bassman7755

On 06/11/2021 at 14:01, chris_b said:

 

Stretching to reach notes is physically bad for you, poor technique and unnecessary.

 

If 1-2-4 is more comfortable and you can achieve an even flow of notes, then do that. There is no benefit in using force during any technique. IMO, if it's uncomfortable then you're doing it wrong.

 

If you are going to use one finger per fret on a chromatic scale make sure you DON'T anchor your thumb and then stretch for the notes. Always move your thumb/hand so your fingers can reach the notes without stretching.

 

You can play a chromatic scale with just one finger. Try that and see how many times your thumb moves. That's how mobile your hand/thumb should be.

I play extended chromatic runs playing alternate 3 notes then 6 notes (in two groups of 3 i.e. 1-2-3-slide-1-2-3) per string, so all 3 note groups using 1-2-3 fingering. I find this less awkward that doing 1-2-3-4-slide-4 (or 1-slide-1-2-3-4) on each string. Probably the only person in the world who does it that way 😉. My rationale for doing it this is way that the classic way means you are sliding immediately before/after changing string where as with my way the slide is mid run albeit 3 frets instead of 1 ..

2 hours ago, kwmlondon said:

Yep, I know but I don’t mind investing in a long-term instrument. This SR505 was only ever meant to try out a 5 string so I’d rather not put more money into this bass. 

The  SR505 is a pretty decent instrument, solid build quality, good hardware, 3 band active EQ, split coil pickups etc etc you've probably already reached the point of diminishing returns in terms of overall bass tone, versatility and playability, not sure why your dead set on treating it as a disposable starter instrument.

11 minutes ago, ambient said:

I’m sorry, I’m struggling to see exactly where I’ve done that? Where in my comment have I cast aspersions at anyone?

You are fine, the aspersions bit was aimed at others

4 hours ago, ambient said:

I suspect it’s due to the VAT. Thomann are now registered for UK VAT, there’s obviously paperwork now that will need to be processed in customs - I’m guessing our customs? This wasn’t there prior to a certain event happening.

 

He says, pleased that he managed an explanation without mentioning Brexit.

Discussing rule changes due to brexit is a discussion of adjective reality and fair game (like this post).

However (IMO) discussing the wider merits of brexit and the casting aspersions on those who may or may or not have voted for is political incitement and crosses a line.

6 hours ago, Supernaut said:

Truth hurts. 
 

You don't know what you voted for... 

flip off with your political cow poop

1 hour ago, Belka said:

One caveat is that the old 'use your ears' chestnut does depend on a player having good ears in the first place.

I think you are overegging the difficulty. If you can sing/hum/whistle with reasonable intonation (which the vast majority of people can) then you can learn to intonate a non fretted stringed instrument as evidenced by the millions of school children over hundreds of years who manage to learn to play various stringed instruments with decent intonation without recourse to electronic tuners and visual aids.

7 minutes ago, Rexel Matador said:

I've done it - it can be frustrating if/when the wire breaks but it's totally doable. I did it using a hand drill just like you're suggesting.

I downloaded an app on my phone called Magnetic Counter. I stuck a neodymium magnet on the chuck of the drill, and then placed the phone as close to it as I could - it counts each time the magnet goes past so you can get an accurate count of the windings. You may have thought of this already, but it's a good tip if you hadn't!

Ah didn't realise you could use the phone do it but I bought some magnetic counter thingy off ebay for a few quid that will do the job.

12 hours ago, Matte_black said:

I'd replace the pickups with a "closed" set with bar magnets.

If you decide to give it a go, I should have some AlNiCo5 bars long enough for those pickups... it would solve (if you're having it) the problem of the magnets not picking up the movement of each string.

As far as I know, though, on many 5ers you'll find 4-strings-sized J pickups.

Thanks for the offer, for now I'm going to 3d print some bobbin ends with the correct hole spacing and see how that goes (I've already bought a bunch of pole pieces)

4 minutes ago, BigRedX said:

 

That would be almost completely signal cancelling. A humbucker works because both the winding of the coil and the magnetic polarity is swapped around between the coils. This means that any "background noise" and some very high frequencies (determined by the distance between the two coils) get cancelled out and the rest of the sound of the strings gets through. If both coils are around the same polarity pole-pieces then everything will be cancelled out. That's why there is no information on them. They don't work.

Yeah I think I must have misunderstood the concept, it was probably just a plain old coil tap.

UFOs only you can rock me ...

