41Hz

Looking to add a powered cab to my MB212. The 115 powered cab is a fair bit cheaper than the 212 powered cab has anyone tried that combination?

That’s the way I’m reading it, but the wording is somewhat vague.

I’ve tried jamkazam and jamulus.

Jamkazam has more features like being able to play a backing track etc., however I’d probably go with jamulus in the first instance as it’s simpler, easier to setup and is open source/free. Jamkazam have just started charging for all but a limited service.

33 minutes ago, gafbass02 said:

Some of you may remember how close I came to dying from it back in March. Close enough to have to make the calls to my parents, wife and kids. It wasn’t nice. 
Now we’re in November and I’m still suffering badly with long COVID. Only working 3 hours a day four mornings, and that’s when I can manage it. 
I wrote this blog a few months back and haven’t progressed since. In fact I have more symptoms now than I did and am in more pain. 
Please have a read and factor getting long COVID into your decisions.  I took the picture from my critical bed. 
https://gafranksauthor.home.blog/2020/09/21/living-with-long-covid-19/

That’s a pretty sobering read gafbass, I hope you start feeling better soon.

I don’t think I’ll be getting in a rehearsal room until I’ve been vaccinated.

I’ve now moved up from tier 1 to 2, so what’s the general feeling on rehearsals for tier 2/3 (for amateur pub bands).

I’m personally not that keen anyway, both from the risk and the fact there are no gigs to brush up for anyway, but some of the others are still keen and think we are exempt from the rules as we get paid. It’s certainly not my livelihood and the occasional £50 I get for a gig really doesn’t make me a professional musician (in my opinion). 
 

Interested to hear what others are doing or if anyone has found any guidance for pub bands.

Thanks Bilbo, Interestingly I was looking at some of your transcriptions and noticed you don’t indicate the key signature on most of them but add the sharps/flats as accidentals  throughout the transcription. I find this easier to sight read as you don’t need to remember which notes need to be sharpened/flattened  but I guess it’s not the way most music is written unfortunately. 

Thanks Doddy, It’s the extra layer of brain processing of flattening or sharpening the notes which Is slowing me down, so this will certainly help.

Still wondering if an alternative method is to visualise the notes of the scale/key all over the neck and think in terms of the intervals between the notes rather than thinking in c major and sharpening or flattening the appropriate notes.

Either way, it’s hard work!

I’m trying to get my sight reading skills up to scratch. I’m Okish in Cmaj/Am or if there are are only 1 or 2 flats/sharps but I really start to struggle once there are lots of flats/sharps. Does anyone has a strategy for this, I’m basically just try to remember which notes I need to flatten/sharpen but should I be trying to think more in terms of scales?

1 hour ago, dave_bass5 said:

Yes its possible. When i had my HFX i used to play my ipad through it using the FX return, and mix that with my bass. One time i had a guitar also plugged in to the right hand input. All came out through the main outs in to my headphones, but obviously you can run that to a mixer. 

You can use the mixer blocks to balance it all up in the HFX.

Yeah, it was a lot easier than I thought - just added a return block at the end of the chain and that was it!

Pretty impressed with Jamulus.

I found logging into the router and turning WiFi off improved things much to the annoyance of my kids.

I’m interested to know what delays people are getting? 

Best case I’m at around 30mS overall going on the fastest 9-10mS public server - so presume about 20mS Introduced by my interface/software. Are any others getting better than this? Did wonder if a better interface would help.

Hi all,

I was wondering if it is possible to use the HX effects as a mixer?

I’ve bought a 2ch audio interface to use with Jamulus for band practice, but I need 3 inputs , bass, microphone and a mono output from my phone for a backing track.

I thought I might be able to use the HX effects to mix the bass and the mono backing track into one output then send to the interface - Is that possible? I’m guessing something to do with the send return inputs?
 

Thanks!

15 minutes ago, bassbiscuits said:

I suspect that with the restorer not being a bass player, it would need to go straight for a decent set up after leaving Repair Shop....

Mmm, it might not be possible to setup after he shaved half the neck away, it’s probably bowing like a banana with any string tension on it.

41 minutes ago, thebrig said:

Not sure whether this counts as rehearing outside, but this is where we rehearse, and we are having our third rehearsal tomorrow morning because we are all retired.

The marquee is in the garden of our drummer who inherited 12 acres of land, the nearest neighbour is miles away so no complaints about noise, and there is plenty of space to keep well away from each other.

