Velarian

I have the older model and never experienced any issues.

Just shooting from the hip here, but have you tried any different headphones? I’m just wondering if Nu-x is using more power driving the headphones; maybe an impedance issue?

I’ve no idea what I’m talking about so please ignore me if I’m completely off target. 😉

2 hours ago, Richard R said:

6th Jan for you, only beaten by @SumOne 😁

Insurrection day?

This is very sad news indeed. I remember the terrible time she had with the fire and how this community stepped in with help and support. Her commitment to nursing and also her technical abilities were notable. She was the same age as me so that really hits home. May she rest in peace. 🕊️

11 minutes ago, Leonard Smalls said:

 With you tube being a streaming service, they tend to normalise all audio to a perceived loudness of -14 or -16 LUFS - i.e. it gets multiband audio and digital compression so it'll never sound as good as a lossless version. Though as most folks don't listen back on decent kit they'd never know the difference.

 

Not sure what this means! Back in the days of NICAM I used to take mixes home to check for rumble missed by the Rogers LS5/8 monitors they used to use... Nowadays all TV is delivered as part of a AS11 DPP file with the audio component being a 16bit wav at 48kHz, bandwidth 20-20kHz with a max true peak of -1dBTP, and max perceived loudness of -23LUFS so in theory pretty high quality, and they use Harbeth 40s which are far better. 

It was true that in the days of live TOTP'n'all that there was a breed of studio sound mixer (I was post production) who didn't believe in enhancing in any way, it was basically as it came, warts and all, not even reverb on vox - later trainee intakes emphasised creativity over engineering and scientific knowledge, so things have got better! However, with BBC training having disappeared largely all they have to go on is required tech specs.Radio ones here, but they're basically the same as for TV, https://www.readkong.com/page/audio-quality-information-standards-for-4418233

 

Interesting, thanks. I’ll have a proper read later. 
 

This could probably be a subject for its own thread so I won’t derail it any further. 

1 minute ago, Cosmo Valdemar said:

Sounds like typical TOTP, live vocal over the studio recording.

Good point. Actually, thinking about it the YouTube version with its own processing on top of the BBC’s own emasculation of broadcast sound and probably a poor video copy to boot has a huge impact. I’ve often thought that the BBC tames rock music down too much. A good example of this is the theme tune to Have I Got News for You; no balls at all. 

9 minutes ago, Baloney Balderdash said:

Well, it might not be live, but it definitely doesn't sound like the album version either.

 

I did a quick A/B comparison between both versions and the phrasing and tone seemed to be the same to me. However, the YouTube version compared to a lossless version totally lacked both range and dynamics. Maybe YouTube’s processing rips the guts out of everything which may account for any perceived difference?

1 hour ago, Baloney Balderdash said:

I am partial to this live recording, just amazing raw P Bass tone!:

 

Except that’s not a live recording, as evidenced by Jet stood up at the back not putting much effort into the drums. I’m pretty sure that’s the album recording. It’s still awesome though. 

9 hours ago, Si600 said:

They want me to sing now, the fools. I can only just play most of the notes in mostly the right order, I can't remember the words as well.

 

 

Hanging Around is a bugger to play consistently, I keep missing the octave.

 

Sample set list for your edification:

1.    Mach Dich Lieber Anders Tot 
2.    Sometimes 
3.    Princess
4.    Hanging Around 
5.    Better Change 
6.    Golden Brown 
7.    No More Heroes 
8.    Duchess
9.    London Lady
10.    Get A Grip
11.    Goodbye Toulouse 

12.    Nice 'n' Sleazy 
13.    Peaches 
14.    Ugly
15.    Walk On By 
16.    We Are The Firef***er

That’s a great selection of Stranglers classics there. Well done for learning them so quickly. 

39 minutes ago, WabiSabi said:

This is a really beautiful sunburst body (with internal routing and its very precise pickup cavity), shining in full glory! A perfect example of what I had in mind when preparing the PBase control plate for its first production series.

 

Thanks for posting this, enjoy and all the best,

 

Peter (Positech Design)

I’ve been really pleased with the quality of the body which was from Northwest Guitars. The price is still the same as it was over three years ago.

https://northwestguitars.co.uk/collections/precision-bass/products/precision-bass-compatible-guitar-body-3-colour-sunburst

22 minutes ago, Si600 said:

I think we killed it, at least, it's not there anymore.

This looks like a reasonable alternative: -

https://www.songsterr.com/a/wsa/the-stranglers-tabs-a5147?inst=bass

16 minutes ago, Si600 said:

I think we killed it, at least, it's not there anymore.

Damn! That’s a shame. It looks like the whole site is down rather than just that specific URL. 

Following Peter's posts above (@WabiSabi), I went ahead and ordered one of his P-Base control plates, which arrived this morning. Peter was extremely responsive and helpful and there were no difficulties with any of that Brexit nonsense that might be associated with ordering stuff from the EU. It's a really nice quality part and it provides the finishing touch to my earlier bitsa project. 🙂

I have to declare a tier 1 fail.

I'd always envisaged that when I failed, it would be for a significant and worthy cause e.g. a vintage p-bass. However, it's ended up being for an entirely frivolous and low-level reason. When I put together my bitsa p-bass over 3 years ago, I ended up with a hand-fashioned acrylic control plate as a temporary solution because I couldn't source a steel/chrome one. I always said I'd address that later if and when the right part came available. Well last week, a chap in the Netherlands posted on another thread saying he was making them and I couldn't let the opportunity pass. So, I bought one and it arrived this morning.