Possibly also the worst rhythm guitar sound ever as a bonus.

5 hours ago, Stub Mandrel said:

 

More likely you are defaulting to true temperament,  this is not unusual for voice or violin, for example.

When you say true temperament do you mean Just tuning as per https://pages.mtu.edu/~suits/scales.html  ?. I see that the Just b3 is slightly sharp and the 3rd slightly flat compared to even tempered. I can defiantly feel my tendency to slightly sharpen the b3 and flatten the  3rd, I guess the origins of blues is people feeling that same pull.

On 04/11/2021 at 17:01, Ajoten said:

Oh, imagine being able to hear oneself clearly enough in a live situation to know that one's intonation is out! What joy!

No problem with IEMs.

Anyway general advice to the OP on getting good intonation - if you can whistle or hum in tune then you can play fretless with good intonation, you just have to train your fingers to subconsciously adjust to the correct pitch in the same way that your mouth or vocal chords do.

One way is to be very slow and deliberate: play an open string then try to play an in-tune easy interval e.g. a 4th (5th "fret") or 5th (7th fret), if/when it sounds out of tune don't just randomly move your finger up and down but try to hear if its flat or sharp, make a small correction and see it gets better or worse, repeat until the note is in tune. Once you get the note in tune try deliberately flattening it and sharpening it so you get familiar with the sound. Add the other intervals over time, I suggest all the major notes then add minor 7th/6th/3rd then b5 and b2 last. Once you can play a full octave chromatic scale on one string over the open note your laughing.

EDIT: just to add that I sometimes find it particularly difficult to accurately pitch a b3 because theres so much deliberate abuse of the distinction of b3 and 3 in a lot of rock and blues - it seems that pretty much any midway point sounds OK to me because I'm so used to hearing the deliberate abuse of the distinction in a lot of rock and blues.

The short version is that we can generally all already hear when something is "out of tune" pretty easily, the trick is that you have to train yourself to discrimination sharp from flat. The exercise above is what worked for me. Eventually it becomes second nature and your fingers develop "ears" and just home in on the right spot.

Would definitely advise against using visual aids and tuners (but people do and get by with it so ...).

2 hours ago, eude said:

The original Ibanez Promethean P5110 combo would be a very good fit.

Hard to find, but there is one on Facebook Marketplace right now though.

Make sure it's the original one you look for, every single version after the first one is pants.

 

Cheers,

Eude

No way, in my opinion, is this going to compete with two loud guitar amps (and I say this as someone who has one ...).

On 01/11/2021 at 21:39, Freddi375 said:

Topic closed

Its kind of online chat etiquette that you dont vandalise threads by editing your original posts so noone has any idea what the discussion was about.

On 03/11/2021 at 14:05, gjones said:

I then realised that all the basses I'd bought secondhand, never went for less than I paid for them when I eventually sold them on.

 

So I spent the money on preloved basses. I don't expect them to shoot up in value but at least they'll hold their value over the years.

 

I used to have one bass, now I've got 10.

 

I tell myself, it's not self indulgence......... it's an investment

Yes this is the accounting viewpoint - a used bass does not "cost" you anything its a capital asset purchase so your personal balance sheet remains unchanged no matter how many bases you buy 😁

The TC RH450 is also absent any fan noise.

21 hours ago, Bill Fitzmaurice said:

21 hours ago, Bill Fitzmaurice said:

Current doesn't determine the signal level, voltage does. Input impedance doesn't affect the signal voltage flowing in the cable.

I think were both right but just arguing over the semantics of "signal" which to me means voltage and current since to transmit the signal we need some current to flow.

11 hours ago, chyc said:

 the case against making it too high is not so obvious.

The case is that the cables effective parallel capacitance affects a higher current (for a given voltage) less than a lower one, not a dramatic effect except in extreme conditions admittedly like perhaps where you have very long and/or poor quality cable.

1 hour ago, Gareth Hughes said:

Piezo pickups typically used on double basses work better with input impedances higher than 1megohm, so they’re just making it more enticing to upright players. As far as I’ve heard/experienced, a higher input impedance doesn’t make any difference for electric basses.

Well it can make in theory degrade the sound as you have less signal current flowing in the cable, probably not noticeable on a shortish good quality cable though but better to use the right input for the job just to be sure.

