Phil Starr

Welcome to Basschat No question is stupid and certainly not this one. All your bass needs is a set up, and the neck will need to be slightly concave or it will buzz at some points when you fret it. You really need to do a set up regularly, every time you change strings and on a regular basis throughout the life of the bass. The neck will buzz if you set the neck dead straight or sometimes if you set it with too much relief. You can stop it buzzing by raising the bridge of course but too much height at the bridge makes the strings too high to fret easily. The set up is a process of adjusting the neck where the relief moves the strings away from the fretboard and then balancing that sometimes by lowering the bridge if needed and balancing those two things so that the action is low enough to fret all along the neck but high enough to cut out any buzzing. Once you've done all this you may have changed the intonation so you'll need to check that too. It all sounds complex but once you've doine it a couple of times it's no harder than tuning up a new set of strings. I'd also advise you to get someone to help you the first time and preferably someone who will show you how they do it. It's a relatively cheap job to get done as it is a matter of just a few minutes work and a proper set up will make your bass a joy to play. In the long term learn to do it yourself Step one adjusting your truss rod

Welcome to Bass Chat @HarrisonHoand @UrijahGalloway I had forgotten all about this thread. Wood is a fantastic material but you have to accept an aging process. There are timber framed buildings whic are hundreds of years old with exposed oak beams, I built a treehouse out of pressure treated pine for my kids who are in their thirties now. I’ve recently taken it down and the timber has barely deteriorated, it is going through the planer to make new things. Teak on seaside piers lasts for decades in exposed conditions but nothing lasts forever. Look at almost any graveyard and the oldest stones can no longer be read. I kind of like the symbolism, that all things will fade and pass back into the soil. Only you can decide how long you want a memorial to last.

The only amp I’ve tried where that is a problem is the Warwick Gnome which really is tiny. I’m away from home so I can’t measure but I’m sure @stevie will be along

Guitarists, drummers, singers, bassists aren’t really the types of musicians you need to worry about IME. The big divide is between gigging musicians and the rest. Skilled and unskilled, pro or semi-pro, talented or just jobbing all fails into insignificance if you are in a band with these people. For a covers band you are going to need probably 30 songs to create an evening’s entertainment. That’s a lot of work. It’s disrespectful to expect to turn up knowing you’re going to mess up in front of an audience and to turn up to a rehearsal with four other people having learned the songs you are there to practice without having them good enough that you don’t hold them back. Hands up, I’m not the world’s greatest player, my playing is at best intermediate, we don’t all learn at the same rate but you know if someone is working hard. They make every rehearsal, turn up with everything prepared and let you know if there is a problem. Weve had a bit of illness and a couple of changes of personnel recently and I’ve worked with several dep’s. It’s been a privilege and an eye opener. Some have just been wonderful, a drummer who depped without rehearsal and others an inspiration. We had a bassist who depped on drums. He’d never gigged drums before but he learned the set,kept it simple and then sang harmonies as well. He was a gigging musician though so a deep understanding of what was needed carried him through. These people are real pro’s and a delight to work with, much more important than raw talent. We are a tolerant band, no big egos, we’ve all messed up but no one takes the mickey. We forgive mistakes from a new band member but you know if someone isn’t putting in a shift or they just aren’t capable. If every rehearsal shows some progress you know they are trying. If none of your set is working you know you’ll never get there. Get rid of these two or you will never leave the rehearsal room. With a decent keys player you can probably rehearse the rhythm section and vocals and be ready when you find the right guitarist. See how it goes with one before you add to your problems.

I see @Kiwi is reading this. Thanks to all of you who put all of the work in to keep this place going. I’ve met so many lovely people here and probably wouldn’t be playing without you all.

Don’t worry too much about the volume. Back in the day 200W was considered a loud amp and with decently efficient speakers even 100W would do the job. Electronics have improved bringing down the price per watt and we all pretty much carry more amp power than we strictly need. Unless your band operate at ‘stupid’ volumes (because this will damage your hearing) then 200W will be plenty. Using a compressor like the spectrocomp is great advice, you can bring up the average level without the peaks distorting. If you do think your sound is distorting roll off the bass a little it will clean up your sound in the mix anyway and protect both amp and speakers.

