BillyBass

What @dave_bass5 @inthedoghouse and @Lfalex resonates with me. I always had a day off work before rehearsals so that I could learn and practise stuff for the following day and the drummer and myself have been pretty strict about only bringing in others that share our dedication. We have a guitarist now that seems to be as keen as us but we had to let the previous guitarist go as he had too many family commitments. We are serious and have no time to be wasted by others that aren't.

There is a lot to be said for buying from a bricks and mortar shop. The Bass Gallery and GuitarGuitar in Camden are not too far from me and are quite close to our rehearsal studio. I have made good use of the Bass Gallery and if I buy online, I'll do my best to use GuitarGuitar so I can take anything faulty back to the Camden branch, and I have had to do this a couple of times.

We have no pets in my house, but if my missus bought some cats and they did that, I'd be looking for a Korean restaurant to take them off our hands.

During the first lockdown I did very little work and averaged about 2 hours practice per day. I'm working now but I still manage several hours a day on my days off. Lockdown has really been good for my bass playing, but the bass, for me, is an obsession.

As an electrician, my first thoughts would be that the issue was with the kit, not the electrical installation. Mains in the UK is dirty but its not that dirty. The 'cleanest' socket you would have in your house is one with nothing else plugged into that particular circuit. Try plugging it into different sockets on different circuits, assuming you have more than just one ring final socket circuit in your home, and unplug other stuff from sockets in the same circuit. if the socket itself has reversed polarity, i.e. the neutral conductor is connected to the line terminal in the socket and line to neutral, then this could well cause issues.

I think Eich have shown a bit of foresight including the 8 ohm option. At least you can then pair it up with a second one to get the most out of your amp.

How is the hand? Any progress with physio yet? I'm a Spurs fan, so I couldn't stick any West Ham paraphernalia on my pedal board, even if it was the best thing since sliced bread. I am getting along quite well with my DI-2112 though.

I looked into the Stella recently but, as you pointed out, Becos haven't got their heads around the Brexit related additional paperwork so aren't selling to us any more! So how exactly did you get one?

I've bought a few things from the GuitarGuitar website and have had a few dealings with the store in Camden Town. They have always provided excellent service, I would certainly use them again. My experience with PMT has been a lot less positive

The Three Reverends, sounds like the name of a band.

Nice looking Reverends there. I picked one up in a shop once, it was really light, felt like it was made of balsa wood. The orange one looks interesting, half P bass, half Stingray.

In the UK most MarkBass amps are priced in the mid range, more expensive than TC Electronic, Peavey and Hartke but considerably cheaper than Aguilar, Bergantino and your Mesa stuff. I believe they are considered more up market in the US, perhaps due to their price? I have a MarkBass amp but wouldn't brag about it, they aren't that good; it has good EQ points, fits on my cab and was on a deal. If I had one of your new TT-800s though I'd certainly show off😉 A friend of mine works in a backline/PA hire company in London, renting out kit for gigging bands in London of an evening and receiving it all back in the early hours (at least before Covid). In his experience the MarkBass kit was reliable as he saw few returns of faulty kit.

The 12" Barefaced cabs are painted, the 10"s are tolexed.

That would have been the smart thing to do. Next time!

I will do!

I found the source of the noise. The handle!🙄 I took the grille off again and continuously plucked fret 14 on the g string while running my fingers over bits of the cab, then back to the bass for another long pluck. I started out with the eminence speaker but no joy and then went round everything until I got to the handle. The handle has seen better days, I don't think the previous owner looked after the cab so well. The handle looks fine and is perfectly usable but its loose, so I have just found out, and at the appropriate frequency it vibrates against the two metal clips that hold it onto the cab. As I mentioned above, it particularly likes the last A on the G string. If I pull the handle up, so that the metal ends of the strap are tight against the two clips it doesn't make a sound. I shall send Alex another e-mail on Monday morning.

