BillyBass

Have you got the standard one or the mini?

My experience with the Elf is as part of a practice rig on top of a Barefaced one10, not gigging. Most of the time I keep the gain at about 2 o'clock and it is clean. I rarely play anything but passive Fenders through it so perhaps makes a difference. I'll experiment a bit with it tomorrow. I don't often push the Elf but when I have done it has got quite warm. Not much in the way of heat sinks of course. The fan noise is a constant, even when using headphones or a tuner. And yes, I did check the links at the bottom of your page🙂. It's a great song and the bass just holds it all together.

The Elf only gets dirty with the gain almost full on. You can leave the gain slightly off this level and whack up the volume, you will have clean and very loud. P.S. nice bass playing on one in ten.

Wifey got me a beat buddy mini 2 for Christmas and I use it quite a lot for practice. The drum sets used are real and there is a bit of swing in them, not like a full on paralytic drummer but a lot more natural than a standard drum machine. If you are good with all that Midi computer stuff you might appreciate the more expensive model, which you can download different drum sets to, like 'John Bonham' for instance. I just wanted a drum machine in a pedal form and I have no idea what 'Midi syncing' is. I have just ordered the TC Electronic Ditto X2 jam looper. According to one long thread on the Singular Sound forum, this works with the Beat Buddy, without being Midi synced. Andertons will deliver this on Friday and I'll let you know how I get on. Apparently you can loop your bass or guitar in time with a Beat Buddy drum track without having to step on the pedal exactly at the right moment, the X2 jam looper can keep in time by itself, or with a little assistance from you.

That must be a custom order or a new product that Max hasn't put on his website yet (there is a 'D2' but no 'D3' on the site). Just received a Thumpinator this morning and it is as I expected, no pre amp or XLR out

Would be keen to hear that, thanks.

How do you find the Ashdown pre amp? There isn't much in the way of reviews online. I'm intrigued to hear how the valve drive sounds.

Welcome Manny, I also live in Barnet (born in Tottenham, went to school in Cheshunt) I got my first bass at the Soundgarden, just up from the tube station.

I called Ashdown and asked them about the pedals, this is what I was told: The compression in Macchiato is non adjustable, whether you are playing slap, fingers or with a pick, the compression is what it is. The three EQ controls do not adjust the compression. The sub sonic filter on it is a high pass filter, which is very useful and should be always on. High pass filters remove low frequencies that we can't hear but will cause speakers to flap about and possibly be damaged. It also stops the amp wasting good headroom on ultra low frequencies and gives you a bit more headroom to play with. The only reason the Macchiato has a high pass filter is because there was room in the unit for the circuitry. The Velvet compressor's control adjusts the threshold and ratio etc all in one control. The idea is you set the input according to the lights, then dial in the amount of compression you need and then adjust the output so it is the same as it would be without the pedal. The studio compressor allows you to tweak a lot more, like when you are in a studio! I'll wait until after lockdown before buying a compressor but I will say I was impressed by @Ashdown Engineering and their customer support

I ask because I had a similar issue when I started learning slap, quite recently. I'm not a big fan of slap bass music. RHCP I like, and one or two others come to mind but most of the music I listen to is finger or pick stuff. I just thought I should learn slap, as I'm learning the bass. I have three basses: a P, a J and an Ibby SDGR 500. The action on the Ibby is quite low, I generally set the action to be as low as possible without fret buzz happening (finger style), and this bass had a lot of fret buzz when being slapped, not so much the J which had a higher action. I wasn't sure whether the action just has to be higher if you are slapping rather than just using fingers or a pick?

Is the action on your bass quite low anyway? Is this something a minor tweak with an Allen key at the bridge would fix or would getting rid of the fret buzz bring the action too high?

I'm a member too; joined the day I bought my first bass. I did a bit of online research first and noted that there were some that didn't like his teaching style and the American teenager speak he uses: "Hey Groovehacker..." but I liked his free stuff on YouTube. I watched one free video from Talkingbass and the young American bloke with the cringeworthy sense of humour but thought I'd go with SBL and I'm glad I did. I did the technique accelerator course and it was a game changer for me too. I am now doing the Practice accelerator course, as well as the stuff the members get. I found the 'harmonic Layering' course absolutely fantastic, that was another game changer for me.

Do you mean that the three controls are a bit like eq knobs in that they compress and also add a few db to that frequency range? So if you turn up the 'light' knob but don't want a few db boost to the treble, do you have to turn down the treble eq on your amp? Or have I misunderstood this?

Does it add any of its own colour to the sound? if so, is it warm or bright or what?