You should be able to do something really good within your budget depending upon your choices. A pair of RCF ART712’s new are around £950 so used would be well within your budget. These would cope with most gig situations and be better than the gear a lot of busy bands are using. Other brands are available. There are some decisions only you can make. Active speakers or passive with separate amps? Active is where we are all going but that means people are selling off their old ones and they can be real bargains out there. The cost to you is more complex set up and a bit of research to match amps to speakers. If this is really only going to be for rehearsal then it only needs setting up once so not really very inconvenient. Buying used means you get better gear for your money and if you make a mistake you can sell on and get your money back to try again. Your budget and the low price of modern gear would let you buy new and get something really quie competent but with a guarantee. What would you choose here. Finally you probably ought to put a bit aside for things like leads, stands microphones and so on. If you are updating the PA you won’t want to let other bits of the PA to let you down. Holding back a few euros could be a sensible choice. Finally I’ve forgotten where you are based, is gear including used widely available?

Good luck,enjoy it

Do you mean the monks or Carl Orff or just the language? Great tunes though

That's where you are going wrong, almost all the valvey goodness is coming from the output stages, the power amp, the combination of overloading the output valves and the transformer. That plus a dedicated guitar speaker. Yes you use the tone stack to tweak the tone but the basic timbre of a valve amp is shaped by the nature of hard driven output stages and the speakers chosen. It's a lovely amp but you are bypassing the loveliness (and carrying it unnecessarily) Guitar amps are miked up because you want the sound of the power amp and the speaker combined, which guitarists obsess about getting exactly right for 'their' tone' If you want to go speakerless then you also need to go ampless. You need to have something that simulates valve overdrive (basically increasing the second harmonic distortion and a bit of compression) and something that will simulate the response of the speakers, a modeller in other words. Something like the SansAmp already mentioned will do this or if funds are an issue the Behringer V-amp or a Zoom B1-Four. FWIW I go ampless nowadays using a SansAmp for bass and it just sprinkles pixie dust on my sound. Using a dummy load is rarely a good idea. For a guitarist it allows them to get their stage sound in the studio and 50 years ago it was the only way of doing that. A resistor capable of handling that sort of power is a really specialist thing and cost more than the simulators I've suggested. The dual rectifier coupled with a guitar speaker produces a glorious sound Some rate it the best guitar amp ever so it's a thing to treasure but not as a pre-amp. Given the price of replacing the valves and the fragility when moving them just switching them on and off at every gig is going to cost you more than a Zoom .

If you fancy a home build then one of these House Jam Micro Cab - Amps and Cabs - Basschat will do exactly the job you want. If not then from your FRFR needs I'd go a different route altogether. For Christmas this year I got a pair of 5" nearfield studio monitors. As they are designed for mixing uncompressed drums and bass at high volumes in small rooms they can absolutely handle your bass. they are also designed to be ruthlessly honest so FRFR is about as good as it gets. They are active so you don't need an amp and you can drive them off a Sansamp or a multi fx unit like the Zoom B1Four. They are so good I don't bother getting the PA out for rehearsals with my duo, two vox, bass, guitar and drum machine. loud enough to make your ears ring if you want. I've not bothered getting a bass amp out at home . There is absolutely no need. I went for the RCF Lyra but Yamaha and loads of others do equally good versions. Around £300 new for a pair and widely available used because people seem to upgrade studio stuff quite often.

I wouldn't dismiss @Silvia Bluejay quite so easily. The better your band is the easier it will be to get gigs. Having an identity is key. the first question the booker will ask is 'what do you play?' and if you can't answer in a couple of words you've probably lost your booking. Eclectic means you've shoved a set together at random and marks you out as unprofessional. You'll need something recorded so they can hear you and see what you do. The more professional it looks the better chance you'll have getting the gig. You've got to look at it from the pubs point of view. Times are hard for them so they have to be hard nosed. If a band charges £250 they are going to have to sell 250 extra drinks to pay for the band. They probably have to attract an extra 60-80 customers and keep them in the pub long enough to buy a few drinks. To do that they need to play songs people like at least competently, even if the band is brilliant they still need to play stuff people like. An unknown band is a risk. A bad Saturday is often the difference between making a profit over the week or a loss. Look up Lemonrock too, it isn't strong all over the country but where it is a lot of pubs will use it as their go-to for booking bands. In Cambridge itself it looks to be strong. It's tough if you are a start up band, you'll probably be asked where else you have played. There isn't a formula for promotional material any more than there is a chat up line that will get you a partner. Some decent recordings and video will help but to get people to even look at it you'll need someone to do a lot of leg work. They are the most important person in the band

