Boodang

I was doing a gig recently at a club we quite often play at. The manager was walking past the side of the stage and stopped to have a conversation with me half way through a song. I continued playing fine and talked to him at the same time without missing a note. It made me realise this is how not to be nervous at a gig, rehearse, rehearse, rehearse until you can do it in your sleep, or at least play while having a conversation. That way you're not thinking, oh g*d the next bit of the song is coming up and what do I do / this is always the bit where 'x' screws up! If the whole band have total confidence it what you're playing you can concentrate on having a fab time. Of course if you're under rehearsed then it's time to poo your pants!

I started playing bass on a fretless (it was the coolest looking bass in the shop!) and didn't pickup a fretted bass until 20 years later. I find a fretless much more expressive and actually struggle with a fretted. As has been said, work on getting accurate fingering but also make that fluid when playing phrases so you save the fretless expressiveness for when it's needed ie. not all the time! Also, don't forget the plucking hand.... I play mostly over the 15th - 17th 'fretless' area. Moving the plucking fingers around makes a big difference in tone and affects how I play. There's more 'bloom' to the notes when you play in this area, so it definitely slows you down.

It's the mutts nuts!

Maybe it's feeling discombobulated.

We've just bought a Behringer XR18 and gone full in ear monitors, so between the Ekit and the IEMs we have a silent stage (at least as far as amps are concerned). The guitarist has always used Zoom pedals to get his sound, so no change for him by going amp-less. I use an SWR electric blue amp just as a valve di. The only speakers we bring to a gig now are foh. The guitarist has spent a long time honing his tone from the pedals and it works perfectly. Plus, I have to say, the processing power of the xr18 has helped tremendously and we're getting our best, and most controllable, sound.

PS meant to say that the main reason for a passive rlc circuit over an active eq, is that in theory there is no phase distortion. Whether or not you can tell the difference is another matter of course, although given that inductor based circuits will inevitably cost considerably more might be one reason people reckon they sound better!

Well according to the specs of their Redeemer circuit, it has a 2Mohm input impedence and a 300 ohm output. For me the Funkulator would be a more tempting purchase if they had a frequency select, something like the Pultec EQ5 with selectable mid frequencies but then the price would shoot up. Having said that I've been tempted to put my own version together as a tapable inductor of the type used in the Pultec is about £50, and the circuit around it is well known by now.

3 basses... fretless jazz, 5 string fretted Sei, strung high C, and an EUB. If I could only pick one it would be the fretless jazz. If stage space is limited I only take the 5 pedal board, otherwise the 14 pedal board comes along.

Yep, it's just a mid scoop but the Funkulator does it by using an inductor, as in the classic rlc passive circuit (a decent inductor coil is not the cheapest thing). It also has a line driver built in with a buffered 300ohm output.

I think that's the worst bass tone I've ever heard! It sounds like the speakers are broken. It goes to show that there's no such thing as the perfect tone as everyone will perceive it differently.

'A' seems to be a common troublesome note in terms of acoustics. We have the same issue with our rehearsal room and a couple of local venues. Solution... rather than buy extra eq's, change the key of your songs to avoid any use of the note. It's much cheaper that way!

Well, a brand new Spectracomp is £111 and has one knob, the Drawmer has 16 knobs. So per knob the drawmer is better value for money!

This thread has made me realise what I really need is a Drawmer 3 band compressor. So I'll be going from a one knob Spectracomp to a 16 knob rack unit!

Mistakes are fleeting moments in time…. Until the audience films you in glorious 4k on their latest phone and posts it on social media to be replayed for ever, and ever…. I gave up worrying about it years ago though.

Absolutely go with the singer. Mistakes on other instruments are negotiable on the fly depending on the focal point. There's a couple of songs that regularly trip up our vocalist, where he comes in too early. If we didn't go with him you'd have the band playing the chorus while he's on the verse and it would be horrendous!

Of all the compressors I've owned, the Spectracomp is the best, especially with the toneprints, each one is like a brand new pedal.