I'm happy that I've managed to go well over 2 1/2 years without any significant purchases, so I've proved to myself that I'm reasonably GAS resistant. I'm sure I'll be back on the wagon next year and I'm hoping I win the lottery this year so I can get a vintage p-bass during this outage. 😉

I came across this video of Danny Sapko covering a few bass players’ amp settings. JJ is the third one in at around 24s.

These are the amp settings he used: -

15 hours ago, tauzero said:

No hit on the serial number. Not sure if that's significant or not.

 

If it was really valuable, wouldn't the seller have managed to do more of a description than three generated sentences?

Gotta love this line: “It is a type of guitar specifically designed for playing bass notes in music.”. Ya don’t say! 😂

14 hours ago, Beedster said:

3. Human error (sound techs don't know how to get the old tone from their systems)

 

Or maybe the sound techs don’t realise that the ‘old tone’ is what a bass could sound like and think that dull/boomy bass is how they all should sound?

15 minutes ago, HeadlessBassist said:

I'm almost glad I only just spotted this thread - excellent legal rules based concept, Richard.

 

Unfortunately, before the end of February, I've already failed. Traded in two basses against something I've been after for 17 years last weekend, which cost ALL the money.

 

Okay, so I'm patient (or is that persistent?!) Oh, and one further instrument is up for sale.

 

I do like this thread, though...

Yes, yes, but we don’t really care about all that. What did you get? 

26 minutes ago, thebrig said:

Although my playing isn't great, JJ's tone is achievable (within reason), with a little bit of tweaking, probably good enough in a live situation?

The bass has been removed from all these backing tracks, so what you hear is my take on the bass line.

 

 

 

 

 

Nailed it!

 Are you able to share how you did that?

3 minutes ago, itsmedunc said:

Virtually every band I’ve seen in a decent sized venue for well over a decade have had a ‘generic’ horrible woolly bass sound. Rigs tend to be sub bass heavy (sub isn’t needed for most genres imho). Engineers seem to think that ‘sub bass’ is what it’s all about now. Totally baffles me. Can’t they tell that the bass is just a blur and it’s not actually enhancing the overall sound at all? Was their tutor off that week?
I still like to think that bands of a certain ‘level’ have their own sound engineers but I think I’m kidding myself there. 

Maybe JJ’s sound is much more authentic onstage? I like JJ so I’m blaming the PA guys 😂

This is very true. I've seen the Stranglers live many times and woolly bass was almost invariably the case. Smaller venues definitely fair better than larger ones.

5 minutes ago, Bass Fumbler said:

https://bass.relentlessrevolutions/stranglers2/index.html

 

Plenty of Stranglers bass tabs on the above site. I don’t know why No More Heroes isn’t on there but that’s usually on the other tabs site. 
Enjoy playing a great selection of bass lines. 

The URL you posted doesn't work. I think this is the correct one:  https://bass.relentlessrevolutions.com/stranglers2/index.html

Edit: Great Resource! Thanks 

25 minutes ago, Lozz196 said:

Yeah agree, he still sounds like JJ by his playing style but that famous aggressive tone of the early years has gone. 

Of course, JJ's bass sound on the early albums was allegedly attributed to him using a cab where one of the speakers had a ripped cone but he hadn't realised until later. His trademark tone had pretty much disappeared by the Raven album and not long after that he'd moved from a Precision to a BB2000, further softening the aggressive edge. Perhaps he recaptured the original sound a little after moving to Shuker basses?

In my live playing days in the early 80s, although we weren't a "tribute" band, we were heavily influence by the Stranglers and we did play quite a few of their tracks as part of the set, always ending with the epic Down in the Sewer. In those days learning a song involved setting the counter on a cassette deck and endlessly playing/rewinding a small section until something resembling the original part could be achieved. Either that or endlessly lifting and dropping the arm on a turntable with the frustrating inaccuracy that involves.

More recently, just for fun, I've decided to try and relearn a few songs and although I've not managed to nail any yet, I have worked out a way which makes it much easier than BITD. Firstly, I import the track into Logic Pro (V11) and use the stem splitter to separate the bass from the rest of the track. Then I 'remix' it with the bass at a higher level and open the result in "Transcribe" by Seventh String Software. The way that allows you to loop sections and slow down the track without changing the pitch make it much easier to isolate and learn the parts and is light years ahead of the way we used to do it BITD.

Sometimes- The Stranglers. First track on Rattus Norvegicus. 

1 hour ago, Richard R said:

Most honourable. 

I would call it a Tier 2 fail though, so you're still eligible for Tier 1 if you want?

Great, thanks. I’m pretty sure I can maintain tier 1 compliance for the rest of the year. 🙂

So, having observed the nuanced debate about foot-switches, cables, signal path and the like, and despite graciously being given a pass, now that I’ve had the Adams speakers for a day or so, I think it’s only right that I declare myself out. It’s clear that these units make recording eminently possible and although this is not something I’ve done so far, I will now indulge a little along those lines. It would be churlish to argue this isn’t gear that is part of the signal path. 

2 minutes ago, Richard R said:

 

Bad speakers annoy me, so while it's probaby T2 then would be lenient and let you off with a caution. 

Be glad it's not an Unpleasant Discharge, which is what I think Donald Trump got. Or possibly is.

It’s definitely a case of scope creep on my part and, like you, crappy speakers would annoy me, hence going for these as opposed to something more vanilla.

I promise to behave myself henceforth as I wouldn’t want to be lumped together with the very unpleasant DJT.