SumOne

Playing in a band to a small/uninterested audience is still the same thing though isn't it?

Sure, it's not for everyone or every situation. For me, I generally think it's worthwhile for honing a stage show and for the enjoyment I get playing with a band - regardless of the audience or pay.....time was the main caveat I mentioned though.

If the band have the evening free and it isn't a big cost to you (e.g. long travel) then I'd tend to look at it as good practice - a step up from a dress rehearsal even if it's not a big or interested audience. Cheaper than hiring a practice room. Set up/pack down, getting the sound right for different situations, putting on a show/stagecraft, discipline of ploughing through/masking it if something goes wrong and fixing things on the fly are all things that can only really be practiced playing live - even if it's to a small crowd. It didn't do the Beatles any harm just putting in the live hours in Hamburg to often uninterested crowds: "Between August 1960 and December 1962, the Beatles played over 250 nights in the seedy seaport city, and venues often demanded they play four or five hours a night. The shows were not glamorous. They played for audiences of “inebriated seamen and bored wh0res,” often antagonizing the audience, and afterwards crashed on bunk beds above the clubs. Early on they were even reduced to playing background music at a strip club."

'what's the best preamp pedal' and 'how do I get that edge of breakup tone' (I'm probably guilty of asking both)

Generally written by someone that happens to have the same gear and wants the price/demand to stay high for when they offload it!

Edit: Small amount of pricing competition going on with Gear4music, DV247, and Bax have the Bass version reduced to £349 (Andertons are still trying their luck at £399 though and making out that it's a sale!).

Yeah that Bass Driver bling is a bit annoying, partly as I find the dials a bit trickier to see and there's reflections/glare, but mostly because it doesn't match! In fact, I'm not overly impressed with the Bass Driver. It's fine, but the much maligned ODB-3 costs about half as much and has similar controls (low, high, blend, gain, level), the ODB-3 is higher gain though so worth having both. BB-1X is always on, ODB-3 for more rawkus stuff.

Full House! That's basics covered. Next stop will be some more exotic top shelf material.

'might as well keep it as does what you need and much more' is fine until you consider cost, size, sturdiness and complexity . If you only need tuner, and simple eq and drive, then a quad cortex is perhaps not the best choice.

I usually see that phrase when someone is selling a multi fx and partly read it as doublespeak for: 'the unit is too complex/inconvenient for me to use 90% of it' .... or '90% of what it does is unnecessary (and more costly than individual pedals) for a bass player'.

I've found multi-fx to be great at setting presets to get things sounding just how I want them at home, and can get really creative and do stuff that isn't possible without having a massive amount of individual pedals and complex loop switchers. My issue tends to be when I'm playing with a band and seemingly simple spur-of-the-moment changes become a bit of a faff. It's fine if things all work out with presets, but feels a bit boxed in. One other thing is that a drum cymbal stand fell on my pedalboard of Boss Compact pedals the other day, I didn't even bother to check they were alright as I just knew they would be. I'm not sure I'd be that blasé with a multi-fx unit with things like touch screen, none seem quite as bombproof as tough individual pedals. ....but I am contradicting myself here! I do feel that Analogue individual pedals vs Digital multi-fx is already pretty much something akin to DJs using Vinyl vs Digital. I reckon a few interface improvements will seal the deal and Analogue pedals will be the preserve of collectors and enthusiasts.

Nice! I keep owning B1-Four's and then foolishly selling them. They're better than many expensive multi-fx or individual pedals for home practice (more portable, drum loops, aux in) and there are a few Band practice sessions where it would have been really useful (especially when I've had to lug about a pedalboard on public transport, and when the drummer is late!), and even if I just add it to my live board for HPF it's cheaper than most HPF pedals, and it'd do as a backup. I'm going to get one again, probably for about the 4th time!