Well done IAG who are a huge group selling reasonably priced gear like Music Tribe/Behringer but provide professional level after sales, showing it can be done. I too got my spares return of post. Based on the data I have you should be good for 500 gigs and twenty years Seriously I'd put the failure down to age, accidents happen over that sort of usage and paper cones can deteriorate over that sort of time period. I've seen coils become unsoldered where the flexible tails join them and all sorts. The probability would be that the other one will go before this one but you might get ten years before that happens. I'd keep an eye and ear open over the next couple of gigs and I'd have had a close look at the crossover board and internal wiring when I replaced the speaker but I wouldn't actually anticipate problems. Good luck

If these are Wharfedale Titans you can probably get spares from them. I had to replace a driver in my EVP subs and they provided a reasonably priced replacement within 48 hours. Over 15 years all sorts of events may have affected your speakers and failure after that time could be down to all sorts of things. That they lasted this long suggests you weren't doin much wrong. Having said that speakers at this price point won't be long throw so it is possible that over excursion may be a problem if you are mic'ing the kick especially if you are using any bass boost. Again after years of safe usage this is not that likely. Double check your speaker though, it's possibly working and the fault could be a cable, the internal wiring inside the cab or something wrong in the crossover, there may even be a fuse on the crossover board

I'll try and remember, I've just stocked up with cable ties from Lidl and posted that up. A few years back they actually stocked mic stands. Nice long boom arm they had too.

Well done, looks good and that Faital is a nice driver. You might be able to shed a few kilos by building a new cab the same dimensions out of lightweight ply if you get itching for more modification.

I think it's okay for me to say there are rumblings about an imminent release. @steviewill doubtless be along but I'm expecting to hear the first one within a couple of weeks. Not sure if that is a late prototype or the first production model but I'm really looking forward to hearing it

I'll drink to that, I've got a pair of ZS10's as well as the pros and recently re-tried them with memory buds. That improves the comfort and fit by so much and fit is all when it comes to improving the sound. They became my go to set for the gym until my bluetooth lead stopped working. For anyone reading this using universal fit IEM's keep trying buds until you get the best possible seal, it makes somuch difference to the sound.

I've never been completely happy with the ZS10's smiley face response. They are really remarkable for the money and the bass is outstanding but I sing as well as play bass and I need the midrange to be up there. Even with four band parametric eq my voice sounds unnatural and makes it difficult to control timbre. I love them for music listening where the 'enhanced' sound makes listening to rock a lot of fun. Full disclosure, I have some high frequency hearing loss and a bit of tinnitus. I also have unusually small ear canals and my left ear is very different from my right so fit will vary for anyone else. Recently my 15 year old Sennheiser's I bought to use with my iPod finally broke, I think they were CX somethings £20 from Sainsbury's, nothing special. I was browsing the Studiospares catalogue, as you do, and they had a special offer on IEM's. A few quid off Sennheiser IE100 Pro and I pressed the button to use for personal listening. They sound great, like a decent set of studio monitors, a bit forensic but you can hear everything and clinically clear. Bass goes down a long way and isn't emphasized at all. neither is the top end everything is where it should be and vocals sound great. The fit is great, they are small and light in my ear and the exit tube sits nicely up my ear canals, all my collection of buds fit so I had plenty of choice and the memory foam buds provided gave a good and comfortable seal. They are a bit bigger than my old buds, around the size of the Shure 215's and have a single driver. I stress these were bought for music listening but I tried them anyway at home for practice instead of my RCF monitors or my £200 over ears. I generally practice with the original songs so i'm learning the arrangements as well as the bass and vocals. Impressively I was hearing the same sound through the IE100's as the more expensive 'phones. Curious I turned them up and up and stopped when it hurt and turned them down 10db, at no point did they sound stressed. I tried some bass boost and they were happy with that too. These things go way louder than I will ever want and the isolation with the right buds is better than any in-ears I've tried yet, as good as ear defenders. I tried that on my ride on mower and with a chainsaw So I wanted to try them at a gig I gigged last Sat with the Sennheisers. An almost complete success, they are more comfortable than the ZS10's and didn't move all night, the isolation is a problem if anything because it is so good I can't hear anything other than the phones, so when band members start to shout at me about the PA and forget to use the mic I can't hear them. The sound through the 'phones was the best I've ever had. The vocalist in particular was the clearest she has ever been in the mix and the cymbals on our drummers e-kit were crystalline. The snare was lovely and crisp too which really helped with my timing. The only downside were my vocals but that was my my own fault, I handed the laptop to our drummers partner to mix FOH and forgot that I hadn't set up my monitor mix too. I should have set them up before relinquishing control. Bass isn't as prominent as the ZS10's but the volume went all the way up to pain levels and I turned them down several db so I know I had plenty of headroom. you do sacrifice a bit of bass compared with the ZS10 pros but I found it better not to be drowning in bass and if you sing the balance is much better with these. I'll report back after a few more gigs but I think the ZS10's are now relegated to be spares. Of course fitting my ears better won't be the same for everyone but with a single driver they are smaller and lighter which probably helps. If I get the same sort of sound consistently I might go for sleeves or get them reshelled. I'm going to live with them for a while first though.

