Aliwobble

Today’s rig: epiphanies Jack Casady into the EBS microbass 3, and into the interface. Worked well.

I had a Promethean P5110 combo for a while. Sounded absolutely fantastic for a about 12 months, and then it started spending its life at the repair shop. I still have the 1x10 cab it came in. If you find one of the old 500 watt heads that still works then grab it.

Drummers! Wheel them in and sit them at the back of the stage. Good to see that you think of him as part of the backline. 😝

while I love the sound of my little bastard, it does not meet my needs as a gigging musician. It just will not get loud enough unless I put it through an 8x10. My MB500 into a 2x8 or 2x10 is just more giggable. For recording and practices, however, it is hard to beat that valvy goodness.

My preference, as the guy who has to put the mix together, is for the recorded sound to need as little work as possible at mixing time, but I guess I’m doing fairly old-school blues / rock / country style genres mostly. These days I find myself preferring a mixed up cabinet over a DI; somehow it just seems to work better.

Happy Monday! Here is my silver burst Jack Casady.

Happy Monday!

So recently it was my privilege to play on a friend’s recording. This was my setup, and it sounded great! Now show me yours...

MP40.

If it is only for recording purposes then EQ can be precisely added during mixing. As the preamp does the heavy lifting in terms of boosting a tiny voltage to a useable one then it is worth investing in this step of the chain. A simple setup such as bass > Cali 76 > Preamp > interface should give big clean sounds. If a bit of grit or OD is required then a bass-specific preamp will probably let you dial that in. If you get a decent (non bass specific) preamp you can use it for your acoustic guitars and vocals etc. as well as bass.

I’ve tried the mxr M80 bass DI+ but could not find a use for the drive section. Currently my live board is based around the EBS microbass3 which includes a ton of functionality in just one pedal - Di, tuner, comp, overdrive, and EQ.

“Better” sounding is always subjective, of course. While I’m not familiar with the sidecar, you already like the result so adding in a dedicated preamp will likely only give you a small upgrade in overall quality. A good preamp can usually add a little something to you sound, as well as giving you eq and overdrive options. You do not need a bass-specific one necessarily. I have a couple of different preamps that I use for recording and they are both an improvement over the preamp in my interface.

Thanks for you thoughts everyone. The sale period has passed, so I’ll have to sit tight for a bit. It would be a nice birthday present though

Hi everyone, I need the wisdom of the hive mind. I only have four basses, so I’m feeling the urge to relieve the local music shop of a Warwick Streamer CV team built which they have put on sale. The bass looks stunning (very important), plays well, and is nicely balanced. So no issues there. My question is the pick guard: it seems to be bowed. There is a obvious gap under the pick guard, big enough to see light through. Is this normal? I would ask the staff at the shop, but the staff at this particular shop are a bit useless. For the money being asked, I would not accept any flaws in workmanship. Thanks in advance for your help. A.

Small but mighty is a bit of a theme lately. Here’s my most recent effort for a small (nano+) gigworthy board with no compromises in tone. Wireless > microbass > corona (in fx loop). All powered by a strymon Zuma.

I run my basses wide open as most of then don’t have much in the way of markings on the volume knob, so this is the easiest way to get a consistent level. The exception (there had to be one, right) is my Jack Casady bass which seems to louder than all of my others. Fortunately it has numbers on the volume knob and so it lives between 7 and 8 to level match my others.

Beautiful! What is it?

Definite thumbs up for the mxr bass chorus deluxe. I can’t see mine being displaced from my main board any time soon.

For a Sunday bite-size tasty snack here is my “new” mini board. Really it is just all my spare bits put together into a compact functional unit. If I was honest with myself (which would, of course, defeat the purpose of this forum) then this about as much pedal board as I really need, most of the time. And it sounds very good, within its scope. The comp nova does a good job of adding some weight, the M5 has GREAT sounding modulations (and even some fun, semi-workable distortions), while the little Red Witch boost does exactly what it says. The M5 takes almost the entire fuel tank to run it; I have used a four way power cable to make it happen.

Thanks for your comments guys. Overall you all seem pretty happy with it. I think that one of these, a modulation pedal, and 98% of what I do would be sorted. Cheers, A.

Nice one, thanks for that.

Hi all, I’ve recently had som gas for the ebs microbass 3, so I’m consulting the hive mind here at BC so see what people’s experiences are. There is one positive review here, but would like to know more. I’m wondering if will sound as good as my current pork loin dirt and TLC compressor setup, but in a tidier package. Cheers.

I had the agro for a while, playing in a covers band which would sometimes get rowdy. In the I moved it on as I felt that it was robbing me of low end. I have a way huge pork loin now which has a blend knob. Great pedal.

I suspect that you don’t need both, as the b3 has a di output. There DI+ is a robust professional piece of kit, but the distortion sound was not to my liking so I sold mine. I’m not familiar with the B3, but I suspect it covers more territory than the DI+ but I would expect the DI+ to do what it does better.

Excellent ! This is the justification I needed for buying a headless bass. And maybe a backup for it too, just in case.