Boodang

12 minutes ago, RAY AGAINST THE MACHINE said:

Regarding Northern Exposure ; it's one of those series that I missed the start , and watched infrequently on channel 4 back in the day 

I was thinking of getting the dvd . Does it hold up now ? It's been quite a while since it aired . 
Yes, the theme tune is brilliant . 

Just watching it now, and yep I think it holds up and doesn’t feel dated. Interesting characters and good writing.

Born in the USA (by the end of the song do you get the impression he was born in the USA?!)

Other than that we have a singer in our band who just does all the boston punk screamy numbers, but has decided to branch out and do songs that require him to be in tune.... not his strong point. Now, whenever I hear these songs i just hear his vocals and it's completely ruined them for me!

On 30/03/2024 at 16:10, ossyrocks said:

It was the first gig of the new blues band last night - The Out and Out Blues band - https://theoutandouts.com/

The Gregson Centre in Lancaster, four bands on, fundraiser for the Gregson and Lancaster Music Co-op.

We were first on at 7.30pm and did a 45 minute set. A decent crowd, and very appreciative, we went down very well, and I even got them singing with us at the end, at 8.15pm!

The other bands were great too, and there was a lot of comradery amongst the musicians. I used someone else's rig, Mark Bass 1x12 combo with a 2x10 extension cab, with my '73 P Bass.

We were very pleased with our performance, and it's probably the best "1st gig" I've ever played.

Now we have to work up the rest of the tunes for our first full 2 set gig on the 18th. 

 

Rob

(edit: now with a pic!)

Ooh, Jalapeno drums.... how good/bad do they sound?

At the risk of widening this out to film scores,but for me the Roy Budd 'Carter gets a train's is a stand out. I have a Hohner Pianet but can't play it for toffee, but was in a band where the pianist was epic. The pianet was perfect for this song and live was so much fun to play. Did it at a festival once as an opening number and the audience must have been Carter fans as by the time I'd finished the first bass line everyone was on their feet.

I used to be in a band that played this. Always went down a storm with the audience. 

7 hours ago, mr4stringz said:

Ironside anyone? Superb stuff from QJ.

 

 

 

 

I’d forgotten about ironside! Awesome stuff as always from QJ. Love the soloing in the full version. 

Taxi… Bob James

A blast from the past... who remembers the theme tune from the TV series Northern Exposure?

Recently bought the series on dvd and the theme tune brought back some memories. Written by David Schwartz it's genius!

Harmonica & accordion on a bed of percussion.... but that bass line!! That bass line has been resonating around my head since I first heard it and being a dedicated fretless player I was drawn to it instantly. It's so creative and what a melodic hook.

In the context of a theme tune it's just about perfect. What other suggestions are there for perfect theme tunes? Especially ones with cool bass lines.

An active PA speaker might be the answer. I use a LD Systems Icoa 15a. Full range, 15" with coaxial horn and 300 watts. £380 new. Copes with my double bass, 5 string high C and my Ekit all at gig volumes and it's clear sounding. 

10 minutes ago, Skybone said:

Flea

Billy Sheehan

Chris Squire

 

As has been said by quite a few people previously, they are all great bassist, Billy Sheehan comes across as a really nice bloke, but I just don't connect with their recorded output.

Well, what ever bass misdemeanors Chris Squire might have made, we can forgive all just for having created the bass lick to 'roundabout'.

A simplified version of my board based on our current set needs. Channel 1 on the tri mixer is just the octamizer, channel 2 is the WA mutation phasor followed by the grape phaser ( I discovered the two together sound super funky. The grape is very mid heavy with faster mod rates and the mutation is more bass heavy and slower), channel 3 is the fuzz followed by the fwonkbeta (together it’s devastating). Channel 1 & 3 thru a double 18 bin will make you evacuate your bowels! Think Gary Numan polymoog on steroids. HoF at the end, also because the toneprint I use has reverb and chorus… nice bonus. Then off to FoH with a Radial stagebug. Oh, and spectracomp uses the Captain East toneprint which is the best comp I’ve heard. 

I noticed Gwizdala uses a stomp and, as it happens, sells the preset settings on his site. I've never used a stomp but two things occurred.... firstly that Gwizdala must have got to grips with the thing, and secondly, might be worth looking at the presets to see how he approaches it.

A bit of a left field suggestion but this is the route I’ve gone down…. an active PA speaker. 
I bought an LD Systems Icoa 15a for £380. It’s got a 300watt class D amp, 128db max spl (although it doesn’t specify at what frequency), coaxial horn and weighs 25kg. 
Powerful, versatile, sounds great, and not that heavy. Admittedly you’ll need a preamp pedal (unless you already have one), but I think better value than dedicated bass amps. PS they also do a 12” version which is slightly lighter and cheaper. 

4 minutes ago, MichaelDean said:

Jaco... I don't really like fretless bass. I don't like burpy bridge pickups soloed. (I mean, who wants to listen to burps?!?) I can appreciate the musicianship, but I really don't care for what he does. It doesn't speak to me at all. 

Yep, Jaco. I love the stuff he collaborated on such as Bright Size Life and Hejira, and let’s face it some great moments with Weather Report, but solo not for me at all. Just sounds like a technical exercise, clever but not melodic. PS I love fretless burpy tones tho. 