I suppose there is quite a distinction between Individual Digital pedals and Multi-FX. Only a minority of purists still use analogue Tuners. And certian things like the Boss CEB-3 have gone from Analogue to Digital while keeping the same interface and very few people can tell/care about the difference. And some things like long delays with a pedal pretty much have to be Digital. One issue for me is when individual Digital pedals add a lot of functionality just because they can, but the interface isn't really improved so it over-complicates for live use e.g. 'long hold' a small button to access a second parameter on a knob, meaning that the user isn't sure where either parameter is set. And similar for Multi-FX, they feel to me like they could be amazing but the main issue is the interface and foolproof live usability when you want to do any more than just click between presets. For me, I want a really clear footproof way of 'what you see is what you get' in stomp mode, perhaps just for a few basic things (Compressor, EQ, Drive) but I'm yet to find a digital multi-fx that does that as well as just looking down at those few individual pedals. I like the style of the cheap Zoom B3n for making it quite obvious what each footswitch will do when you stomp on it and what the parameters are set to - and being able to quickly turn a dial to make a specific change, give that sort of simple view format a Helix makeover with assignable coloured footswitches and a small TC Plethora type screen for each effect block and it'd be a winner for me in terms of interface: Hopefully improved usability/interface is the next big thing for digital multi-fx as I think they are pretty much there with most of the sounds (they need to catch up with Source Audio's digital filters/octave/synth though and put them into a multi-fx).

EBS Flat Patch have done me well for a few years. It depends on what they're replacing, but they poke out probably a bit less less than 1cm whereas I have some heavy duty Fender ones that poke out by about 2cm. The Fender ones do feel more robust though. My worry with squeezing mini pedals as tightly together as possible is it becomes a bit of a delicate move to stomp them on/off without hitting neighbouring ones, those soft touch TC footswitches are easily pressed (and my size 12 DMs quickly stomping on small pedals on the floor in a dark pub is not usually a delicate manouver!). The flat Harley Benton flat cables have not done me so well - the outer sleeve has started to come away on a couple of them to expose bare wire.

Yeah, someone that already makes wireless transmitters would seem the most obvious candidates to basically put their wireless receiver into some bluetooth headphones, that seems basically what Boss did using the WL-20.

Ah nice one, good to give Boss a bit of healthy competition. They are available to buy now, £299: https://www.yamahamusiclondon.com/product.php?product_id=GYHWL500&source=froogle&srsltid=AfmBOoqV6dfJLXNE8BBcWrl1YkyJaqrwvSjzx5_Drhb7cmMJzUmqyTuQZ6A they don't make it obvious, but I assume that bulky base/charging unit is also the transmitter and needs to be plugged into the Bass via a cable - so you only get rid of the need for a headphone cable. In fact, I think Yamaha are being a bit cheeky on how they are presenting this: It gives the impression of a fully wirelss setup like the Boss, but what it's actually showing is: Bass > Line 6 Relay transmitter > Line 6 Relay receiver (not shown) > Amp > YH-WL500 transmitter > headphones. So that £300 pair of headphones actually needs at least another £200 spent to ditch the cables in a similar way to the Boss. Clearly the selling point is getting rid of all cables like the Boss though so hopefully that's something that'll be in development.

I'm a bit gutted these haven't gone down in price yet, in fact - they've gone up (but I guess everything has). I paid £333 at the end of 2021 and sold them after a while to save some money and use the NUX Mighty Plug (£59), now the cheapest I can find the Waza Bass are £364 (again via Scan). It's quite hard to justify spending £300 extra just to do away with the headphone cable, but the Boss certainly are better and I'm keen to get them again as a luxury that I'll use a lot. There is no competition for this fully wireless system to help bring the price down or encourage more innovation, but it must be relatively easy to use a latency-free wireless system and put the receiver directly into headphones, the heavy-lifting technology is already there, it's just a case of re-purposing it. Isn't it about time NUX made a headphone system 'inspired by' Boss, they already have the NUX Mighty Plug and the NUX Wireless receiver technology, put it in some headphones and Bob's your uncle....then again, perhaps that actually gets up to the Boss sort of cost. I'll be keeping my eyes open for Black Friday deals. 🧐

I decided to return it. It is an alright bit of kit but if I can't easily see what effects the stomp footswitches engage I might as well use a smaller unit to change between presets (like the 200 LT or JR), and if I don't trust it for live use I'll only end up using it for home practice - which it's good for, but the Nux mighty plug already does me well for that. I'm sure it'd be good unit for some people, just doesn't fit what I need.