Hey I think this is trying to get the debate back on track. Brown Sugar is probably a better example than many other songs. There's no doubt Mick Jagger liked and loved black culture and people. Brown Sugar is credited as being um, stimulated by his excitement at the time with Marsha Hunt. The song contains references which shows he had read a lot about slavery, as anyone that interested in blues and where it came from would have done. His and Keith's faces when they played with Muddy Waters and the fact they called the band Rolling Stones is about as clear as it can be. The song does objectify women and has some unfortunate lines in it. "Scarred Old Slaver..... hear him whip the women" and "just like a young girl should" being just a couple of examples. For me Jagger was telling a story and celebrating one particular person in his love life and if you are happy that well this is just story telling. I loved the song when it was first released. I'm sure it is not racist in it's intention. It's such a good tune. I still dance to it and sing along if I'm in the audience. I have no problem with anyone else playing the song. Would I perform this in front of my daughter or to my Jamaican friends? If so should I be playing it at all? I think as a performer you should probably think differently.

The trouble is that most small 'practice amps' are just small cheap amps. Really they should be called starter amps. Your Rumble is one of the better ones so shopping around for something better is problematic the only suggestion I can make is that PJB make small nice sounding combos that are designed for producing a great sound at middling volumes so looking there might be good. At a high price AER make great sounding small combos too. There are some fairly compact giggable combos around too. Some nice 2x8's and some 1x12's are quite compact. If you want something really compact and designed to be neighbour friendly I've designed a cab you can build here It is designed to be crystal clear over most bass frequencies but the deepest bass that goes through the house is rolled off. It's really revealing for home practice which is what you want to improve your playing. Coupled with a cheapish pocket sized amp like the Gnome, Elf or BAM it is a formidable practice machine. The other option is to go for a couple of active studio monitors. The Genelec has been recommended but there are loads of good ones https://www.thomann.de/gb/active_nearfield_monitors.html?oa=pra I went for a couple of RCF Lyras but I'd happily have gone with Tannoy, Yamaha or KRK. As studio monitors they do bass really well at household volumes and a pair of 5" studio monitors are hard to beat for sound. they are room friendly too and will double as hi-fi speakers. You'll need a pre amp. I use a small mixer for this as i also put guitar and vocals through mine but something like a Zoom B1-Four would do the job. There's loads of used stuff available too as people upgrade. I'm still amazed at how loud they go and how good they sound and it's not a purchase I regret.

