Boodang

Small mixer with bass and laptop connected. Mostly headphones but sometimes monitors. Always connected up and ready to go but the main thing is, I've made it a nice and comfortable environment to be in. My roc'nsoc drum throne with a back rest has also made a big difference and well worth the money.

Idiotbox Blowerbox is awesome! Quite aggressive but doesn't lose any bottom end. For something even different try out a Cog T65 (if you can get hold of one). The octave up is overdriven and you can mix in the octave and clean.... combined with a switchable parallel effects loop it has some great tones available.

Not unrealistic in the least. My daytime job pays the bills and music is my hobby but music is my passion and I take very seriously... more so than my job!! You need to find like minded musicians otherwise you won't get the enjoyment out of it you deserve. I've just moved and have been lucky in that the first band I joined is made up of likeminded musicians with professional attitudes towards playing which makes it very enjoyable and means gigs are super fun and stress free as everyone knows what they're doing and good at it. Look for another band while playing with the current lot and then bail.

I play 5 string bass and have always strung them high C, including my double bass. After hearing Eberhard Weber I was instantly a convert to high C. For some reason makes me play more melodically. Quite often I just buy 6 string sets, LaBella do sell individual C strings, but my fav at the moment are the Galli Synthesis strings (they have nylon cores) and I just buy the 6 string set. For DB it's Innovation strings and they do individual high C's.

Definitely a slow attack time! There's an interesting comparison between the Diamond and Doc Lloyd (photon death ray) compressors where the slower attack time on the latter is more suited bass. Unless your limiting I think the slower times give space for the loss notes to bloom. ...loss notes should read low notes!...

This is the 'funky ball of teats' board with three envelope filters. The Bright Onion pedals are custom switchers, the orange one for selecting an input to the board and the yellow is an A/B/Y which has the Octamizer and Fwonkbeta connected. All patch leads are EBS flat and taken under the board to keep it clean although in fairness, underneath is a tad busy.

Start at the source! Otherwise it's a bit like having a great turntable and putting a cheap cartridge on it. All my basses have custom pickups installed. I talk to the pup guy about what tone I'm after and he gets the pickup response as close to that as possible. After that, I'll choose a pre amp based on the sound once they're installed. Quite often they end up as passive but it depends on how versatile I want it to be.

Muscle memory works well but fluorescent dots work better! Had my fretless jazz fitted with fluorescent side and fingerboard dots, and now I love a dark stage not least because dots floating in the dark look rather cool.

I totally agree that in terms of crassness it takes some beating but, as one commentator pointed out at the time, at least he was interested enough to actually go to Anne Frank's house!

The sansamp circuit by it's nature applies a bit of compression, especially when you push the drive a bit. And it nails the Ampeg tone nicely. I use a separate compressor, eq, di, but that's even more expensive. I don't think you'd regret going for the sansamp in the long run if you can afford it.

Isn't that every Fender?!

https://www.gear4music.com/Trombone/pBone For a hundred and twenty five quid who wouldn't want to try out a trombone.

I agree in that I've never got on with digital multi fx. But I have found, I think, some analogue pedals that work well and don't change my fundamental tone. In order of importance; octamizer, photon death ray, funk machine, grape phaser.

The jazz bass does have two pickups but I guess technically, as they're wired in series they're one humbucker. I used to use active EMGs but as they've got a much wider frequency response I spent most of my time eq'ing them to sound like passive pups. Now I get custom passive pickups made to match the response I'm after so they're as close to the sound I want with little to no eq needed.

Not necessarily! My jazz pickups are wired in series, straight to output jack, no volume, no tone (the volume and tone controls were always left on full so I thought, why bother with them). My P bass pup goes straight to the output jack for the same reason. All tone sculpting done with outboard so don't need a preamp on the bass.

PS It's obvious personal preference but the piece of outboard equipment that has the biggest affect on my tone and I wouldn't be without is a decent compressor.

All my tone sculpting is outboard these days (mostly born from having a pedal obsession) but it does mean I've got my sound straight off the pedal board and it's not reliant on amps or or the preamp in one. In fact my amp is an active PA speaker which is fairly neutral.

That sounds like a dangerous room!

When you plug your bass into your head, is it painful?!

I went down the whole Source Audio and Hub route. I found the best way to deal with the setup was to sell it. Now I'm back to pedals where the only interface is actual knobs and I don't want to use my laptop as a frisby anymore.

As for outboard preamps.... where to start! I think I change my mind every year on which I like but my current favourite is the EBS Valve Drive... for now!

A couple of things to consider with onboard preamps; passive pup blend allows for pickup interaction which creates peaks and troughs in the frequency response whereas an active blend is like a mixing desk and buffers each pup so no interaction (in the same way as active pickups are buffered). One is not better than the other, just different and worth considering... a passive blend jazz bass will sound different to an active buffered blend. Something to consider, John East preamps have a switch to allow passive or active blending, so maybe worth the extra.

Just from the connectivity perspective you could always use this which has 3 switchable inputs. Of course you'd have to use separate effects for each instrument.

I play sitting down on an office chair. I don't physically move but my roadie pushes me around the stage during energetic parts of the song.

I got bored of watching reaction videos so now I watch reaction to reaction videos.