Funny you should start this thread as had a similar thing with bass bros recently. Nothing dramatic mind, just a slight lack of communication. 
Saw a Warwick on their site a few weeks ago, emailed an enquiry then noticed it disappeared from their website. Eventually called them and had a nice chat, but didn’t get a reply by email. Not really an issue but I can’t imagine their inbox is that inundated (I could be wrong). And for those that say ‘just pick up the phone’, I live half a world away, so not as easy 

10 minutes ago, lidl e said:

I put a picture!

…. I mentioned no names!!

Lots of good recommendations and advice on what to get but bear in mind the OP asked ‘how’ it all works not ‘what’ to get! 

Two things here…

DI (direct inject) is where you electronically match a high impedance unbalanced signal (typically your guitar) to a low impedance balanced signal so you can plug it into the mic input on a mixing desk or interface. 
Put simply it’s a box where you plug in your jack lead and the output is an xlr mic lead. Used for live to get it to the desk or in the studio. The reason; if you plug high impedance (your guitar if it doesn’t have fancy electronics built in) into low impedance all the top end drops out. Also a good way of tapping into your signal at a gig or when recording. 
DAW is something different and is just your software / hardware interface for recording. Your interface to the daw will take your analogue signal and turn it into digital so the software can process it. Quite often you’ll use a DI box to get your guitar signal connected to the interface (especially if it doesn’t have a high z input. 

On 04/03/2024 at 22:11, tayste_2000 said:

Walrus Audio Slo, does the hold feature of the Freeze with added reverb

I’ve got one of these. Ambient is the only way to describe it! Great pedal. 

31 minutes ago, LiturghianPope said:

 

There's a lot of stuff i didn't know and in order to understand some of it I need to make more research. This is definitely not the kind of stuff you can understand in a day.

 

And yes, I am trying to rely on the actual sound because that's after all, the whole point.

 

However, one of the underlying aspects of the question, besides wanting to better understand what's going on beneath the casing, was whether passive pickups would allow greater flexibility and the ability to try various different external preamps and hearing major differences, as opposed to active pickups which already use a preamp which has a certain profile.

 

I mean I'd like to try various pedals especially some darkglass ones since they're very popular for metal bass tones and I was wondering if the weight of those pedals in the whole signal chain doesn't diminish if a preamp is already there (the pickup premp). 

 

Meaning, maybe, I'll keep trying various pedals but there's something I won't like in the tone and that might be the preamp in the active pickups. Alternatively, changing the pickup preamps is highly inconvenient - I mean sure I'd like to try three or four preamp pedals, but I wouldn't change the pickup preamp three times. 

 

Am I being too theoretical and hypotethical here? Am I imagining some cause-effect relationships that don't really translate down in engineering/physics? Just trying to figure out if I should get active pickups or not, I'm currently playing on schecter diamond series and it took me a while to come to the conclusion that I don't like them. 

So, if anything, active pickups have less of a profile than passive pickups in the sense of their response. An active pup will generally have a wider bandwidth (especially top end) and have a flatter response than a passive pup which will have less above 3Khz. If you want flexibility, then active pups is the way to go as they have the greater frequency response. 

You can use an active preamp with either passive or active pups. For the greatest possibly flexibility use active pups with an active preamp. All you have to do now is try out / listen to the almost infinite combination of both available to you, especially if you decide to add some kind of pedal as well!

You could play it safe and go for EMG active pups and Aguilar active preamp as a good starting point. In terms of preamp pedals, well, there's as many opinions as to what to get as there are pedals, so good luck! Personally, in terms of eq shaping I just use a compressor pedal (just please don't ask what compressor pedal to get as you'll end up starting 'that' thread again!).

I did have lots of basses but that was because I hadn’t found ‘the one’. Then, not long ago, I accidentally had a custom made (long story!) and that was it. Now I’ve lost interest in buying new basses. 
However, gas obviously hadn’t left the building as I started playing drums but I haven’t found ‘that kit’. So I’m back where I started except drum kits are larger and along with the infinite cymbals I obvious need, it seems more expensive. 

Buy a B6 and ditch everything?!

14 minutes ago, SimonK said:

I use Stingrays with active pickups, and have just thought it was to do with the designers preference for how they want the pickup to sound, coupled with the convenience of being able to boost frequencies directly on the guitar (rather than just cut).

Active pickups or passive pickups with an active preamp?

A lot of manufacturers install active preamps as it gives you a lot of tone sculpting power. 

13 hours ago, LiturghianPope said:

Are active pickups designed different knowing they will be marketed and sold followed by a preamp? Or are they just regular pickups and the whole 'active' pickup thing is just the (optional) addition of a preamp?

 

A quick note regarding pre-amps... these are completely separate to active pickups and you can use an active preamp with a passive or active pup*. A passive preamp can only cut frequencies (typically treble roll off), whereas an active preamp will also be able to boost frequency bands and possible have a line driver as well to reduce the line impedance. An active preamp can be quite useful as you can install one that works well with a specific bass. However you can just use an external preamp (on your amp, pedal or rack) to do the same job. 

* There are some exceptions; active pups have an op amp so they are buffered. This means that you could blend two active pups in parallel but you can't put them in series. So you can't install a series/parallel switch on a bass with active pups. Also, there are a few preamps that have pickup impedance loading options but again, as an active pup is buffered you can't do that either. 

Also, ‘the trapdoor’ toneprint is worth a punt as it’s a full on aggressive comp.