I'd never really bothered with compression until a few years ago when I went on a pedal spending spree and now I can't live without it. Currently switch between three comp pedals depending on my mood; the Spectracomp, purely because of the 3 band setup, it eq's the bass nicely (wouldn't mind an analogue 3 band compressor, might look into that) : the Aguilar TLC for when I want that over compressed 80s sound : and a Doc Lloyd photon death ray for when I want great artwork (actually it's a really subtle compressor, works well for the jazz gigs where I don't want anything too aggressive).

I found the TC Electronic spectradrive to be a good choice. Reasons I like it; 4 band eq gives you better control over the mids, and the Spectracomp and drive toneprints mean it's not a one trick pony, and there are lots of presets to try out. Plenty of variety in the toneprint app to find something that suits, each one is like loading up a new pedal. Very flexible piece of kit.

Last weekend's gig was a great reminder that your brain is capable of letting you down at the most inauspicious of moments without warning. Playing a party gig, quite big and swanky, outdoor proper stage, sound system and engineer, separate dancefloor area for the DJ, fully catered and about 500 people. First number was going to be Sunshine of Your Love as it's a good starter for 10 to get us warmed up, no tricky bits and just gets us settled in. The host gives a big announcement to kick off proceedings and introduces the band with great fanfare (he knows us, so he was quite enthusiastic), all eyes turn to our guitarist for the starting riff.... try one, wrong key, we laugh, try two, wrong riff, not so funny, try three, complete garbage, now not funny.... so, started the riff on the bass, band joins in, guitarist remembers riff, all is well. Easiest riff of the gig but as the guitarist said afterwards, for some reason he had a brain fart with a complete disconnect between brain and fingers. The rest of the gig went really well, so not long before we got into our stride and put the start behind us. Amusingly, I was recording the gig on a new Zoom Q2n 4k I''ve just bought (this was its first outing), so much to the embarrassment of the guitarist we now have the worst start to a gig in glorious 4K! Happily things like this don't happen too often but I'm sure others here must have had some excruciating moments like this!

TC Electronic HoF2. Has some great toneprints for bass from artists such as Gwizdala and Minh Doky, plus some shimmer and chorus options. Very versatile and, imho, sounds great, especially for the $.

Custom paint and led colours.

For a long while it was reverb, especially as I played mostly fretless. Then, i came across a blog by Gwizdala where he was talking about why he uses delay rather than reverb. Got a tc electronic flashback and experimented, and now my reverb pedals are in storage. Delay, all the way!

You mention what effect’s pedals you’re using, but out of interest what amp / cab setup do you have? And for that matter, what bass are you using?

Going back to basics and ditching multi fx's for a while is good advice. But as well as experimenting with eq, I would definitely throw compression in the mix. Our new bass player (I play drums in this band) has just bought one of the new Steinberger's, it's got a very mid heavy sound. I've added a bit more mid boost at 800, and some presence at 3.6k, a tad reduction in the bass around 80hz, and really sits well in the mix. To help this I added a tc electronic Spectracomp with the 3 band toneprint and it really adds some punch and drives the band. I highly recommend the Spectracomp, cheap and has some great toneprints so all the hard work is done for you. So good I'm thinking of buying one of the new steinbergers for myself.

Always a difficult one. EQ is probably everything here, and not just yours. When you record, a sound engineer will be looking at the frequency spectrum of every instrument and try to give them space.... so the left hand of the keyboard isn't obscuring the bass, or the rhythm and lead guitars have separation etc. This also applies live and something the whole band needs to be conscious of. As for your sound, very simply, a scooped mid eq can sound nice in isolation but lost in context, whereas a mid heavy tone will stand out but can sound very nasal. Hmm, a dichotomy I hear you say! But, some things to take into account; bass cabs, unless you have double 18 bass bins, are not very efficient at 41hz (typical specs would be -10db at 80hz which basically means your cab doesn't really work very well below that), so boosting that low can end up in an unfocused sound. 80hz will work better but can be boomy. Differentiat between low, mid and high, mid frequencies. Rather than treat mids as a general l block, try cutting at 400 and boosting at 800. Focus in on specific mid frequencies between 200 and 1k to see what affects that makes... both in cut and boost. Passive pickups? If so there's not a lot going on above 4k. 2.5 - 3.6k has a nice presence lift, but boosting above that will just increase background noise. Basically you're going to have to get quite surgical with your eq.