It's hard to convince anyone who has spent a lifetime buying gear in search of their perfect sound, who have spent hours dreaming up the perfect combination of amp speaker and guitar and years saving up to buy it to change. Don't be too hard on them. They've also got something that works and probably went through a long period when it didn't so a little reluctance to upset what they probably see as a delicate balance is understandable. It also looks like an unnecessary expense. You need to be gentle and tolerant, not my best qualities The big advantage is having less to carry and saving their hearing. They won't believe it will sound better or that they will play better because they can hear more. You are going to have to demonstrate that, but the first two are obvious. and if they aren't get them to carry their own monitors and make them stand closer to the drums Take it in stages, get them to try it out at a rehearsal and use ordinary over ear headphones which are generally nicer to wear and sound good out of the box. Most of us have done this quite happily in recording studios and if not have seen our favourite bands using them in a studio so it still feels rock and roll. This is going to show them how much better the sound can be through cans. If you can get it through cans you can get it with in-ears. If that goes down well then introduce in-ears, take time to get a good fit and they should notice a much better reduction of the drums in particular. I lent a pair of dirt cheap ZSN's to our drummer and he bought them off me on the spot. Once we were both using them (singer had her own from the start) the guitarist was the only one using the monitors and started to feel left out. Once it is normal and a couple of band members are using in-ears they all want a go. In ears are fiddly and often don't work first time because they don't really fit over ears are pretty fool proof as well as being less claustrophobic for some people so I found them a good bridge. Do a couple of rehearsals with them and it starts to feel normal and people will be ready for the next step.

I know the lyric, the point is that my conscience troubles me and that is the truth. If the singer wants to say that Birmingham supports the governor, he has no problem with that, his conscience is clear then it's a point of view. Watergate didn't bother many Republicans and neither does the storming of Congress. Hey guys it was only a couple of examples that make me personally think ..... maybe not. You are all free to draw your own lines. There's little point discussing that particular song, anyone who is interested can read the whole sorry tale in Wikipedia or the source of their choice and then make up their own mind as to what was meant. For most of us it is a well worn argument anyway. The point was not about the song it was that my knowledge of the time and reading of the song is my context. For me it would be hypocrisy to play any song I believe to be racist. I deliberately chose it as an example because I know other people hold a contrary position. I'm not judging anyone as a racist just because they disagree with me about the lyric of one song written by someone quite young at the time and who has in any case expressed regret. My point is rather the opposite. We all have differing experiences and viewpoints but I do think we all have a duty to our audiences and need to use a bit of judgement of our own actions. Morality is a messy process and we all come to different decisions and beliefs, that is as it should be.

I've not read the whole thread but well done for getting this debated. That we struggle with this as performers isn't a bad thing, it is a genuinely difficult area. I'm sure for some people there is no line, anything goes and for others the 'woke' agenda is just common human decency and cancelling people a valid political act. Most people sit somewhere between the absolutists of course and for us there is a genuine dilemma. If nothing else it affects our relationship with the audience, Offending one member of the audience is probably unavoidable, for some bands it might even be desirable, would we listen to an inoffensive punk band :). Offending half the audience or even 10% is probably going to spoil the evening. Is it a good attitude to have to go on knowing your set will offend and still play it, especially when you are playing covers and have thousands of alternative songs to choose from. As performers of covers we are to an extent endorsing the songs we choose and that includes the content, yet most of us probably never listen to the words. Context is all but is also impossibly nuanced, each of us sees context differently and so will every member of the audience. For us as performers there is a liability towards our band mates, should we cancel a song for the band because it offends us or pressure someone to play it because it a a 'good' song? I've been asked several times to play Sweet Home Alabama and I just can't. It is an outwardly racist song written at the time to support one side of the race riots in Alabama. (yes I know the arguments, but it specifically support the actions or the State Governor) It's a great song to cover, none of the people who have asked me to play it have been racists as far as I know or were even aware of the context at the time it was written, some of them weren't even born, the songwriter has disavowed any intention of being racist, some of his best friends etc... But, my context is that at the time it was a racist anthem. I don't think every cover band that does it is racist or even uncaring about it. My personal latest dilemma has been an ABBA song! Does Your Mother Know, goes down a storm and I can honestly say I've never thought about ABBA's lyrics but this is clearly a song contemplating paedophilia or at least under age sex: "girl you're only a child" Fortunately our singer comes from a musical theatre background and we sing the Mama Mia version but times were certainly different then. Ask Sting

Does your desk have a 'control room' out. Or a main to monitor button so you can use the monitor outs. Or use the headphone out. You may or may not need a DI box to match the impedances but probably not, my Zoom takes a line level input fine. Do you use back line? Recording just from the desk can be remarkably dispiriting until you realise it is adjusted to account for the drums and guitar amps etc. I've had singers want to end it all after hearing themselves straight off the desk. Stops them asking for "more me" for weeks