Leonard Smalls

Aye - that's why I blend a big chunk of its tone into the fx to produce something (relatively) new and different...

One man's "best" is another man's "deeply dull" - taste is a many splendoured thing! I blend the sound of my Wal with envelope filtered tube distortion, envelope filtered bass whammy and bass synth to produce a meaty funk tone that cuts through, and doesn't sound like any other bass this side of a Spacebass... Each to their own!

Just bass into tuner into amp for me too. However, there's 6 pedals making 3 loops plus clean hanging off a Wounded Paw blender attached to the FX loop

Funnily enough, the ones I liked least were the P-bass and Ric... Best for me were the Warwick and Stingray!

We do that one too. Always goes down well!

Here's some good'n'raucous not-trad jazz!

How much d'you want to spend? Presonus are always very good value as well as being surprisingly even handed...

Had a couple of hours spare, so here it is! Lurks asked for funk, so that's wot you got - featuring my new bass synth dominated pedal board...

Also not necessarily true... Some hifi gear is incredibly flat - frinstance my Leema Xavier hifi speakers (designed by a chap who used to be a BBC sound mixer, then worked at Air Studios) have about +/-0.5dB variation between about 35-20KHz, which is quite a lot better than my Adam A7s which are more like -2dB at 800Hz... And they'll do 28Hz at -3dB. Though to be fair the rrp was about 3x the Adams, and I stick a serious hifi version of a studio amp up 'em (Bryston 14bsst).

Not necessarily! Decent active monitors have the advantage of having a channel of amplification per driver, with optimised protection circuitry for each, and the amplifier is optimised for the driver rather than 1 channel having to drive everything through a crossover. So a fully active speaker , with no passive crossovers and lossy stuff like that is usually better sound quality than a similar passive. However, a cheap active won't necessarily have any of those benefits - a cheap and probably coloured home hifi speaker is likely to be better. But you (mostly) gets what you pays for...

I'd go and have a play with some stuff and see if you like it... I used to be a No Pedals man; now I've got 3 lots of compression, plus a Wounded Paw V4 blender to mix clean with Bass whammy/DOD envelope filter, Darkglass tube distortion/3Leaf envelope filter and Boss bass synth. Clean with a hint of those 3 FX loops gives a very 70s funk/Headhunters/Bootsy sort of sound that cuts through the rest of the band. It might not please the band and audience, but it pleases me

I use Ableton 9 intro... For amp sims I got a freebie through Focusrite - BiasAmp. It's pretty good for free!

And there's more!

As Wintermute says, latency can be a problem, this not only depends on interface but also on amount of fx. The guitarist in one of my bands uses ampsims on a laptop with no noticeable latency, but I've found that with about 8 fx there is enough for it to be a problem. So live I use a ridiculously oversized pedal board...

If you want budget, as I said earlier: AKG WMS40 Not as long a range as the Smoothhound, but sturdy, and it works well... And you'd get 2 for 1 Smoothhound. Worth a punt in my book!

Pedal-wise, i take wireless output into tuner, tuner out goes via cable into preamp and pedals are on preamp fx loop.

I bought an Akg micro wireless t'other day from Knighton Music for £69. Cheap, 25m range - used it for a gig on Friday and it was excellent.

Oh my Bosch! If I get a spare moment...

Filmed on an iPhone...

Shame y'all couldn't come... Next 2 are 11th May at Paradiddles in Worcester and 19th May all-dayer Royal Bedding benefit at The Grapes in Hereford - both a bit of a hike from you! Trying to get a gig at Telford's Warehouse or the Live Rooms if they'll have us - unless you know any more likely Chester venues?

We did a last minute fill-in at Percy's in Whitchurch, Shropshire last night - 1st gig there and only our 3rd gig overall supported by proper tight metallers Elyrean. The venue is excellent, full of odd curios - like a pair of stuffed tigers and a lit stained glass window behind the stage. And the stage is effectively out side, so was a bit chilly - I wore my leather jacket and wasn't sweaty by the end of it... However, we played well - couple of minor frunk-ups but not so as the audience noticed, and the venue liked us enough to offer a better paid Saturday night spot in the future. As it was we still got paid (for doing originals!) which made a 120 mile round trip in pouring rain, arriving home at 2am, well worth while.

Here's a hint of my slightly less experimental side...

I'm just about to start playing with a free improvisational jazz drummer (who's played with Evan Parker) - our plan is to be a duo if it works out, involving lots of effects on my part, and lots of clever time shifting from him to cover my general ineptitude! I also used to play in a loose collective of improvisers (ex-Lol Coxhill); the drummer and I would jam a funk groove and the horn boys would parp and squeal on top of it. 4 hours was our record gig length!

It seems to me to be a blatant case of mis-selling... They sell the combo as being able to work with an extension cab. You found out that they have mis-described the combo, and it doesn't do what it was advertised to do. You tell them, and they offer to fix their mistake by charging you money. They're taking the P! A few years ago I took a car dealer to court for mis-selling; dealer had sold me a van saying that the gearbox had been replaced recently, showed me a piece of paper to prove it. Then the gearbox went (just out of warranty!), and the receipt for the alleged replacement gearbox turned out to be for another vehicle. He refused to do anything about it, we took him to court and the judge found he'd mis-sold the van. Ironically, we'd told dealer-boy we'd accept £1000 toward the cost of the fix, he told us to go spin - judge awarded me the full cost of the repair (£1600) plus £500 out of pocket expenses... So I'd be telling Mr Ashdown that the item was mis-sold, and that advertising standards and the courts take a very dim view of that!

We now have support - Elyrean from the dark heart of Staffordshire... https://www.facebook.com/ElyreanTMTM/ Us: https://soundcloud.com/user-320741385/sets/sixteen-choke-start