I'm guessing the price, size and thirsty voltage needs my have put a lot of people off, but I would have expected at least one Ashdown fan to have bought one and reviewed it for us...anyone?

I mean the three they released last year; that is the 'Velvet Compressor' the 'Studio Compressor' and the 'Macchiato'. or the Guy Pratt signature compressor. They are large, 18v, 3 band compressors, built in England and, up until recently, were very expensive, £270 or £280 each. They are being sold now though by a few outlets with a considerable discount. Has anyone tried them? I can see very little by way of opinion on them on the internet. I'd like to know if anyone feels they have anything to offer over other compressors at their price point, which now is about £180 to £200.

The beat buddy is the issue. It needs a 500mA supply and I've read lots of reports of noise issues, particularly with power supplies lacking isolation. I might try the True Tone Pro CS6, as, anecdotally, it seems a good fit but I may end up sticking an extension lead on the pedal board and using the power supply the beat buddy comes with.

Is it still under warranty? If it is, take it back to where you bought it. My Elf's headphone amp is faulty, I'm taking it back to GuitarGuitar as soon as its open again, but I only bought it in October.

Hi all, I'm about to buy a compressor pedal and when it arrives I'll have a Beat Buddy Mini2, a Boss TU-3 tuner and the compressor. So I think its about time I put them on a board. I don't understand the power supply requirements though. The Beat Buddy Mini 2, apparently, requires a 9V, 500mA supply, that is straightforward enough. It says on the Boss TU-3 that: 'Total of consumption current must not be exceeded the rating current of PSA adaptor you use'. I think Boss are Japanese, hence the English mistake. Should this be 'exceeded by the rating current...' or, 'must not exceed the rating current...'? So I am not sure what current the (9V) TU-3 needs and whether plugging it in to a 500mA psi will damage it. Due to the Beat Buddy's requirements I will have to get a PSU with at least one 9v 500mA port and the ones I am looking at from Strymon just have 500mA ports (some with adjustable voltage: 9, 12, 18v). Would any compressor I buy (looking at the Ampeg Opto Comp) have issues with being plugged into a 500 mA port? Thanks

The riff at the start of Eton rifles is a classic...its his Ricky.

I've just ordered as set of flats and a set of medium gauge ultimates. I've never tried nickel strings before.

Welcome to the Elf club. Peavey are selling loads of these; brilliant idea though, a bass amp that you can fit in your pocket and, as you point out, its green and says Trace Elliot on it! There was a bit of internet chatter when it first came out of an uprated version, maybe 500 watts but I suppose with these selling so well, Peavey needn't bother. I've just been reading another of your posts about the Ashdown CTM300 you've just treated yourself to. Thats a bit of a contrast, one amp that needs a fork lift and an Elf!

It won't be duplicating his free stuff but a lot of it may be in the SBL courses available to members; membership that, unfortunately, we pay for. I'll let you know.

In that case, I'll let you know how I get on with SBL's 'The Practice Accelerator' as I have enrolled for this and today is day one. I was of two minds about enrolling on this as I thought I might be paying for information that is mostly already available on SBL's website anyway (I'm a member) but I thought I need help in structuring my practice regime so I'll fork out for it. Too early to comment yet but I'll post a review in 8 weeks time when it finishes. The pricing for SBL stuff is all in US dollars but as a SBL member I got $50 off and it came to £77, which was $97 converted to Sterling by my credit card company. I think I read that the bloke from Talking Bass used to work for SBL but he set up his own site and is now a rival to SBL?

I'm, not sure if you are still looking for info on paid for courses, as you seem to have enrolled in a couple at Talking Bass, but... I first picked up a bass in August 2018 and signed up with SBL. I found lots of help and information but was still often at a loss as to what to practise. There are loads of courses, most of which weren't appropriate for a beginner but there still was enough for me to be getting along with. I did the 26 week 'Technique Accelerator' Course last year and it was just what I needed. The claim that '30 minutes per day' is all you need is a bit misleading. I needed more than 30 minutes. Some, more experienced, with fewer bad bass habits might only need 30 minutes but I'm not one of them. The lessons on hammer ons and pull offs, fretting hand technique and 'economy plucking' were really useful. A lot of time was spent on ghost notes, perhaps more than I thought necessary, but it was still useful. The last few lessons are on pick and slap, you can't obtain proficiency with a pick or slap in just a few weeks but at least you get the means to have a go on your own. I found the pick instruction helpful but I needed to work out muting on my own and since the lockdown this is one area that I have been working on. Two weeks for slap is just a taster. Overall, it was well worth it for me. I think they start a new enrolment for this course about every 9 months. So you can't just sign up when you like. .