mario_buoninfante

for those who like knobs and switches... and strings. It's in the US, I know, but I couldn't not post this! https://reverb.com/uk/item/64546293-electrical-guitar-company-custom-12-string-bass-2010-aluminum-lefty

Jazz! I always respected it, but as a teenager and until my late 20s I secretly thought it was "old music", that as a genre was dead and that jazzists were mainly showing off. Well, I couldn't be more wrong! In the last years I got really into it and discovered that is more alive than ever, actually has never been dead. Contamination is the bread and butter in jazz and there is quite a lot of experimentation too. I found it one of the most "open" genres of all time, and one of the best form of art and expression ever! Less straightforward than other music, so it took me a bit to understand it, more "life experience" and some studying too. But, it was definitely worth though.

Yap, absolutely. And just to be clear, I do love the interaction with other musicians when playing, and I believe it's a big part of what makes music great. But I understand others might feel different about it, and it's just fine.

I do agree, but what does being a nice person mean? What is the interaction people have with their electrician? If being a nice person means being well mannered, I agree. But I don't think anything more than that is "required" in 90% of the cases. As in, one's electrician could also be a philanthropist, but I doubt it'll come up that often in conversation with their clients. Or, I doubt that it is the main reason why they get called in the first place. With this, I'm not trying to say being nice is not required, it's just that I was surprised to see how many times this got called out as THE thing to have in order to be a pro. I still believe that being able to "deliver" is as much important as, if not more important than, being nice in order to get jobs. ie one's nice but can't play. Don't think they get the job one's not nice but can play, they could get the job.

I'd defo second this. Being a pro musician is not different from being a pro "anything else". I think first thing first, one needs to be able to get the job done. Now, what the job is may vary a lot. The examples above give a good idea. Being a nice person would make things easier, but I think it's a nice to have more than a must have. Clearly, being an a**hole is not recommended I mean, do people call plumbers/electricians/lawyers/etc. based on how much of a people person they are? I think they get called mainly because of their skills. Now, I know music is not exactly the same as plumbing, but at the same time being a pro also means one gets jobs that feel like plumbing, but hey, work is work.

+1 about the pick-up height. This is something I only learned about quite recently tbh. And it's really important in order to avoid a muddy sound and also because pick-up height affects the sound quite a lot! I found out about it when I watched this

I found this useful too

I use this as guideline, and check how it feels. https://www.jerzydrozdbasses.com/the-ultimate-guide-to-the-perfect-bass-guitar-setup But tbh, I think I rarely measured the string height, mainly to make sure I respected the neck radius (ie for consistency). But everything gets signed off only after a round of playing, regardless what the measurements are.

a classic I've been listening to recently (the whole album)

Absolutely. The instrument seems in good shape and the price is really good. But, it's not the right time for me to buy anything. I have a bass that needs to go first. No point in me piling up basses if I don't use them. This will also give me more time to investigate the market and think about it

Nice. That's a good shout. I started thinking about this since the fretless around atm aren't exactly what I'd be looking for.

Had several Soundcrafts over the years. My current mixers are a small Folio for the keys and a Sprit FX 16ch with Lexicon fx, penultimate generation. They get the job done. I mean, the small one is really small, that's why I got it. The Spirit is more or less the same size of the classic Mackie VLZ 1604. It sounds good and has the right amount of send/returns/busses/inserts for me. The Lexicon fx on it are good too. Clearly they don't sound like the PCM ones, but have "personality". It has a 3 band eq with parametric mids, that works well. Only thing, the low freq in the eq is bit higher than I'd liked it to be, more in the low-mid range. Overall, I'm really happy with it, especially considering its price, 350£ second hand in really good conditions. I'd really recommend this, and also the Mackie VLZ, especially the US made.

I saw the Sire ones and are interesting. There's also a defretted one for sale here...

Nice, they have accounted for that then The name (return) was a bit misleading for me, but that clarifies things.

that said, this seems to have 1 instrument input and 2 return inputs, 1 instr out and 2 send outs. I'd expect these to have difference impedances. I don't think that connecting an instrument to a return is ideal.

I wouldn't connect the mixer to the amp, the impedances wouldn't probably match well. Not sure what is your setup, but you could use one of those a+b a/b pedals (to sum/switch) to go into the amp. But try to send the 2 signals to FOH before that. For your elec bass any pedal with a balanced out would do. For the synth a DI with an instrument out would do too. The instrument out would be needed to go to the sum/swith pedal that then goes to the amp.

Another important thing to keep in mind is that the 2 instruments may need differnt eq/comp settings. Providing 1 signal for both could cause issues with that.

I'd send 2 different signals to the FOH. If they're able to mix well the elec bass with the other instruments, a synth bass shouldn't be a big deal. If they are not, I think you'd be in trouble either way. Also, let's keep in mind that what one hears on stage (for tons of reasons) might be totally different from what comes out of the main PA. So, I'd recommend not to try to "mix" on stage and let the FOH deal with that. If you really want, you could use the mixer to mix your stage sound and still send 2 separate channels to the FOH. Maybe a bit overkill though.

And black pepper... Sorry, bit late to the party!

Spector Ethos at Bass Direct https://bassdirect.co.uk/bass_guitar_specialists/Spector_Ethos_4_LH_Interstaller.html

and it's a reverse P!!!!!

Just skimmed through and I have to say, Style Council were great, as usual! Also, INXS kicked a** though!