actually good at seeking it to people it's not going to work.

But if you just record dry and reamp, or use virtual amps like you describe, then you really can take dirt away.

The most important but of kit for getting a good tone with outboard gear when you're recording isn't any part of the input signal chain at all IMO. It's a reamping box so you can figure out what tone works after you've tracked. It gets mentioned so many times on here that you can't judge the tone until you hear it alongside everything else. Once you have the ability to play with the tone after stuff is tracked, either by reamping or just using virtual, that gets so much easier.

I stash useful packaging stuff in the loft, and go on a correct size box hunt up there when I need to post something. Obviously there never is one the right size but you can always do what Amazon do and use a huge box with 10 cubic metres of packaging instead.

Well, I'm happy anyway - nothing to do with the music, I just finally worked out where the right hand figure in the pic is from (Eve from Species).

I reckon codpiece, and he needed two of them as they got very sweaty on stage.