We have all the sides open when we are rehearsing, so I would say that technically, we are rehearsing outside with just a roof over our heads to keep everything dry 😉

That looks ideal!

Does your drummer fancy renting out to other bands? Think there would be a decent demand!

Out of interest has anyone managed to organize outdoor rehearsals. I’m thinking of contacting local farmers to see if any of them would allow us to use a field (ideally away from residential areas). Better still would be an open sided barn with power, but I’d take a field right now.

I won’t be going to pubs or gigging under the current conditions I.e. thousands of people getting infected everyday.

I know the government is concerned about the economy, but rather than all the lock down easing we’ve had over the last couple of months we should have taken the pain and stayed in hard lockdown and kept R low to reduce the numbers as fast as possible. Possibly by now we might have got the infections down to zero like New Zealand and be able to open up with confidence. I think the governments strategy will do more harm to the economy, especially if we get another peak.

I’ve got a Vox amplug and a Zoom b1n. The zoom sounds better and has the effects,  the vox is great in that you can plug it in and walk round your house/garden playing, also has a line in so you can connect your phone and play along to music. If I’m going away anywhere and want to practice I take the vox. The main negative for me is there is quite a lot of hiss. I’d happily pay 2-3x the asking price for the vox if they put in better quality less noisy amplifiers

Anyone thinking of practicing indoors should read the erinbromage link posted earlier. Singing is particularly bad.

From the article.......

Choir: The community choir in Washington State. Even though people were aware of the virus and took steps to minimize transfer; e.g. they avoided the usual handshakes and hugs hello, people also brought their own music to avoid sharing, and socially distanced themselves during practice. They even went to the lengths to tell choir members prior to practice that anyone experiencing symptoms should stay home. A single asymptomatic carrier infected most of the people in attendance. The choir sang for 2 1/2 hours, inside an enclosed rehearsal hall which was roughly the size of a volleyball court.

Singing, to a greater degree than talking, aerosolizes respiratory droplets extraordinarily well. Deep-breathing while singing facilitated those respiratory droplets getting deep into the lungs. Two and half hours of exposure ensured that people were exposed to enough virus over a long enough period of time for infection to take place. Over a period of 4 days, 45 of the 60 choir members developed symptoms, 2 died. The youngest infected was 31, but they averaged 67 years old. (corrected link)

The key thing for a beginner is playability and to be honest the budget Yamaha and Sub ray4 I have are just as playable as the US Fender Jazz+ pbass I own.

One of the best bass players I have seen on YouTube absolutely kills it on a £300 budget bass. Amazing tone and feel.

Can anyone give any tips to get get an organ type sound.

Ive got an HXFX that I’ve mainly been using for pitch shift and a bit of compression, so a bit of a noob on the other effects.

I want to recreate the organ sound at the start of mr Crowley (OZZY)

Pretty busy pub gig last night, plenty of dancing. Annoyingly lots of people wanting to shake my hand, some of them multiple times, usually just after I washed them!
 

I’m expecting and kind of hoping the gigs I have in April will be cancelled once CV accelerates.

@stewblack @Cat Burrito

What were the numbers like last night, was it quieter than usual due to Coronavirus?

looking serious in Italy now. Pubs closed!
 

given we are around 10 days behind Italy in case numbers I wonder if this will be coming to us soon.

I’ve got a pub gig next weekend, but after that I’m thinking it’s likely the ones I have in April will get cancelled.

11 minutes ago, ambient said:

I thought Coronavirus was more deadly, tens times more deadly is what I’ve read.

Flu is 0.1% I believe. So this is between 10-60x more deadly depending on what figure you want to believe.

Based on known cases that have had a conclusion I.e died or recovered, the death rate is currently running at 6%, but could be lower than this if mild cases have been missed.

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/

The big problem will be the NHS....

looking at the Italy outbreak 49% have needed hospitalisation. 9% are in intensive care, presumably on ventilators.

the 1-2% death rate that is being quoted is based on current cases that have had full medical care including ICU.

The government have said up to 80% could be infected. I think this is unlikely, but assuming 10% get it, that’s 6.6M people. If 9% need ICU care, that would be 600K people. We only have around 7-800 free ICU beds in the UK at any time, so I suspect most of the 600K people needing ICU care would be toast.

This could potentially push the death rate closer to 9% once the NHS is overwhelmed.

How do they compare sound wise to regular EXLs (or fender 7250s)