MartinB

People figured out how to extract the files from the Guitar Hero / Rock Band video games, so any songs that have ever featured in those will have multi-track stems floating around the web. They usually get taken down by copyright claims whenever they're posted publicly like this, but inevitably they pop up again somewhere else soon after 😆. You can download the whole lot in one go if you know where to look - I''d guessing the owner of the channel has done that, and is using a script to upload them.

Mine's 2 1/2 years old and no sign of peeling

7kg is not necessarily too heavy... but it's double the weight of many of its competitors. That, plus the fact that it's a fairly bulky lunchbox shape, makes it comparatively a lot less portable. Now those factors won't matter to a lot of people, and that's fine! But Laney have made it unattractive to those of us who need to be able to, say, shove their amp in a backpack. It's a puzzling set of design choices, given that they managed to fit the entire pre-amp and DI into a 750g pedal.

That's some nice-looking tortoiseshell - it's got some depth to it. Can I ask where you got the scratchplate from?

They're great straps - I've got the black-and-white version. Really comfy padding, and the little slots to hold plectrums are dead handy!

Keeley Bassist for me. It compresses; it limits; it's idiot-proof

I used to play Let's Groove on an actual synth (Arturia Microbrute), since I was already using it for a couple of other songs. Out of curiosity, I dug out my old Behringer BSY600 pedal (cheap clone of Boss SYB-5), and I think it does a passable impression: let's groove.mp3

Yeah - I did qualify it as "apparently" "inspired by", because there looks to have been a lot of assumptions about it (which are not in MXR's interest to correct!). Ovnilabs describes it like this: "People who want minimal coloration will be pleased, but people who want "tone magic" will be disappointed. Because of the claims about the M87 being "based on" the Urei 1176, consumers may assume or wish that the M87 will give them a famous vintage tone quality. It will not. It's a great-sounding pedal, it's better than a good percentage of the other pedals out there, but it is not a magic vintage recording-studio tone box. It's just a good, clean compressor with some useful features, that happens to use a circuit and control layout similar to the basic concept of the Urei." -- http://www.ovnilab.com/reviews/mxrbass.shtml How important is "magic" to you, @SteveXFR? 🎩 DryBell Unit67 is another option btw. They describe it as an "an 1176 type of compressor" - interpret that as you will! 🙂

Is the treble control boost-only, and the bass control cut-only, or am I misinterpeting the symbols?

MXR M87 Bass Compressor and M76 Studio Compressor (same pedal, different paint job) are apparently both 1176-inspired

A few more options: Bassics A900 (850W @ 4ohm): https://www.bassics.co.uk/ Straight Ahead Mini-Power Amp (500W @ 4ohm): https://www.facebook.com/straightaheadamp/ AMT Bass ZEALOT BZ-300 (300W @ 4ohm): https://amtelectronics.com/new/bz-300/

Have you got the original? I reckon someone who makes custom scratchplates/pickguards could probably do you a copy.

Well this is a blast from the past! Here in 2021, I'd like to think that all the crappy promoters have found themselves new careers over the last 18 months, leaving only the good ones who treat the bands well. But I'm not holding my breath... 😆

The pre-amp pedal looks very interesting - it'll be good to hear some proper demos when people get their hands on one. 7kg for the head seems a lot when the pre-amp's only 750g. Must be some big iron in there... imagine the heft! 😆

I'm guessing that's the same as the Joyo American sound (also sold under a couple of different brand names). It's a great little unit, isn't it? Very versatile for guitar and bass

Trying to copy the guy from Royal Blood with his separate signal chain for bass and octave up

The Elf gets hot and needs airflow, so strapping it to the top of the cab sounds like the best option so far! Maybe attach it with some kind of metal bracket that would also act as a heatsink?

I always assumed that was a deliberate variation, but maybe the mark of a great bassist is that even their mistakes sound intentional! The Kingsmen's version of Louie Louie is well known for the vocalist coming in too early after the solo (~1:56), which the drummer then covers with a fill. But less obvious is the drummer yelling "F**k!" as he drops a stick, around 0:54

If all of the pre-amps are trying to boost the incoming signal, then you're going to run out of headroom somewhere. You'll probably have to experiment to see what gets the best sound, e.g. High output from bass --> pedal at unity output (same volume when switched on/off) --> low gain on amp (or "active" input/switch) Low output from bass --> pedal boosts the output --> low gain on amp Low output from bass --> pedal at unity output --> high gain on amp Or each of them doing a little bit of signal boosting, etc.

You've mentioned that you don't like the sound of your bass and that's it's not "cutting it", but how does it sound in the context of the band? Drop A#... does that mean you're potentially getting drowned out by one or more guitarists with baritones/7-strings, who may be getting a little enthusiastic with their amp's "Bass" control? High-passing the guitars would be a lot cheaper than buying a new bass 😉

I'd knock the idea of "democracy" on head - it's your band and your vision. You want a benevolent dictatorship, where others are encouraged to make suggestions, but you're making the final decisions. One of the problems with democracy is that people don't always know what they want. There's often a difference between "music I like to listen to" and "music I like to perform" - until they're asked to learn it, folks don't necessarily realise that a song actually has some really fun guitar parts etc. And some songs just come alive the first time you try them out as a band, even though the original's nothing special. I can't stand most 80s music, but I'd still rather see an 80s cover band with a coherent setlist and who've obviously put some effort in, instead of a generic "bit of everything" act!

Good analogy! And in both cases there are very few opportunities to use them at full throttle 😁

I've got the Fender "Pure Vintage" ashtray set and the bridge cover's not quite as tall as that - at the open end it's 22mm externally at the highest point, so about 21mm between the body and the inside surface.

When I've been the support and the headliners have supplied the backline, it's always been fine. Bassists generally know what they're doing. When I've been the support and the organisers have supplied the backline, it's often been a knackered old mismatched head and cab(s) where the tone controls don't seem to do anything, or a hopelessly underpowered practice combo. No problems when I'm the headliner and supplying the backline. I'm confident my cab can take what any head can reasonably put out. If people use my head I usually have to point out the Mute switch, otherwise they panic when they plug in and get no sound 😆

There's a particularly sneaky variation on this where letters from different alphabets that look similar are substituted. Take a look at the following links (but don't click on them!). https://www.basschat.co.uk https://www.bаsschat.co.uk They look the same, right? But the a's in the second one are not the Latin letter a, but the Cyrillic letter а. In many fonts they look very very similar, if not identical. If you're not using a touchscreen, moving your mouse over the second link might show you the Latin-ised URL where you'd actually end up if you clicked on it - some browsers are helpful like that, but not all. Again, please don't click on that second link! I don't know what's at the other end 😅 If an email tries to get you to urgently follow a link, don't - type in the URL yourself. (This is called an https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IDN_homograph_attack, if you're feeling geeky 🤓 )