MartinB

54 minutes ago, Ducky said:

Last weekend I happened to stumble into a high-end guitar shop and tried playing a fender bass with a fender amp, and it sounded incredible. I don’t think my playing has ever sounded so clean, which led me to realise that it wasn’t me / my technique that’s the issue.

Take your own bass to the shop and try it through the same Fender amp. If it still sounds bad, then you'll know that a new amp is not the solution.

10 hours ago, Bankai said:

The Digbeth range has been around for a few years now and included a combo and a couple of heads, all hybrid with a tube pre-amp alongside a solidstate one and Class D power section. 

[...]

the ‘tube’ channel of the normal Digbeth models (which will remain in production) is renamed/replaced on foundry models with a footswitchable solidstate ‘drive’ channel instead.

There's no tube in the original Digbeth models - the second channel has tube-style drive but is solid state. This isn't a criticism though - they sound really good!

You could probably get someone to 3D-print you something similar for a lot less

e.g.

https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:4876428

https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:4184813

48 minutes ago, wavemaker said:

What’s that bridge? Looks just like my cup of tea. 

It's a bit of a mystery! It came from ebay seller musicinternational and was listed as "4 String Electric J Bass or P Bass Bridge for Jazz/Precision Bass Guitar", but I haven't seen another one like it since.

Rays and skates can be hard to tell apart. Mine's not a StingRay - it's a CheapSkate! 😁

Squier Sonic Precision
Warman MM4 pickup

Retrovibe Stinger pre-amp

Custom scratchplate by earlpilanz (because I hacked out the pickup cavity by hand and it's not pretty 🙈)

Nice! That's like AliExpress prices but presumably with much better QC. The edges of that fretboard look seriously rolled!

Really enjoying Turnstile's set, aside from the pointless synth interludes.
Olivia Rodrigo was a lot of fun when the whole band were involved - proper 90s sounding. It's a shame that the production on her recordings is so bland in comparison.

17 hours ago, Sibob said:

what the HX Stomp then receives in the way of phantom power isn’t damaging, although I’ve heard it ruins the tone/signal. All that to say that you’ll HEAR that PP is on before you do any damage

I've read the the same thing here and there, and always along the lines of "it degrades the sound" but with no specifics. I've just tested my Stomp with phantom power from my audio interface, and it sounded the same to me either way 🤷‍♂️. It also didn't explode, which was nice!

Depending on stage layout and who's providing the bass amp, I sometimes use a short TRS - XLR cable, and other times an Orchid Electronics DI box

20 hours ago, Downunderwonder said:

Work around round 2: install a switch to cut out the speaker.

Plugging anything into the headphone socket on the rear panel should disable the speaker - even just a dummy plug

14 minutes ago, Wolfram said:

Yes but then you lose the preamp and tone stack colour. 

Yep, that's why it's an unhelpful design. You could do something daft like a DI box in the effects loop followed by a clean boost that would act as your master volume, but (a) it could introduce noise, and (b) you shouldn't have to go to these lengths

10 hours ago, Cosmo Valdemar said:

they're charging another tenner on top of the advertised price for "service fees" 😡

Well that's made the decision for me

8 hours ago, Downunderwonder said:

Use the fx send to another DI.

The fun thing about these amps is that the FX loop also comes after the master volume 🙃
Really the only option is to stick a DI box between the bass and the amp

Quote

The notion of Stadium having forty new effects that you don't get in HX doesn't really make sense, because HX should have those effects as well. So no, there aren't any new effects in 1.0 for Helix Stadium. There clearly WILL be more effects, and the goal is, the plan is, is that those effects, if appropriate, if they're not completely insane DSP-wise, those would also end up in existing Helix and HX products as well.
 

We're building the effects library not to somehow sunset Helix - that's never been the plan. But we've been building this effects library so that we have a platform to build off of with Stadium

Obviously he'd be mad to say "everythng is definitely being added to the old Helixes forever, 100% guaranteed". But given their track record, I'd personally be surprised if they immediately started acting like the current models no longer exist. Whereas I'll be _very_ surprised if the Darkglass Anagram is still getting updates 10 years down the line...

Yep, same problem

They've said that any new effects that they add to the Stadium will also be added to the rest of the Helix line where possible:

12 minutes ago, Stub Mandrel said:

 

Anything mangled by YouTube's compression then played through little phone, laptop or PC speakers is unlikely to sound anything like it does IRL.

Crap speakers are going to cause problems for sure. But other than that, things that sound bad on Youtube are more likely to be down to a bad recording than anything to do with data compression: https://jimlillmusic.com/does-youtube-mangle-audio/

8 hours ago, jd56hawk said:

Why Squier hasn't come out with a Sonic Jazz bass is beyond me.

The answer will be "money". The margins are tight at this end of the price spectrum; maybe they can't get a good-enough Jazz built for the same price as the simpler Precision. Or maybe they think that a Sonic Jazz would eat into sales of the Affinity Jazz? There wouldn't be an obvious "upgrade" from one to the other, which would lead people towards the cheaper one. With the Affinity Precision you might feel you're getting more for your money because it has an extra pickup compared to the Sonic.

That crisp Stingray top-end 😙👌

And then for a change of pace:

You'll probably want to lower your action to get some rattle/grind from the frets

A decent comparison here, starting around 10:24:

The Pedalnetics stuff is really nice, but I built myself this for under a tenner 😁

The volume knob fits into a hole in the back - I only use it for the headphone level, so I don't need access when gigging.

- 66.5 x 31.5 x 20mm box (RX2KL07) https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/121941168040

- Momentary footswitch https://www.bitsboxuk.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=116_128&products_id=3060

- Flat patch cable https://www.thomann.co.uk/harley_benton_fpc10_flat_patch_cable.htm

When a band plays over their allotted time, sometimes the sound person will shut them off - but sometimes they won't, and every band after them has to cut their sets short. Either way, there's no excuse for it. I can't control other bands, but I can make damn sure that my band are not being arseholes. Be the change you want to see in the world! 😁

I use mine as a timer - it resets to 00:00 whenever it's switched on, so it always shows how many minutes have elapsed since then.

On one of my other basses I replaced the stock tuners with Gotoh GB640s - but at the same time I replaced the bridge (standard Fender-type BBOT) with a heavier Gotoh 201B-4. The end result was that the total weight of the bass barely changed - but since what I'd lost at the headstock I'd added at the bridge, the balance was much improved. I'd have done the same with this one, but it's already my heaviest bass and I didn't want to add any more weight! 😅 Even with just the combination of lighter tuners and a strap with some grip on the shoulder, it's become more comfortable to play.

Nice! I made myself a similar board clock a few years back. I've been thinking about making a box to sit next to my HX Stomp to hold two auxillary switches, plus an input for an optional expression pedal - I might migrate the clock unit to it, since it's going to have some spare space between the switches.