1 hour ago, rmorris said:

Hi. I see your whole post. But quickly on this - cos I'm on mobile and a tediously slow train from London to Brighton 🙄 - the pro line level is nominally +4dBu that does indeed equate to approx 3.5V pk-pk. But any system is expected to handle peak levels in the range of typically 21 to 24 dBu requiring Voltage rails in excess of +/- 9V or 12V.

Typical pro audio gear runs OpAmps at minimum +/-15V and typically +/-17V.

But nevertheless high end hifi gear can exceed 100 db snr at much lower signal levels than this. 

2 hours ago, bassist_lewis said:

I tried using it at higher gain about an hour ago and I think there was slightly less compression that at 9V, not something you would notice in a band situation. I also haven't noticed any difference in where it starts to break up or the variation at lower settings, between the two voltages.

A circuit with a particular gain structure will have less overdrive when running at a higher voltage given the same input signal.

The question is - if you increase/decrease the gain inline with the rail voltage, does the circuit behave significantly differently. In the case of this pedal, does it sound any worse, or have a noticeably worse SNR at the lower voltage if you turn the gain down to compensate ?, I'm guessing not. "headroom" / "dynamics" are just SNR i.e. relative not absolute, if you have proportionately less noise at the lower voltage then there is no headroom reduction.

8 minutes ago, Biscuit_Bass said:

Thanks all. I'll definitely go into my local music shop and have a feel of the models I like the look of.

 

 To begin with at least, I'll mostly just be practicing solo through headphones. I'd like to be able to play along to backing tracks as well. Can this be done with an amp or would I need a mixing desk for that as well?

I think mixing in tracks will come later on so wouldn't be one of my priorities to start with.

Cheers

Get a zoom b1-4, the veritable swiss army knife of bass gear, does everything you want and loads more.

10 minutes ago, Boodang said:

Honestly you can't go wrong with any of those choices.

Havnt played those exact bases but budget yamaha stuff is always very solid. 

28 minutes ago, SteveXFR said:

At that price range, I think I'd go used.

Possibly an option if you buy one from a reputable shop or classified like basschats sales, wouldnt recomment a complete newbie go for something random off ebay/craigslist/faebook though.

4 hours ago, rmorris said:

 

But some electronic devices eg OpAmps don't operate to the same spec' at lower voltages. A 9V supply means that an OpAmp is running at only +/-4.5V. Let's say it needs a 1V headroom so a 3.5V peak. This approximates to a 2.5Vrms signal. A transient from a medium to high output passive pickup can exceed this.

But you could presumably just passively voltage divided the input before the opamp input (which is what the volume control in the bass is doing essentially). Also why are all these 9v effects units and preamps not clipping all the time if this is such a problem ?. Also my B4-1 sounds exactly the same at 5v USB power as it does at 9v so presumably internally its running at just 5v.

Quote

Plus spec in terms of THD+N etc is likely worse than at higher voltage supply. Then if it's on a battery then that battery voltage will fall a bit over time and make the situation worse. (How it decreases depends on the battery chemistry type).

Increasing the voltage to 18V likely more than doubled the signal headroom (because the 1V gap needed to the voltage rail doesn't double) and the audio spec is probably better.

So why does hifi and studio equipment get by just fine with high SNRs when using  line level signals everywhere, the highest level being +4db / 3.5v peak to peak ?. 

Still not convinced this is anything other than voodoo folklore to part bassists with more money.

6 hours ago, bassist_lewis said:

I got a Fulltone OCD last week, and its a great "transparent" overdrive, though also has a nice mid-push with the HP switch. It runs at 9V and 18V, so I got an adapter because every forum says that running at 18V is better than 9V (more headroom, more dynamics etc). I AB'd it at both voltages and honestly I can't hear or feel much difference. Maybe a tiny bit more top end/high-mids.

Are my ears dumb or is it just another of those pedal myths?

I call cow poop on 18v, the vast majority of audio processing in the world is done at half a volt or less so not sure why bass preamps or effects would get some magic benefit from a massively higher voltage. I cant hear any fundamental difference between my 18v status and a 9v active (or even passive) instrument. 

10 hours ago, Al Krow said:

 

👍 ^^

 

And (as @ bassman7755 will already know!)  it's also got a very decent LED tuner and comes with built in drum machine for home practice plus an excellent headphone amp if you fancy doing "silent" practice. That's ignoring its day job capability as a multifx. All for £65 new...say no more!

Yeah mind blowing value really,  thinking of getting a second one to use as my gigging rig (b4-1 into my techamp puma to replace my rh450).