This is an intersting one: Valeton GP-200: In some ways it is great:. Solid Hardware: Metal, loads of ins/outs for things like FX loop, aux in, (and including L& R XLR, which is more than you get from things like the Helix Stomp XL or Boss GT 1000 Core) a good amount of physical controls - including a light up button for each effect type on/off and access. Tuner, low-gain Drives, Amp/Cab sims and some of the modulations are good. EQ is good: Global adjustable HPF/LPF and 4 band fully parametric EQ. And 10 Band Graphic EQ. Drum loops & looper which can sync with the drum loops, and a 'freeze' effect (like the EHX pedal) all make it very useful for home practice. Very user adjustable footswitches, e.g. assign for tap, long press, different combinations of two together (next to each other and row below and above), and can also assign some of the dials. Turns on in a couple of seconds (much faster than Boss, or Helix). Decent sized colour screen (easier to edit and see what's going on with the effects chain than a lot of other multi fx) . Some things are not so great though: Compressor seems to always audibly squish - even on low settings and with clean blend, high-gain drives are noisy, the noise gate is not great, some of the modulations and delays are just okay with not much parameter control. Envelope filter and octaver/pitch shift are not good, no synth. That all sounds very negative but most sounds are passable and would be fine played in a band - and the important core sounds for Bass players (EQ, Drive, Amp/Cab sims) are pretty good. Can only have one of each of the 11 block types in the signal chain (e.g. there is one reverb block - you can't have two in your chain). The biggest downsides though are things that seem could be sorted out with a software fix: Footswitches don't engage when pressed - they engage when released, it's a small thing but a bit odd. Cannot change the footswitch lights to match an effect in stomp mode (and confusingly, yellow = off ,and red = on?!) so it is quite difficult to tell what you'll stomp on/off. That's quite a big deal for me - it's no good to play live in stomp mode if I need to remember/guess what a footswitch turns on/off. If I'm not using it in stomp mode then I might as well have a smaller multi-fx and just use it for presets. Some things are not intuative e.g. how to get out of Looper mode, how to change from 'patch' to 'stomp' mode via footswitches without using the dials to go through menus, how to assign the dial controls. It has just stopped any audio output a few times when I've been making more in-depth adjustments (even after I've installed the latest firmware) I've needed to do the 'turn it off and on again'. It has always been fine with normal playing/adjusting though - it's when I do things like change the Amp sim while the Looper is going, perhaps there are just specific things like that it doesn't like. The negatives are a bit of a shame as it has potential to be a really good unit - regardless of the cheap price, it does a few things that units much more expensive don't do (e.g. XLR L&R and Line L&R and can choose where the Cab sim is applied, colour screen, a lot of hardware controls, drum loops that the looper syncs with, aux in). It seems most of the negatives could be addressed with software updates. TL/DR: Great value, good hardware, some sounds are just okay but many of the core sounds for Bass players are very good, signal chain is limited but fine for most stuff. It's annoying that it isn't very clear what the footswitches will be turning on/off in stomp mode. I'm not convinced about live use, a great budget unit for home use though.

If you can live with the look, the Ibanez EHB 1000 S is one of the most erganomic Basses available (I think it's what the 'E' stands for). Someone I know had to stop playing his P bass due to arthritis in the hand and he was pretty much giving up on Bass playing but he can play one of these fine. 30" scale with a slim neck should make reaching frets easy, added bonus being it's about as lightweight as Basses get (I've got the 5 string multi scale and it's 3.3kg, so I guess 4 string short scale is less than 3kg), and headless means it's well balanced while being that light.

I've come to that conclusion for almost evey material thing.....but perhaps I need to try harder to fight the capitalist/materialistic system!

I play in a band where we sometimes swop bass players but keep everything else the same and people have commented it sounds more reggae when I play, more rock with the other player. So I guess my sound is partly down to how I play rather than the equipment.