Boodang

Oh... and record your gigs! Even if it's just a small field recorder like a Zoom (which is just the size of an electric razor) at the back of the room. When I used to play competition squash we used to video our games so it wasn't just the impression in our head of how the performance went. Same with recording a gig. You might be surprised by how well, or not!!, it went.

Bands I've been in, we've always paid a lot of attention to the live sound both in terms of what the audience hears (if you have control of that on the night) and importantly being able to hear each other on stage. Difficult to be a 'tight' sounding band if you're deaf to what's being played by the other musicians.

I think therein lies one of the reasons for modding, 'as the maker intended' for mass produced instruments usually means 'how cheap can I make this bass and still charge X amount'.

From an engineering perspective a Babicz or KSM bridge is probably an upgrade on a standard Fender but you'll probably not notice the difference in audio .... despite the hype. As for pickups, most are different flavours rather than upgrades. Is it all worth it? Well, my Squier VM jazz is certainly a better bass for having custom pups, graph tech nut (surprisingly good), and KSM bridge.

Is the preamp completely knackered? if you weren't worried about the headphone out/aux in element, you could just drop in something like an Aguilar OBP-1 or 2 preamp which has a high enough input impedance for piezo pickups.

You don't have to clip your tuner, if you owned one, to a headstock... on my headless it works well just by clipping it to a control knob. They're obviously quite sensitive.

Tuning fork! Back in the day, used a good old fashioned tuning fork then used harmonics to get the rest. Ever the lunatic, Jeff Berlin recommends this method rather than an electronic tuner, so as to train your ears... he's probably got a point if I wasn't so lazy!

PS if you do get a wiretap, just check the firmware version. The latest one I got from gear4music had the latest loaded but the first versions are a big buggy.... easy to upgrade though.

That looks great... don't think you'll regret the Sims pickup.

Gear4music are currently selling for £25! Just got my a second one as it was on offer.

TC Electronic Wiretap is a 'riff' recorder. It's not a looper, just a mini pedal sized recorder... quite awesome. It connects with an app using bluetooth, the app assigns names to recordings, hence the thread.

Where on the bass are you using the pick.. near the bridge? I like to pluck over the fretboard around the 17th fret, so I started to play with a pick around the same area with the obvious result of a fuller tone. Whether that gives you the attack you need is another matter.

Is anyone else enjoying the names the Wiretap app gives to recordings?! With names like Boogie the Bird, Elk and Emotions, Uptight like a really public thing, Bird 'n Sorcery, Hack my Punk.... it's quite fun. The music we're doing is instrumental so this is working out great for choosing song names as normally they're just called things like 'that Dorian riff in D we wrote at Christmas'.

246_Fretless.mp3 A quick sound clip... both pickups, no eq straight into the wiretap with a basic drum loop. Apologies for the abrupt end edit but moving house at the moment so it's total chaos and no access to my normal setup.

Bass the World reckon the Spectrum does an excellent Mu-tron impression and their review was quite enthusiastic. I've stuck to analogue pedals but as a result have three envelopes on my board to get the variations I want but I just couldn't get on with the interface on the C4 I had.

PS I think the supa funk has a smooth decay on long notes. Certainly no issues with warbling and I'm not having to adjust my playing to accommodate any anomalies of the pedal.

Stick one of the new Sims pickup in and you'll have a choice of P, single coil and humbucker at your disposal. Could be interesting.

I've did a review of the supa funk with sounds clips over in the effects review section here on BC. I've also got, and reviewed, the Seamoon Funk Machine and the MrBlack Fwonkbeta. Of the three the Supa Funk gives you the classic envelope sounds and is more versatile, whereas the other two are more extreme in the range of their settings.

Actually remembered being in a band, long ago, when we were far too loud (you could see the audience physically recoil!), but we were so used to it we didn't realise. Rehearsals & gigs can literally deafen you to the reality of the volumes generated. Many years later it's a different deal but my ears will never recover their youthfulness!

Didn't realised you had deleted the comment and also, as I said, it made more sense when in context, of which there wasn't any originally. Also, this dragged on way more than intended, so definitely over it... apologies. And apologies to @MacDaddyfor no fight! Interesting that the thread that I started so as not to hijack this one got shut down so quickly... well not that surprising I guess! Phew... I need to sit down and get some zen time with my new bass.

So, the bass is now in my hands and as expected plays wonderfully. If you like chunky Precision necks you're going to hate this! Sound wise, the neck pickup has a very full and rounded tone (a bit like my NS Design EUB) and the bridge pickup has that jazz 'bark' to it you'd expect with it in the 70s position closer to the bridge. With 2 volumes there's plenty of variations but you don't have to roll off a pickup much for the other to become the dominant tone. I'll post some sound clips soon.

PS meant to say, reading the background real life story to the, clumsy, joke makes a lot more sense and puts a completely different spin on it, so again, apologies for using it as an example but without any context the original comment could only be taken one way. But my reasons for starting the thread still stand and mostly it's not be being offended on someone else's behalf so much as offended by certain attitudes which if they become all pervasive are toxic. Interestingly, last year found myself working in an environment where we all lived and worked in a closed compound for extensive periods. There were 2 main factions, the older drinking crowd with very old fashioned attitudes and language, and the younger crowd which still liked a drink but who's attitudes were very modern and refreshing. I'm young at heart but not in body, but I have to say that the older crowd were just tedious and the 'I'm too old to change my ways' attitude very frustrating.

I think the key phrase is clumsy... you knew the background, we didn't. I used it as an example, sorry for that, but every now and then very 20th century attitudes get posted up as if it's 'rock 'n roll' so therefore acceptable today. Yes, there's plenty of things to worry about, some would argue more so, but you don't just worry about the worst thing in the world and not about anything else.