WinterMute

oh, good try Mr. King.

All body and neck sculpting done, needs final sanding and finishing and then hardware, really happy with how this is turning out.

I had the Big Twin T, used a Crown XLS1500 bridged into mono, and a Line 6 Bass Pod XT Pro as a front end, the headroom was phenomenal, it was essentially a bass PA.

Never had a moments problem with mine, sitting or standing. I'm in Iver near Heathrow, you're welcome to drop in and try it, DM me.

I had a 1987 Warwick Thumb 5 for about 30 years, fantastic bass, didn't really need anything else, but after I thought I'd finished with bass, I sold it and inevitably needed basses... So, I now have a 20th anniversary EBMM SR5 which is absolutely perfect ergonomically and sonically, it's a keeper.

Good luck finding the 8" floppy discs for those automation drives... Sure, it looks complicated, but it's basically just repetition of the same thing, once you understand the processes, the worst part about using someone else's studio designs is figuring out the stuff they've done that is non-standard, particularly on patch-bays and side-car hardware. The desks are designed to be connected in a specific way, but very often different studios customised the cables and patches for their own operating styles, and it gets complicated. Hugh Padgam's SSL was built in 2 sections with fighcases, so he could take it wherever he was working...

I used to have a little peddle board, then went to a rack rig with a foot switch board (the Line 6 Bass Pod XT Pro) which meant I ran the only proper pedal I still have , a boss bass chorus, off the switchable FX loop for each patch, so it went on top of the rack, the wireless receiver went next to it, all powered from the anti-surge mains board in the back of the rack, very neat. If I ever go back to gigging regularly, I'll do something similar, as it makes for a very easy set-up and strike and keeps cables to an absolute minimum on the floor. Currently I have a QSC K12.2 and an HX Stomp, so it all goes on the floor in front of me with the only cables running to the bass.

I'd go with the red, never been much of a fan of the sky/duck egg blues unless you're in a 50's Rock n Roll show. Also, that's a fine looking trans red.

Nope, that's often very true, I can't stand the Beatles or the Stones, but both bands were chock full of talent. I quite like the Foos, but their last couple of albums sound very samey, I'd still give a major body part to be able to play drums as well as Grohl does.

Bit harsh, you might not like his music, but there's no way you can deny he's a talented musician who fronts one of the most popular bands of the last decade, all while playing "real" instruments, occasionally with a broken leg.

I think this is more to do with licks and phrasing, groove and invention than "sound", sure the best session guys get their work because they have a sound, but Carol Kaye played on hundreds of hits and you wouldn't necessarily know it was her. Good session players do what the gig requires, unless they're Eddie Van Halen, in which case they do what they always do.

Coldplay? I'd rather some kid with something interesting to say over a messed up Fruity Loops track got an award than that bunch, sure they can play, but what they play is so f*ck*ng bland. There will always be music we don't like, much of it new, but it's absolutely essential that kids get to play in the sandbox without us old b*st*rds telling them to keep it down.

This is why you turn the damn thing off as a habit before you plug/unplug anything.... Nothing worse than having your Coles ribbons fried by some lazy-arsed engineer who didn't check the 48v status.

Seconded on 2 counts of BigRed's advice, if you don't want to stick a really hot processor in it (the i5 isn't regarded as powerful these days) then at least 32Gb of Ram is very useful. An audio drive is essential. If you're going to using a lot of soft synth and samplers, another drive for libraries might be in order and you really should look at a faster processor with more cores.

I had the 110 for a while, great little practice/demo amp, plenty of grunt and, if used well, the models weren't bad either. Very useful DI output too. Use the 400w 2x10 combo too. Just wasn't loud enough.

I swapped my big rig out for a QSC K12.2 when I got my stomp, works as expected, although it does show up any limitations in your signal chain more than a traditional cab would.

I had the Super Flightcase in my studio for a year or two, lovely little amp to record with, never missed a beat. Quality kit, well designed. A bit quiet unless you add extra powered cabs, but that wasn't the purpose in the studio.

Used to use as many 10" as I could lay hands on, 16 of the b*ggers at one point, silly really. Last serious gigging rig was 2x12, 1x6 and tweeter in the Phase 1 Barefaced Big Twin, that cab really changed my view on 12" speakers. Now using a single 12 and horn in the QSC K12.2 wedge. Even with 5 string basses there is nothing a good 12" can't do as backline I think, provided you've a clean DI feed from your rig to the PA.

The obvious ones, Geddy Lee, Jaco Pastorius, Les Claypool, Mick Karn... Pino to a certain extent and John Giblin, although both will tune their sound to suit the artists work and are more recognisable by their playing style and phrasing.

Honourable mention for Barefaced cabs, hugely loud and spookily light, I had the Big Twin 2x12 for a couple of years, it's a one hand lift and with the built in rollers it's a very easy "big" cab to cart around. If you still like big backline, it's well worth looking at with a good head of your choice. Easily as loud as a good 4x12 or 2x15 or even a 6x10 (I used to use Ampeg 8x10 and I'd say it's probably as capable as the older fridges). It fits in a Golf/A3 sized hatchback too. Alternatively, something like the QSC K12.2 used as a wedge (or a couple of wedges for extra pain) will work brilliantly, especially in an FRFR situation where your amp/fx have modelled elements. I have to say I still like the idea of a big, throbbing rig behind me (oooo, er) but I play live so rarely these days it made no sense to keep the big Barefaced. I used to run it with a QSC 1500w power amp and the Line 6 Pod XT Pro rack, it was a monster rig. However, the little K12.2 has proved to be more than adequate for day to day work, has a really good sounding DI output for the PA and is easily loud enough for full band work.

Some DI pedals can be powered over 48v, but not your's by the look of the spec. I'd always advise turning 48v off before plugging or unplugging anything, as plugging a mic into a live 48v feed can cause some nasty bumps and bangs. It's not certain that it will affect the Fender box, but why risk it?

it's a Kramer neck for sure, very difficult to fake an ally neck, but the body looks a bit odd to me. Kramer hybrid of some sort?

Any mix engineer worth their salt will be able to extract and present that tone in the mix I think, but it often depends on the producer (or lack of) as a lot of production doesn't leave enough room sonically for the bass tone and it often gets relegated to simply filling the LF in. If Rush can get Geddy's tone to cut through their massive mixes, there's no excuse...!

I'm so old I started with 1" 8 track...! Protools makes sense to me. I'm not seeing any flakiness in the iLok system, it's been rock solid for me over the years, and it protects revenues and quality from the developers, alternatively I've always found Waves licensing to be an absolute pig, and the number of systems I've had to flush pirated Waves plug-ins out of to solve issues is high. Yeah, protools is pricey, yeah you need the expectation of revenue, and certainly the company can be problematic, but the phase accuracy of the aux's and the plug-in delay compensation is essential, even mixing in Logic doesn't yield that level of accuracy, and their hardware integration and S series surface capability is second to none, thanks to EUCON. Sure, it works great with Logic and Abelton too, that's the point of it. I'd really like ARA support for Melodyn, and if Luna ever picks up EUCON support (it won't) I'll seriously consider switching, I really like the console emulation UA have got going. Horses for courses, Logic/Abelton/Reaper etc. are all capable and are often brilliant, but for me none of them offer what Protools does. Obviously YMMV.

Second the K&M with counterweight, works a charm.