I've been learning to play 'Limelight' by Rush for ages, never quite nailed it but I'm getting there. I'm ok until the guitar solo then there are about 40 bars or so where Geddy Lee accompanies the guitar in B and I struggle with the memorising. I have created 4 cheat bars in B that are close to what Geddy Lee plays and I repeat them from the bit I haven't memorised until just before the end where Geddy Lee repeats a riff from earlier in the song. I haven't checked but I wouldn't be surprised if Geddy Lee improvised when playing live. I also use 'Goodbye Toulouse' by the Stranglers as a practice tool. Its too fast for me in finger style but as JJB played it with a pick, I use it for pick practice. I'm also learning 'Smoke on the Water'. All in G, not so difficult, just a question of memorising it.

Ta, I'll try that now.

I acquired a Super Midget on E Bay just before Christmas. It had a few knocks but it plays fine until you get up to the E and F and particularly further up, to 13th to 14th fret on the G string and above. If I dig in on the Ab, A or higher I get a rasping/ringing sound coming out of the tweeter area. The sustain on these notes is accompanied by this raspy ring. The A seems to be the worst note for this. I contacted Alex about this just before Christmas and he thought it might be a cracked horn on the tweeter. I ordered a replacement from him and installed it yesterday, same problem occurs. None of my other cabs have tweeters, so I'm not used to playing through one but I'm sure this isn't normal. I took the tweeter out and placed it on top of the cab, still with the spade connectors on the terminals and it still made a sound but it was not so loud. I couldn't tell if the sound was coming from the tweeter or inside the cab, as there was just enough slack on the cable attached to it to place it on the top of the cab. Anyone got any ideas?

I'm a bit more dim than you. I'm just starting to experiment with my compressor as I'm probably about to buy another and I want to get a better understanding of how they affect my tone and how I can tweak them. The tip about using a looper might be obvious to some bright sparks out there but I'm as thick as pigsh*t. Loopers can be great learning tools, I should use mine more.

I just got the Geddy Lee DI-2112 for Xmas. I wanted a warm slightly overdriven sound as an always on. I can get this from the Hamstead subspace you can see on the board but I have this set for a cleanish fuzz sound (we cover Hysteria by Muse) and I don't want to be twiddling between songs, I just want to press down on the pedal and go. I also wanted a DI. It took a little while with the blend knob on the Di-2112 and the parallel on the Hamstead Subspace to be able to switch between the two without the DI-2112 muddying the Subspace but I've worked out a way now. You may notice I have an Ampeg Optocomp, which up until I got the DI-2112 I liked but its baked in warm sound can have a muddying effect along with the DI-2112 and its a lot easier to get a decent tone with it switched off. This might take a bit of further experiment but I may end up moving the compressor on and buying a more neutral or slightly brighter compressor.

Yes, Christmas present from wifey. I have spent a few hours with it, trying to get the tone I want on its own and interacting with the other pedals on my board but I'm not there yet. Due to the lockdown I haven't been to a rehearsal studio to play through a rig at decent levels so I haven't come to any conclusions yet but... There are 2 channels. The 'deep' channel has a pre baked in Geddy eq with just level and saturation adjustments available. This appears to be a drop at 80Hz and a bump at 400 Hz ish. I'm not certain as I've been fiddling with the levels on the 2nd channel 'drive' to try to replicate the deep channel and the above alterations get me close, but I am playing this through an Elf, which has a baked in slight mid scoop when the eq is flat. The 'drive' channel has a very useful parametric mid shift (from 170 Hz to 3Khz). So far the best tone I have got has been with a blend of the two channels but it is early days yet. I'll post in the pedal board section too, with comments about how the other pedals on the board interact with it.

So if people in Canada have never heard of JJB, who do you worship then? That bloke from Rash with the big nose?

Yes, but now their insurance premiums will go up and there would be quite a bit of disruption due to the damage caused by the break-in etc.